By: Jasmine Pope
Growing up I always thought that women were beautiful. A woman’s hair, skin, and smile have always fascinated me. As I grew older I began to realize that a women’s beauty is a lot more than skin deep to me...
In my early years of life, believe it or not I was more tomboyish. I wore very baggy clothes, sagged my pants around the house, pee standing up, etc. My mom always gave me the side eye and said I was going to be a lesbian. That always made me feel uncomfortable I didn’t know anything about sexuality at the time. I just knew that since I was a girl I had to like boys because little girls didn’t like other little girls. If you were a girl and liked other girls you were weird and the other kids at school made fun of you.
Growing up in a predominately black neighborhood a lot of kids at school began to exhibit homophobic behavior at an early age. I remember seeing a lot of kids being bullied and sometimes even beat up for someone even thinking they were gay. Being anything but heterosexual just wasn’t accepted. This is where I began to suppress my sexuality. Fast forward to high school, pretty much all my friends were bisexual and black. A safe space for me to come out about my sexuality or so you would think. I had grown out of my tomboy ways, both of my sisters had come out to my parents as bisexual, and my family was very supportive. As for me I was still living in denial about my sexuality. At this time I knew a little more about sexuality and being bisexual was considered acceptable. I still was missing one thing:
I had no real dating experience.
Everyone around me could see that I was possibly bisexual, but I just wasn’t having it even though all of my lock and home screens were pictures of naked women. I would tell myself and everyone around me it was just me being artsy and free spirited. I had the biggest crush and a few spicy dreams bout one of my closest friends whom was a woman. We had even kissed a couple times, but I was also dating a guy at the time. I had also kissed another one of my other friends, who was a girl, in front of the guy I was dating at the time. He wasn’t too happy about that. With all this going on I’ve convinced myself I was only sexually attracted to women, but not emotionally so I couldn’t be bisexual.
A couple years passed by and I found myself unable to shake the feelings I began to develop for women. I found myself having another crush and spicy dreams about one of my friends. I wasn’t getting anywhere living in denial like this. In this year I told myself that some changes needed to be made in order for me to truly be happy. Coming out with my sexuality was one of those things I felt needed to happen. So for my 21st birthday since my birthday is always during pride week I decided to come out publicly. I did this on my former podcast show and everyone was so supportive. It felt amazing to have such support from the people around me. I finally felt free. My family hit me with an “Oh” and we left it at that when I told them. My mom wasn’t shocked though because she knew the whole time.
Now here comes the hard part, dating. Dating other women is an experience to say the least. A beautiful experience, but an experience nonetheless. I didn’t know how much bisexuals are constantly invalided in the LGBTQIA community. I once dated a girl who would constantly remind me that I’m wasn’t “gay” enough. She would tell me that because I was attracted to men and mostly had experience dating men I wasn’t truly gay. She would say these things to me and it would make me feel me like I wasn’t enough. Easy to say we didn’t last very long. Later, I found out that she started dating our mutual friend, who is a man, so maybe she suppressing her sexuality like I was.
Sexuality is fluid so you don’t have to be just one thing forever. There are no rules to this and I think people forget that sometimes. Though I haven’t been dating women all my life I know that I like them and I won’t let anyone tell me any different.
About the author
Jasmine Pope is a 21- year- old writer, poet and, cosmetologist born and raised in Hollywood, Florida. She calls herself a lover. She began writing poetry in high school after her first heartbreak and hasn’t stopped since. She does not claim any poetry or writing style. She instead, just writes for the moment. You can find Jasmine on Instagram @angelicpope and Twitter @angelicpopee.