You know when you are stuck in traffic and you look at the window and the women in the matatu beside yours just arrests you with her beauty? You feel this knot in your intestines, you smile it off. The matatu starts moving and the knowledge that you’ll never see her again makes you uneasy.

Why though? What is it about her beauty that makes you sad? And what was that knot in your stomach.

You know when you are playing a drinking game and you’re dared to kiss a girl? You opt out of the dare and take a shot instead. But in the fog of the smoke and dimness of the night you steal a glance at her, wondering how her lips would have tasted? Okay, so it would taste like spirits and cigarettes and happiness maybe?

Maybe you do. Maybe you don’t.

Here to talk about it some more, is Pepper who blogs here Check her out.

Enjoy:)

When do you know for certain that you are really and truly gay? Do you wake up in the middle of the night, sweat trickling down your face, eyes bulging and just know? Is it a heaviness in your chest or a knot in your stomach that forms and stays with you all your days that lets you know for real for real? 

Truthfully, I don’t know. It is a difficult question. Akin to explaining why you walk the way you do…Wait, maybe that can be easy to explain. Sigh. 

I see how difficult and unbalancing, not knowing can be. I think deep in my heart, I always knew. I was telling someone that long before I truly understood what attraction was, I used to have dreams about girls. Once I started reading novels with lewd stories, my dreams were even lewder but my subjects of desire were all girls. I realized much later that I definitely liked my primary school best friend, in ways that you were not supposed to like a friend. That I might have had a crush on my high school best friend.  All through high school, I was attracted to different girls for different reasons. If I had raised my head from my novels long enough, I would have realized sooner. The signs were there, I just didn’t act on them. 

Sometimes, you know, and you know you know, but because of many reasons, it might be a hard truth to accept about yourself. For some, the unacceptance (I am making this a word) comes from growing up in an environment where queer people were on the receiving end of such strong hatred, it is hard and nearly impossible to picture themselves as one of those people. For others, it goes against the foundations of religion that were built in them as they were brought up. For some, unacceptance stems from fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of rejection, and so on. There as many reasons for knowing and not accepting it as there are people. I think it is the reason that people take their ‘secret’ to their graves. It could be the reason that some people try to live a ‘normal’ life: get a husband, have kids, etc in the hope that they will stamp down their ‘abnormal’ desire or attraction. 

And there are some, that do not know. That do not understand their ‘strange’ attraction to girls. That do not understand their dreams. I mean, surely everyone has a sapphic sex dream once in a while. Plus, don’t people say that every girl has a bisexual side to them? That doesn’t necessary make you gay or queer does it? Just because you felt something that one time you were dared to kiss a girl, doesn’t necessarily mean that you are a lesbian now, does it? There are people who don’t know, who do not understand their attraction. 

Is it necessary to know? Should we award those like me, who know, who proudly wear their rainbow stripes and declare their queerness from the top of every mountain? Should we judge those who know but take that knowledge to their graves. Who do everything within their power to hide and ran away from their queerness? Should we taunt those who don’t know? And force them to know and declare where they lie?

No. Sexual orientation is a terribly personal truth. I do not deserve an award for knowing and for living my truth. In some cases, maybe most cases, it is a difficult truth to accept. One that usually means, especially in our country, putting yourself in a crossfire. Allowing yourself to be on the receiving end of hateful slurs and discrimination. We cannot judge those who decide to play down their queerness. Those who deny it to their very last breath. It is not our truth to live, it is theirs. And how they choose to live it, is entirely up to them. Likewise to those who just don’t know. I think sexual orientation is fluid, at least for me. It is okay to discover how your sexuality flows. None of that pressure should come externally. At the end of the day, it is your truth, your sexuality and no one else’s. If you don’t know whether or not your gay, that is okay. Either way, you are a beautiful human being and there is nothing wrong with you.