So, you think you might be queer, but aren’t sure? I personally believe that there are many levels of queerness. The Kinsey Scale is one way people have measured “gayness” in the past, and although the research is a little outdated–it’s from the 1940s–I think the analogy still works. It measures homosexuality on a sliding scale of one through six and recognizes there are many sexual orientations. The Kinsey scale rates people as follows, based on dreams, feelings, encounters:
0 – exclusively heterosexual
1 – predominantly heterosexual, incidentally homosexual
2 – predominantly heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual
3 – equally heterosexual and homosexual
4 – predominantly homosexual, but more than incidentally heterosexual
5 – predominantly homosexual, incidentally heterosexual
6 – exclusively homosexual
I think the language of this scale is a little funny. How can you be “incidentally homosexual,” for example? Like, “Well, I was on my way home from the grocery store, and the next thing I knew I was incidentally homosexual.” But I think what Kinsey was referring to is straight people having mostly isolated homosexual dreams, for example, or having the occasional homosexual crush–and vice-versa for homosexual people. So, if you kissed your best friend that night you both drank too much at the Skinny, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re gay. If, however, the kiss was preceded by months of fantasizing about her or him, it might mean you are. But not necessarily.
There are some other problems with the Kinsey Scale. It doesn’t take into account the many gender variations that exist. Imagine, for a moment, that you’re a straight guy (and you might be, I’m not saying you’re not), and you find yourself attracted to a woman in one of your classes. Then you find out that the woman is a male-to-female transgendered person. Does that make you gay or straight? Does the definition “homosexual” have to do with a person’s gender expression (their appearance, movement, identification) or with a person’s biological apparatus? This is not clear.
I think that really the only way to decide who’s queer and who’s not is through self-definition. Your actual intimate encounters might have very little to do with your sexual orientation. There are many gay and straight people who have never had sex at all. There are also straight women who occasionally sleep with women, lesbians who have slept with men, gay men who sleep with women, straight men who sometimes have sex with men–and all variations in between, and all for a variety of reasons. Likewise, your dreams and fantasies may not be related to your sexual orientation: many people think about things that they have no desire to actually do, and it seems we have little control over our dreams. A person might enjoy thinking about an encounter simply because it’s taboo or shocking, but he or she would not consider changing his or her sexual identification because of that thought.
So, if you consider yourself a lesbian, for example, then you are, regardless of who you sleep with, who you love or which movie star’s poster is hanging above your bed. The only way to really tell is by being honest with yourself about who you are. And I think, if you think about it and listen to your gut, you’ll know.