WOMEN are sexy.
And women are more willing now than ever before to talk about who and what turns them on - even if it’s the same sex.
It doesn’t mean that because you fantasise about other women that you’re bisexual or that you’re gay.
We’ve gone beyond simply accepting a ‘ nice little hetero girl’ label and open to more fluid thoughts.
I’m one such woman.
I can look at a woman and think ‘she’s too stunning to be a real life non-photoshopped person’, admiring her hips to waist ratio and her ass in good fitting jeans.
Freud (admittedly wrong on several fronts) said that all people had the propensity to be bisexual at any given point in their lifetime, but the difference is today we're more open to making our fantasies a reality.
A recent study found that around 60% of heterosexual women were physically interested in other women, with a further 45% having kissed a woman. Half of those surveyed had fantasies about the same sex.
Amber Heard, Cate Blanchett, Angelina Jolie, Drew Barrymore and Miley Cyrus, don’t just have Hollywood celebrity in common, they’re also not averse to indulging in a bit of lady love - and being open about it to the prying media. They all claim the physical attraction comes from the emotional attachment: ‘you love who you love’.
Actress and Johnny Depp's girlfriend, Amber Heard, openly dates women
The Golden Hollywood era undoubtedly wouldn’t have looked so favourably on our bi-curious beaus: in fact it could have spelled the end of their on-screen careers to be so open about their choice of bedfellow. Has their ‘yes, we fuck women, and what?’ attitude encouraged other women to question that niggling feeling that maybe there are other sexual frontiers yet to be discovered?
It doesn’t mean because you fantasise about other women that you’re gay or even bisexual. Sexuality is not about being contained in a convenient angular box, but exploring ideas and how they translate into our everyday experiences. We’ve all seen the college montages in American films of the sorority girls experimenting with each other, although usually in wet t-shirts and pleated mini skirts with a mandatory car-wash or pyjama party backdrop. Experimentation isn’t just for the twenty-somethings ‘finding themselves’ at university. Sexual fluidity is all about understanding that our sexual preferences can change depending on the timing and circumstances of our lives. We can be straight, but have a preference to fantasise about the same sex. And we don’t do it for the ‘men’ (I deliberately don’t put all men in the same category) who seem to lose their shit when encountered with two beautiful women who opt for the ‘V’ over the ‘D’: we do it for our own gratification.
Miley Cyrus and rumoured 'girlfriend' Stella MaxwellIt isn’t about biology but about the emotional connection. Women spend more time investing in their friendships. We may share our dreams to open a sushi restaurant with a mani-pedi bar, we admit our relationships aren’t working before we’d even accepted it ourselves, and we cry without caring that we look like extras from a Kiss music video. Our girlfriends are there for us when we’re most vulnerable. And when we have a friend who not only tells us when we have lipstick on our front teeth, but has an open door policy, no matter what time of night when we need them, the dynamic of that relationship could extend beyond just BFF.
Or perhaps it’s more a case of admiring the female form. I spend hours scoping out girls on Instagram: (a) Where did they get those shoes? (b) How are her eyebrows so on point? and (c) Where can I eat that? Maybe it’s that we want to go to bed as the women we find attractive rather than with them. And for some women, maybe that’s why these choose to leave the ‘bicurious shoes’ in their box, stickers still on the bottom, resting on the shelf without having the experience. For them, flexi-sexuality is a myth.
The Madonna-Britney 2003 VMA kiss simultaneously opened the eyes and dropped the jaws of millions. But that seems like eons ago. We’re in a new era of bisexual chic, where admitting that you don’t have rigid sexual preferences as a female is sexy and it’s empowering. Ultimately, it’s about collecting experiences, living life according to your rules and sparing your 90-year-old self the regret of ‘I wish I had…’
Follow Amirah Farag on Twitter @MissAmeerkat
