I don’t consider myself bi or queer

I’ve had sex with women, but do not consider myself bi or queer. As I said at the beginning of the month, I believe being gay is about identity and self-awareness as much as (or perhaps more than) behavior. The times I had sex with women it was driven by emotional attraction rather than physical attraction. I suppose you could say I’m functionally bisexual, but my sexual interests are pretty entirely focused on male bodies.

Queer is becoming a default giant tent term, but it conveys very little information. A category that can include both asexual heterosexuals and sexually active (and exclusive) gay men won’t tell you much about any specific person. So when I want to publicly self-identify on the basis of sexuality, I say I’m a gay man.

A corollary to this bit of terminology is that it does bother me (a bit, not an enormous amount) when straight people very casually use the word queer. In spite of its use in academic contexts, it has not entirely shed its pejorative connotations for me. I’d rather people, unless they are including themselves in the group “queer”, use LGBTQ+ or a similar acronym. Both usages, of course, have their benefits and weaknesses.