I spent too many years of my life stressing over and struggling with my sexuality. But it was a valuable lesson. I realised that by not sharing how you feel, you become inhibited in every facet of life.
I think it can be difficult for young lesbian or young gay, bisexual, transgender to come out and be open with who they are because there’s such a huge stigma attached to that preference of their sexuality.
Shame is something you’ll find a lot of – particularly Catholic – girls feel about their bodies, about their sexuality, about their diet, about anything you like. Shame is the way you keep them down. That’s the way to crush a girl.
As a drag performer, people have traditionally put us into the category of ‘pervert’ or ‘deviant’ or things like that. So I’ve always been really careful not to be vulgar or grotesque with sexuality.
I have never thought about my sexuality being right or wrong. To me it has always been a case of finding the right person.
You either believe marriage and human sexuality are sacred, or you do not.
When I started the radio program in 1981, not many people were talking about sexuality. Not many people were talking about AIDS or HIV.
When depicting Asian people in movies, books, and television or as historical figures, it’s more important to humanize them and give them all of the dimensions of humanity, and that includes sexuality. Ascribe the human the full range of human qualities.
I have never, ever talked about my orientation or sexuality because whether I am heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, asexual, it is my concern. I refuse to talk about it… I have not been brought up to talk about my sex life.
As I read more and more fairy tales as an adult, I found massive collusion between their ‘subjects’ and those in my fiction: childhood, nature, sexuality, transformation. I realized that it wasn’t by accident that I was drawn to their narrative structure and motifs.
I have no respect for someone who lies about their sexuality. At the very least say ‘no comment’, just keep your personal life personal. If you’re going to closet yourself, that sends a negative message.
I just want to be known for things other than my sexuality.
Given that sexual orientation is innate and that we are all, in theological terms, children of God, to deny access to some sacraments based on sexuality is as wrong as denying access to some sacraments based on race or gender.
I’m proud of my sexuality. I embrace it. It’s just another part of me.
If there ever has been any confusion about my sexuality, then you are someone that doesn’t even know me!
This film business, perhaps more so in America than in Europe, has always been about young sexuality. It’s not true of theatre, but in America, film audiences are young. It’s not an intellectual cinema in America.
When you’re 20 or 30, looking ahead, you see these benchmarks for relationships, career, ambition, sexuality, and they went off into infinity. When you get to 50, you look at what’s ahead of you, and there’s an end. It goes into a nothingness, a void.
French women have been made beautiful by the French people – they’re very aware of their bodies, the way they move and speak, they’re very confident of their sexuality. French society’s made them like that.
You’re in high school, and you’re telling your friends that you’re skipping lunch to go write poetry, and they were all questioning my sexuality.
The thing that’s so at the heart of Bridgerton’ is intimacy and identity and sexuality – and so of course that’s something we’re going to have to make sure we continue with.
Mastery over the body – its impulses, its needs, its size – is paramount; to lose control is to risk beauty, and to risk beauty is to risk desirability, and to risk desirability is to risk entitlement to sexuality and love and self-esteem.
‘If Our Love Is Wrong’ is, quite simply, my coming out song, as I was trying to wrap my head around my sexuality and was starting to learn about songwriting, and that my honesty and my authenticity came from my personal experiences and writing about stuff that genuinely bugged me or upset me.
Race and class are rendered distinct analytically only to produce the realization that the analysis of the one cannot proceed without the other. A different dynamic it seems to me is at work in the critique of new sexuality studies.
I just came into my own sexuality at thirty. I don’t think it’s something you can deeply experience at 18 or any time before that.
I was afraid of Sonya being defined by her sexuality because that’s not fair to her. I don’t want Sonya to be defined by who she loves.
Across the globe, fundamentalists of all religions are on one side, and their attitudes towards women and towards female sexuality are almost identical.
I don’t know if this is necessarily a misconception, but I think people make way more a deal out of my sexuality than necessary.
It is love rather than sexual lust or unbridled sexuality if, in addition to the need or want involved, there is also some impulse to give pleasure to the persons thus loved and not merely to use them for our own selfish pleasure.
It was extremely important to show that Wilde’s sexuality was not just some intellectual idea. It was real, and it was about the human body. To just have mentioned it and not shown it would have been, I think, peculiar and wrong.
I’m attracted to male gestures and sexuality.
There are all kinds of sexualities. There are all kinds of ways that people express their sexuality.
In order to talk about what I really want to talk about, people have to know that my sexuality is a part of that.
A man who reads effeminate may well be consistently heterosexual, and another one might be gay. We can’t read sexuality off of gender.
I’ve tried to write in a way that transcends beyond just sexuality and is more about letting go of our fear and trusting the people around us.
I’ve noticed that women are always punished for their sexuality in popular culture.
Brooke and I share some similarities. We’re both passionate, fiercely loyal people. But she is far more outlandish than I’d ever be, particularly with her body and her sexuality. Brooke has made herself weak for men – she only gained self-confidence from their attention.
Since I was a kid, I’ve always been skinny and frail framed. I felt powerless as a child, but I always saw so much power in femininity and female sexuality.
Our movement is evolving. The movement to liberate our sexuality as a human right, that’s an ongoing struggle.
You can’t just look at someone and guess their sexuality. There’s no point in assuming that every gay man has just one personality type.
If I remember back to when I wasn’t open about my sexuality, I spent a great deal of time worried about it.
People nag me about my weight, my cooking, my tattoos, my hair, my sexuality, everything. I can deal with all that because I’m still doing my job and I kind of like myself.
I’d thought sexuality was instinctive or natural, but it’s profoundly linked to inner security and cultural context.
I’ve always been really open about my sexuality and who I am. I never thought a big coming out was necessary.
We can’t police the way people express their sexuality.
There were theoretical elements in the subjection of women and it is not possible to avoid the conclusion that a large contribution was made to them by the Church. In part this was a matter of its hostile stance towards sexuality.
I don’t believe in post-racial or post-gay or post-anything, but I do think within a certain group of friends, what matters less is the specificities of race and sexuality, and what matters more is the shared experience, shared language and shared cultural touch points.
I never talk about anything to do with my sexuality.
Intimacy is a wonderful thing. It’s frustrating that growing up I thought it was wrong. It isn’t. Exploring your sexuality is important when you’re growing up.
I think there is much more queer visibility than there was when I was a kid. There is marriage, more trans visibility, and many more celebrities who are open about the sexuality. This was so not the case when I was a kid.
I was going to be a doctor since I was three, so I was pre-med in college. Everything I did, every class I took, pointed toward the ‘holy M.D.’ Friends were taking wine-tasting classes, studying human sexuality, or redefining their views of the world in poli-sci, and I was memorizing anatomy and crying over o-chem.
Civility is the recognition that all people have dignity that’s inherent to their person, no matter their religion, race, gender, sexuality, or ability.
All human beings deserve equal treatment, no matter their gender identity or sexuality.
Love is love. Family is family. A family’s sexuality does not define the wonderful parent that they can be for their children.
Regarding race or gender or sexuality, one of the great things about art and music is that they can provide people with very little else in common with a similar entry point for discussion, but the discussions still need to happen for life to get more interesting.
I knew I was gay at 18, but to come out then would have meant I would not have achieved what I did in rugby. I loved rugby so much and it was so important to me that I made the decision to keep my sexuality secret. People may disagree with that, but it was my belief and my decision.
