Am I Bisexual?

Jamie Arpin-Ricci
12 min readFeb 8, 2022
(banner designed by Jamie Arpin-Ricci)

As long as I have been writing about bisexuality, I have been receiving messages from people all over the world asking much the same questions: “How do I know if I’m bisexual?”

After dissuading them from trusting a BuzzFeed quiz result, I often find that a conversation about assumptions, misunderstandings, and fear happens and is enough to bring clarity to this question. (And more often than not, when you are genuinely asking yourself this question, the answer is fairly likely to be “yes”).

Ultimately, deciding to identify as bisexual (or not) is entirely your decision. There is no panel of judges. There are no qualifying tests. You do NOT have to score above 50% on a queer-o-meter to gain entry. No, instead, all that is required is for your to decide if it seems right for you. This article is merely a tool designed to help you bring clarity.

What Is Bisexuality?

While this may seem like a straightforward question (no pun intended), all too often the topic of definitions can be more complicated and unhelpful than you might think. For example, if we were to rely on an online dictionary (such as the Oxford Languages one), we would get something like this: “the quality or characteristic of being sexually attracted not exclusively to people of one particular gender.”

--

--

Jamie Arpin-Ricci

Jamie Arpin-Ricci is a bisexual author & activist with more than 25 years experience living at the intersection of faith, sexuality, and justice.