How have you changed in the past 3 years?

[MrBehemoth]

I'm just asking if you think this 'phenomenon' is increasing at an alarming rate.

There's no need to think in such black and white terms.

The "black/white" aspect is something I find interesting. Seeing sexuality as a boolean variable is a new phenomenon. Allow me to explain...

Homosexuality is not new. You could say it goes way back to, say, the ancient Greeks, but that would be naive. It's way older than that and it's not exclusive to homo sapiens (pun intended). Our closest relatives, benobo chimps, are freely bisexual. It's something that most of, if not all, life on earth does sometimes.

What is new is the dichotomy of "gay" and "straight", including in-between and outside states like "bisexual" or "pansexual" or "asexual".

Take those ancient Greeks, for example. We've all heard that homosexuality was an established part of their society. But the difference is that they didn't think of themselves as straight or gay, they were just people. The words "homosexual", "heterosexual" and "bisexual" didn't actually exist in their language or in their thoughts, they just assumed it was normal for everyone to be capable of being attracted to people of either sex depending on their tastes and preferences at a given time.

Historical issues of religion and legality aside, it wasn't until the 1900s that people stopped thinking of homosexuality as something you do and started to think of it as something you are.

Anyway, getting back on topic, one way that I've changed (over maybe the last 5-10 years) is that I've embraced these ideas. When I was younger I used to see myself as bi, and experienced lots of issues around that. These days I'm happier to think of my sexuality as a point on a spectrum. Everyone is on it somewhere, even if you feel you are close to being exclusively gay or straight, but I believe that this tendency to pigeon-hole and say you are one thing or another thing, is a fairly modern, restrictive and unnecessary idea.

Just sayin.