I know no one can tell me my identity, that's for me to decide. But I've been thinking long and hard about whether or not I'm bi, even pan, or just a straight girl who wants to be an ally to LGBTQ+ people. Heck, this may even be a "rhetorical question" and I already know the answer and just wanted to talk about it.
First off, I'm trying to get better at this, but I don't really understand homosexuality. And what I mean is more like it doesn't sit right with me. Something is wrong with my brain where two women kissing especially, grosses me out a little and just feels unnatural and weird. I feel homophobic like this, though, so I'm trying to get better at it. I'm completely fine around gay people, supporting them, and people coming out to me, but something about me being in the vicinity of women doing romantic stuff makes me feel weird or having to hear about girls on a date. With men, however, the gender I find attractive, I do not feel weirded out about them going on dates, holding hands, kissing, and the like.
I genuinely can't imagine being with a woman. Like, I can imagine us being "girlfriends" but I guess I'd only really want to be friends because I never find any women romantically nor sexually attractive nor would I feel like ever kissing a woman/holding hands or anything like that. The only thing I can tolerate with a woman is going on dates, which I could easily do when I hang out with friends.
But with men... I find men physically and romantically attractive. I easily find men attractive. Men kissing doesn't bother me and I find it awesome even. I would like to kiss a man, go out with a man, hold hands, have a family and kids with a man.
But I thought women were pretty, so that made me bisexual and I would get a little warm feeling around them, but I realized I don't wanna actually kiss or hold hands with them nor do I easily find them attractive.
And let me tell you, though I find women pretty, such as celebrities, it's been so long since I actually had romantic feelings for a girl, or feelings I can consider to be such. I've liked guys for as long as I can remember and currently like a guy I know via a friend.
With all respect, I don’t think it’s okay to call two adults kissing “viscerally disgusting.” I genuinely see that as on par with someone saying they “objectively” think a black person and a white person kissing is viscerally disgusting.
Like, idk maybe check yourselves a bit? Just because your emotions are sincerely felt doesn’t mean they’re okay in a civilized society. (Just like I tell my racist af grandma when she thinks it’s acceptable to say she’s “afraid” of black people so she shouldn’t have to talk to them—it’s not okay and her “fears” are bullshit.)
To me, "visceral" is actually a pretty apt word to describe the feeling. A visceral feeling is one that isn't arrived at through deliberate thought, rather something that our brain / body just decides on it's own. I think it's fair to say that people's sexualities on the grander scale are largely out of their control, i.e. you don't "choose" to be gay / straight / whatever, which makes sexuality inherently visceral.
Based on that, I don't think anyone should be ashamed for being disgusted by otherwise tame sexual behavior, especially if they have a higher level awareness of what's going on (as OP & PP appear to). Where it's a problem is if that's used as justification to be hateful or -phobic towards other people, because that's no longer visceral.
I don't tell people that they're being viscerally disgusting to me. It almost never comes up and on the rare occasions that it does, I just look off to the side and I'm fine. However, here the OP feels guilty about her similar reaction and in this context I don't see a good way to reassure her without being frank about it. She doesn't need to enjoy seeing two women kissing in order to be a true supporter of equal rights for people of all sexual orientations.
I think we’re touching some interesting topics here.
The social and societal expectations may, and often do, clash with our personal feelings and thoughts. In order to function as a part of the community, we have to restrain ourselves to some extent. Doesn’t change the way actually feel about things inside, but we can change the way we react and express those feelings.