Let me explain...

Where do people go when they don’t know who else to turn to? When they feel alone? I feel like this all the time and I don’t know why exactly. I guess I don’t think I fit in anywhere. Let me explain a bit more about myself so you can understand. I am a woman. By all accounts, I am a straight woman. Very straight. I am in a happy, fulfilling, and loving relationship with a man. So I should be fine, right? But I’m not. And its all because of a bizarre attraction that is hard to explain, and even harder to understand.

I am yuri. By all accounts, this term is loosely and more importantly self defined. Most people relate this to the lesbian genre manga and anime, and you would be right to assume that is where the name came from. But I said I am not gay so then how do I identify with it? It helps to understand that yuri is a disturbingly complex genre. Without getting into it too deeply, suffice it to say that yuri stems from "the contemporary understanding that same-sex love was a transitory and normal part of female development," according to Wikipedia.

It also helped me to decide upon this idiom by trying to figure out what I am not. First and foremost, I am not gay. I have no desire to be in any sort of long term, intimate relationship with another woman. None. I know many of you will just assume I’m in denial, or maybe homophobic, and that’s fine. However, I promise you this is not the case. My love interests peak with men, especially now that I found the one I want to spend the rest of my life with. And sex, well sex is just phenomenal with a man, particularly when you are in love. Even though sex with a woman is equally fulfilling physically, emotionally, I remain unattached. On a side note, another much less profound reason is the word lesbian. Quite frankly, it turns me off. If that offends you, my apologies, but I am sure I’m not the only one who thinks that way.

I am also not bi. I feel this way because to truly be a bisexual, I feel like you can fall in love equally with either man or woman, based solely on who they are and how compatible you are. That’s not me either. While I have had sex with women, I have never fallen in love with any. Again, naysayers may assume I just have never met the right woman, but again this goes on feeling. I don’t see women the same way I see men. I may find a woman physically attractive, perhaps even desire a woman to a certain extent, but I don’t love them. I can be close to a woman, I can desire a woman, sometimes these intermix, but it never feels the same as when I am in a relationship with a man. The way he makes me feel, the way I want to make him feel, the steady ongoing passion coupled with an affection that lasts is what makes it so different than my sentiment towards a woman. Sure, there are girls out there who screw around with their peers after a drunken college party and call themselves bi, but come on. Screwing your slutty friends for the benefit of some guys gawking does not an identity make. To truly call yourself bisexual, you have to be bisexual for yourself. Not for the cameras or the attention. And not just because you don’t fit in anywhere else.

So then what am I? I’m not gay, I’m not bi, I’m happy, but not quite complete. I am an anomaly. I suppose I am also a bit selfish. When I am around a woman I like, I want to touch them, to feel them, even kiss them but not love them. And I don’t want them to love me. It’s an attraction for the moment. It’s something quite fleeting, even amongst the women in my life everyday. I want to run my fingers through her hair, to glide my fingers down her spine. To feel a gentle kiss become an explosion of passion that fades the second we part ways. And the next day, we can go back to chatting about work and bitching about boyfriends, just like the way things always were. But the world tells me this is weird. The world tells me this is wrong. The world tells me there is no place like that for someone like me. So finally, I decided to make one of my own. Welcome world, to Secret Yuri...