Searching for a Metaphor

I used to think that sexuality could fit on a very linear spectrum.  That it was one characteristic.  I thought I could line people up side by side based on this characteristic.  That, like eye color or height, there were small variations between people, and I could line people up lightest to darkest or smallest to shortest.  I thought at one end of the spectrum was masculine men and the other end was feminine women.  I thought everyone fit somewhere in between those bookends.  I would have put myself on this spectrum closer to the male end because I like girls and sports.   I love the shallowness of this, and the desire to make things so neat and simple. 

But now I can’t think of a way to compare people’s sexuality because it is so dynamic and multidimensional.  I have been grasping for metaphors to use to make this case stronger, but I am at a loss.  Sexuality is so complex and so individual.  I know that my own sexuality has changed daily since I moved to San Francisco.  My views of others and myself have been challenged, my perceptions of the world have been flipped upside down, and my idea of where I fit in is always changing. 

And, maybe that is where some of my fear around sex and sexuality comes from.  This inability to organize people in a linear way, or to compare one person to the next.  I know I like to put things in categories, know how they compare to other things.  Sexuality is not something that is easily graphed or charted.  You can’t line people up side by side.  And something about that is unnerving and slightly chaotic. 

But, I can feel myself growing and changing.  Each day I leap from side to side on that old linear spectrum.  And with each take off and landing I shake up the line a little bit.  Dent it.  Twist it.  Turn it.  Make it into something wild, chaotic and unorganized. A knotted, tangled ball of yarn, a tree with complex, gnarled branches.  Something that is more symbolic of sexuality.