PANic

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Pansexual Panic = PANic. Clever, aren\’t I?

What\’s it like to wonder about sexuality when you\’re in a heteronormative relationship? I\’ve been with my boyfriend for two years, meanwhile wondering about my sexuality as well as, what are my desires, and yet i\’m still slighty confused. But first, a short backstory.

I first started thinking I might be into girls when I was 16 years old. I was holding hands with my friend and I found myself liking it, which let me to get a bit confused as to what that meant. All I ever thought, was that i\’d be straight like everyone. Being straight was the norm around me, since I personally didn\’t know any queer people. I wasn\’t taught to be straight of course, but when that is the norm, it\’s present in conversations and the way you\’re raised. I never found myself wondering of anything different, before I felt that excitement as I was holding a girls hand.
When I was 17 and got to be more sexual in general, I thought about threesomes (as teens do) and how I could be open to one. I thought I was bi just because I could have a threesome with 2 women and a man. That is often how bisexuality is seen, very sexualised. Which is another topic itself.
In early adulthood I went on to only date men that never became anything serious. Sometimes changing my tinder setting, to be looking for men and women, which was nerve-wracking, exciting and confusing. I thought about how it would feel to be asked out by a woman and what would that mean for me if I went. This happened once, someone asked me out, coincidently I had seen that woman the day before in a bar, by chance. I didn\’t agree to meet up, I was too scared and shy of what that would potentially mean and of the intimacy of a date.

Wondering about one’s sexuality isn’t so straightforward, especially when you’re in a relationship. Trying to understand am I genuinely attracted to the same gender or am I just a bi-curious straight person. I tried to imagine myself dating or being intimate with women which was easy, hell I even watch lesbian porn so I know I can get turned on by the same gender. I just haven’t really done anything more than kissed a woman, which felt the same as kissing a man, but a bit more exciting. It didn’t feel weird or make me laugh. This was a long time ago though, with a person I knew to be straight, and at a time I thought I was.
During the previous year, I started to think I just don’t care about the gender. I’m not attracted to most men at all, as well as I don’t find all women attractive. For me, it takes a certain charisma and personality to feel interested in a deeper level than friendship. It is just about the person, not what’s in between their thighs. This made me think I am pansexual, which is just being attracted to people regardless of gender, instead of just bi. But I kind of identify as both, even though I have a stronger connection to pansexuality, and like to think of myself as lover of people.
I ’came out’ as pansexual months ago to my family, who pretty much knew I’m not strictly hetero and haven’t got an issue with it. After that, I started being open about in in conversations and in social media world. I just wanted to be openly me, without feeling like I was hiding something. No one cared, I just got one biphobic comment, and some like to just talk about threesomes with me…

Hardest part of coming out was the fraud feeling that I had and still have sometimes. I felt like it was pointless since I was dating a man, like why come out if you are in a heteronormative relationship. Why does it matter then? I also felt like I’m not properly part of the LGBTQ+ community, because of my partner. It made me feel like a fraud and I got scared that the community would not ‘allow me’ to ‘join’. It is hard to explain, but I felt like my sexuality wasn’t/isn’t valid since I’m just dating a cis man. Sometimes I think, if this is the relationship that lasts, I won’t get the chance to explore my sexuality with others. Fortunately, we have talked about it I am fortunate enough to have an open-minded boyfriend, who supports me and is understanding of my sexuality. He wouldn’t have any problem with me exploring my sexuality with other genders and has not been weird about it. I’m happy to have this opportunity if I ever get the chance, but would I be brave enough to take it? I am ‘out and proud’, but still shy to act on it, and I’m not entirely sure why.

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A perfect morning

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15.7.2021 Journal entry

On my first day back here in the Highlands of Scotland I woke up at 8:15 after a good nights rest. We traveled 21H yesterday so needless to say I was exhausted. The house on a beautiful spot in a small village of 80 people is quiet. I make my way downstares and make myself a cup of instant coffee with oat milk. I wake the house dog Fudge and go sit on the living room floor with a book I found on the bookshelf of our room. It\’s called The good girls guide to being nicer, calmer, more patient, a dick. Kjartans mother Julia comes downstares and we chatted a bit about the changing climate and the weird weather occurances in different places. Then she went to feed Fudge and I open the living room glass door to sit on the steps in front to enjoy the sunlight. It is a perfect morning with a cool temperature of 14°c and I listen the birds are singing as well as two roosters.

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I\’ve got my bachelor\’s degree

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I am officially a Bachelor of Culture and Arts; Design! Finally all the hard work has payed off, even a month early 😉

On 31st of May I got my degree certificate sent to me through mail. Not a very ceremonious way of graduating but it still counts. I\’ve been distance studying since March 2020 so it hasn\’t even felt like I\’ve been a student anymore. No going to school or student parties or even meeting up in a school cafeteria to chit chat with friends. So graduating doesn\’t really feel like a big deal to be honest. Nevertheless I do feel happy to finally be a graduate and I am proud of myself for getting through it.

Future plans?

Gosh… My head has been a mess lately. Feels amazing to be free now but my mind is also a bit conflicted since I don\’t have any known opportunity waiting for me just yet. So it\’s also a little bit daunting. Of course I am going to be using this time to further learn and research the topics that interest me such as sustainability and circular economy (I\’d love to work in the field as well;)). I have my own projects that I am working on, I just posted my first YouTube video and am doing my portfolio as well as working on my business ideas. There\’s a lot on my mind and hopefully I have something amazing waiting for me, preferably abroad.

So, thats whats going on in my world at the moment. But please share: what are your plans, ideas and motivations? id love to hear about them!

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Me posing with my degree certificate

    What they dont tell you about plant based hair dyes

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    I mostly use natural products and avoid harmful chemicals which is pretty easy except when it comes to hair. I was born blonde but my hair turned to light brown and now it\’s basic brownish grayish mess. I started coloring my hair when I was 7 years old. I remember telling my parents I\’m sick of how I look, I want a change. Pretty weird from a 7 year old I know. Anyway I started with white highlights and over the year I\’ve been a brunette, a redhead, a blonde, mix of different colours and more. I\’d always dye my hair when needing of change.

    In recent years I\’ve been jumping back and fourth being a brunette and a blonde. I dye my hair blonde and love it until I get sick of maintaining it and start thinking i can rock being a brunette and then I learn I can\’t. I do this over and over again, thinking I\’ll feel like myself with brown hair and that i\’ll love it. But I always end up paying a lot to get back to being blonde again. I love a light hair colour.

    Anyway let\’s get to the point. Last year during first lockdown I found myself debating should I just try to only use plant-based dyes on my hair. They are all natural and even nourishing for the hair, which can\’t be said of conventional, synthetic hair dyes. The only issue is that you can\’t make your hair lighter with plant-based dyes. You can do orange, red, different shades of brown and if you are naturally blonde you can try other shades of blonde. Me loving to use only natural products, dying my hair the conventional way kinda goes against that, but I do love being blonde. I anyway decided to try to make the most of it and summer 2020 I went to a eco salon and dyed my hair reddish with plant-based dye. I liked it, it was fresh and my hair felt smooth and soft. then I got bored and tried the brown colour (see my TikTok video of the process) which I did myself at home. Don\’t use my video as a guide on how to do it though. Anyway I did like being a brunette for a bit and then unsurprisingly I started missing my blonde hair.

    This is what they don\’t tell you about plant-based hair dyes. Before going through the process of using them I read some blog posts and articles about it, beacuse I like to do my research and know what i\’m in for. So after all the reseach I did you can imagine how surpsised I was when I learnt that you can\’t dye your hair with synthetic dyes without the previous plant-based dyes still making an impact on the outcome. My hairdresser told me these plant hair dyes with indigo in it are really hard to hide. Indigo soaks into your hair and sticks and then tends to tone the hair to greenish/blueish tones if you try to change the hair colour with synthetic dyes. Apparently henna also acts as a varnish on top of your natural colour which means after using plant-based dyes that have henna or indigo in them you can\’t switch to a synthetic colour and dye your hair different so easily. I was pretty surprised no one had written or talked about it in social media or blog posts. Usually my hair goes lighter really easily but this time it is harder and a longer process but thankfully I have a hairdresser whose worked with \’\’fixing\’\’ hair after plant-based dyes. She\’s good at toning the bad tones such as green to milder tones of grey which are a lot better since she can\’t make the different tones dissappear without cutting out the parts with the plant-based dye.

    I am all for using plant hair dyes and embracing your natural hair tones but if you think you might want to change it up after with synthetic hair dyes, I recommend only using plant dyes without indigo or henna in it or thinking twice about it. I don\’t know does every plant-based dye stick like that or just those with indigo and henna in it. Plant dyes are better for your hair for sure, so if you like being a brunette or a redhead plant-based dyes will work fine for you.

    Happy earth month

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    Happy earth month or should I say happy greenwashing month to the fast fashion brands. It is funny how every year on this month fast fashion brands try extra hard to appear sustainable. News flash, they arent. It is good to try to be more sustainable but these brands aren\’t making a change towards sustainability, they are just trying to appear sustainable.

    What is greenwashing?

    Greenwashing is when a brand spends more effort on marketing themselves as environmentally friendly rather than actually being environmentally friendly. It is a marketing tactic intended to mislead consumers into buying from them.

    Examples:

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    Translation: Let\’s make a change (red text) Our new way to reward H&M members sustainable choices with conscious-points (white text)

    The photo on left is taken in Tampere, Finland and the right one is a screenshot from H&Ms conscious campaign that the actress Maisie Williams is a part of.

    That advert makes me wonder, change to what? To being more sustainable? If that\’s what it\’s implying H&M should start with paying their garment workers a living wage. Not hiring a celeb to appear in their video. Also the \’\’conscious\’\’ points? From buying from H&Ms new collection of conscious clothes? There is no line that is conscious in H&M. This is again… A marketing trick.

    On the video H&M proudly states that they are going to source their materials more sustainably by 2030. Not a massive goal since they aren\’t at all sustainable at the moment. Their goal is vague – What does “source more sustainably” mean? They haven’t defined the metric or actually outlined what they are doing. This “conscious” line that is made of more sustainable materials like organic cotton and tencel (so it says on their website) is just 1 collection of the 100 collections they produce a year. Also just sourcing recycled or sustainable fabrics doesn\’t make their brand sustainable. They\’d have to change their whole business to do that. It isn’t sustainable unless they completely stop oversupply of new clothes and minimise the use of synthetic textiles and pay their workers!

    Fast fashion can\’t be sustainable. The fashion industry is responsible for 10% of global CO2 emissions each year, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. It is a major contributor to water, and air pollution and it creates a massive waste problem because fast fashion items are landifilled much quicker.

    Masks are a new environmental threat

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    Millions of masks are being thrown away every minute and all I ask is can we please not throw them in the environment! Every day I see an abudance of masks just lying there on the ground, some just metres away from a trashcan. It\’s disgusting that some people throw their used masks to hedges, pavements and even leave them in shopping trolleys or a bus.

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    Most of the face masks are made from plastic microfibers and aren\’t biogradable (may fragment into smaller plastic particles) and throwing them in nature can lead to a whole new plastic issue. Masks can end up in freshwater systems and oceans and persist in the environment for up to hundreds of years. Surfers Against Sewage said they have witnessed an \’\’explosion\’\’ of discarded masks and plastics on beaches and in rivers. According to a report published by OceansAsia nearly 1,56 billion masks entered the ocean in 2020. On top of the environment, the animals are suffering as well. Some marine animals can\’t see the difference between plastic items and prey and they can end up chocking on pieces of plastic or malnurished as the material fill up their stomachs. It\’s estimated that 100,000 marine mammals and turtles, over a million seabirds and a greater number of fish, invertebrates and other marine life die from plastic pollution annually. And it\’s not only marine animals that suffer. Dogs, birds or any animals can choke on those masks and small animals can get tangled in them.

    There\’s also a potential biohazard – not disposing them properly you are creating a risk of re-spreading the virus. In certain conditions the virus can survive in plastic for seven days according to some scientists.

    I don\’t think there is any guidance on recycling masks so people dispose it like solid waste. Animal rescue workers suggest cutting the elastic ear straps before throwing them away to prevent animals from getting tangled. Masks will still end up in landfills or being incinerated, which produces toxic fumes but that\’s still better than in nature.

    I believe we don\’t want to make things worse for the environment and the animals so I suggest using a reusable mask and washing it in machine wash. Or if you use single-use masks take them home and put them in the bin there or in a public bin if there\’s a lid on it.