You're 100% correct. You can identify as heterosexual while having sex with someone of the same sex. But that doesn't mean you are, or that an objective observer would so identify you.
Most people claim they're charitable, yet many claim zero deductions for charitable contributions on their income tax. Many of us swear we're trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent; very few of us are Boy Scouts. Self-affirmation shows what we aspire to be, not what we are.
Precision in language is necessary for logical reasoning and meaningful discourse. If up means down, black means white, wrong means right, or hate means love, then whatever we say becomes meaningless.
But this leads us to a more troubling question. When persons ascribe their behavior to other categories, it's usually because they find those categories more noble or socially acceptable. We all like to see ourselves in the best light. I'm not cheap, I'm charitable; I don't cheat, I'm honest. But what does it mean when one says, "Just because I engage in gay or bisexual activity doesn't mean I'm gay or bisexual but straight"? Or tries to obfuscate the issue by saying things are fluid, whatever that means.
It means the person shies away from being called gay or bisexual, and prefers to be called straight, despite the fact that that's how others would describe his behavior.
Now there may be good reasons for this in other times and other places. Two hundred years ago in most European countries homosexuality was a capital offense. A little bit of head could result in the loss of one. In 1895 Oscar Wilde was convicted of "gross indecency" (sodomy) and sent to hard labor in Reading Gaol, from whence he departed two years later a broken man. Between 1933 and 1945 in Germany, an estimated 100,000 men were arrested as homosexuals, of whom some 50,000 were officially sentenced. How many eventually were executed during this period is still unknown, but the number is undoubtedly significantly higher; some have placed it as high as a million. Until the Supreme Court decision Lawrence vs. Texas in 2003, sodomy was illegal in most of the United States, and many states and municipalities still allow discrimination against gays in housing and employment.
But public attitudes are changing. I could marry my best bud tomorrow (well, after the laws against polygamy are struck down). So, on the internet with its cloak of anonymity, it seems difficult to understand why one would resist disclosing his true sexual inclinations. In this day and age should anyone still feel uptight or ashamed about owning up to his real sexuality? I don't happen to feel any desire to hop into bed with a man, but I wouldn't feel ashamed or embarrassed by the fact if I did, nor about having to change my classification here to bisexual. As far as I can see, there's nothing wrong in being gay, straight, or bisexual, nor is one inherently more worthy than the other.
My reason for being such a tendentious bore on the subject is that I just like seeing words used correctly and precisely and without obfuscation or fluidity, not to cast aspersion. But I too wish I hadn't posted here and hijacking the OP's thread. For that I apologize.
