Supermodel Cara Delevingne Opens Up About Being Pansexual And How She Came To Terms With Her Own Sexuality
There’s nothing more suffocating than constantly having to feel like you don’t belong. You see how people, irrespective of their social status, are seeking one thing in times of crisis. Be it migrants or students studying abroad – all they want to do is be home, in their very own house where they can feel at ease. It’s what a home feels like; it pulls you towards itself and if you stay far for too long, you begin to feel homesick. Yet, due to the stigma our society has attached towards any kind of sexuality that isn’t heterosexual, several people are left feeling like outcasts, in their own countries, and in their own bodies.
The first step often isn’t gathering the courage to come out to the world. But it’s to come out to yourself. It takes a lot of courage to tell yourself that our orthodox society may act like it’s unnatural, but this is who I am and it is the most natural feeling ever. It is accepting yourself when years of social conditioning makes not just others but you gaslighting yourself.
I cannot say how it feels, because I haven’t been there. But this is how I imagine it to be. Cara Delevingne, a renowned face in the modelling industry, having worked with some of the top designers in the world, opened up about her sexuality to Variety magazine. “I always will remain, I think, pansexual,” she articulated. “However one defines themselves, whether it’s ‘they’ or ‘he’ or ‘she,’ I fall in love with the person — and that’s that. I’m attracted to the person,” she further explained.
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A lot of people are insensitive to the LGBTQ+ community, and pansexuals they completely fail to understand. They feel it’s okay to stare, ask personal and weird af questions, and make jokes. Some take it to another level by shaming them and calling it a psychological illness.
When growing up, Delevingne found it difficult to come to terms with who she really was growing up “in an old-fashioned, repressed English family.” So in defensive and denial behaviour, she often acted like one of the several homophobes around the world. “Everyone used to talk about ‘Oh, my God, imagine going down on a woman.’ I’d be like, ‘That’s disgusting,’” she told Variety. “I think that came from the fact that I just didn’t want to admit who I was,” she said. “I didn’t want to upset my family. I was deeply unhappy and depressed. When you don’t accept a part of yourself or love yourself, it’s like you’re not there, almost,” Delevingne explained.
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And that’s actually pretty common. Several people who attack and show disgust at homosexuality do it to fight their own inner feelings and doubts. In fact, indulging in excessive heteronormative behaviours too can be a sign of denial. “Once I could talk about my sexuality freely, I wasn’t hiding anything anymore,” she clarified.
Featuring on the June cover of Variety magazine, which is basically the month of Pride, Delevingne opened up about what she feels about it. “A sense of pride is like a sense of belonging, a family outside your family, a place where you don’t have to apologize or feel ashamed,” she said. “I guess I never felt like I belonged anywhere as a kid. Or I always felt like I didn’t belong in my own body. I felt so lost,” she further added.
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ALSO READ: #UnCloseted: Urzaan Patel’s Coming Out Story Had His Father Thinking ‘This Is Just A Phase’
It’s heartening to know that she feels part of the Pride community now as she has come a long way in accepting her sexuality and owning it. Her PDA with girlfriend (or as rumours have it, ex-girlfriend) Ashley Benson has been beyond cute. It’s really amazing to know that she is in a space where she can love freely!
