Why Out Actress Sarah Paulson Doesn't Want to Be Labeled 

Sarah Paulson, the actress best known for American Horror Story and Carol, was profiled Wednesday in The New York Times, revealing personal details about how "absolutely" in love she is with her girlfriend, fellow actress Holland Taylor, and why she is not a fan of labels.

Paulson told the Times that she is wary of labeling her sexuality "for fear of being 'skewered,' should she change her dating habits later on."

Despite not wanting to label herself, the actress has not shied away from public displays of affection with same-sex partners in the past. Her first point of entry into the mainstream consciousness came in 2005, when she kissed her then-girlfriend Cherry Jones on live TV when Jones won a Tony Award. She is also one of a select few actresses who openly discuss their relationships with women, and she has played lesbian characters on several occasions.

Nevertheless, Paulson consistently chooses not to label her sexuality:

"If my life choices had to be predicated based on what was expected of me from a community on either side, that's going to make me feel really straitjacketed, and I don't want to feel that. What I can say absolutely is that I am in love, and that person happens to be Holland Taylor."

In addition to dating both men and women in the past, Paulson said she has never seriously dated anyone her own age.

"There's a poignancy to being with someone older," she observed. "I think there's a greater appreciation of time and what you have together and what's important, and it can make the little things seem very small. It puts a kind of sharp light mixed with a sort of diffused light on something. I can't say it any other way than there's a poignancy to it, and a heightened sense of time and the value of time."