Let’s get a little personal for a moment:
Lately I have been thinking a lot about heterosexuality.
I mean…
a lot.
I have had a few meaningful relationships with men, both assigned and identified. Some of my closest friends are male identified. I admire and respect my father at this point in my life. He is remarried and I sincerely love their modernized gender-roles, even if I disagree with the institution their relationship stems from. I find men attractive. I am a sucker for arm definition, facial hair, or that musky smell that is so stereotypically permeating off of the men in my life. I am also a sucker for confidence, and the men I know, assigned or identified, seem to have that down pat.
I should also note that I have had extremely meaningful relationships with female assigned females. I bask in the parallels of my female body with theirs; I relish in the differences. In fact, most of my significant others have, in fact, been female assigned and identifying.
I have spent a fair portion of my dating life identifying as a lesbian. I felt pressure from Day 1 of out-life to conform to a dichotomy of orientation. I was in a relationship with a woman, I was a woman, and was therefore, assumed to be a lesbian. I garnered lesbian privilege, in social settings, if you can believe such a thing exists. I was never jeered for my attractions, and since I spent most of my time socializing in Lesbian or Gay space, I never really gave it a second thought. I watched as friends who identified as Bisexual were taunted, teased, and asked to “pick a side”. I watched as I myself pressured a significant other to do the same. I realize now that most of this need to categorize came from an extreme insecurity in my ability to be “masculine” in a social setting that was filled with Dykes and Butch-identified people.
It was not until a series of failed lesbian relationships that I finally remembered that men were even an option. It would be a lie to say I never identified as Bisexual, but in all honesty, my mind lay strictly gendered for a while.
I finally grasped the identity of queer and it stuck. I have never felt more at home in a word or in a community as I do in holding on to that. Queer defines both my own sense of displacement amongst lgbt-ers, and my own desire to love freely. It puts no label on my own gender or on the gender of the people I find myself attracted to. It is both radical and simple; it is sexy and unique.
End Story.
Right?
It’s not.
See the problem is that in my desire to be queer, I have somehow managed to outlaw the one thing I meant to include in the first place: men. See to be queer, for me, is to feel safe loving/liking/kissing/fucking men, of all varieties; to be queer is to acknowledge that beauty is not genitals-deep.
So, *again*, I’ve been thinking a lot about heterosexuality lately, and what place it has started to take in my life. Because to be honest, I’m a little afraid. I have spent that past five years of my life learning how to cope with the fact that I would never have the chance to have children that were both biologically mine and my significant others; spent countless nights fighting with my parents about why it mattered to be out; spent so much time centering my own world around a community that would support my relationships.
But what about now, queer spirits?
Will you still invite me to your parties? Can we still be friends? What place have you created for straight men that have been assigned, socialized, and identified in the male persuasion? What place have you created for the people who love them?
jasperfaolan said,
August 15, 2009 @ 5:18 am
love it…will have to return to this after sleeps.
x,
j
bee listy said,
August 15, 2009 @ 3:22 pm
i have an ex husband. as far as straight men go, he’s pretty queer. most of his close female friends are dykes, he knows queer culture, especially queer punk music. shit, he introduced me to a lot of it. and i remained queer identified when i was with him–but we were in a monogamous relationship for almost 4 years.
i definitely had queers who rejected me, talked shit about me, and stopped being friends with me when i started dating him, but i also met other queers while we were together who accepted me as i am, accepted him for who he is, and were fucking cool.
i’m still friends with that second group of queers..even though brian and i split up in 2005 and i’ve been dating female-bodied people since then.
i believe that radical queers, those who truly identify themselves as such and live life according to loving those who they want to love, will accept you if you date a cisgendered bio male, and if they don’t, they’re not really your friends in the first place.
gingerqueer said,
August 19, 2009 @ 7:48 pm
BL,
I really appreciate your support, and you sharing your story. I read your story on RQN and it really helped me process a lot of what is going on in my brain right now. It’s good to know I’m not alone
Elián Maricón said,
August 19, 2009 @ 10:11 am
Thanks for putting me in your blogroll…I discovered your blog as a result, and I really like it!
Consider thyself blogrolled….and keep up the great writing!
gingerqueer said,
August 19, 2009 @ 7:47 pm
Thank you so much Elian!
GQ
Elián said,
September 9, 2009 @ 8:50 am
My best friend for almost 15 years came out as bisexual in college. I thought she was straight- I met her through her ex-boyfriend who was a good friend of mine- so I was perplexed at my suddenly inaccurate gaydar.
Soon thereafter, she basically “married” one of my lesbian friends. They were together for over 5 years. Since they broke up, she has only been with men…she even had a child with one, and she is married to another one now. But she does not hide the fact that she is very much capable of loving women and would have no qualms about being with a woman again if the right woman comes along.
I will admit that I used to feel….I was going to say annoyed but maybe “jealous” is the right word….that she could benefit from heterosexual privilege. And if I didn’t know her, I would probably make snide remarks about her being a Women’s Studies lesbian during college, etc.
The only problem is that I know her extremely well. And despite the whole “marriage” thing….she identifies as queer, and she is queer as far as I am concerned.
So to answer your question…yes. Just keep in mind that many queer people will accuse you of choosing to take the easy way out. Those of us who are “Kinsey 6″, so to speak, don’t have that option. T It is easy for us to forget that other queers like you or my friend didn’t CREATE heterosexual privilege, even if you appear to be benefiting from it.
It took me years to understand that.
But girlfriend, to me you are queer as you say you are.
Collin said,
September 15, 2009 @ 7:35 pm
I felt as if you perfectly described the “Sushi/Hot-dog” scenario I sent you, only your article had tons more elaboration and it also had emotional basis as the S/H-d did not at all. That one was more animally instinctive.
kim said,
February 9, 2010 @ 9:43 pm
I just stumbled upon your blog and something in this post is heartbreakingly sweet. I’ve experienced similar bouts of self-examination (as I read it here, the ‘am I queer enough’ internal beat-yourself-up session). But I also have to admit that I’ve quieted that internal voice. I hope my words offer encouragement without any sense of ‘when I was your age’ crap.
Always remember that the categories are smaller than we are. Don’t worry so much about fitting into them as allowing them, if you wish, to describe what you are expressing now, in the moment.
There are so many facets to radical queer sexualities. We are in the act of creating them constantly. Don’t let your fears about others’ assumptions/rules/judgements outweigh the desires of your soft animal body.
Those who asked your bi friends to ‘pick a side’ must have felt mighty threatened. They are not the arbitors of who gets to stay ‘in the club’. It’s called biphobia. And life is just too dang short…and complex for that.
May I offer up a link to Susie Bright’s blog? This specific link is chock full of beautiful, useful reminders to continue striving towards a strong, confident, complex sense of sexual autonomy and revel in the slippery definitions that *you* choose.
http://susiebright.blogs.com/susie_brights_journal_/susie-bright-quotations-attributions-page.html
It’s a wide world. I wish you the best in expressing your full beauty, however you see fit, in it.