Gay af.
Though I wholeheartedly identify this way now, I didn’t always. For many years, beginning at a young age, I believed myself to be bi.
Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash
In kindergarten I fawned for a boy named Tim*, ever since the day in art class when he’d politely asked to borrow the bunny stencil I was using. Later that day I gushed to my diary about his really really green eyes.
Ten was the age I first dated a boy. We met at summer camp. With his blond hair, blue eyes, and baby face, Darren* made an adorable lesbian.
At 15 there was Daniel,* whose aura of ruggedness (combined with a baby face and kind brown eyes) drew me to him. The two of us tried on winter hats at American Eagle; held hands on our walks to Safeway, where we’d stock up on ingredients for pumpkin milkshakes; then watched Borat on my couch while drinking them, as my cat Waldo napped on the cushions behind our heads (an aberrant paw would occasionally fall lazily down into our unsuspecting faces).
And at 18 on vacation to a Greek island the summer just after high school graduation, a boy named Demetre and I held hands overlooking hilly vineyards, while a donkey partially shrouded in shrubbery snorted from a few feet away.
To be clear, bisexuality is normal and common. There is evidence of our cavemen ancestors and the ancient Greeks having engaged in it. Many of our lovely friends in the animal kingdom practice it still. And plenty of women and gender nonbinary individuals comfortably identify as bisexual. Others realize they are attracted to multiple genders, beyond the two presented as the only options by our culture’s gender binary (perhaps opting for the label of pansexual or queer). These identities are 100 percent valid. Those who don them are not in denial, or brainwashed by comp het.
Still, not everyone is bi — especially not in a dead-even, fifty-fifty sense. And it is also a reality that not every person who initially identifies as bisexual does so for the uncomplicated reason that they simply feel it in their heart.
Despite my early experiences crushing on and dating boys, time brought me to the gradual realization that I wasn’t actually bi. It took a few years though, for several reasons — a mixture of societal pressure, male veneration, and lack of collective focus on women’s pleasure among them.
In my case, there is the perhaps not entirely ground-breaking observation that heterosexuality and liking men was “normal” and expected.
Like all girls my age, I was steeped in comp het, which Emily Crivograd refers to as “the theory that women act or believe they are attracted to men because of a patriarchal society.”
After my first round of girl crushes plunged (unwanted) into my unprepared psyche at the age of 13, I feared fully owning the lesbian label. Bi felt safer. Gay felt riskier. It also seemed less common, accompanied by limiting stereotypes that would be difficult to shake.
I related to a species that Peter Fimrite wrote about in the SF Chronicle — one that is “almost certainly semiaquatic, wading and swimming along the coast — but could not fully commit to the sea because they would have been eaten by giant squid-like cephalopods.”
That I equated the “giant squid-like cephalopod” with our homophobic society to me indicates that when younger, my bi identification served as a shield from the full bright light of my gayness.
When we’re younger, our attractions may be especially informed more by what we think we are supposed to want than by what we genuinely desire.
This brings me to a second reason some women might identify as bi before ultimately realizing they are gay: because women aren’t taught to be as in touch with their physical desires — and sometimes emotional and intellectual attraction can lead to physical attraction.
Emotional, physical, intellectual — I’ve found that compartmentalizing between these different types of connection isn’t always straightforward (especially when we’re younger).
Lack of collective focus on women’s pleasure contributes to why we might conflate them more often. Historically, far fewer resources have existed to connect us to our own individualized wants and needs. Many of us have internalized that our sexual desires just aren’t that important compared to our (male) partner’s — or even, that we don’t have any.
In fact, according to Daisy Bernard in a babe.net article, “The full anatomy of the clitoris wasn’t even recognized by western science until 1998.” A gay guy friend of mine admitted to having once thought that girls just “weren’t sexual beings.”
“I find that when women are asked, ‘what is it you want?’ The most likely answer is ‘I don’t know,’ because they’re not used to asking themselves that question,” said Emma Thompson, in an SF Chronicle article about her new movie that chronicles a 60-something woman’s sexual awakening. “It’s not on the top of anyone’s agenda what women might want, sexually, what might give them pleasure or if they’re satisfied. It simply isn’t.”
Some women who are emotionally or intellectually attracted to a person might wonder if the physical attraction could grow. I was among these women. Many of the guys I dated, for instance, were “good ones,” whom I wanted to like.
Towards the end of college, a waiter who looked like the teacher from Never Been Kissed took my order at Applebee’s. I left my number next to the receipt at the end of the meal. A few hours later he texted, and we hung out a few times after that.
I liked him as a person. He was kind and gentle. I appreciated the way he responded when, while the two of us were watching a show with a gay plot-line, his roommate walked in and asked, “Why are you guys watching this shit?”
The guy called him out by countering with: “What do you mean, ‘this shit,’ Man? It’s life.”
He was also good-looking; I appreciated his looks the way one might admire the appearance of a Van Gogh painting, or a handsome puma.
Brad* was a poet and a gentle, intellectual soul wrapped inside a casual soccer boy demeanor. The night we met, we lay side by side on a mattress at a party, just talking. I enjoyed our conversations; the exchange of words came easily.
And Patrick*, my boyfriend in high school, made me laugh almost unendingly. He was goofy and offbeat and caught me off guard (in a good way) with much of what he said. Our first night meeting, we danced exuberantly through our friend’s living room, even though no music was playing.
I connected with each of these guys, in different ways.
How I ultimately decided I wasn’t bi
As I got older, the giveaway was this: when it came to getting physical with men, inebriation began to feel like a requirement. While I’ve also attributed to this to potential demisexuality — ie, maybe I just take a while to warm up — this wouldn’t explain my ability to feel attraction towards, and engage in physical intimacy with, girls while sober, but not with guys.
With the Applebee’s waiter, as much as my mind could consciously identify his attractive qualities, my gay heart just couldn’t jump on board and spark physical attraction — which I think he sensed, because the one night I stayed over at his house, all we did was cuddle (*the fact that he didn’t try more was another thing I liked about him).
With the Greek boy in 2008, rather than go back to his place, I instead returned to my cousin’s apartment and wrote my own ending for the evening — hoping that one day, the written fantasy would transcend the page and find expression in reality. In the ending I penned, a girl and I meandered the Greek countryside. We watched the darkness fade. The nearby donkey snorted his seal of approval as we walked off into the sunrise.
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If we were to base labels solely off of behavior, then some might observe mine (particularly in the past) and label me fluid. But merely having had a history of bisexual behavior doesn’t warrant the tattooing of a life-long “bisexual” label onto one’s hearts and loins.
As author Jill Gutowitz put it, “I wondered…could you date boys, and also be a lesbian? (Yes, and I did that for years — it’s very different from being bi or pansexual).”
Glennon Doyle had never had a relationship with a woman before meeting Abby. Though she had been partnered with a man for most of her adult life, she now identifies as gay.
To be fair, at times I did experience the faintest flicker of what one might refer to as attraction with men. It sparked when I rested my head on Daniel’s shoulder, feeling safe burrowed against his black hoodie as the two of us watched Borat. It sparked again when our hands grazed against the coiling mountain of curly fries that loomed between us as we both reached for one.
I wouldn’t have slipped the waiter my number with the Applebee’s receipt if I hadn’t felt at least the tiniest inkling of something.
What’s become clear to me, though, is that this “something” isn’t enough to keep the flame of a long-term relationship burning. What I feel for women could take down acres upon acres of forest, strong enough to burn for several lifetimes. My attraction to men, on the other hand, is and was more like a trick candle on a birthday cake — one that could never stay lit for the entire song.
Even back when I was trying to date men, I think I identified with Terry Castle’s words from The Apparitional Lesbian: “While Garbo sometimes makes love to men, she would rather make love to women. Thus, it is for her preference that we call her lesbian. It is more meaningful to refer to her as a lesbian.”
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Some might ask why the nitty-gritty of labeling even matters. Who cares if you’re gay or bisexual? Isn’t there only a minute difference between the two anyways? Just go live your life, I can imagine some saying.
Unfortunately though, sexual orientation in some ways, and in many parts of the world, isn’t yet a non-issue. After coming out at 18 my eyes began to open to all the subtle (and not so subtle) ways that heteronormativity shrouds everyone. My repetition of “gay” and “lesbian” as self-identifiers were the engines I used to power against those hetero waves that threaten to engulf us all.
When I blend in, it doesn’t feel like equality — it can even feel like a form of erasure.
And so I label myself (proudly) gay.
I know that despite Darren, despite Tim having captured my kid heart with his lime-green jelly bean eyes, despite Josh and Daniel, despite having dated boys and men — a woman is my future. My heart is a staunch lesbian pumping inside my chest. I can safely say that for as long as I’m alive, she will beat her gay drum song, hoping that some day or another, the right woman will hear it and play her own in return.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism | Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box | The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer | What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
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Photo credit: Alexander Grey on Unsplash