On the Fluidity of Sexuality; or My Coming Out Story

When I was about 10, there was a Sally Jesse Raphael show on TV (anyone remember that lovely show?) and it was a segment on….. bisexuals. Back in 1989 that was still a talk-show worthy topic. “With men? With women? Crazy or just confused?” And there was a woman who was talking about her bisexuality and she said something along the lines of “I just like the person. I don’t care if its a man or a woman - I am attracted to the person.” At ten, this struck me as very wise and something that resonated with me.

Fast-forward to my first year in college at a feminist majority meeting. There was a blond, hippie-ish woman at the meeting and I couldn’t stop thinking about her. As I was writing in my journal not too long after that I sort of came to a very matter of fact conclusion that I was attracted to women and not just men. It didn’t feel that dramatic to me, maybe because it had been there for a while. I was an avid read of the Seventeen Magazine “Sex and Your Body” column as a teenager and there were often questions along the lines of “I have a crush on a girl at school. Does that make me gay?” and the answer was that no, not necessarily. Girls get crushes on girls all the time and it doesn’t mean you are a lesbian. So throughout high school, I think I put girl-crushes in this category. Plus, I had lots of crushes on boys too, and so clearly I was not a lesbian. Again, this was before GLTB stuff was big on the radar. Pre-Will and Grace, Pre-Gay/Straight Alliance Clubs. I grew up on a farm in Ohio. It wasn’t as if I didn’t know about GLBT-ness (my parents were relatively liberal), but it wasn’t the sort of issue it is now. I thought it was fine to be gay or a lesbian. It just never occurred to me that it could be me.

So anyway, I had this realization that I could love women sexually and as a life-partner my first year of college. At the time, I was dating a guy who I cared for a lot. I could envision dating or marrying a man too. So I called myself bisexual. This was just at the time when this was getting to be “cool” which I hated because I didn’t want to be a college woman experimenting with women or making out with women at frat parties or something a la girls gone wild. It quickly felt like a solid part of my self.

To make a long story short, my college boyfriend and I broke up for reasons unrelated to my bisexuality. I dated a wonderful woman for a summer and then went abroad. I would have liked it to work with her, but being abroad was difficult. And then, I met my partner when I was abroad. The plan was not for it to be serious. But sometimes you can’t do much about that and before long it was serious and I couldn’t imagine my life without him.

When I was dating my girlfriend during the wonderful summer we were together she suggested a book called Pomosexuals: Challenging Assumptions about Gender and Sexuality which was really helpful for me. It was a collection of essays by people who didn’t fit into the hetero/gay/lesbian framework - a male who becomes a female lesbian, trans folks, a heterosexual woman who is attracted to gay men - there were a range of sexualities. It made a lot of sense to me. I became more interested in queer issues - where queer denotes a range of sexualities that don’t use or fit into the hetero/homo model of sexualities.

So now, I call myself queer and not bisexual. That is, when I call myself anything, which I still sort of tend to avoid. I am so fine with the way that women are feeling more open to experiment with other women. Yet, for me, the popularity of “bisexuality” has made it feel like not a right fit for me. Aside from that, it implies a dualistic framework that doesn’t seem to apply to me. Bi means two - you like men and/or women. But for me, queer encompasses a wider range of sexualities that doesn’t break it down into either/or.

As I’ve written before, sometimes I can be a bit naive about how things are supposed to go. It was this way with Christianity, church in general, feminism, and queerness. Somehow I always imagine people will somehow live up to their best selves. I do this with people too - expect too much. So, it has been a tad discouraging to try to dip my toes into TBGLQ circles where often B is not so embraced, or a Q woman with a male partner (and married at that! gasp!) doesn’t quite count as “in.” I haven’t felt so welcomed. I’ve felt shy about being somehow “out” as queer when I am partner with a man - I feel like people won’t take me seriously, that I can “pass” too easily - that I have it too easy - as if I want to have my cake (hetero privilege) and eat it to (queer sexuality). And I won’t even start on my ambivalent feelings about marriage. That is another post.

I have been meaning to write about this for a long time. I think it is important to question our assumptions about our own sexualities and that of others. Maybe our assumptions are right. But maybe they could be thought about differently. I hope that this post will maybe open some doors, challenge assumptions, encourage folks to think about the ways that none of us fit so easily into the sexuality boxes that we are often put into (be it BLTGQ or S).

Judith Butler and Marcella Althaus-Reid both write a lot about how binary models of sexuality are not just any old framework for sexuality, but it is a framework that has caused much violence and much pain. To have hetero/homo model of sexuality sets up the framework not only heterosexual privilege, but heterosexual ideology that permeates so much of the world causes emotional and physical violence to far too many people. What would it mean to think of sexuality more fluidly? Not as either or? Or defined only by the sex/gender of people we are attracted to?

I ask, kindly, that any responses to this post are gentle, if you disagree. I understand that there are a lot of sensitive issues here, a lot that remains to be said, and a lot at stake with these sorts of topics. But remember that this is also my own story - my own incomplete story. A blog post can’t touch on everything or deal with all issues adequately. I hope to write more about this - queer issues, queer theology, queer theory, and so on. Thanks.  E