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ruminative
Jun. 3rd, 2009 10:46 pmOK, about this.
I was trying to find a representative pull-quote but in true SP fashion, it's more complex than that. Read a few of the comments, too. It's thinky, for me anyway.
When I was with a woman, after our relationship was exposed to our community, various friends said they'd known and that I just looked "dykey", so it was obvious I was gay. Neat trick, since I hadn't ever really considered it.
I haven't had a close sexual encounter with any vagina not my own in a decade. [Proximal, yes. Sexual, no. I admit I love that my lifestyle demands I specify.] I've been with the same man for over six years-- it will be 7 this summer. I have only ever dated one woman. And I have not been seriously attracted to any women since I have been with Z. I've admired plenty, and grabbed my share of boobs when that has been OK, and ogled porn and the like. But I haven't seriously been tempted to get frisky in person.
But.
I haven't been seriously attracted to any men either. I don't really work that way. I guess I am, as several of the commenters on that post pointed out, "monogamous" as my primary sexual identity. It's not moral, in my case, and it's certainly not something I would be proud of one way or the other, it's just that a switch seems to turn off in my head: I have a mate, and don't really need or want to pursue sex elsewhere. I love to look, and I enjoy flirting, but there's a shyness killswitch that engages if something seems serious. Flirting is fun but oh lord, [s]he's serious immediately makes me shut down, and I have to immediately extricate myself uncomfortably from the situation, whether [s]he's someone I find attractive or not.
I sort of don't like that, in that I seem to not have a choice, but it would be exceedingly stupid of me to attempt to circumvent it, since Z seems to be equally monogamous and has made his utter disinterest in any kind of poly relationship plain. In practice it's great; in theory, I don't like being forced into a box.
The point is, what's my point? Part of my point is that I was so glad to find the comment on that thread pointing out that the fact that so many queer women, bi women, heteroflexible women, whatever the hell you want to label women who get funny in their pants around both male and female potential partners, wind up in relationships with members of the opposite sex. (It probably goes for men too, but it's a very female community, statistically.) I mean, duh. Yes, there may be an element of "It's just easier to date men" in there in terms of societal expectations and passing as straight, but a far more significant factor is, "Statistically speaking, given the proportion of straight men to gay women in a given population, you are in many environments much more likely to find a suitable male partner than a female one, and therefore to end up in an LTR with a member of the opposite sex."
As I have said ever since the revelation of my first relationship (before which I didn't find anyone sexually attractive-- and I do mean that, there were no crushes, not even on movie stars), my primary selecting factor in a potential partner is not genitals. The presence of genitals at all is undoubtedly a factor, but their actual configuration is less important. I don't like the term "bisexual" because there aren't really just two sexes, and also it tends to get thrown at fake movie "lesbians" a lot.
And as I said above, I don't like being forced into a box. Being in a monogamous Long-Term Relationship with a member of the opposite sex forces me pretty neatly into a very default box. And yet if I attempt to point out that I'm not really a "default" kinda person, then the people who share my default box think I'm being a weirdo, and the people who don't think I'm a poser.
So it's an awkward situation, that's all. Along with being fat-but-socially-acceptably-shaped-- the smallest part of my torso is my waist, my boobs are my most prominent feature (the only "good" kind of fat), and I am a classic hourglass; I am tall and blonde and blue-eyed and only a little bit pear-shaped, and indisputably athletic-- I am uncomfortably aware that I can ride that line of social acceptability. And not to do it is considered contrary and perhaps attention-whorey, but to just go with it feels fake.
I'm gearing up for a long spring of people asking why I'm not married and whether I plan to have kids. It's been three times so far since "wedding season" started-- I suppose it's worse than normal because I just started a new job and that's one of the default conversation starters people seem to apply to me. And I don't know why not, and it always seems like a weird question, but I suppose since I'm in the default box, then that would be the "normal" next thing to do. Since I don't really mentally place myself in that box, it seems like an odd thing for me to do-- I mean, I do get the societal pressure, but it's mostly external. So the question surprises me almost every time.
The fact that I'll eventually age out of the 'default' box is not terribly comforting, oddly. I guess I'll work up to it.
A good friend of mine who is gay told me once that before she realized she was gay, she felt like a failed girl, like there was this whole elaborate set of rules that she didn’t understand—but once she was able to articulate to herself that she was gay, she realized that she wasn’t a failure at all. She had just been playing a different game all along. Identifying as queer has had a similar “opting out” effect for me, but it is distinctly stronger when I am with a woman than when I’m with a man, even a queer hardcore feminist man like Mr Machine. We both know that we’re opting out, but not everyone else does…and the pressures of those seemingly invisible gazes accrete surprisingly quickly. This, of course, is also a privilege: in a homophobic culture, we can pass as straight (or, perhaps, straight enough): we don’t fear violence or discrimination as much as we would in same-sex relationships; we could get married if we needed or wanted to; even unmarried, we’re unlikely to be turned away from a hospital room or not taken seriously by our families or employers. When I hold hands with Mr Machine, I am seen (and see myself) through the lens of both straight privilege and the male gaze: the two are intertwined, a two-way mirror that is a default state for apparently hetero women.
I was trying to find a representative pull-quote but in true SP fashion, it's more complex than that. Read a few of the comments, too. It's thinky, for me anyway.
When I was with a woman, after our relationship was exposed to our community, various friends said they'd known and that I just looked "dykey", so it was obvious I was gay. Neat trick, since I hadn't ever really considered it.
I haven't had a close sexual encounter with any vagina not my own in a decade. [Proximal, yes. Sexual, no. I admit I love that my lifestyle demands I specify.] I've been with the same man for over six years-- it will be 7 this summer. I have only ever dated one woman. And I have not been seriously attracted to any women since I have been with Z. I've admired plenty, and grabbed my share of boobs when that has been OK, and ogled porn and the like. But I haven't seriously been tempted to get frisky in person.
But.
I haven't been seriously attracted to any men either. I don't really work that way. I guess I am, as several of the commenters on that post pointed out, "monogamous" as my primary sexual identity. It's not moral, in my case, and it's certainly not something I would be proud of one way or the other, it's just that a switch seems to turn off in my head: I have a mate, and don't really need or want to pursue sex elsewhere. I love to look, and I enjoy flirting, but there's a shyness killswitch that engages if something seems serious. Flirting is fun but oh lord, [s]he's serious immediately makes me shut down, and I have to immediately extricate myself uncomfortably from the situation, whether [s]he's someone I find attractive or not.
I sort of don't like that, in that I seem to not have a choice, but it would be exceedingly stupid of me to attempt to circumvent it, since Z seems to be equally monogamous and has made his utter disinterest in any kind of poly relationship plain. In practice it's great; in theory, I don't like being forced into a box.
The point is, what's my point? Part of my point is that I was so glad to find the comment on that thread pointing out that the fact that so many queer women, bi women, heteroflexible women, whatever the hell you want to label women who get funny in their pants around both male and female potential partners, wind up in relationships with members of the opposite sex. (It probably goes for men too, but it's a very female community, statistically.) I mean, duh. Yes, there may be an element of "It's just easier to date men" in there in terms of societal expectations and passing as straight, but a far more significant factor is, "Statistically speaking, given the proportion of straight men to gay women in a given population, you are in many environments much more likely to find a suitable male partner than a female one, and therefore to end up in an LTR with a member of the opposite sex."
As I have said ever since the revelation of my first relationship (before which I didn't find anyone sexually attractive-- and I do mean that, there were no crushes, not even on movie stars), my primary selecting factor in a potential partner is not genitals. The presence of genitals at all is undoubtedly a factor, but their actual configuration is less important. I don't like the term "bisexual" because there aren't really just two sexes, and also it tends to get thrown at fake movie "lesbians" a lot.
And as I said above, I don't like being forced into a box. Being in a monogamous Long-Term Relationship with a member of the opposite sex forces me pretty neatly into a very default box. And yet if I attempt to point out that I'm not really a "default" kinda person, then the people who share my default box think I'm being a weirdo, and the people who don't think I'm a poser.
So it's an awkward situation, that's all. Along with being fat-but-socially-acceptably-shaped-- the smallest part of my torso is my waist, my boobs are my most prominent feature (the only "good" kind of fat), and I am a classic hourglass; I am tall and blonde and blue-eyed and only a little bit pear-shaped, and indisputably athletic-- I am uncomfortably aware that I can ride that line of social acceptability. And not to do it is considered contrary and perhaps attention-whorey, but to just go with it feels fake.
I'm gearing up for a long spring of people asking why I'm not married and whether I plan to have kids. It's been three times so far since "wedding season" started-- I suppose it's worse than normal because I just started a new job and that's one of the default conversation starters people seem to apply to me. And I don't know why not, and it always seems like a weird question, but I suppose since I'm in the default box, then that would be the "normal" next thing to do. Since I don't really mentally place myself in that box, it seems like an odd thing for me to do-- I mean, I do get the societal pressure, but it's mostly external. So the question surprises me almost every time.
The fact that I'll eventually age out of the 'default' box is not terribly comforting, oddly. I guess I'll work up to it.
