lesbian guilt

[jmtorres]

I'm wandering through my bajillion open tabs, as one does at four in the morning, and just read this essay on bisexuality by gyzym, posted earlier this month and which I probably set aside during finals week. I have no idea where I was linked from, more's the pity.

Anyway, after reading it, I felt compelled to comment about my own sexuality in-the-ways-that-it-intersects-with-bisexuality and well, I'll reproduce it here:

deep thoughts on attraction and the self-limiting factors of labels

I'm about 4.5 on the Kinsey scale and I identify as lesbian. But the fact that I am not a total six means sometimes there are dudes I find attractive (and sometimes really, really not--like I look at some of my fandom friends' objects of interest and am confused? like, I understand that other people are attracted to other things than me but I cannot grok it: like, say, Supernatural. I have heard those boy described as model pretty and... I don't see it. Imagine me with your porn headtilt.) but okay: on some level it's always weird to me when I find a dude attractive. I am more comfortable with attraction to dudes when they are pretty, even though my attraction to women covers a very broad range of looks and is not limited to pretty. But, like, for example... I don't know if you've ever watched Numb3rs? The premise is: two brothers! Charlie is a genius mathematician! Don is an FBI agent! TOGETHER THEY FIGHT CRIME! (And some other people. Charlie's hot mathematician gf? RAWWWWRRR can I have her for my very own, please.) But so, early on, I thought Charlie was cute, and I was okay with this, because especially in the early seasons when he has long hair he is totally the pretty one. Don, being the FBI agent, is totally the manly one. And then one day I caught myself looking at Don's lips and I was like WHAT. Like, it shocked me to be attracted to the manly dude (even if his lips were pretty).

I have lesbian guilt. I know this, and I know it's ridiculous, and I have it anyway. Like, regardless of attraction, I could never see myself with a dude, and part of it is I don't know how I would explain to people the "I am a lesbian dating a dude, no, don't try to make it make sense." And I can't even figure out the chicken and egg issue on that--can I not figure out how to explain it because it would never happen? or does fear of explaining it prevent it from happening? Maybe I would have an easier time in my own head if I identified as "bisexual with a preference for women" but I don't, lesbian is the identification that works for me (with that addendum about being a 4.5 on the Kinsey scale, where necessary). But holy crap does being a lesbian have some baggage if you are not a total six, and it astounds me that queer identities have enough of a cultural narrative attached that I can get mired in feeling guilty for being attracted to not the "right" kind of person when a heterosexual attraction could, technically, drop me into the dominant cultural narrative. I feel like, goddamnit, ALL THE STUPID BOXES CONTRADICT EACH OTHER.

So while I have a label and it is mine and I identify with it, oh my god, I wish society as a whole could chuck out labels.

(...hi. This is probably tangentially relevant to your entry at best, but um, I felt strongly and wanted to talk about it?)

In conclusion: why do I not have an Amita icon?

Comments

[pineapplechild]

I id as bisexual(and about equally attracted to men and women), but a) it does not roll trippingly off my tongue, and b) sometimes I'll refer to myself as a lesbian for sake of argument and/or joke. And because I feel more comfortable with that label sometimes. Which just confuses people. I wish, sometimes, that I was more comfortable with queer as a label for myself, because I think it actually encompasses more of how I roll, but I always feel like a pretentious twit when I use it, even though I don't ascribe pretentious twitness to others who use it. (Or at least, simply because they use it.)

Sorry, I tangented at you.

[jmtorres]

I like queer a lot! But sometimes I feel like it is not specific enough.

[azurelunatic]

I think one of my fish linked it to me? And then I know I linked it on Twitter. And then I saw the link tumbling through my fish and associated people.

[niqaeli]

Ha. I use the label bi largely because getting any more specific than that involves word salad because there ARE no accurate, simple labels for my sexuality. I don't know why omni feels strange to claim even though it would be slightly more accurate.

Sexuality and identity are a fucking quagmire and it really would be nice if we didn't have to justify any of it to anyone. *sigh*

[jackandahat]

Do you mind me asking how you define omni? I've googled but I'm not understanding how it differs from pan, which is what I generally call myself.

[niqaeli]

Um -- well, I hadn't realised until I read the article linked to that there's apparently as much of a divide as there is over pan vs. omni.

Insofar as it applies to me, it means I don't particularly care about physical presentation nor gender identity (be it masculine, feminine, or something not either of those); it doesn't necessarily factor in to whether I find someone attractive.

But like I said, I tend to identify as bi even with that. I don't know; it's a label I've gotten used to even if it isn't strictly accurate.

ETA: I should probably note, I actually mostly don't even use bi in discussion anymore; I ID as queer and don't feel like it's most people's business beyond that. If I feel like specifying further, though, bi is what trips to my tongue, even though it's not really accurate.

[jackandahat]

Thank you for explaining. I tend to use queer in some places, pan in others - I have certain preferences, but... they're more like saying I like dark hair, or long legs, they're certain things that will catch my eye. My only real hard and fast rule is age, that I can think of.

I think anything that people define themselves as, someone will start a war over it. Sad.

[jackandahat]

What really bugs me about the whole "What percentage?" question is it assumes a 50/50 society. We don't have one of those.

If you assume the old "10% of the population is attracted to same-sex" figure (because I like 10, it's an easy number) that means that even before you get to levels of attractiveness, personal compatibilty, other complicating factors, only 10% of men would even consider looking at me, even if I looked like Johnny Depp or something. Whereas 90% of women might. So it stands to reason that regardless of what I want, I'm going to have more chances to date women than to date men*.

So I feel like this skews things. If we're looking at pictures of hot actors, or porn, or something like that, then I'll go 50/50. If we're talking real life, I'll pay attention to people I might have a chance in hell with, and not someone I can assume would freak out that I even asked.

(*Also, thanks to the fact my hobbies are mostly slash and knitting, I'm going to be around more women and fewer men, which skews the statistics even further.)

[jmtorres]

OTOH, whatever the statistic is for the population in general, one's personal social circle tends to reflect particular choices. Of the people I know, far far more than 10% are queer in some way. Because those are the people I've chosen to get to know.

[jackandahat]

True - but most of my dating was back in school/uni, so I was in an enforced "average population".

[jmtorres]

Huh, maybe it is a difference in campus sizes, but I would never consider all 70,000 students at my university to be in my social circle or dating pool.

[jackandahat]

I wouldn't consider all of them to be, but while "People in the student union" is a self-selecting sample (since some people don't go to bars), it's not a queer sample.

We had about 23,000 in my uni - I'm not that ambitious.

[grey_bard]

It's complex! I call myself a lesbian because it's the most accurate descriptive term I can find, and it conveys useful and true information - I have zero desire to engage in sexual activity with a man, and lots to do so with women.

And yet there are many men I find attractive, just not in manner that inspires the slightest urge to do anything about it, unlike women. But I still find them attractive? So I can see how some people might consider that bi. My brain hurts, sexuality is complex, and our language for it is too simple.

[jmtorres]

We have words! But mostly they are modifiers on really basic concepts and people only pay attention to the most basic concept you express and try to ignore the modifiers because they're too confusing.

[grey_bard]

We do have words! But it took LOTS of them to convey what I was trying to say, and I don't want to go on for a couple sentences every time I try to self identify! It would be great if there were like, a word, or a two or three word phrase for what I just said, but if there is, I don't know it.

Yes, there's bisexual and omnisexual and pansexual and queer, but in my case, those are even less useful and descriptive, because they tend to be interpreted as implying gender fluidity or an interest in having sex with both sexes, which, no. But maybe I am missing an option?