Jacqueline has a cute post on Coming Out day:
For most of my life I’ve identified as straight because I really, really, really like men. A lot. Yum — men. But I have to admit that a small part of me thinks Gillian Anderson is pretty hot too. Now, I’m talking about young Gillian Anderson, from early X-Files, before she sprogged, because stretch marks just don’t do it for me. But yeah, if you put me alone with young Gillian in some romantic setting, and got me drunk, and she tried to seduce me… I might just go for it.
So, I am redefining my sexual orientation as “99% straight, 1% somewhat intrigued by Gillian Anderson.” And I will fight to protect my rights as a member of a minority sexual orientation group.
This reminded me of a conversation that an old friend and I used to have.
I’ve believed for a long time that the three major classifications of sexuality — straight, gay, and bisexual — are inherently limiting, and fairly unrealistic. Rather than lumping everyone into one of three categories, I’ve always figured it’s more of a sliding scale…or possibly something along the lines of an inverse bell curve, with same-sex attraction on one side and opposite-sex attraction on the other.
Basically, it seems far more realistic to me to assume that while some people are “all straight” or “all gay” — attracted only to members of the opposite sex — there are a lot of people (possibly a majority) who actually fall somewhere in between (and if you really want to extrapolate, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if my posited inverse bell curve were a product of culture and religion, and without the incessant “homosexuality is wrong” attitude of our society, something closer to a more natural bell curve might emerge, with only a few people being entirely one or the other, and most falling somewhere in between).
My friend and I got to talking about this at some point, and ended up half-seriously coming up with percentages rating how straight we were. I don’t remember quite what they were at the time (though I’m pretty sure that I remember that his “straight” percentage was higher than mine), but since then, I’ve often placed myself at somewhere between 85-90% straight.
Never having been particularly homophobic (if at all), having ended up spending all four of my high school years involved in the theatre department (yes, it’s a stereotype — but just because it’s a stereotype doesn’t mean that it’s not true), and having had friends that were gay, lesbian, and/or bisexual for practically as long as I can remember, it’s never been a particularly big issue for me. While I’m generally far more attracted to women than I am to men, I’ve never had a difficulty in admitting that there are some damn good looking men wandering around this planet.
The percentage of men that catch my eye is fairly small, admittedly, and the chances that I’d end up in a situation that might encourage a little hanky-panky is even smaller. But really, part of the fun of sex (that is, physical intimacy — I’m not one to define “sex” solely as “penetration”) is, well, that it’s fun — and given the right person and the right situation…well, if I were to end up in a situation where everything seemed comfortable, why worry about which way the genitalia are assembled?
So, as the saying goes — “straight, but not narrow,” and perfectly comfortable placing myself somewhere in the 85-90% straight range. Besides…while I’m not in the same situation she was (nor do I forsee myself in a similar situation, between being primarily attracted to women and having a girlfriend who I’m quite happy with), the thought process in Alyssa’s speech from Chasing Amy has always struck a chord with me:
Alyssa: You know, I didn’t just heed what I was taught, men and women should be together, it’s the natural way, that kind of thing. I’m not with you because of what family, society, life tried to instill in me from day one. The way the world is, how seldom it is that you meet that one person who just gets you — it’s so rare. My parents didn’t really have it. There were no examples set for me in the world of male-female relationships. And to cut oneself off from finding that person, to immediately halve your options by eliminating the possibility of finding that one person within your own gender, that just seemed stupid to me. So I didn’t. But then you came along. You, the one least likely. I mean, you were a guy.
Holden: Still am.
Alyssa: And while I was falling for you I put a ceiling on that, because you were a guy. Until I remembered why I opened the door to women in the first place: to not limit the likelihood of finding that one person who’d complement me so completely. So here we are. I was thorough when I looked for you. And I feel justified lying in your arms, ’cause I got here on my own terms, and I have no question there was some place I didn’t look. And for me that makes all the difference.
Hopefully this hasn’t veered too far into TMI territory for anyone (I doubt it, really — I’ve had this same conversation with most of my friends at one point or another, so this shouldn’t be much of a surprise to anyone who’s known me for a while [though those of you who just started reading me because of the Microsoft fracas might be sporting a raised eyebrow or two…]) — but hey, it’s “coming out” day, right? Why should I let all of you people who really are gay have all the fun? ;)
