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By: Jennifer Vanasco
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This fabulous woman I know is marrying a great guy. And that’s not a big
deal, right? Except she has identified as a lesbian for over a decade.
Some of her friends are so upset by this that they jokingly told her she can’t
be part of the lesbian community any more.
One of them told me something like, “Well, a lesbian by definition is
someone who’s with women, right? If she’s not with a woman, she’s
not one of us.”
I think differently. Why can’t she still be a lesbian if she’s
marrying a man? “Lesbian,” as we use it, doesn’t mean that
a woman has never, will never, and doesn’t currently want to be with a
man. Usually it just means that someone isn’t 100 percent straight and
they like being part of our women-centered community.
In fact, I think as time goes on, and social pressure to be straight lessens,
more and more women will choose to be lesbians, at least for a little while.
Yep. I said, “choose.” And yes. I think that our sexual orientation
is a choice.
I thought that would get your attention.
Before you start on that angry e-mail to me, sit down a minute. I know you’re
upset. Every time I make an allusion to the idea that we choose our sexual orientations,
I get flooded with pissed off mail.
That’s pretty interesting to me, because it’s not like I’m
saying, “Sexual orientation is a choice, and if you choose gay, that’s
bad.” All I’m saying is, “We choose.”
Some people, of course, do make judgments about our choice — and those
people usually want us to suffer for it.
I am thrilled to have chosen lesbianhood. I consider myself a gay activist.
I feel like I am privileged to be gay. But gay men and lesbians still get upset
when I start talking about choice, and I believe it’s because they think
I’m saying that everyone is straight and some people choose to be gay.
Not at all.
I think everyone is bisexual, and people choose to be gay or straight.
When I say “everyone,” I mean “the majority of people.”
If it weren’t for the tremendous social, religious and political pressure
to be straight, I think that we would see a more natural breakdown of sexual
orientation.
Think about it anecdotally for a moment.
I know women who have been with men for years and then turned to women. I also
know women who have been with women for years and turned to men. I also know
“straight” women who have had one or more pleasurable experiences
with other women and “lesbians” who have had one or more pleasurable
experiences with men.
Women like this tend to not identify as bisexual. Instead, they say they’re
straight and then they say they’ve come out or that they were experimenting;
or they say that they’re lesbians and then — and then what?
Usually, women-affiliated women who turn to men don’t have an easy word
to call themselves. Like my acquaintance, many of these women still feel like
part of the lesbian community. They still want to think of themselves as lesbians.
They’re just in love or attracted to or heavily emotionally involved with
men.
But we kick them out. Why? I think it’s because we’re threatened.
We’re scared that it shows that perhaps we choose to be lesbian after
all.
But if, in fact, we do choose, then we might as well let them stay in. Let
them identify as lesbians. Why not?
Isn’t it better to have more of us rather than less? Isn’t it better
for us if the majority of America realizes that, in fact, they are bisexual,
and if they deny gay men and lesbians their full rights, they are denying their
own rights, too?
For the majority of us, “lesbian” and “gay” are not
biological identities. Biologically, most of us are bisexual. What they are
is political identities that often (but not always) describe the relationships
that we currently choose.
Being gay is a choice, but it’s a great choice. It’s a natural
choice, shared by many species in the animal kingdom. It’s a choice more
people would choose if they knew it was available to them, and not just limited
to the select few that have never felt attraction to someone of the opposite
sex.
Let’s open the doors.
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