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Don’t you wish your girlfriend was STRAIGHT, like mine?
Posted by Aphra Behn on May 21, 2006
The kerfuffle last week about my use of the word queer in another town in cyberspace led to some discussions between me and the one most intimately affected. He – with some justification – sees me as a straight woman. After all, he’s a bloke, and I’ve only ever had relationships with men, and I socialise as straight. (I’ve never made a big deal of my occasional sexual encounters with women because I’m far too scared of political-lesbians to socialise as bi.)
So, he sees me as this straight woman he’s pulled, and now I am turning round and saying “but I’m not straight, I’m queer” and he’s saying “but you’ve never been gay or bi” and there we are going round in circles.
We didn’t get trapped in the “queerer than thou” debate which can take place between different groups in the LGBT communities, but he did say something very interesting which I am still mulling over. He said: “most FtMs are in denial that their girlfriends might be bi or queer – we want to think that our girlfriends are straight because it proves that we are ‘real’ men”.
Ever since then I’ve had a transgendered version of the line from the song thrumming in my head: “Don’t you wish you girlfriend was straight like mine?”
I am still not entirely sure what to make of it all.
sansfoy said
I think I’m the same way with my boyfriend, only from a gay perspective. We’re both bi/polysexual, but I’m certainly guilty of playing down his attraction to women when I talk about him with my friends. On some level I guess it’s important to me that Alexander is interpreted as a “genuine” gay man, because that means I get interpreted as a “genuine” boy. Which is a bit silly, since I generally don’t have much use for concepts like “genuine” or “authentic”!
aphrabehn said
I’m comfortable with the ambiguity, it’s the invisibility that I find odd. You know those doo-dads in supermarkets that are used to separate one customer’s shopping from another’s? There isn’t a word for them, either.
Nice to meet you sansfoy. Thanks for reading and thanks for commenting.
AB
PS – I like “polysexual” – maybe that’s the term I should adopt. “Don’t you wish your parrot was gay, like mine?” – Sorry – it’s the post-migraine head-space and general Sunday Nightness – I’m feeling rather silly.