I would consider myself a fairly ardent feminist - I am all for womens' rights, societal equality and having it all, but I want these things for all people; gay, straight, minorities, disabled, poor, basically everyone who doesn't fit the American default of the Straight Native-Born Abled White Educated Male - and I think I do a good job of keeping myself informed, talking about issues to a variety of people, and doing what I can when I can.
So I know a lot about gay-re-education efforts - generally fundamentalist religious people who think that they can "straighten" out gay folks through God's Love, God's Words and probably a lot of brainwashing and some torture just in case. Shrinks worth their salt know that this kind of thing doesn't work, that you can't make anyone be straight any more than you can make someone be gay. This I Know.
But here we have someone who's probably in a lot of pain*, who wants to be straight. Who wants to be "normal." And I'm betting they've tried the religion route, the chastity route, every damn thing that might work, might allow them to live the life society says they should. And somehow they ended up on porn. And they think it's working for them.
There's not a part of me that doesn't wish them the best. And I kind of like that while the fundies are pushing God as the way to Straightness, it's actually Sinful, Sinful Sex that's making this guy change his orientation. I take it back, I love it. What's more, I think it's for real. And that's what caught me off guard.
When I was in high school, my best internet friend was bi. I, being the very logical geek who read more sci fi than was probably healthy, firmly decided that I Didn't Know Yet, and was going to Leave My Options Open. I eventually came down on the straight side of bi, and I feel pretty good about that. No pain, no anguish, and socially acceptable.
But what made me bi? Do I actually like girls in That Way? I've never been with another girl, so I don't have a lot of data to go on, but this postcard, this secret, makes me wonder about the sexualization of women in the media and society, and if maybe that made me bi. Maybe seeing porny images of ladies every two seconds in advertising, television, magazines and really, everywhere, is turning me gay.
I feel like bi is the new straight for girls, like there's a serious portion of society that not only accepts bisexuality, but expects it, especially from nubile young lasses. Like, you're the weirdo if you say, flat out, you'd never even make out with another chick. It seems like there's a correlation between this bisexuality "outbreak" and the serious increase in the porniness level of advertising and the media, and I'm gonna go ahead and imply causation as well.
This makes me think back to high school, when I did Slam Poetry (yeah, I know), and was writing about my uncertain feelings, about the ohmigod cute girl I totally had a crush on, and yes, wrote poems about. That was the year I started making friends, took theater, started paying attention to my clothes, basically joined society. And started being exposed in much higher dosages to advertising.
So here's a stumper for you: is my advertising/media/porn influenced sexual re-orientation any less valid, now that I know it didn't all come from within?
*Someone who's in pain - who would choose to live in a society where they are persecuted, and whose dating and romantic options are limited to 3-5% of the population, making it about a zillion times harder to find Someone, much less The One? Yeah, calling BS on the "gay is a choice" thing.
Being one of the more unoriented queers myself, I've had the themes of this post rattling around in my head for a few years.
ReplyDeleteI'll say firstly that I have no idea what to do about the fashion of bisexuality, except wait around until it's unfashionable and avoid teenagers in the meantime. I'm inclined to think similar numbers of males would be bisexual if male queerness was celebrated in the way that the female version is.
Perhaps the acceptability of bisexuality helped you realised it sooner. But being the hopeless romantic I am, I like to think that even a constant bombardment of images couldn't spark love. Maybe lust, but there's a hell of a lot more to love than just physicality and positive reinforcement.