Lesbians On The March

I have noticed that you rarely publish letters by lesbian or bisexual women in your column. What’s up with that?
–Represent

Excellent question, grasshopper. It’s absolutely true, I don’t print very many questions from lesbian and bisexual women, primarily because I don’t get very many questions from lesbian and bisexual women. A good ninety percent of the e-mails I get are from men. I’ve wondered about this for a while, and my feeling is that despite the fact that I promise anonymity for all letter-writers, most women are simply too uncomfortable to send even a confidential letter to my column. And with good reason—if a woman sends me a letter about her sex life, she’s taking much more of a risk than a man. The consequences for a woman admitting to not always having pure, heterosexual thoughts and desires are far graver than for men, and I think the fear of being judged and punished is so ingrained in women that very little can make us feel safe.

So let me put this out there for all you women readers, particularly the lesbian and bisexual ones: your letters are safe with me. I do not reveal names, I usually try to remove all identifying markers from letters, and I will never show your letter or share your contact information with anyone else. I invite your letters and I will do everything I can to represent your concerns in the column. Also, I invite all my women readers to weigh in: why do you think that women don’t send in questions as frequently as men? Send in your responses and I’ll print them in next week’s column.

“Hot Girl-On-Girl Action”

I’m really confused about whether I might be a lesbian. I’m attracted to guys and I have a boyfriend, but I get really turned on by watching lesbian porn. I use it to masturbate all the time. However, I’m not attracted to any of my girlfriends or any of the girls I know. Am I a lesbian or bisexual, or is all of this just a normal part of growing up? Please help me, I’m so confused.
–It’s Hard Not Knowing

I feel you, girl. I know a lot of straight women who dig lesbian porn, and the whole thing can be very confusing, both personally and politically. I’ve thought about this issue a lot (as have many other feminist thinkers far more learned than yours truly), and my feeling about the “lesbian” porn you find on the Internet is that it’s not really about lesbianism or same-sex desire at all. That particular brand of porn is all about women performing a simulacrum of lesbian desire for an assumed-to-be heterosexual male audience. (Of course, a lot of the audience is actually female—in much the same way that the real audience of the now-defunct Playgirl magazine was not straight women, but gay men. But I digress.) The point is, I think a lot of the directors and producers of porn assume that straight men want nothing more than to see lots and lots of naked girls prancing around—if one is good, then two (or more) is even better. And if those two girls happen to be making out, well, that’s just part of the game, too. The implicit assumption is that they’re not kissing because they’re really attracted to each other (‘cause that would be, you know, too gay), but because they’re both so into sex that they’d do it with anything that moves, even someone of the same gender. “Girl-on-girl” porn is such a crazy mix of homophobia and queer performance that it’s hard to know what to think.

But for what it’s worth, here’s what I think: while there’s something disturbing about the way lesbian desire has been defanged and commodified for straight consumption, there’s also no reason why anyone should have to apologize for what turns them on. Provided that a person’s taste in smut doesn’t include incest, pedophilia, or bestiality, I don’t think it’s at all productive to ask an individual to account for what turns their crank. If you like lesbian porn, then you like it. It’s really as simple as that. I wouldn’t worry too much about whether that makes you bisexual—and even if it did, there’s nothing wrong with that, either. Just one thing: if you find yourself becoming attracted to women in real life, don’t beat yourself up about it. Just go with it.

Where’s My Identity?

I am in a real panic. Please help me. I am a 21-year-old guy from Chennai. For four or five years I was thinking of myself as gay because I was only attracted to handsome men and never girls. But lately I have been having a lot of heterosexual fantasies and I no longer enjoy gay sex. I’m still more sexually attracted to men but I also get a lot of pleasure out of imagining sex with a girl. I just had sex with two guys and I didn’t really enjoy it even though I liked their looks. Whenever I see girls exposing even a little bit of their bodies I think about having sex with them and I love hetero porn as much as gay porn. Now I am unable to decide whether I am a bi or a pure gay. I feel that I should marry a girl for good sexual life. Can I do that when I get a chance in future?
–No Longer Sure

Hold up, buddy. There’s no need to torment yourself if you if you find yourself attracted to men and women both. Sexual desire is not an either/or proposition. You don’t have to be a “pure” gay, “pure” straight, or even a “pure” bisexual. The word “pure” doesn’t mean anything. People are frequently surprised by how their desires change over time. Just go with the feeling. Don’t feel hemmed in by the need to put a label on it.

Now on to the next thing: why do you believe you need to get married to a girl to have a good sex life? It sounds like you’ve been having a lot of fun as unmarried guy already. In any event, if you do decide to get married or have a long-term relationship with anyone, male or female—it’s a good idea to let them know that you have desires for both sexes. You may or may not want an open relationship, but it’s still one of those pieces of information that any long-term partner would want to know.

Questioning the Q

I am in a real panic. Please help me. I am a 21-year-old guy from Chennai. For four or five years I was thinking of myself as gay because I was only attracted to handsome men and never girls. But lately I have been having a lot of heterosexual fantasies and I no longer enjoy gay sex. I’m still more sexually attracted to men but I also get a lot of pleasure out of imagining sex with a girl. I just had sex with two guys and I didn’t really enjoy it even though I liked their looks. Whenever I see girls exposing even a little bit of their bodies I think about having sex with them and I love hetero porn as much as gay porn. Now I am unable to decide whether I am a bi or a pure gay. I feel that I should marry a girl for good sexual life. Can I do that when I get a chance in future?
–No Longer Sure

Hold up, buddy. There’s no need to torment yourself if you if you find yourself attracted to men and women both. Sexual desire is not an either/or proposition. You don’t have to be a “pure” gay, “pure” straight, or even a “pure” bisexual. The word “pure” doesn’t mean anything. People are frequently surprised by how their desires change over time. Just go with the feeling. Don’t feel hemmed in by the need to put a label on it.

Now on to the next thing: why do you believe you need to get married to a girl to have a good sex life? It sounds like you’ve been having a lot of fun as unmarried guy already. In any event, if you do decide to get married or have a long-term relationship with anyone, male or female—it’s a good idea to let them know that you have desires for both sexes. You may or may not want an open relationship, but it’s still one of those pieces of information that any long-term partner would want to know.

Naturally

Why do people become gays or lesbians? I mean, people are naturally attracted to the opposite sex, so what influences some people to be attracted towards to their own sex?
–What’s Natural?

Well, there’s your problem in a nutshell. People are not “naturally” attracted to the opposite sex. There’s nothing natural, inherent, or inevitable about sexual attraction or gender identity. These things are fabulously variable and fluid. I’ll give you a great example: just last week I attended a conference in Kathmandu about strategies for defending queer rights in South Asia (organized by the Blue Diamond Society of Nepal and LLH Norway), and there I met a lovely transgender woman who spoke at the conference about identifying as a heterosexual. Now, here’s an individual who was born as a biological male, but identifies and lives her life as a straight woman. Is that “natural”?  Who cares? And there are so many more varieties: trans individuals who desire with same-sex desires, trans individuals who desire other trans people, same-sex desiring individuals, bisexuals, pan-sexuals, straight people who don’t want kids (procreation, of course, being the usual rock with which heterosexists bludgeon others with the “unnaturalness” of same-sex desire), you name it. Just going by the sheer variety of ways that people express sexual desire and experience pleasure, I don’t think it’s possible to talk about what’s natural. Some people are born with their desires hardwired into their brains and others are not. Asking the question of why some people become gay or lesbian does not make any more sense than asking why some people become straight. A better question would be, “how do we, as a society, protect and celebrate the diversity of sexual and gender identities in our communities?” That’s not the question you asked, of course, but it’s a much more productive and inclusive one.