February 12, 2002: little lives
I have always wanted to do Important Work with my life. I have always been idealistic and I have always been ambitious. Ambitious enough to get myself out of college in four years and ambitious enough to have made a good dent in what I need to save for retirement by age 27. Idealistic enough to get involved at least a little bit in activism, idealistic enough to believe that maybe I could be a good example for future generations, idealistic enough to believe that maybe, just maybe, I had the courage of my convictions.
I thought, by being out and proud, that I could help change the world just a little bit. To convince maybe one person that gay people aren't evil or sick, they're just people who happen to love a little differently from the norm. To make my own small blow for equality and justice in the world by simply living my life and being who I was and loving as I wanted to.
So then I tumbled into a relationship with a male and my entire universe...changed.
You can't be out as a gay person when you're in a monogamous relationship with someone of the opposite sex. I've seen people who've attempted it and all they do is manage to look exquisitely silly. So maybe i'm not gay. Maybe I'm bi...but my only sexual activity is, well, straight. And if it quacks like a straight girl...
And the Important Work I'd wanted to do was completely derailed.
[not to mention that my membership to the Wet Spot is now completely useless. I keep the card in my wallet for sentiment's sake, but I'll probably never go back.]
So I've been thrown into the world of heterosexual privilege and it feels really weird. Suddenly, I don't have to do gender switches on things to make them make sense to me. The articles in Cosmo suddenly apply to me. I don't have to look high and low for role models for my relationships; they're all around me, quite literally everywhere I look. Every possible variation on the heterosexual relationship has been mapped out for me.
If I were ill, he could get into the hospital to see me, no problem. My parents will approve of my relationship with him. As will my grandparents. We could, if we wanted, get married, and suddenly we'd have legal power over each other. My brother won't disown me for having a relationship with him.
This closet is comfortable, that's the truth. I've even got cable TV in here. The ceiling's a little low, but I can work with that.
But there are little things...
Like having a relationship with someone who believes that heterosexual privilege doesn't exist. Like no longer being a member of the gay community. I get to be a "supportive straight", if I want, but though that's nice it's not the same. Like suddenly having no idea how to meet new friends, should I decide I want some. [and at what point does one bring up the fact that one used to be a lesbian?]
Like there being a number of words for people like me, the kindest of which is "tourist".
Like no longer having an identity. Like suddenly being invisible.
Like suddenly being "safe". I'm no longer one of those scary lesbians who are supposedly tearing down society as we know it. No, I'm tame now. Neutered by the magical presence of a male. Stripped of any power I once had, even if it was imaginary. Stripped of my story.
I once entertained the idea that I could be so extraordinary that a hundred years from now kids would be forced to read my biography in school. A pioneer, they would call me. Someone with an interesting philosophy and an interesting life. But having been tamed, I find I am no longer particularly interesting. I can't in good conscience call for a revolution if I am fully participating in the system I want to overthrow.
I'm just an ordinary girl, now, with a boyfriend. I can wave flags and everything, but the power of my protests can be completely annihilated with one glance. Yeah, you know the look, the look that says, "What are you doing here? *You* don't have anything at stake here. You're in no danger here, you have your boyfriend and your comfortable heterosexual life. What are you trying to prove, girl?"
Just another straight girl. Just another straight girl who dreams of women, who loves sex with women, who wanted to grow old with a woman. Just another straight girl in a monogamous relationship with her boyfriend, in her comfortable little closet, who threatens nobody, who changes no minds.
Who is the very worst kind of hypocrite.
I was talking about this with some people today, and they pointed out that maybe it's just that I don't like myself very much right now. And they're right. I'm no longer doing the work I wanted to do with my life, I can no longer fool myself that I am making any difference at all for the future. I respect people with the courage to love outside of the norm, because i know how hard it is. And how can I respect myself if I'm loving within the boundaries that society has set for me?
And, of course, the hardest thing of all is that I'm in love with Chris, and I can't imagine my life without him in it. And what we have together is worth all of this, is worth invisibility, is worth being mistaken for a straight girl. I must be getting soft in my old age, because love's worth putting aside a few ideals, I think. (or maybe i'm just going soft in the head, I don't know.)
I'm not sure how I'm going to solve this problem. It was nice to have an identity, if even for a little while. It was nice to have important work to do.
But I think I could get used to my little closet, my little life. I could get used to no longer having the future on my shoulders. Let other people play the game; I'll cheer from the sidelines. I'll try to forget the largely unused portions of my sexual self and concentrate on expanding my responses to men, which are the only thing that's useful now.
But I don't think I'll ever get used to het privilege.
And I will never, ever forget the glorious passion I once had.
