~~ um. this is what happens when i'm out of it and yet still obsessed with cute girls.

[reenka]

sometimes it seems as if when it comes to sexual orientation, labels are really the most important things. it doesn't have to describe impulses or even behavior, as long as you can stand behind it, as long as you can believe it.

and there's all this support, too. if you're straight, you're supposedly oiled right into the Machine, and if you're queer, you have to work against the system, and you get a whole new support system. you are now persecuted-- different. you know you are different, and you have to deal with it.

but what happens when you can pass for both? there's no need to rebel, no need to be supported. bisexuality doesn't need to be persecuted-- it doesn't even need to be acknowledged. plenty of people go through life excusing things as "slip ups", as just one of those things everyone feels. it's nothing important, just a rite of passage, just a momentary glitch. everyone is horny sometimes. you have your moments, and then you go back to business as usual.

existing in any sort of liminal space has its own sort of inevitable torture. and yet there's no particularly unique angst associated with being flexible on some basic level. it doesn't carry that heartfelt argument of "i just can't help it, i'd be straight but i -can't-". you don't need divine intervention-- any day, you can decide to cut off part of yourself-- you'd still function. it's all a matter of chance anyway-- you could go for years, knowing you -could- fall for people of one sex, but you keep falling for the other one. and if you haven't actually fallen in love yet, what's the difference? you may as well be unisexual.

i feel weird about going to the gay/lesbian/transgendered alliance meetings in school, 'cause well-- i'm not queer. or am i? not queer enough. it's either that, or not feeling straight enough.
    i wonder if it'd help to have bi-specific alliances, some sort of support for the unique problem of not fitting in anywhere, not being able to define yourself by what you're not and what you don't want. there's such a unique pressure to be one way or the other, in life, with so many things. male or female, conservative or liberal, popular or an outcast. but with sexuality in particular, being bi sort of means you're "open" to most people. maybe even "free spirited" or "slightly promiscuous". like it's some sort of cool, hip thing to be, not really anything to shout about or be hung up on. maybe it's just like being ambidexterous. except it's not.

even i. i still ask myself the question: who am i? i don't know, how much are you supposed to like girls before you can say, "i like girls" and you don't add, "well, i like boys, too". and if you don't add it, suddenly everything changes and maybe you're this totally different person, except that makes no sense. you can be heterosexual and "appreciate female beauty". that's what my mother told me when i tried to say i liked girls. that's so superficial. you're supposed to want people for their souls, apparently. if you're gay, it's fine. you can just be a shallow gay person. but most bisexuals would say they look beyond the flesh, underneath the skin. it's almost like it's more like enlightenment than a sexual orientation. maybe suddenly you understand that people are all one.

well, i guess i'm not enlightened. or maybe just too lustful, i dunno. more lustful towards girls than towards boys-- but what does that mean? feeling the ability to fall in love with both, but being more promiscuous in one's desires towards one's own gender? does that mean something? well, for one thing, it means someone can say things to the effect of, "well, your attraction to girls is shallow and thus somewhat discountable, being so superficial. come back when you're more deeply queer."

for me, it's really confusing 'cause all my experience runs mostly one way and my physical obsession mostly the other way. it's a constant process of re-evaluating and re-deciding, always changing my mind about what i want with each new body or personality that catches my fancy. such a weird feeling, still waiting for someone to tell me who i "really am". almost like there could be such a thing as an impartial judge, who'd look at the pattern of my behavior and impulse and probably come up with the same brilliant deduction i did. unless they were to suddenly say, "look! look! if you spent -this- much time obsessing over girls and only -this- much time with boys, that means you're gay. you can relax now. you're gay. oh wait, you're straight. no, really now, straight."

really, it's just freaky being mentally pretty promiscuous and be told it doesn't really count 'cause nothing ever comes of it except lots of sketches of naked girls (since i was twelve or so). although that's really just my mother, but then, most other people either take my word on it or sort of gloss over it without any particular reaction. so all i've got is weird flare-ups of angst provoked by nothing except my usual sensation of having slipped through the cracks. i don't really even know if it's just me or something about being neither here nor there. if people -can- ignore, they -will-, and who's to say that's bad? maybe that's the goal-- if only everyone can be so wonderfully passed over. or something.

but no. the feeling of alienation remains. the feeling of being -other-, without a clear direction to turn to if you wanted to be part of some group. the constant frustration of almost always seeing people in the media being labeled as either gay or straight. i've heard accounts of this-- where people are frustrated they're assumed straight in a straight culture in a straight world. even then, there's a possibility-- an "either or", it's just the other option is undesireable to the mainstream and thus not mentioned. it's rather disturbing to keep seeing there -be- no third or fourth or any other option. one starts to wonder if one -can- feel this way, if it's -real-, or possible even, if contradictory feelings mean you're just confused and you don't know who you are yet.

anyway. what the hell am i doing. i should either sleep or watch `queer as folk'. damn. it just figures that reading/watching about flamingly gay men would be more natural and maybe even more comfortable than any native emotion. heh.

Comments

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

*smiles* thanks ~:D most days... most days i know that i'm okay, as normal as anyone gets, really... but then, i just don't know, and of course i'm a professional wibbler, and it bothers me 'cause my mother always said, "whatever" when i told her i was bi. like, okay i draw naked girls and like naked girl bodies and probably have liked my girlfriends a little too much, but that's normal. it's not like i'm a lesbian biker chick, so everything is fine. i try to tell her and she's like, "let's talk about something important". sigh. and since no one cares & no one persecutes me and stuff, it begins to feel stifling, like i -want- to act out and be someone i'm not just so that.... i dunno. i'm not living in this "assumed straight until proven guilty" sort of world which makes it too easy and too hard at the same time. what with my grandmas so obsessed with my ex (and when am i getting another one? and when am i getting married? and when am i growing up?)

like, there are all these issues that i can't quite have, 'cause i can pass. and i hate that-- how easy it is to pass for normal. whatever -that- is. and i don't pass for it anyway.
sometimes it seems like it's harder to be in-between, not easily classified, harder than just being one way or the other. say i was a dyke-- i'd know what to do with myself, i guess. or at least it seems like that when i'm being all over the place, anyway -.-

like, no one really acknowledges that people like me even exist in the culture at large, 'cause it's uncomfortable and it's hard to even acknowledge myself at times.
though really, 95% of the time i have next to 0 angst about it. heh. so it's not like i'm to start to disenfranchized bisexuals union.
though it might be fun >:D