***as a content warning, I am going to use a racial slur so I can accurately quote the person who used it. I do not endorse the use of the word in any kind of conversation, joking or otherwise, but I do think that using asterisks or dancing around the word never ever stops us from thinking it, and when that's the case, you might as well fucking use it. I do not use it to offend, though the quote is absolutely offensive, I use it journalistically, I suppose. I apologize for any unintended harm quoting the conversation accurately may incur***
Perhaps the biggest boon from my interest in philosophy is the specific dedication I've given to exploring myself, whatever the fuck "myself" even means. As a Bertrand Russell-esque shorthand, the definition of "myself" has been more malleable than not, changing as I learn more, as I figure out how to be more honest with myself, as I meet more people and experience more things. I've been myself the whole time, but the rules of me have changed. Incrementally, I've never made a hugely radical shift from one version of me to the next, but looking from, say, point A fifteen years ago to point B circa now, the difference is fucking massive. Not because I've been inauthentic, but because the way I structured that authenticity was different. Kind of like Legos, I guess. The bricks are all the same, it's just the thing I had built myself into 15 years ago looks different than the thing I have built into now.
One of the things I wonder a lot about is how I grew into someone so....not like my parents when they are the people they are. My mom always taught me to never see people as their outsides, but to judge people by who they were inside. That's an important way to teach a child to navigate racism, though it doesn't say a thing about implicit biases or social injustices inherent in the system, and it doesn't speak to how being "colorblind" can also leave you ignorant of culture differences, but I mean, it's hard to fit all of that into a snappy, easily digested one liner that a kid can learn positively from. It's a lesson that has stayed with me my whole life, becoming more nuanced as I expand my knowledge, and it's pretty important to what I am getting at here. But I'm going to drone about my parents more because I never do anything as the crow flies. My mom circa the last time I talked to her took a "live and let live" approach to dealing with people's differences and...like...passivity is cool and all, except it isn't?
I remember the first time I ever talked to her husband, my mom and I were skyping. She showed me this turquoise necklace that Eric (her husband...though I don't think they were married at that time) had bought for her. It was a lovely gesture, an alright necklace, but my mom was fawning over it and very pleased at the gift, so I oohed and aahed like any dutiful audience would. Eric wandered onto the screen, said hello and it was nice to meet me, he seemed very amiable, so I reciprocated the formal niceties and said that the necklace he got my mother was lovely, where did he get it? And he said exactly this:
"Oh, I bought it from some trash nigger woman on the side of the road"
And my jaw dropped. Allen and I were still together at the time, and I turned to look at him and I gave him the universal, "I'm so shocked, what the literal fuck, please verify if that actually happened" face. His face verified, so I said some form of, "you can't say that, that's fucking racist" and he laughed off what I said and BARELY course corrected by saying he bought it from some negro woman selling her shit on the side of the road, and they had scammers like that all over Alabama and I was like, "....but you bought a necklace from her for my mom, she provided something valuable, not a scam" because...like...you can only tackle so many shitty things in one sentence with a relative stranger when you're fucking shocked to your god damn core by who they're presenting themselves as. Eric wandered out of the room, and my mom turned back to me, and I let loose something to the effect of, "What the fuck, mom, that was so fucking racist, are you shitting me with this guy?" Because it is important to note that, while I was trying to get my head around Eric being new to me and being so comfortable in his racist convictions that he felt free to sling slurs to the daughter of his partner without knowing thing one about her, my mother was un. fucking. fazed. Gave zero fucks about what he said, did not react negatively to his use of shitty language, just grinned and clutched her trinket. She only became uncomfortable when I reacted less than favorably, and her discomfort wasn't directed at Eric, it was directed at ME. My mom sighed and shook her head and said, word for word, "Well, if the worst thing about him is that he says racist things sometimes, I'll consider myself lucky."
And I was just...I remember feeling really fucking defeated and I told my mom I had to go, because I didn't even know how to have that conversation. I remember saying a couple of things trying to dissuade her from thinking racism could ever be a net positive, but it was getting me nowhere. I told Allen what I wrote a little bit earlier....that when I was a kid, my mom would have told me how wrong that language was. That saying things like that was never ok, because it meant judging someone based on their race. And she had instilled values in me that looked down on that. Where...where had THAT mom gone? This story became a really familiar story in my mom's relationship with Eric. He'd say shitty racist things around me, I'd fire back, and my mom would be stressed out because oh no, her daughter had opinions against those of her confederate south loving husband. I did my best to avoid Eric entirely, because I felt (and still feel, in retrospect) that he would specifically try and get my goat with the things he said, and I won't lie, I did the same thing. The last time I was in Alabama, I had school work that I had to do for a class on how racism impacted religion (fucking AMAZING class, really fucking enlightened me to things that I feel so stupid for not noticing before). I was writing a paper, and I was using a book called The Color Of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America. A super important read that I can't recommend enough, but that's for another time. The juxtaposition of the title and the cover photo was sure to piss him the fuck off:
So I left it out to taunt his delicate southern irritabilities. In plain sight, in the kitchen, his very favorite place. The place where he seemed most in his element. Because fuck him, that's why.
It may shock you to learn that my husband...is....Korean. OH MY GOD I KNOW. I did not marry a white man as god and nature intended. /s
The first time Derek traveled with me to Alabama to meet my mom, we were on the cusp of breaking up because reasons, though nothing Derek had done. The reasons were all mine, and spoiler alert, we didn't break up. But upon picking us up from the airport in Birmingham, One of the things Eric pointed out to us on the drive was the headquarters of the KKK.
And like.
Cool?
I desperately wish I had the confidence of racist fucking white men who think it's a bold, fresh and acceptable idea to point out to a non-white man where the biggest fucking idiots of this dumb dumb country rallied together to rile in their hatreds. If I could do ANYTHING in my life with that much confidence and pride, I would be unfuckingstoppable. I point out Derek's non-whiteness not because it would have been acceptable to me if I had been alone in the car and he had pointed that out...it wouldn't have been. But more as an example of his Eric's character. Because...see...I HAD made that drive in the car with him. More than once. And it had never crossed his mind to point it out to me as a solitary white woman. It only became a prominent scenic hot spot when a non white man was in the car. It goes a long way toward cementing his status as what historians call "fucktwat racists". Could it be coincidence? Sure. Could it have been new knowledge that he had learned since my last trip there on my own, and he was just BURSTING to share it because reasons unrelated to white supremacy? I guess anything is possible. But I doubt it very much. It alarmed me that he made a big deal about it, and Derek did not balk, he just responded with his signature, non-committal, slightly chuckled "oh yeah?" and I said "fuck the KKK" and the drive continued, because...what else could either of us do? I'm sure I could have done more, I know I could have pitched a bigger fit. I regret not pitching a bigger fit in that moment. But being stunned, and feeling powerless when you're in someone else's domain really fucks with how you approach justice. I'm ashamed of that, but that's the reality I am currently living in, and it's the same reality I was in then.
I'll save you the suspense and tell you Eric has always been racist, and the whole reason I stopped talking to my mom was because she adopted the "can't you just live and let live" attitude and frankly I cannot. While they were here in Hawaii, Eric said next level racist shit, except I had the benefit of being in absolute control of my surroundings. Eric's racist bullshit was trying to invade MY space, trying to live on MY turf, and I had the power in a way I hadn't yet. I could tell him to fuck right off with his racist shit, that his information was wrong and biased and that he was a typical southern racist asshole. And my mom would try and intervene, but to no fucking avail, because my space will not allow for that shit. When Eric tried to tell a local about "his country" like Hawaii was not part of the US, Derek and I were EXCEPTIONALLY quick to correct because we were fucking HORRIFIED. My mom laughed it off, gently telling him his gaffe and he passed it off like he didn't notice. Well of course not. To the credit of any racist or sexist or any other ist-er, I have always known you're not thinking about your shitty isms when you deliver them, they're your beliefs and they are purely of you, and you deny yourself the agency to help it because that's...that's just your worldview. And you don't know anything else, so the things you say are free form and not conscious. Eric saw that local and othered him immediately, despite the fact that he was, superficially, having a pleasant conversation with him, because that's his default when someone doesn't look like he does. After a few days of ALWAYS calling Eric out because DUH, he had had enough, I had had enough, and I told my mom if Eric couldn't behave and mind his manners, then he should stay at home for her birthday dinner. He's on our turf and has to play by our rules, and we will happily accommodate him and have pleasant conversation, but the second he slips his white supremacist jargon, he's being thrown out of the party. My mom sent me a long missive about how she just wasn't going to go, and it breaks her heart that the two people she cares about most don't see eye to eye, and that I can't just agree to disagree with him and let that be the end of it.
And you know, when we talk about shifting the definition of "self". my mom from 25 years ago would cold clock my mom circa now for being a fucking racist apologist nitwit. How did the woman who taught me to have the convictions that I happily severed ties with her for no longer have them herself? I have puzzled over this. When I've wondered if I should reach out to her and tell her that her continued relationship with me and Gabriel is hinged on Eric never being a part of either of our lives ever again, which I've thought of doing just because it would be easier for Gabriel, I've wondered how I arrived in a place where this was something I even had to think about.
She taught me to judge people by their character, not by their skin, and I don't understand how she doesn't see how easily Eric judges people for their skin before he gets a chance to know their character. If a black person is a fucking shitty person, well, that's fucking fine, but like, they aren't shitty because they're black, they're shitty because they're shitty. Racial slurs don't need to enter the equation because it isn't about that, it's about their character. And while yes, the way we look and the color of our skin informs the people we turn in to in a lot of ways, these are socially invented barriers that need deconstructing, not inherent traits because "race" makes any of us this way. I'm getting away from myself here.
Growing up understanding that race, gender, sex, aesthetic...that none of these make you who you are, that none of these things stop you from being unlovable and unworthy...really has informed a lot, if not all, of my worldview. I have loads of room for improvement, but again, that's for another day. It's for all the days, really, but moving on.
When I moved in with my dad for the last time as a teenager, I was given the freedom to be the me I had always wanted to be, but my mom wouldn't let me. I found that this made me happy. I stopped taking my meds, I found joy, and I started curating myself as an individual. And it was confusing, because people my age, 15, 16, 17, had already done the legwork of defining their personalities. I had tried, but got stifled along the way. One thing I had always been, though, since I was a little girl? Boy crazy. My first crush was on Marc Summers. You read that right. The fucking Double Dare Guy was my first crush. I had a hamster that I named after him, no lie. I was little, no older than 6 because this was in Ithaca still, and I believe my mom and dad physically split in like, 1990. Calling it a crush may not be entirely apt, but again with the Russell shorthand, it suits the purpose for now. I had a friend named Brad that I had what can only be described as a strange relationship with, where we would call each other and just scream on the phone, and my mom would sing a song about how sooner or later, Brad was gonna get me, sung to the tune of The Grass Roots' Sooner Or Later, and Brad was probably my first foray into being gone for a boy. Marc Summers was left in the dust for Elijah Wood when I saw Paradise, and then I grew into an age where Tiger Beat cheered young girls into screaming over teen heartthrobs with photo spreads of JTT and Matthew Lawrence (two of my favorite heartthrobs, and I had to barter with my friends to be able to have their pages because of COURSE my mom didn't let me get Teen Beat and Tiger Beat), and then, somewhere in there, came Elliott Glassman. I was gone for him for sure. For years. And then a boy named Doug that I met at gymnastics camp in Maryland, and then came middle school. And I started to like boys that were kinda mean to me, but in fairness, that's because ALL boys were kind of mean to me. I had a crush on Brian Murphy, who made fun of me all the fucking time. I had a crush on a kid named Matt who never talked to me ever, he was a deviation from the mean. I REALLY had a crush on Jason Krentz. Had a crush in the worst way. I took the negative attention of teasing and assumed it meant they liked me, because the "boys are mean because they like you" trope was still popular, and my mom kind of fed into that. In 8th grade, Brian Croes was in a few of my classes, and like...for real, I think Brian Croes was the first boy that put a kind of stirring in my loins that I couldn't quite describe as a sexual awakening, but from where I sit now, it was. Brian Croes played soccer, he had a shaved head, he looks like he was vying to play an extra in American History X, but not like, not a good extra. Brian Croes called me "slut" all the time, like it was something I should warm to, and I did, because he made my body want stuff that I didn't know how to contextualize yet, but me now would describe it was "I wanted to sit on his face".
I remember finding out a kid named Sean Grubb had a crush on me. Sean Grubb was a nice kid. If memory serves, he loved Seinfeld, he was kind of nerdy (not that I was a beacon of popularity and grace, we were the exact same social tier. If anything, Sean was above me, because he knew who he was and never apologized for it. I am STILL apologizing for who I am, I'm sorry to say), he was short and had mussy blond hair, and not a wholly unattractive, face. I found out Sean liked me and that he called my house once but hung up when I answered, and I remember thinking...could I like Sean? I'm not attracted to him...am I? And I questioned how I KNEW I was attracted to Brian over Sean. I didn't REALLY know, so I dismissed it and didn't think about it again. So there you go, I've always been boy crazy. Back on track.
When I moved out to Vegas and could move through that shit and start really being me, I noticed that the way I maneuvered myself sexually changed. I could be a lot more aggressive in my sexual interests toward boys, so I was. I flirted with reckless abandon. And I also noticed that my flirting wasn't just toward boys. I flirted with girls, too. I flirted with anybody who gave me attention. And I think...I think that's where a lot of my hang ups in "figuring out" my sexual identity come from. I LOVE attention. I want it. Positive, negative, middling, just shine the fucking spotlight on me and let me bask in having your undivided attention. Of course I perform better when I'm comfortable, and best when I know the onlookers admire me (my brain counts here more, but duh, admire me physically, too!), but I just want to be NOTICED. That can be a confusing thing to work your way around when you want to know how to define your sexuality.
I saw Chasing Amy when I was in my late teens, and there's a bit where Ben Affleck's character talks about how he and Jason whatever his name is's character should have sex because their friendship is probably built on a little bit of physical attraction, and I thought "huh. That makes a lot of sense". I floated the idea to Steffie as my own, telling her that I think friendships are based on sexual attraction, even if the people in the friendships are straight and the same gender. Steffie said that might be true, but she wasn't sure. I shrugged that conversation off, as well, thinking it was probably more than just a little true. I want the attention of my friends in a lot of the same way that I want the attention of a lover. I feel possessive of them and jealous if it looks like I can be replaced, the only aspect of my fixation on boys and my friends is that I hadn't really wanted to bone any of my female friends. The thought just hadn't occurred to me to want to.
Over the years, I have fucked around with girls, seemingly all for the benefit of The Male Gaze (™) but not being repulsed by the experiences, either. There was never a drive to go further, but I would talk with myself about...like...what if? Sometimes that conversation was in the middle of necking with some hot girl in a bar in the hopes of getting some guy to go home with me (....I...I am floored by the knowledge that this was a legitimate tactic that WORKED. Men...are...are you guys...are you guys doing alright?), and sometimes it was a day or two after, trying to suss out if I was bi, or gay. I always settled on neither. Because neither felt right. They both felt stifling and limited and just...not me.
I always assumed that meant it was because there were only three options: straight, bi, or gay. Straight didn't feel wrong, because I really really REALLY love males. Always fucking have. History shows there has been little to no deviation from that trend. Is dick available? SIGN ME THE FUCK UP. Gay didn't feel right, because I fucking love guys, and I just couldn't see myself with a woman. Bi felt dangerously close to being right, and back then, I didn't want to be bi, because it meant bad things, right? Being straight was right. Being straight was how I had to be. And besides, I didn't really want to like, be face deep in a vagina or anything. Did I?
I had internal conversations like that for years. I think a lot of my sexual identity has been centered around fear of being something stigmatized, or fear of being judged. Or fear of trying to look trendy or sexy, which I am terribly guilty of perpetuating in my early 20s. I've identified as straight because it was the lane I felt most comfortable in, and while fooling around with women was thrilling, I had yet to develop a romantic attraction to a woman, and even my physical attractions to them were pretty superficial. I'd ruminate on them for a day or two, and then they were gone. Not like boys had been all of my life. I didn't fixate on them.
And then, a couple of years ago (well...longer than that. Time is fucking weird. I was with Dan when this happened) I found myself wondering if my straightness had been performative. What if I had been acting? Because I was with Dan, but sex with him was joyless, I never climaxed except for maybe like, 5 times over the course of our stint together, and I kept having it with him hoping it would get better, but it never did. What if...what if that was because I was gay? And I won't lie, thinking that freaked me out. Not because gay is bad, but like, how shitty would it be to figure out at 27 that you had spent a good chunk of your life only PRETENDING to be who you were out of some weird, unnecessary social obligation? Could I have been happier with a woman???
"I don't know, man, maybe?" is the answer I landed on. My internal voice didn't really sound sold on the idea, but like, my internal voice also didn't shitcan the idea immediately. And that is kind of a big deal.
Years later, I don't question my sexual attraction to men. That's very fucking real, and I was just sexually unhappy with Dan because he made me feel like I didn't deserve him, and I felt less than and you just cannot have great sex with someone who makes you feel inferior, unless you're into that sort of thing. But I am not, and my inferiority had no safe word to pull me back to a reality where Dan saw me as his social equal. I lay in bed at night and I don't wonder if my love and attraction to Derek is performative, it's genuine. As genuine as anything in life is. But more and more often, I reflect on what my mom told me when I was little. About people and how we shouldn't judge them by their appearances. And I think about how I've always been able to vocalize when women are sexually attractive, and it's never flustered me to be sexually engaged with women AS LONG AS I actually find them attractive. I'll fool around with a hot girl without a moment's hesitation.
I have joked about "if slut is a sexuality, that's it, that one is mine" a lot. For years and years. Before a sexual identity really meant anything to me, and slut was a vaguely sex-dangerous buzzword that signaled me as a girl who was pretty eager for sexual interaction, mostly to men. I still say that now. I said it a couple of days ago, when I started writing this blog. It's what made me write it.
I still think that, if slut is a sexuality, that's me. Because honestly, I don't see sex with ANYONE as being off limits. The world is a sexual smorgasbord, and I am a fucking hedonist that hates saying no when her body says yes. I know, and I think I've always known, really, that straight isn't me. Gay isn't me, either. I'm not a lesbian. I don't even think I'm bi, though all of the shit I've written may make someone reading this go, "is there a sexual identity that's moron? Because you are a moron". I've quietly tried on the term pansexual, because my understanding of that outside of being bi is it allows for everyone outside of the gay/straight/bi binary, and that feels closer to my sexual truth. I mentioned this in my philosophy club the other night, though....even pansexual feels inauthentic. It feels close, but it doesn't feel right. I said something about not "proving" that I'm pansexual, and that has sat poorly with me since I said it. Nobody has to prove their sexuality to anybody, not even themselves. A person can be bi without ever having to sexually touch their same gender. No proof is needed. I've really been thinking about this for a few days, and I wish I hadn't said that, but I can't take it back. The best I can do is be better moving forward.
I also think I figured out the best term for my sexual identity: queer. I'm not gay, I'm not bi, pan doesn't feel right, but queer somehow does. I think it's because there's a flexibility in queerness that an explicit label lacks. I have never really seen a need for labels as a whole. No gender label, no sexuality label, no health labels, but Bertrand Russell isn't wrong about shorthand being necessary to sum us up. It's easier to say, "I'm Drea, and I'm queer" rather than "I'm Drea, and Drea is short for Ondrea, a name my parents gave me. I do not believe in god, but I can't be sure with certainty if god exists, and this kind of uncertainty about the way all of the world works shapes my current world view. In regards to my sexuality, if I must explain it, I lean heavily toward my sexual attraction to men, because I really fucking love men. But could I see myself really fucking loving women, should I find myself single again one day? Absolutely, women are amazing and fucking around with them was always a smashing good time, and while I don't see myself as bisexual or straight or pansexual, and being a lesbian is off the table because I really love fucking men, I see sexuality as an ever fluid spectrum, so who knows what I could be into if I need to find a sexual partner because Derek and I don't work out?" One is socially easy to digest, the other is way too much information. So there's a benefit to labeling yourself, but if the label doesn't feel right, your entire system can feel off. I haven't felt like I've been living a lie regarding my sexuality per se, I just don't feel like I've been living the truth. The truth is, I'm queer, and whatever that means is whatever that means. It can mean anything.
I think I might see sexuality very differently if my mom hadn't told me that what makes someone worth your while is whoever they show themselves to be, not what they look like. I internalized that message, probably very differently than my mom circa now would prefer. From what I understand about my sister, she is in a relationship with a girl. I am a queer woman married to a non-white man, and having two queer daughters, especially if my sister's accounts of my mom always trying to talk her out of her sexuality like she was wrong, must be deeply upsetting. I'm glad I got to be taught by my mom circa then, and I'm lucky as fuck I didn't grow into the same isms she has.
I don't know where this is supposed to end. I don't even know if writing it all matters. I started it a few days ago, got about halfway through, watched Olly Thorne's new video this morning, and had to finish this because it needed to be finished. So I guess...here we are? There we go.
