textualdeviance (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
textualdeviance) wrote2012-03-07 12:58 am
textualdeviance) wrote2012-03-07 12:58 am
Entry tags:
Identity: Impolitic
This whole chorus drama thing is reminding me that a lot of people think I'm Not x Enough. Which is pissing me off. It's also especially pissing me off because I've had some moments recently that remind me that there are all sorts of uniquely stupid fuckery that we bi folks face that the Gs and Ls don't.*
To wit:
I'm sure they mean well, but I'm getting quite tired of folks acting surprised at the fact that we're being open about who we are for the adoption. I've actually had several people now wondering why we even bother telling anyone about it (one even used the "it's none of their business!" argument.)
What?
No, really. WHAT?
It makes me wonder if the same people would argue that a single gay man or lesbian ought to hide that fact in order to adopt. After all, it's not like they have a partner they'd have to squirrel away. They can just pretend to be straight, and no-one will ever know the difference.
You know, like closeted people have done for hundreds of years?
Truly, I sometimes feel like we're fucked either way. If we hide behind the privilege of being in an (ostensibly) opposite-sex marriage, we're closeted cowards, probably ashamed of who we are, and very likely actually straight people who only dabble in queer land for the express purpose of cheap sex and/or breaking gay folks' hearts. If we make a point of being out (because in our situation, we have to make the point, or we're not actually out), people assume we're just trying to be cool and edgy and to make ourselves seem like something other than the boring suburban nerds we really are. (We are boring suburban nerds. We're just boring, suburban, QUEER nerds.)
This really takes me back to 1996, and being on a Usenet group in which I was told by a couple of lesbians that if I really was interested in dating women, I wouldn't be married to a man. They basically said, in so many words, "It doesn't matter how many cunts you've had your face in. If you're married to a man, you're straight." They sincerely believed that the only reason a bi woman would choose a male partner is because she was either a coward bowing to social pressure or actually straight, and only just playing with the girls to amuse said male partner. The concept that a woman who is attracted to men just might stumble on one she likes well enough to get serious with was beyond them.
M's had similar bullshit thrown his way, too: people assuming that he's with me because he wants the whole picket-fence package, with its Convenient Auto-Closeting Feature. Also, gay men assuming that he'd be interested in some under-the-table fooling around because of course, since he's bi, that means he's a dishonest, cheating fuckhead.
Y'know what? We've been together for 17 years. Amazingly, we didn't turn straight in that time. Also amazingly, the temptation of having Hawt Gay Sex with same-sex partners didn't make us abandon each other for a lifestyle of string-free fornication, either. We've even--gasp!--given into said temptation on occasion, and whaddya know? We're still married. (Hey, the couple who plays together, stays together, amirite?)
Could we pretend to be an average suburban het couple? Sure. And I know that's what a lot of people who've never said more than five personal words to us assume we are. But people assume straight until proven guilty anyway. Hell, they continue to assume it about Famous People despite loads of evidence to the contrary unless a person has gone some talk show and said, "Why yes, Dave. I do like The Cock."
Queer is invisible unless you A) Say otherwise B) Conveniently have a visible same-sex partner or C) Ping so loud you give Big Ben an inferiority complex. Some people take advantage of this easy cloaking device because they either need to, for personal safety or other important reasons, or they're lazy and/or self-loathing. People with integrity who don't have something critical to lose, however, make a point of giving people road maps to Clueville.
As we are people of integrity, that's what we do. Frankly, I'm kind of gobsmacked that anyone who knows us would assume we'd be such shady, dishonest cretins. Or, alternately, that they'd assume that since we're married, being bi doesn't "matter" anymore, and therefore it shouldn't factor into anything we do. Y'know, because straight and gay married people never have the hots for anyone other than their spouses, either.
We are queer identified, and given my gender stuff, we're actually considerably closer to a pair of gay men than we are to Ozzie and Harriet. Do most of our neighbors and co-workers and distant relatives think we're straight? Sure. Because that's not a subject that's all that simple to bring up in a conversation about the weather, and we can't just prop up Convenient, Same-Sex Partner at the annual office party to instantly and non-confrontationally disabuse people of that notion.
But we are NOT straight, and when we have the opportunity to inform people of that, we do. Especially when said people are potentially going to be entering into a lifelong family relationship with us. We're not going to lie about being atheist or growing up poor, either, even though those things aren't readily apparent, because those things are important parts of who we are as well. I'm not interested in carving off parts of myself in order to impress people, and if I can at all avoid that, then I do. Maybe some people like the idea of pretending to be something they're not. Me, I find the whole idea abhorrent.
*I'm totally not playing More Oppressed than Thou, here. Just pointing out that "Yes, Virginia, bi people face discrimination, too." Get really damned tired of people assuming that since we can pass more easily, somehow bigoted fuckery doesn't affect us at all. Not only does it, yes, affect us, but we also get the added bonus of bigoted fuckery that's special just to us, and often comes from people who are supposedly in our same community and are supposed to be supportive. I'm happy as a clam to fight for the rights of same-sex couples to marry, even though chances are pretty good that I won't be marrying a same-sex partner anytime soon. But would these same people I'm fighting for also go to bat for me if we moved to Texas and then one or both of us got fired from a job because our boss discovered The Truth about us? We're essentially straight, so that could never happen, right?
Seriously. Fuck that.
To wit:
I'm sure they mean well, but I'm getting quite tired of folks acting surprised at the fact that we're being open about who we are for the adoption. I've actually had several people now wondering why we even bother telling anyone about it (one even used the "it's none of their business!" argument.)
What?
No, really. WHAT?
It makes me wonder if the same people would argue that a single gay man or lesbian ought to hide that fact in order to adopt. After all, it's not like they have a partner they'd have to squirrel away. They can just pretend to be straight, and no-one will ever know the difference.
You know, like closeted people have done for hundreds of years?
Truly, I sometimes feel like we're fucked either way. If we hide behind the privilege of being in an (ostensibly) opposite-sex marriage, we're closeted cowards, probably ashamed of who we are, and very likely actually straight people who only dabble in queer land for the express purpose of cheap sex and/or breaking gay folks' hearts. If we make a point of being out (because in our situation, we have to make the point, or we're not actually out), people assume we're just trying to be cool and edgy and to make ourselves seem like something other than the boring suburban nerds we really are. (We are boring suburban nerds. We're just boring, suburban, QUEER nerds.)
This really takes me back to 1996, and being on a Usenet group in which I was told by a couple of lesbians that if I really was interested in dating women, I wouldn't be married to a man. They basically said, in so many words, "It doesn't matter how many cunts you've had your face in. If you're married to a man, you're straight." They sincerely believed that the only reason a bi woman would choose a male partner is because she was either a coward bowing to social pressure or actually straight, and only just playing with the girls to amuse said male partner. The concept that a woman who is attracted to men just might stumble on one she likes well enough to get serious with was beyond them.
M's had similar bullshit thrown his way, too: people assuming that he's with me because he wants the whole picket-fence package, with its Convenient Auto-Closeting Feature. Also, gay men assuming that he'd be interested in some under-the-table fooling around because of course, since he's bi, that means he's a dishonest, cheating fuckhead.
Y'know what? We've been together for 17 years. Amazingly, we didn't turn straight in that time. Also amazingly, the temptation of having Hawt Gay Sex with same-sex partners didn't make us abandon each other for a lifestyle of string-free fornication, either. We've even--gasp!--given into said temptation on occasion, and whaddya know? We're still married. (Hey, the couple who plays together, stays together, amirite?)
Could we pretend to be an average suburban het couple? Sure. And I know that's what a lot of people who've never said more than five personal words to us assume we are. But people assume straight until proven guilty anyway. Hell, they continue to assume it about Famous People despite loads of evidence to the contrary unless a person has gone some talk show and said, "Why yes, Dave. I do like The Cock."
Queer is invisible unless you A) Say otherwise B) Conveniently have a visible same-sex partner or C) Ping so loud you give Big Ben an inferiority complex. Some people take advantage of this easy cloaking device because they either need to, for personal safety or other important reasons, or they're lazy and/or self-loathing. People with integrity who don't have something critical to lose, however, make a point of giving people road maps to Clueville.
As we are people of integrity, that's what we do. Frankly, I'm kind of gobsmacked that anyone who knows us would assume we'd be such shady, dishonest cretins. Or, alternately, that they'd assume that since we're married, being bi doesn't "matter" anymore, and therefore it shouldn't factor into anything we do. Y'know, because straight and gay married people never have the hots for anyone other than their spouses, either.
We are queer identified, and given my gender stuff, we're actually considerably closer to a pair of gay men than we are to Ozzie and Harriet. Do most of our neighbors and co-workers and distant relatives think we're straight? Sure. Because that's not a subject that's all that simple to bring up in a conversation about the weather, and we can't just prop up Convenient, Same-Sex Partner at the annual office party to instantly and non-confrontationally disabuse people of that notion.
But we are NOT straight, and when we have the opportunity to inform people of that, we do. Especially when said people are potentially going to be entering into a lifelong family relationship with us. We're not going to lie about being atheist or growing up poor, either, even though those things aren't readily apparent, because those things are important parts of who we are as well. I'm not interested in carving off parts of myself in order to impress people, and if I can at all avoid that, then I do. Maybe some people like the idea of pretending to be something they're not. Me, I find the whole idea abhorrent.
*I'm totally not playing More Oppressed than Thou, here. Just pointing out that "Yes, Virginia, bi people face discrimination, too." Get really damned tired of people assuming that since we can pass more easily, somehow bigoted fuckery doesn't affect us at all. Not only does it, yes, affect us, but we also get the added bonus of bigoted fuckery that's special just to us, and often comes from people who are supposedly in our same community and are supposed to be supportive. I'm happy as a clam to fight for the rights of same-sex couples to marry, even though chances are pretty good that I won't be marrying a same-sex partner anytime soon. But would these same people I'm fighting for also go to bat for me if we moved to Texas and then one or both of us got fired from a job because our boss discovered The Truth about us? We're essentially straight, so that could never happen, right?
Seriously. Fuck that.