It's a hard lesson, but you've got to stop giving a shit.
Kelly,
I am probably due a big proverbial slap in the face (not a real slap, I don't want you to ruin the money-maker), but I thought I would write anyway to get someone else's opinion. This is a long one, bear with me.
I am in college, and have immersed myself in a sub-culture that previously I had never experienced before. I am involved with organizations where lesbianism is the norm, and people who are straight are actually the minority. I realized that I had some same-sex attractions early in college, and acted on them, but I know deep down that I have an honest attraction to both sexes. I'm bisexual, and I am coming to terms with that fact and have actually started coming out as bisexual to my friends at school and even my mother, which didn't go over very well.
My mother says that I am 'on the island,' meaning that because I am in a social group where this is the norm, I am manifesting these feelings so that I will belong. I disagree, but I do wonder sometimes if I hadn't found this group to be around would I have even contemplated feelings towards other women? I am not sure. The age-old argument...is it nature, or nurture?
I have been dating another woman for almost two years now. At about the half-way point I had an extended stint back home, with my racist, homophobic, sexist family and felt so unbelievably overwhelmed with guilt and uncertainty that I broke up with my girlfriend because I felt like I was doing something wrong. I started dating this guy, to do what I was 'supposed to do,' but ended up being completely and utterly miserable without my girl. I ended up breaking up with the guy, and got back together with her, and we have been so happy since--our relationship is actually stronger now that we had that hard time. But sometimes I get waves of this feeling of...wrongness again and I am afraid that I am going to succumb to the pressures I feel from my family and from society in general. I don't really know what to do.
And when I'm not fighting off this guilt, I am rather solid on my ideas about bisexuality and what it means to me. (I really go from one end of the spectrum to the other about this whole thing, its unnerving, really.) I know in my heart that it is possible to love both men and women, even if you decide to spend the rest of your life with one or the other. It pisses me off to no end when people tell me that I am just in a phase, or that I'm really a lesbian, but I'm afraid to admit it, or that I'm promiscuous and don't have the ability or the will-power to settle down because I'll be constantly wanting the opposite of what I have. And surprisingly, I get the most slack from gay people! I get upset when they call me a lesbian, because that isn't who I am. Am I wrong for feeling this way? Should I really care so much about a label? I just feel so invisible because when I walk down the street and I am with a woman who is obviously gay, people assume that I am a lesbian, and when I am with a man, people assume that I am straight...and neither of those are who I am or how I identify myself. I can't help but get angry when people thrust their opinions and views on me and tell me how I feel and how I don't feel. Should I just grin and bear it or actually tell these people to shove it....or does it matter? People tell me it is a matter of semantics, that its just a word, a label, but we as a society are so keen on labeling everyone and everything that I feel like it is just ingrained in me to be indignant that people are not seeing me the way that I see myself...that I am being portrayed in an incorrect or false light.
Wow, this is long. As you can tell I have a lot going on and need some frank advice. Please help?
Thanks,
Bigrrrl
Heya Grrl,
Sounds to me like you know exactly what you want and what makes you happy, right up until the moment some other asshole questions you. I think maybe you should stop talking to assholes. It's nobody's business but your own what you like having done to your vajayjay and by whom. Anyone who disagrees can go fuck themselves, family included.
As far as labels go, they are a product of the society we live in and I'm sorry that they make you feel so bad. There's not a damn thing you can do about them. People are cattle who, in order to not have to think harder about anything than they absolutely have to, will boil everything they see into one or two simple words, then forget about it entirely. Girl and Girl holding hands on street = lesbians. After that, I promise you they don't even care. They won't go home and tell their family over dinner "I saw some dykes walking down the boulevard this afternoon, they're taking over our fine city!"
Ultimately, all you're going to do by worrying about people forcing their labels onto you is be a worried mess. Knock it off.
-KD
I am probably due a big proverbial slap in the face (not a real slap, I don't want you to ruin the money-maker), but I thought I would write anyway to get someone else's opinion. This is a long one, bear with me.
I am in college, and have immersed myself in a sub-culture that previously I had never experienced before. I am involved with organizations where lesbianism is the norm, and people who are straight are actually the minority. I realized that I had some same-sex attractions early in college, and acted on them, but I know deep down that I have an honest attraction to both sexes. I'm bisexual, and I am coming to terms with that fact and have actually started coming out as bisexual to my friends at school and even my mother, which didn't go over very well.
My mother says that I am 'on the island,' meaning that because I am in a social group where this is the norm, I am manifesting these feelings so that I will belong. I disagree, but I do wonder sometimes if I hadn't found this group to be around would I have even contemplated feelings towards other women? I am not sure. The age-old argument...is it nature, or nurture?
I have been dating another woman for almost two years now. At about the half-way point I had an extended stint back home, with my racist, homophobic, sexist family and felt so unbelievably overwhelmed with guilt and uncertainty that I broke up with my girlfriend because I felt like I was doing something wrong. I started dating this guy, to do what I was 'supposed to do,' but ended up being completely and utterly miserable without my girl. I ended up breaking up with the guy, and got back together with her, and we have been so happy since--our relationship is actually stronger now that we had that hard time. But sometimes I get waves of this feeling of...wrongness again and I am afraid that I am going to succumb to the pressures I feel from my family and from society in general. I don't really know what to do.
And when I'm not fighting off this guilt, I am rather solid on my ideas about bisexuality and what it means to me. (I really go from one end of the spectrum to the other about this whole thing, its unnerving, really.) I know in my heart that it is possible to love both men and women, even if you decide to spend the rest of your life with one or the other. It pisses me off to no end when people tell me that I am just in a phase, or that I'm really a lesbian, but I'm afraid to admit it, or that I'm promiscuous and don't have the ability or the will-power to settle down because I'll be constantly wanting the opposite of what I have. And surprisingly, I get the most slack from gay people! I get upset when they call me a lesbian, because that isn't who I am. Am I wrong for feeling this way? Should I really care so much about a label? I just feel so invisible because when I walk down the street and I am with a woman who is obviously gay, people assume that I am a lesbian, and when I am with a man, people assume that I am straight...and neither of those are who I am or how I identify myself. I can't help but get angry when people thrust their opinions and views on me and tell me how I feel and how I don't feel. Should I just grin and bear it or actually tell these people to shove it....or does it matter? People tell me it is a matter of semantics, that its just a word, a label, but we as a society are so keen on labeling everyone and everything that I feel like it is just ingrained in me to be indignant that people are not seeing me the way that I see myself...that I am being portrayed in an incorrect or false light.
Wow, this is long. As you can tell I have a lot going on and need some frank advice. Please help?
Thanks,
Bigrrrl
Heya Grrl,
Sounds to me like you know exactly what you want and what makes you happy, right up until the moment some other asshole questions you. I think maybe you should stop talking to assholes. It's nobody's business but your own what you like having done to your vajayjay and by whom. Anyone who disagrees can go fuck themselves, family included.
As far as labels go, they are a product of the society we live in and I'm sorry that they make you feel so bad. There's not a damn thing you can do about them. People are cattle who, in order to not have to think harder about anything than they absolutely have to, will boil everything they see into one or two simple words, then forget about it entirely. Girl and Girl holding hands on street = lesbians. After that, I promise you they don't even care. They won't go home and tell their family over dinner "I saw some dykes walking down the boulevard this afternoon, they're taking over our fine city!"
Ultimately, all you're going to do by worrying about people forcing their labels onto you is be a worried mess. Knock it off.
-KD