Where I Live Now
dracunculus recently posted about "coming out" as bisexual when you're a married woman. She's not the first I've heard say that getting married to a man is a re-closeting that needs to explicitly be undone.
So you have the heterosexually-married women who aren't straight. And all the way at the end of that spectrum is JoAnn Loulan.
Let me back up a little here. After the dust settled from meeting AQ, I realized that I was gonna be a lesbian. I immediately set off to do some research on the subject, so I could be a lesbian properly. Two of the first books I bought were JoAnn Loulan's Lesbian Sex and Lesbian Passion. I dutifully read them cover to cover and felt myself well-prepared for the marital bed my Sapphic future.
JoAnn Loulan was a reasonably big figure in the lesbian-sexuality world. A while ago, she fell in love and began a committed relationship with a man, thus sending waves of grief and horror through the lesbosphere.
I'm the last person to have a problem with someone for suddenly falling in love with the wrong gender. I do have a problem with this: Ms Loulan identifies herself not as the obvious choice of "bisexual", not with the currently-descriptive "straight" but with the label "lesbian". She insists that she doesn't love men, it's just this man.
Now, if I were a fella, I'd be pretty pissed off by that statement. What is he supposed to say, omg thank you for forgiving me my maleness? I would be similarly unimpressed by a woman in a relationship with another woman who firmly identifies as straight, except for {insert name of love-object}.
The odd part is that the above statement may more or less describe both me and AQ. She was entirely straight before she met me, and I was mostly straight, with all of my meaningful passionate relationships having been with men. But I would never claim, right now, to be a straight woman in a gay relationship. It seems so disrespectful to cordon off such a big part of your partner and say what I love is not that.
In tossing over these things in my mind, I found a metaphor that is working well for me.
The Land of Bi
I was born in the Land of Bi. I am a native of that country. I grew up expecting that, like most residents of the Land of Bi, I would eventually move to Straightville and make a life there.
Instead, ten years ago I moved to Lesbia. I like it here. It was a little strange at first, but the longer I spend here, the more it seems like home. Most people assume that I'm a native, but I know that I am not. Does it really matter, though? This is where I am spending the rest of my life. My fate is bound to that of the other Lesbyites, because this where I am, and this is where I will be.
My best friend is also from the Land of Bi, but she moved to Straightville. She will also always be an invisible immigrant, despite the fact that Straightville is where she's set up her home.
JoAnn Loulan moved from Lesbia to Straightville, and is now protesting that she really belongs in Lesbia, she doesn't much like it there in Straightville at all, the food is weird and the people smell funny, and no she doesn't want to move either, and why must people persist on assuming that she's a citizen of Straightville just because she lives there?
So here's to all the immigrants who embrace their new countries but also don't forget where they've come from, to all the natives who do not assume that everyone around them is also native-born, and to the loves that cause us to cross borders and make homes in lands we never imagined.