I've definitely gotten into the habit of answering the birth control question with LESBIANISM. I AM USING LESBIANISM TO PREVENT PREGNANCY. IT IS 100% EFFECTIVE. I suspect there may be a note in my file: Will Not Pee In The Cup.
It's odd, because at school I am both Out and Not Out - I don't talk about it in class, because a) I teach in a relatively conservative district and b) my desire to discuss my sexuality during what should be a lesson on the pluperfect is basically nil...but I'm out to my GSA kids, so it's not like it's a state secret. I actually ran into a student at a school event last week, and I'm pretty sure she had just realized (or possibly realized while we were talking) that I'm marrying a woman. Sudden attack of ambiguous pronouns! Fun for everybody
( ... )
(I find that wedding planning stuff is helpful, actually - people know how to talk about weddings, usually! Although my coworkers were extremely curious about which of us had asked the other. WHAT DO YOU MEAN, NEITHER OF YOU IS THE MAN?)
For some reason, the first thing we get is "Who does the cooking?" People don't even blink at the wedding thing. Maybe they assume she asked.
Sadly, having a kid sort of solidifies in peoples minds which one is the man. It's the one who didn't give birth! (I have no idea how they process the couples where neither one did. Or both did. Or where the one who stays home with the kid is the one who didn't give birth. Other people's heads: confusing and confused.)
Man, the Ambiguous Pronoun Attacks! I had forgotten about those.
I get the "are you sisters?" all the time. And got the "Are you twins?" once, too.
(I also get salesfolks in drug stores telling me cheerfully where a certain thing is, as we pass each other in the aisle. The first time this happened, I was confused. Nowadays, I grin mildly and tell Calluna about it, since she was the one looking for The Specific Thing.)
Since we don't look like each other (other than brown hair and being fat (but different shaped), the twins thing baffled me intensely the first time it happened.
I have to say, I love "That's nice, where's the milk" A LOT.
(And yeah. Constant process, with no right response. Even if your brain turns off, you are unlikely to create An Awful Response, I promise.)
"Are you twins?" is the most inexplicable. I get that when people are asking if we're sisters, what they're saying is that we seem really close -- we finish each other's sentences, we inflect our speech the same way, we know all the answers. But twins? Shouldn't we -- look alike?
Only if you're monozygotic twins! And even then, it's pretty common that 'identical' twins don't look completely identical, due to anything from them being in different positions in the womb and potentially getting different nutrients before birth, to the environmental and social factors after birth. (Sorry, I did a lot of reading up on this a few fandoms back.)
But I do agree that the assumption that two people who seem close are siblings is weird to me. But then, my brother and I looked nothing alike when we were in our teens and were often mistaken for one another's dates when we were out. To this day, he's so explicit about letting any women he meets know that I am his sister that it gets a little awkward. "This is my sister. SISTER. We're not dating at all! We've never even kissed!! Hahaaa... So, can I buy you a drink?"
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It's odd, because at school I am both Out and Not Out - I don't talk about it in class, because a) I teach in a relatively conservative district and b) my desire to discuss my sexuality during what should be a lesson on the pluperfect is basically nil...but I'm out to my GSA kids, so it's not like it's a state secret. I actually ran into a student at a school event last week, and I'm pretty sure she had just realized (or possibly realized while we were talking) that I'm marrying a woman. Sudden attack of ambiguous pronouns! Fun for everybody ( ... )
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For some reason, the first thing we get is "Who does the cooking?" People don't even blink at the wedding thing. Maybe they assume she asked.
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Man, the Ambiguous Pronoun Attacks! I had forgotten about those.
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(I also get salesfolks in drug stores telling me cheerfully where a certain thing is, as we pass each other in the aisle. The first time this happened, I was confused. Nowadays, I grin mildly and tell Calluna about it, since she was the one looking for The Specific Thing.)
Since we don't look like each other (other than brown hair and being fat (but different shaped), the twins thing baffled me intensely the first time it happened.
I have to say, I love "That's nice, where's the milk" A LOT.
(And yeah. Constant process, with no right response. Even if your brain turns off, you are unlikely to create An Awful Response, I promise.)
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But I do agree that the assumption that two people who seem close are siblings is weird to me. But then, my brother and I looked nothing alike when we were in our teens and were often mistaken for one another's dates when we were out. To this day, he's so explicit about letting any women he meets know that I am his sister that it gets a little awkward. "This is my sister. SISTER. We're not dating at all! We've never even kissed!! Hahaaa... So, can I buy you a drink?"
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... I have to say, I am really glad that Lee and I are never likely to get "are you sisters?"
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"What is your form of birth control?"
"Lesbianism."
"Are you happy with it?"
"Oh, *yes*!"
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