Navigating My Femininity Through My First Gay Relationship

Yooo so the cat's out of the closet, I'm dating a girl. She's super rad and gorgeous and smells a lot better than any guy I've ever met. I'm extremely happy and feel more authentically myself. I've known I was attracted to girls for a long time but I've never actually been in a relationship with one. I definitely don't believe that you have to be in a relationship with or hook up with someone of a different gender to confirm that you're queer, but it can definitely be a very validating experience. It's like damn, I knew I was right with this whole liking girls thing this is fucking awesome.

However, I did go through a slight identity crisis in regards to my femininity, not my sexuality, when I first starting dating this said radical babe. All of a sudden when I started visibly living a queer life and following the gay agenda that they give you upon coming out, I felt more closely tied to the queer community and felt the need to constantly present myself as queer, whatever the hell that actually means.

So I'd like to share some of the things that I initially worried about, things I learned, and different view points I acquired when I began to think about, and constantly barrage my girlfriend with questions about, what my femininity means within a gay relationship.

1. I worried about appearing too feminine 

I wear a decent amount of makeup on a regular basis. I'm a fan of a nice, thick winged eyeliner. Most days I look like modern Elvira minus the cleavage solely because I lack a steady enough hand to master a dainty, subtle winged eye look. I didn't think much about it until I started openly identifying as bi and even more so when I started my first relationship with another girl. I had this idea that my face full of makeup was an glaring indicator that I was straight, or at least a really terrible gay girl.  I worried my girlfriend would be embarrassed to be seen with me because I didn't look gay. I worried she wouldn't be attracted to me because I looked too straight. I had this idea that makeup was equal to traditional femininity which was the opposite of gay. And although I new better than to judge people's sexuality based on their gender expression, I couldn't help but judge myself.

So I had to stop a reassess what my expression of femininity meant to me and how it played into my sexuality. Turns out the two are completely unrelated. WOW IMAGINE THAT! Just because someone chooses to express themselves in a traditionally feminine way doesn't mean they're straight or even that they're a woman. So hell with it! I'll continue to rock all my makeup because I feel comfortable in it and if someone wants to read me as straight then so be it, I have a baller girlfriend at home waiting for me who happens to think I'm attractive as hell with or without makeup.

2. I had to rethink what my role was during sex 

I grew up sneakily reading the sex tips of Cosmo when my mom and I went to the salon. Each time she turned to talk to me I'd slyly flip the page and make it look like I had been staring at an ad for botox for the last 20 minutes. But from those snippets I learned tips on ways to perform during heterosexual sex. And I will tell you what I learned from all of that that is applicable to my life now - fucking nothing. There's no Cosmo articles titled "100 Ways to Drive Your Lesbian Lover Crazy in Bed" and my parents never had to force me to close my eyes during family movie night because two chicks were going at it. Because that literally was never part of a plot of any movie or TV show.

So I basically went into my first gay relationship having zero concept of what to do sexually because there's not really a plethora of media or popular culture for young LGBTQ kids to garner some sense of sex as it applies to their sexuality. So I had to toss the tricks and positions I had learned to please men and really, start paying attention to my partner. How the hell else am I supposed to learn short of reading the Kama Sutra and binge watching The L Word? So my position, literally and metaphorically, as a female during a sexual encounter has changed because there's no longer a man involved. And thank god for that.

3. I've even started to reconsider my ideas of motherhood

Even though I knew I liked girls and I knew I could see myself in a long term relationship with one, somehow pregnancy in a gay relationship didn't cross my mind until now? And I mean this in a very hypothetical, futuristic sense so please, don't worry mom. It wasn't the part about loving a girl or marrying a girl that I thought about, it was the idea of who the hell carries the baby?

I am 1,000% down to have kids. I feel an inexplicable need to raise little feminist children who defy the gender binary and are aware of institutionalized privilege by the age of 3. I consider pregnancy to be a really radical aspect of femininity and womanhood for some people. I personally think carrying a child is a big milestone in my own progress of womanhood. So the hypothetical thought of my female partner doing that instead kind of made me insecure? I wasn't completely positive that if my partner were the only one to be able to carry our child, or even if she was the first to carry a child of ours, that I would feel secure in my womanhood and not feel inadequate.

I'm still working this one out in my mind but I'm definitely sure that when and if the time comes I'll be secure enough because I really shouldn't parent a child if I'm not. So....to be continued on this section. Like 10+ years from now.

So basically, girls are fan-freaking-tanstic. I love being one, I love dating one, I love surrounding myself with them at my job and downtown as a tactic to avoid ever having to talk to, or even acknowledge, self-entitled jackoffs at the bars. The cool thing about having so many strong, empowered women in my life is that I'm constantly contemplating what it means for me to be a woman and what my femininity encompasses. And I've realized those things are a pretty fluid part of me. My womanhood and femininity kind of just adapt and and adjust based on wherever I happen to be in life and that's how gender and gender expression should be, my friends.

Ps. I realize that in this post I use the terms bi, gay, and queer synonymously. That's because I'm comfortable identifying as all of them. As much as I don't want to promote bi erasure, it's simply more natural for me not to use that term 100% of the time. Different strokes for different folks, jah feel?

Petition to Ban the Phrase "Suck My Dick"

I'll be the first to admit that when I'm offended or there happens to be an inordinate amount of terrible drivers on the road that day, I'll scream "suck my dick!" or more eloquently "suck my metaphorical dick!" at the passing drivers while spilling coffee on my lap and probably blowing out a vocal cord. Such are my daily mornings.

I'm not so much advocating for the complete ban of this phrase as I am challenging you all to think of where it comes from and what its implications are. I've managed to eradicate most slurs from my vocabulary but I don't think I'm helping oppress any group by telling them to perform oral copulation on me? The phrase is problematic and gross as hell, but I don't think it's perpetuating negative stereotypes of any marginalized group.

Still, I think we should always meditate on aspects of popular culture, media, and cultural norms and really think about how they could be perpetuating rape, sexism, or unbalanced power dynamics. Thus said, let an almost-graduated English major take you on the journey of critical thinking and over-interpreting that her next 50 years of student loan debt has taught her.

Here are my issues with the phrase "suck my dick" or more known in the texting world of teens in the mid 2000s as "smd":

1. IT'S NOT CONSENSUAL. 

What part of screaming "suck my dick" at someone like an unhinged lunatic promotes consent? Granted people usually don't literally want someone else to go down on them, but the phrase still promotes/is reminiscent of an interaction that is in no way consensual. It's not a question, it's a demand. It's usually said in anger or as a way to rebound from a particularly offensive burn from one of your bros - both of which are situations that rarely lead to a healthy, consensual, mutually enthusiastic sexual encounter.

Our society already has such an issue of creating a culture of consent, why let things that promote rape continue at all?  Whenever I go to present to classes and clubs about consent, the main concern of guys is that ASKING THE QUESTION WILL KILL THE MOOD. Instead I feel like guys are more likely to vocalize their desire to have sex, and offer their partner an opportunity to chime in with a yay or nay, by stating "let's have sex". Not a question, but a demand/order said in a slightly polite way. Okay yay for you for being vocal and at least saying something instead of attempting to mind read like an asshole. But still, a QUESTION is so. much. better. than a unopened statement.

So I promote "would you like to suck my dick?" over "suck my dick" because let's include consent even in our insults, people.

2. It promotes a power imbalance and position of subordination on one person's place. 

If you've ever watched porn simply for research purposes on power dynamics between heterosexual couples, fetishization of races/sexualities, and rape culture, (am I the only one that does this?), then you'll see that usually heterosexual dick sucking presented in porn is highly aggressive, slightly abusive, and promotes the subordination of the woman.

I'll ask you to picture a scene in your head (if my little brother is reading this, then you can stop here buddy). One person is usually in a position of weakness, lower status, and degradation. Like physically. Unless the man's dick is on their head, these two parties are not equal. Also, a lot of porn has this creepy use of oral copulation on males as a form of punishment for women? It's used to put "dirty sluts" in their place and even to turn lesbians straight. Whatever the homophobic, sexist plot of the porno might be, 99.9% of the time it promotes the idea of women in a place of subordination and really, non consensual subordination.

So unless we turn the phrase "suck my dick" into "hey, wanna go down on me? and then would you want me to go down on you? are we both enthusiastically down for this equal sexual encounter?" then I think we should just avoid it all together.

3. I don't understand everyone's weird fascination with using genitalia as insults. 

I'm all about talking about genitalia. It should not be a taboo subject, we should be openly talking about sex and our bodies. In fact, I'm a proud new owner of a self-gynecology zine so if you see me on campus expect me to drop some random knowledge about how your mucus indicates your level of fertility on you.

Anyways...I don't understand people's fascination with calling each other a "dick" or "pussy" as if our own anatomy was so offensive and demeaning? You wanna call your bro a pussy for not butt chugging another shot? A pussy birthed your hideous fat face which takes a lot more strength than you sticking to your rigid ideas of hypermasculinity, so sit down and think about that for a minute.

I also think it can be harmful to focus so much on genitalia as an indicator of gender and power. You say "suck my dick" and you're promoting the idea of a male exerting power over another. That's problematic for the trans community because not all men have dicks, not all people that have dicks are men, AND trans individuals often have some body dysmorphia. They might be uncomfortable with parts of their body that don't align with their gender or they may not acknowledge those parts of their body anymore. The image of a penis should not be associated with men or power.

All in all the phrase is pretty harmless. But I'm still an advocate of constantly critically thinking about your environment and the subtle ways in which systemic oppression manifests itself within our culture. So next time you tell your bro to suck your dick as a defense mechanism for your wounded ego ask yourself, "Do I really want them to suck my dick? If I did, shouldn't I ask for consent? If not, what am I implying? Does that implication suggest I have power in that situation? What consequences does that have for my mindset towards women, sex, and gender?" Don't just blurt shit out because you're too dull minded and unoriginal to come up with any unique and halfway intelligent comebacks. Think about the things you say because they matter.