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?