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?

Let's Talk About Kim's Butt Some More

It seems like whenever female celebrities take nude photos, privately or publicly, the world simply loses their minds and gets their cotton knickers all in a bunch. Female nudes are fabulous and feminist. However, I believe Kim Kardashian's recent nude photo shoot is about a little bit more than nudity and there are some aspects of the photos and the discussions around them that I don't agree with. So for my official contribution to the great Kim K debate, I offer what I think her nude photo shoot IS and IS NOT about.

1. It's NOT about motherhood

This has got to be the most ignorant argument that I've seen against Kim and her photos. People are freaking out because she's a mother and being a mother apparently means you automatically get stripped of all sexuality and never get to be viewed in a sexual way ever again. Yo, like how do you think she became a mother? This wild virgin-mother complex that we enforce on women is absurd. Mothers are supposed to be viewed as virginly. THAT IS NOT BIOLOGICALLY POSSIBLE YOU TWATS.

And for the people that argue this is going to be detrimental and a bad influence on North West, she is going to grow up and after the horrific experience of 6th grade sex ed, she will know that her mother in fact DOES have a vagina and HAS had intercourse and IS a sexual individual. SHOCKER. Wow maybe this child will grow up and not be weirdly taboo and shy about sex, maybe she will be confident with her sexuality and not shame other girls for doing the same.

This woman is celebrating her body which looks bitchin after having a child. Get over it.

2. It's NOT about money

There's a lot of Twitter shade being thrown that is defending Kim because she got paid to do this nude photo shoot...but in doing so, these Twitter-shade-throwers are also shaming other women that don't get paid for nudes. They are shaming women that send nudes to significant others, that take them for themselves, that have them on their personal phone for any personal reason and get personally violated when they're hacked...

On the flip side, there are people shaming Kim for "selling her body" and for the love of all that is holy, are we really equating nude photo shoots to slavery or serfdom? Kim has total autonomy over her body and this is what she chooses to do with it. It probably is empowering for her. No one gives a rat's ass if it's not empowering for you, as well.

No one SELLS their body. Not prostitutes. Not strippers. No one. Women sell their time, their abilities, their experience, their aesthetic. But there is never a moment that a women is selling her body...unless it's like black market organ stuff?

3. IS about body policing

Everyone needs to get over the seemingly ~*~radddical~*~ idea that women should have complete right over their own body. I'm not advocating for our rights to go streaking in children's parks in broad day light, but I will have my right to take nudes without my integrity or character questioned.

Society sexualizes every aspect of women in songs, advertising, movies, etc. but the second a woman does it to herself all bigoted-narrow-minded-shit hits the fan. A woman showing skin on her own or for herself is not the automatic green light to start judging her character or talent. Repeat after me: "Skin =/= character". And if you don't believe that then god have mercy on your soul because your are directly trying to police the way women expose or cover their bodies and directly stating that a woman's worth is always tied to her body and there is a special hell in the 9th circle of Dante's Inferno for you, my friend.

Let a lady be naked. It's just skin. It's just a booty. Stop trying to control what women do with their bodies because it makes your conservative pathetic little mind uncomfortable.

4. IS about race

So yes, one of Kim's photos was recycled from a photo in a book titled "Jungle Fever" and reeks of a history of turning black women into sexual objects, which is all very problematic and makes everyone uncomfortable.

But check it out, we have 2 Live Crew and Sir Mix-a-Lot rapping about large butts on black women in the very early 90s. The social acceptance and sexual praise for large butts came straight from rap culture and was all in reference to black women. So Kim is perpetuating the fetishization of black women and reducing black women to body parts (specifically the booty) much like rappers do. Also, one could argue that it's slight cultural appropriation because Kim is Armenian American with no black heritage.

So cool, a not-black-woman does a border-line racist photo shoot that highlights her majestic ass. Fine. But what happens when ACTUAL black women do this? Remember Nicki Minaj's Anaconda single cover? Nicki, who is Afro-Trinidadian, who is choosing to have control over how her body and booty is viewed, got shamed and called trashy.  Whereas, when Kim poses with quirky faces so it's all fun and cute rather than shamed for being "trashy". So yeah, this is about race.

So next time you see some consenting nudes in the web-o-sphere, if it's not racist, fucking praise that ish! Nothing else. Just say "Glory hallelujah here's another confident woman who is comfortable in her body and with her sexuality and even if I'm not super comfortable in le nude, I respect her for doing her, in Jesus name, amen!"