lgBtqia

          My Fruity Pebbles went flaccid and my coffee tepid as my roommate recounted his previous evening’s threesome. A threesome with a couple that just recently got engaged; a self-identifying heterosexual couple and a self-identifying bisexual male. 

          “I didn’t even really touch her. I mean, we made out and I massaged her breasts, but the whole time we were both focused on him.”

          “Wait, go back. How do you know these people?”

          “I don’t, that’s the crazy thing. He was cruising me at Pride. I thought she was just his fag-hag.”

          For its blinding misogyny, not homophobic nature, I shuddered at this terminology: “fag-hag.” I rattled off the checklist: alcohol, psychotropic substances and fatigue were all absent from this experience; so he recalled. The better part of my judgement says that if a twenty-something self-identifying heterosexual male has sexual relations with another twenty-something anatomical male then all claims to heterosexuality must be relinquished (especially when external forces can’t be blamed later on for the sexual rendezvous). Staring down at my gummy soup I smiled: the dawn of the bisexual is upon us. 

          As a confused adolescent I secretly self identified as a bisexual male for the better part of a year, long before I came out at 16. In my transition period between blithely accepting what society told me to be (heterosexual) and then finding my own voice, I waded/waited in the bisexual swamps. At 13, I was going steady with a wonderful self-identifying heterosexual female while simultaneously held captive by the sights, sounds, smells and touch in the locker-room. Discovering my sexuality wasn’t abrasive and short lived, there was a fluidity and incubation period: one day I’d fantasize about men, the next women. As male arousal increased in frequency and female fantasies slowly subsided, my self identification as a bisexual dissipated and morphed into homosexual.

          Society asserts this internment of sexual exploration as “curiosity” and “confusion” yet fails to define the experience as something qualifiable to produce a long lasting identity. As if to say, bisexuality is a phase or transition period between the constructed sexual binary: hetero versus homo. Quite possibly bisexuality is a transition period, but for how long? Months? Years? Decades? A life time? Our culture puts limits on this evolution, deciding that who this once self-identified bisexual dates/marries/engages will solidify their sexuality. Instead of allowing sexuality to be fluid and gray, the dominant groups our of society project this confusion onto the individual; disowning any sense of other. In reality, the dominant groups are confused because they can’t define, categorize or pigeonhole those that they desire to control and marginalize. 

          Last night I felt a calling to re-watch Craig Lucas’ “The Dying Gaul.” The climatic confrontation between the married male film producer and male screenwriter he was having an affair with still echos this afternoon: 

                    I’m sorry I don’t live up to your standards, trouble is       I’m bisexual; I like both. You want the truth, but-You’re               lucky to be all one thing. I’m not. I’m not hiding in my                 marriage, I need my marriage...and not just for business              reasons, Jesus Christ, half of Hollywood is out of the fucking      closet, they’re all on the cover of magazines, proclaiming their      pride, it’s not the old days... 

     - “The Dying Gaul” by Craig Lucas

Both the homosexual male and the heterosexual female have isolated the producer’s sexuality to a state of confusion and mistrust; granted he was cheating on his wife...

          So, here is an engaged male and female seeking the sexual experiences of a third party; my male roommate. There is immense beauty in their acceptance of exploration and fluidity of sex and sexuality: 

          “It was just so chill. Even this morning we had coffee in bed and all agreed we should do it again sometime.”

lg btqia

          “I have a phantom vagina.” 

          “No, you don’t.” 

I picked up a girlfriend at her house to catch up after my being away on vacation. I was seeking guidance as to whether I should label this post “lgbTqia” or lgbtQia” and a whole other conversation exploded in Washington Square Park. I responded:  

          “Yes, I do! It’s like I have a vagina on the inside. Well, not really, but it lies deep within my feelings of gender and sexuality.”

         “But, that doesn’t make sense. You never had a vagina to begin with. Amputee patients only have the sensation of phantom pains because of damaged nerve endings. You’ve never had a vagina.”

          “Isn’t it up to four week in the womb we are all anatomically female? Maybe my nerve endings never fully developed?”

“How in the world can you have phantom vagina?!”

I’ve had this conversation before and it’s by this point that inquisitive types start playing a mildly offensive, yet blatantly ignorant, rendition of $20,000 Pyramid: 

Me: “Trans...”

Contestant #1: “Transvestite”

Me: “Trans...”

Contestant #2: “Transexual”

Me: “Trans...”

Contestant #3: “Tranny”

Me: “Okay, this conversation is over.”

         But, the conversation is not really over, is it? America seems stuck on habitual binaries: male/female, rich/poor, white/black, Abrahamic Religions/other, educated/illiterate, healthy/sick, conservative/liberal- yet we know there is a middle ground, however people choose not to talk about it. The sense of “otherness” has been delegated second-class status. We have all read the news concerning a black female who is liberal, illiterate, sick and on welfare (eg: President Ronald Reagan’s infamous “Welfare Queen” scare tactic in the 1980s). I’ve always been under the assumption that second class meant you were second-to...“something.” I understand and deeply oppose racial minorities being deemed second class citizens by racial status. However, within the minorities (plural), who is in the majority? There is always another -other- second class (and they say America doesn’t have a caste system...). 

          I get confused when people call African Americans/Black people/Africaribiens (however you choose -to be all inclusive- to define the racial majority in the Equal Rights Movement) second class citizens, because, as a culture we have had a major racial discussion in the 1960s (granted, it’s far from over). Where and when was our Chineese-American discussion? Iraqi-American discussion? Latino discussion? There is a third class status to the white/rich/Christian/healthy/educated/conservative/male and second class to an iconoclastic dialectic of a minority; in this case: African Americans.   

          Quick, name three prolific leaders of any racial minority equal rights movement in America. Can they trace their heritage back to Afghanistan, U.S.S.R, India? Under the assumption that you answered “Martin Luther King Jr.”, “Malcolm X”, “Rosa Parks” or “Medgar Evers” it’s a list of African Americans. (César Chávez? Dalip Saund? Grace Lee Boggs? Bueller?...Bueller?) There is a second class to “white people” but when looking at the second class, it no longer becomes inclusive; creating a third class. Therefore, the American dominant/minority system cannot be held within a dialectic role as the minorities within the dominant minority system have little to no voice or visibility. On a micro level, yes, African Americans are second class citizens in this country with a long (and at times unparalleled) history of prejudice, injustice and bigotry that still continues to this day. However, on a macro- all inclusive- level, African Americans are first class minorities. 

          What about individuals of mixed race that can trace their ancestry back to two or more different continents; a very fluid definition of racial relations would ensue. Shit, gurl, sorry- back of the line! With too many intersectionalities you don’t freely exist in America. Weren’t we founded from a sense of “otherness?” (Happy forth of July weekend, anyone? I love America, but really?) 

          The point, dear. The point...(I digress.)

          Now change the lens to sex, gender and sexuality minorities. Play the same game: name three prolific leaders of the LGBTQIA movement. Do they identify as intersexual, queer or trans? Chances are they do not self identify outside of gay or lesbian. 

          No, the conversation isn’t over, because we, as a society, haven’t been present to more than two ideas simultaneously. 

          “It’s a phantom vagina! I love my penis! I don’t want a physical vagina!”

          “Scientifically, that’s impossible. I want to understand, yet I’m still pushing back.”

          “But, for me, it’s not scientific. It’s all built on intellect, emotions and feelings.”

          “You’re being closed minded. This is something new and not something everyone has experienced: feelings vs. emotions vs. cellular sensations.”

Our conversation continued, simultaneously.