When Exes Swing to the Other Side
You don’t really know how you found out. Facebook? MySpace? Freshman-year roommate? Or maybe you do know how you found out; in fact, maybe the person even told you him/herself. Alas, now you know it – your ex is dating someone new, and that someone new is of the opposite sex – and you’re not quite sure what to think.
I, myself, have the grand privilege of being an ex’s final, season-ending, homa-relationship. Ouch, some people might think - Was it that bad? Were my college antics and natural flirtatiousness really that traumatizing? I, on the other hand, like to think of it in a different (more self-flattering) light – I was just too damn lovable. The most lovable, in fact. So lovable that she could never love another woman the way she had loved me. Ever.
Okay, so who cares if that’s a bunch of bullshit, so are a lot of the things we tell ourselves. It's not a crime to tell yourself a little white lie every now and then, right? Furthermore in my opinion, searching for a rational explanation as to why an ex has chosen to abandon the gays is a pointless activity, similar to trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube – you’ll probably never figure it out and who really gives a shit if you do.
I do wonder, however, if this straight-ex phenomenon is something that happens more to lady-gays than to guy-gays. In fact, I wonder - Does this EVER happen to the guys? Sexually, girls can get away with a lot more. Straight girls can dance, cuddle, and even make out with other girls without having anyone seriously doubt their self-stated sexuality. If a straight boy even wears a v-neck he’s pretty much assumed to be a closet case. Thus, it’s not surprising that girls are often more willing to “experiment.” You don’t often hear of FUGs (Fags Until Graduation), but LUGs are pretty commonplace amidst the lesbot community. Moreover, it seems like if a girl has a lesbian past, it’s not that difficult for her to abandon it. Yet, and perhaps I just need to hear more stories, I don’t know any girls who are dating guys who went through a “phase” of hooking up with other guys and have now returned to the softer-skinned sex.
I’m not saying my ex was a LUG – I don’t even know all of her post-college dating details – but I have definitely gotten the impression that the good times her and I shared are nothing she really wants to reminisce on. In fact, I have a better, albeit extremely sporadic, relationship with my other ex who had been in love with another girl the whole time we were together. Maybe the fact that she’s still with that girl is the reason her and I can still relate? The girl who I actually had a reciprocally loving relationship with, though, I don’t really feel like I know anymore. Is that shallow - that now that she is straight(ish), I feel worlds apart from her?
What's interesting is that I don’t have a "problem" with friends who grow older and “become” gay; in fact, I generally celebrate such an occasion with some dancing, a few drinks and maybe even a cake. However, the idea of a friend or ex going from gay to straight somehow feels more like a big society-baked cake being thrown in my gay face. I know this is a double-standard, but I can't seem to help it. Should I just begin to believe people more when they tell me they are bi? Should I stop caring about what exes are up to and just try to ignore changing relationship statuses on Facebook? Has this ever happened to others?
14 comments:
yes, a double standard. but i would fee the same way. although, thankfully, none of my male gays have turned straight...
i think i am always trying to work on accepting "greyness," and this is a huge cliché, but: people say that absolute labels aren't real. or something.
You are speaking like its uncommon for folks to find themselves in straight and gay relationships throughout ones life. It is not unusual for bi folks to find a partner of the opposite sex. In fact much of this article is completely dismissive of bisexualityl. I would not necessarily label the previous partner as strictly straight either, unless they identify that way themselves, they may just see themselves as bi or just generally queer. The thing is there is a common trap for many gay folks (and straight folks) to have a very black and white view of sexual orientation. Just because somebody ends up with a partner of the opposite sex does not mean they are straight, and just because somebody ends up with a partner of the same sex does not mean they are strictly gay.
I could go through everything, but you are painting a black and white picture of a circumstance where there is more ambiguity to bisexuality than hetrosexuality or homosexuality.
I would also not classify bisexuality as experimenting. It is a common stereotype that gets thrown at us to inauthenticate how we feel by both the straight and gay community too. It is not in any way just a phase. Much of this article, just comes off as a little to dismissive of bisexual identities, and the very fact that many people operate in circumstances where those identities often find a person with the opposite sex as a partner. This isn't going straight, but rather the reality that many bi folks have to face of operating on some level within both the queer and straight culture.
But you are right about one thing. Male gender expression is significantly more limited then the gender expression of women. In a male construct straight behavior has a very narrow range, and there is a black and white with regards to expression between men.
I am not going to go into all the detials of bisexuality, because it is unnecessary. But the dismissiveness on the part of the queer community, if not hostility, has angered quite a few of bisexual friends of mine who actively date both men and women to the point of disassociation with the queer community. Some of the reasons are reflected in this article, and that is seeing gay/straight as a black and white situation, rather than there being a situation where they is variation from person to person with regards to sexual orientation.
First of all: "SHE and I." (I know it must seem like a niggling little thing, but c'mon, be nice to your language and your language will be nice to you.)
Second: A dear friend and drinking buddy of mine when we were both in our 20s -- we had some wild times at the Anvil back in the early 80s -- later fell in love with a woman and got married, moved to Brooklyn, and had kids. They were very happy, last I heard.
I've known several men over the years who have been mostly attracted to men but also enjoyed sex and intimacy with women, who have chosen a "gay" identity because it's easier to pick one or the other in a society that has so little tolerance of bisexuality, but they resent the restrictive label.
I think this intolerance (it's conservatism, really) is one of the uglier aspects of the modern "gay community."
One of my (other) favourite bloggers, Mistress Matisse actually wrote a column on her experiences as a hasbian...
Just for another perspective =)
Yeah, what Anonymous and Steven said.
Bisexuals do exist. I promise. I think the fact that fewer people identify as bi is because of the biphobia that exists in both the straight and gay communities.
I've had friends who went from bi to straight or bi to gay depending on who they were dating because "it was easier that way." Personally, I've found biphobia to be more prevalent when I'm interacting with other gays/lesbians. Sometimes I feel like I'm back in the closet.
C'mon people - alternative queer ideas.
Stephanie,
I sometimes wonder if the woman I dated the longest would feel exactly the same things you articulated in this post. She used to joke that I was a "straight girl" and that she feared I'd leave her for a man, even though she knew that I had no interest in anyone but her.
Will I ever stop dating the man I'm with now and date a woman again? I don't know. If I don't, does that make me straight? No. But would my ex think that it did? Probably. Remembering her half-serious accusations about my sexuality still makes me wince, as does the thought that learning I "went back to men" still might hurt her.
I wish that exes were simply exes, regardless of gender. I wish that dating someone of the opposite sex didn't make me feel less welcome in a community and culture that was my shelter and a source of a lot of joy in my life. But I also understand that "gayness" or "lesbianness," feelings of persecution and being misunderstood, going out with a queer group of friends to queer spaces, and other elements of gay culture can make up a hefty part of the background in a relationship. If a good portion of your common ties centered on that, then it may feel like a person who has left or been forced away from those things no longer has anything in common with you.
The woman who is now dating a man probably still likes the same ice cream and the same type of peanut butter. She probably still laughs at many of the same jokes and her laugh probably still sounds the same. She will have grown in some ways that are different from you, but she's probably still the essentially the same person. Was your connection with her really based on being lesbians together, or on how you two clicked?
If your ex decides that she wants to date men for the rest of her life, unless she's crazy that's not a rejection of you, and that's not your fault as a representative of lesbians. You're an ex, with no more and no less power than the other major people who have shaped her life. Her current preference for a guy most likely has a whole lot less to do with you than it does with the person she's seeing now. But if you choose to let her slip out of your life, I hope you at least think about whether it's really because she's dating a man, or because you two have grown apart in other ways, too.
Wow, thanks for clearing that up for me, Anon3. I'm not bisexual. I'm just a slut!
If you'll excuse me, I have to go tell all my gay/lesbian friends that they aren't actually homosexual, they just haven't found the right woman/man. And that they're probably just confused, and that it's a phase that will pass. I might even throw in there that it's probably because they were molested as a child. I'm sure everyone will be relieved.
::The bisexual libertarian disappears in a puff of logic::
Oh, no wait... sorry, false alarm. I still exist. Hey Anon3, try explaining away transpeople and ambidexterity, too; that might do the trick.
All those damn sluts, screwing up the nice, neat binaries. That simply cannot be tolerated.
Dan Savage sort of talks about this topic this week (http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/savagelove). He claims:
"As for 'playing for the other team' at college, ACK, that can indeed be just a phase—but for women, not men. Heterosexual and homosexual women, if legit scientific research is to be believed, 'tend to become sexually aroused by both male and female erotica, and, thus, have a bisexual arousal pattern,' according to the results of 2003 study conducted at LUG-infested Northwestern University. Men, on the other hand, prefer erotica that plays exclusively to their professed sexual orientation. Which means, of course, that female sexuality is a fluid and male sexuality is a solid."
But frankly this whole discussion makes me grumpy.
Caution: read anything Dan Savage writes with the knowledge that he is a reactionary know-it-all.
If we could all learn to stop judging other people's relationships -- because we don't know anything about them, and because it's unkind -- we wouldn't have to worry about any of this crap.
I have an ex (a guy) who claimed he was probably 90% gay 10% straight when we were together. Then, after we broke up, it seemed every other week his "Interested in: " section on facebook would go from men to women to both and back again. Then he dated a woman, stuck it on interested in women and I run into him at pride. Who knows what he's up to now...
I wrote about this back in December about my experience at a women's college.
http://www.thenewgay.net/2007/12/lesbianism-at-womens-colleges.html
ah yes, the Seven Sisters are an excellent place to observe the fluidity of female sexuality. By graduation, all of my straight friends had --at the very least-- serious girl crushes (what Ms. Cavenaugh called "smashing"), and some of them even had girlfriends (of the sexual relationship variety).
now, most of my friends -- straights and lesbians-- are dating men.
It's certainly easier to meet straight men, so if you're inclined in that direction, it's wise to keep that door open. Although for those of us whose proclivities are a little more one-sided, it's always a shame to see our numbers drop, as pretty former-lesbians fall into the arms of men.
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