Today is (as you may have guessed) National Coming Out Day, which gives me the perfect opportunity to discuss something I've been thinking a lot about over the past year or so: my sexuality! I'm going to try really hard to do this without it sounding like a college freshman taking a gender and sexuality class for the first time, so a lot of what I'm going to be discussed is going to be simplified, but I also make no promises. Ok, so I've said many, many times (sort of jokingly, but also sort of not jokingly) that I wake up every morning hoping it will finally be the day that I am attracted to women. This is something part of me legitimately really likes the idea of, because men are just terrible. Let me backtrack a little there -- men and women are socialized so differently that even in the best cases, parts of my experience of being a human being are totally inaccessible to men. In a lot of other cases, men are also just legitimately terrible, for any number of understandable reasons that nonetheless make them unappealing romantic partners. Still, I have been attracted to and/or fallen in love with men exclusively. I recently started asking myself: why? If it's so difficult for me to relate to men, if I am consistently disappointed with men in areas I consider fundamental to my humanity, why do I keep seeking them out?
To talk more about men, I need to spend a little time discussing women. Maybe a better question than, "why am I into men?" is, "why aren't I into women?" As much as it probably makes quite a few people uncomfortable to be told that I think men are terrible (and as much as this is a hyperbolic claim), it's been a really useful thing for me to think about. I know womanhood is a lot more complicated than 'solidarity,' and there are, in many cases, more differences between my experiences and another woman's experiences than between my experiences and a lot of mens'. Still, realizing how differently I have been socialized from my male counterparts has made me value my relationships with women more. More precisely, this realization has made me reconsider how I think about other women, especially in terms of competition. Women are taught from a really young age to be competitive with other women. We're told that there aren't enough good men to go around, so you better be at the top of your game. (I remember a classmate of mine who had a t-shirt that said "Men are like parking spots, all the good ones are taken" ... in 4th grade.) I can't tell you how many women I've envied or disliked for their beauty, their intelligence, their relationships. In fact, it would be easier to tell you how many women I haven't envied about something: zero. Even in my closest friendships, I've often felt like I needed to try to outshine other women.
Rethinking men has made me rethink women. When men no longer seem like the prize you once thought they were, competition with other women for that prize loses its value. Instead of thinking, "Man, she's brilliant, what can I say to cut her down to size?" you start thinking, "Man, she's brilliant, I wonder what she thinks about this book?" Instead of thinking, "Wow, she has such a good job, I hope it's unfulfilling and she's overworked and miserable," you start thinking, "Wow, she has such a good job, I bet she worked really hard to get where she is, good for her." Instead of thinking, "What a beautiful woman, I bet she's a real bitch," you just start thinking, "What a beautiful woman." That, specifically has been an interesting change, and one that has me questioning whether it isn't possible that I'll finally wake up one morning, romantically attracted to women.
All of this is complicated by the fact that I don't really... experience that much sexual attraction? I think that makes this whole line of questioning a little more complicated, because I can't think back to a time when I felt really physically attracted to a woman and brushed it off, and have a dramatic realization. It becomes more a question of, do I really only experience romantic attraction to men, or do I just need to keep 'deprogramming.' Who knows! I'm definitely not done thinking about this, and in the meantime, I'm happy to have all potential romantic partners (male, female or otherwise) just continue to leave me alone.
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