talesofasapphic

[talesofasapphic]

Thinking about Christmas when I showed my mom the press-on nails I had put on for the occasion and as she was reaching for my hand (with my girlfriend sitting right next to me) to look she said 'do you have the lesbian two short ones' and without thinking I just automatically replied 'no, but you just pop 'em off'.

She looked surprised for a second and then said 'I don't think... I needed to know that' but like why mention the two short nails and then be surprised when I mention the why 🤣 whoops

[talesofasapphic]

— Simone de Beauvoir, from a letter to Nelson Algren c. November 1949

[talesofasapphic]

The hardest thing for me about dating a woman and realising I'm actually gay and not just bisexual is that, almost a year in, I still feel like an imposter.

I came out to my parents as bisexual around 11 years old. They were incredibly supportive, it was no big deal. When my friends found out they did the whole 'ew do you LIKE me?' thing but I didn't lose friends over it. I had wicked crushes on girls in high school. But, I have only been with men until my current relationship. I got married young, had children. Ended up in another long term relationship and had another child with that man. My partners knew I identified as bisexual, and the one when I was still young let me explore it romantically with women on the internet (because he wanted to be able to have relationships with other people) but obviously not physically, despite the fact that he then slept with someone else. I was allowed to be attracted to women, but not in any real way, just in a way that would maybe get him in a threesome one day. Our relationship ended because he was a shitty person at that time and made a lot of shitty choices.

My next relationship turned out to be a very unsafe and violent relationship. The fact that I liked women always threatened him and any time I talked about a woman too much - even if I had just made a new friend, for example - I would be accused of having feelings for that woman and then the cheating accusations would start. I made a new work friend who was a lesbian and I never heard the end of it from the moment he found out she was gay. To him, it was a matter of time before I cheated on him with her. Nevermind that I never cheated once in my relationships, never mind that I was not attracted to her. She was my friend, and that alone caused me so much trouble.

I quickly learned it was not safe to find women attractive. To say anything about it besides agree that a female celebrity he liked was 'pretty hot' was dangerous. To look slightly too long at a woman on the street, or in the store, to even watch a video by a lesbian creator or a woman I found attractive was not okay. I mean, I wasn't allowed to do the same for other men, either, but I had zero interest anyway. I did tell him many times if I wasn't with him I would be with a woman. I was adamant about that. But while I was with him, I had to shut it down. I learned to stop looking at people as anything more than cardboard cutouts. Nothing about anybody was attractive.

Now, I am with a woman. Having experienced a wlw relationship I have not a single doubt in my mind that I am gay. We have an amazing relationship, we are almost a year in and still haven't had a single argument. And I am attracted to her in a way that I have never been attracted to anyone before. The idea of ever having a man touch me again, the idea that they ever did, literally makes me feel sick. I always felt dirty, used and guilty after sex with a man. I haven't felt that way once with her.

But. I still find myself repressing the thought that I find women attractive. I see an attractive woman and immediately shut it down, look away, and bury it. But I see my girlfriend looking at other women. She's super subtle about, but I see it, probably because I've also noticed someone is attractive and subconsciously check to see whether she thinks so too. We have open conversations about women we find attractive and it's so refreshing. She's a natural flirt just in the way she banters with people, and she's checked in with me about how I feel about it because she doesn't always realise she does it, and she does it even with people she's not actually attracted to. I said hell yeah baby, get your flirt on. As long as it's harmless, I don't mind. We went to an event recently where she was crushing on a girl there (it was a character in a show of sorts) but she was still very much obviously with me and not trying to hide it or get with this other person at all, and just having that security in our relationship where it's okay to find other people attractive is really healing to me, and to her too I hope because she was also never allowed to look. So I'm learning to look, to get that wave of panic that this is not okay and not safe, and then let it go, and I hope that in time my feelings of being an imposter fade.

[talesofasapphic]

[talesofasapphic]

[talesofasapphic]

Anne Michaels, from her novel titled "Held," originally published in 2003

[talesofasapphic]

[talesofasapphic]

Your 30s aren't too late. Don't let nobody tell you that stupid shit.

[talesofasapphic]