I Must Be Straight, Right?!

CW: Mention of Rape

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There hasn’t ever been an explanation to why I despise romcoms, to why I felt bored and kind of sick thinking of watching “the notebook” and any film of its likeness, to why portrayals of heterosexual displays of affection make me feel uneasy.

There wasn’t an explanation because after all, I was straight, or more straight than not, right? I was into men, right? I had a boyfriend of so many years with a lower sex drive than me who I would have to beg to fuck and who would guilt me out of it for months. I was straight despite having had sex with girls way before anything happened with boys. I was straight despite knowing that my first ever sexual fantasies revolves around women. I was straight despite my first ever nsfw google search being for naked women. I was straight because I was having sex with boys & men, right? RIGHT? 

No.

I was straight because I had no representation of anything but that. I was straight because I grew up in a world where anything but straight Did. Not. Exist.

I was straight because when I was first asked if I had a crush (by the girl I first experimented with), I asked for clarification on what a crush was, she told me it was liking a boy, I had to scramble to find a boy I liked, because I'd never thought of it before.

I was straight because I was punished for talking to boys which must mean I wanted to touch them, which must mean I was straight, when in reality I just wanted friends of multiple genders. 

I was straight because I was getting in trouble for sleeping with boys but when I slept with girls and was caught in action, nobody batted an eye. 

I was straight because I was slut shamed time and time again for “sleeping with every boy in town” (They wish I did. No really, they *wished* I did, to the point that one attempted to force himself upon me to validate the claim, but that’s a story for another time.) but when the same boys who refused to sleep with me because of this bullshit claim locked me in a room with a woman they called a lesbian and watched through the windows as she raped me, I didn’t enjoy it.

I was straight because I wasn’t a lesbian, because I was afraid of that label, because I was "afraid of lesbians" because I was raped by one. 

I must be straight I thought, as I sucked a third dick that day in an attempt to shove the pain away and validate myself in the only way I knew to do so; with meaningless sex during which I could easily dissociate and float away from the ptsd that was bubbling up inside me. Compulsive heterosexuality was robbing me of the joy I have only come to discover a decade later. 

Pictured: A wild pansexual

Now at 25 my eyes are open wide, flooded with tears as two women kiss on screen and share the sweetest affection. Suddenly I have the explanation for why I’m adverse to romcoms and “classic love movies”.

I cry more than I have in weeks over seeing the closest reflection of me on TV. I cry as “Dyke” sinks in to my bones, washes through my blood, and I start to realize that despite not being a woman this word still resonates deep. 

I realize in this moment that what I’ve been missing is more than what I can find words for. 

It is starting with self love, recognition and acceptance. It is starting with consciously putting a hard stop to engaging in compulsive heterosexuality, compulsive romanticism, compulsive dating. It is starting everyday as I wake up and say to myself “I love you, you are valid the way you are. There is so much more self work to do to go far, and you are doing it.”