I was sitting on the beach yesterday talking to one of my favourite straight women about sexuality. We both agreed that things would be better if everybody on earth thought they were bisexual and then just did whatever and whoever they wanted from that point. She was astonished when I told her how prejudiced the gay (not queer!) community is towards bisexuals. Now, I don't conside myself bisexual at all. I tried a few times, to have sex with men who I loved so much that really, all that was missing from a potential relationship, was sex. It just didn't work. Even blind drunk once, it felt completely and utterly wrong, foreign, uncomfortable. I'm just a very old fashioned dyke though, I conform visibly to stereotypes left, right and centre and I like it a lot. Not everyone is so basic though.
As much as I sneer at postmodernism in general, the label "pomosexual" - for people who want their sexuality not to be labelled at all - is a nice try. It cheerfully encompasses homosexuality, heterosexuality, bisexuality, asexuality and whole heap of other labels. Simplistically, I tend to assume everybody loves and wants sex as much as I do, so I want people to just be comfortable with their genetics, their options, or whatever reasons and causes we're currently ascribing to why we are the way we are.
Imagine if society was so chilled out that coming out became redundant. You'd just head for a deliciously hormonal adolescence without all the taboo in tow. You'd try whatever you wanted, avoid what didn't turn you on and hopefully by some stage in adulthood, have some idea of your identity. And then the heterosexual majority might not actually be a majority after all and perhaps people would stop battering "deviants" to death on a far too frequent basis.
That's an unrealistic, utopian dream though. By nature, we humans are so very incredibly tribal. We need to huddle together; people of the same colour, religion, sexuality, hobbies, whatever - and then we seem to sneer at people who are different. There's plenty that goes on in the wonderful world of human beings that I do not understand and there's some stuff that I struggle to accept - but do I have the right to judge? I claim for myself the right to judge anyone who fucks another human without consent. I refuse, however, to sit in some ridiculous lesbian ivory tower, disapproving of bisexuals and heterosexuals and everyone else who isn't just like me. How can we demand tolerance if we can't practise it? Who the hell are we to judge anyway?
Words & Photo: Ulla Kelly
Written for
QueerLife
