KarMel Scholarship - This is Me

KarMel Scholarship 2007

“Thinking Outside

the Heart Shaped Box”

By Naomi Suskind

Desciption of Submission: This is a short story about the discovery of myself as a bisexual woman, and the social and political climate I was living in during my journey. I grew up in Portland, OR in the 1980's and 1990's, and it was a volatile and courageous time for people who are L.G.B.T. in Oregon. This piece is full of comedic seriousness, and in the tradition of Audre Lord and David Sedaris, it is a biomythography of sorts told with humor, truth, and a twist of fiction.

When people ask me how it is to be a queer female in the 21^st century, one only has to look at my child hood crushes to fully understand the matter-- not only for me but for anyone who lives their lives outside what I have called, the heart-shaped box.

When I was eight in 1985, I had a pink button-pin that I wore on my ripped up, stone-washed jean jacket, bearing the blush-cheeked, heavily eye-lashed, coiffed ‘do’ and luscious red lips of musician Boy George. I. loved. Boy. George. In my commercially manufactured young girl fantasy land, I wanted to marry him. It completely escaped me that he was an effeminate gay man with fashion and flare. I just thought he was a beautiful boy, and I knew that because he was a boy it was okay for me to like him. When it was suggested to me by my Uncle Bob quickly in one breath that, “Boy-George-may-not-be-the-kind-of-guy-that-would-want-to-marry-you,-Naomi,-and-why-don’t-you-trade-in-your-pin-for-one-with-that-nice-looking-boy-Kirk-Cameron-on-it,” I refused. Boy George was my man.

Later on, when I showed more than a keen interest in the boyish-girl figure of gymnast Mary Lou Retton, somehow I knew these two interests were connected. Both crushes were not the right kind of crushes, but they were ones I held dear. And I was relentless. I would hang on to my Wheaties boxes and Culture Club posters with my grubby, non-polished, tom-boy nails at any price.

In 8^th grade, after it became clear to me that having crushes on two genders was not acceptable--I had to make a choice. Making a choice about sexual orientation is not necessarily an option for a lot of queer people, but it was for part of my process. I knew that I wasn’t straight, but I also knew I wasn’t entirely gay, either. Hmmm. That presented a quandary… Aside from George Michael, bisexual existence was invisible in our pop-culture dominated society, except in sleazy music videos of girls getting it on strictly for male enjoyment. So, that was definitely out… And I saw what happened to gay people in this world. At 14, I could not fathom exposing myself to that kind of hatred. For what I saw as my survival, for my own self-preservation, I decided to temporarily hang out in my proverbial gay closet and yell louder and laugh harder at the other people dubbed “the homos” by the elite class of our junior high social order. My glass house with the glass closet was a comfortable place to be until I got a little older, wised-up, became liberal, turned up the Ani DiFranco, opened my mind, and eventually opened my MTV influenced, Family Ties watching, PEOPLE magazine affected, heart-shaped box.

A large catalyst for this re-birth was the political climate of my hometown of Portland, Oregon in the 1990’s. Portland-- the diverse, open-minded, fairly liberal, gay-friendly home of Darcell the most famous drag queen of the Pacific Northwest--was suddenly under attack by the right-wing bureaucrats of rural Oregon. A fiery, conservative group called the Oregon Citizen’s Alliance (O.C.A.) waltzed in and changed the political scene in Oregon forever.

Backed by a national cult…err…I mean,…organization called the Christian Coalition, the O.C.A. drafted a ballot measure limiting the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in the state of Oregon. Their goal was to amend the Oregon state constitution to demand that “all governments in Oregon may not use their monies or properties to promote, encourage or facilitate homosexuality, pedophilia, sadism or masochism. All levels of government, including the public education systems, must assist in setting a standard for Oregon’s youth which recognizes that these behaviors are abnormal, wrong, unnatural, and perverse and they are to be discouraged (Oregon’s Ballot Measure 9, 1992).”

Slated as state sanctioned discrimination and homophobia by its opposition, this ballot Measure 9 as it was known, was defeated by Oregon voters in 1992, but sparked a heated controversy and national debate. Forcing people to talk about the issues of discrimination, homophobia, morality, family values, censorship, and to take a stand on human rights, Measure 9 polarized some people, but also launched a whole slew of others out of political complacency into action. For one 15-year old, it paved the way toward her adventure into activism and politics, and started her down a path for which there was no turning back. I carried signs, wore buttons, put “straight not narrow” stickers on my bike, and discovered the power of the pink triangle. In realizing my views about Measure 9, I began to liberate myself through political actions. In rallying against homophobia, I was protecting myself, ensuring my existence with validation should I ever need it, and preparing to step out of my glass closet and into my life.

When I fell in love with my best girl friend five years later, thinking outside the heart-shaped box became loving outside the box. Wrought with the turmoil, anguish and passion that many first lesbian relationships can have, I fully realized my last forbidden crush and gave my life permission, color and shape. This was the beginning of a different battle however; one involving justification of my bisexuality, or as I began to refer to it, open sexuality. Coming out of my closet proved to be easy compared to proving that I wasn’t confused or indecisive in having an open sexuality. It became apparent that being open to all kinds of love makes some people uncomfortable.

In an era where black and white are largely the ruling distinctions we make between things to establish difference, there is a blaring intolerance to shades of gray, or shades of the rainbow for that matter. Just look at the daily questions we have to answer one way or the other: Paper or Plastic? Decaf or Regular? Gay or Straight? For life to maintain a sense of order, our choices always seem to be limited to ‘this’ or ‘that’. It’s never a little of this, some of that, and oh, can I have a smidge of that too? No. The phenomenon of multiple choice questions is relegated strictly to the standardized testing world, and even then you can only have one answer. Bo-ring! What happens to someone who enjoys the half-caffeinated, half decaf, whole milk, extra hot, sugar-free vanilla latte side of life? They get a look from a disgruntled barista that appears as if they’ve just witnessed a person skate backwards in front of them wearing a banana costume.

As a culture we are more than a little confused and uncomfortable with ambiguity and in-between; with shading more than one box as it were. We strictly define what love is and for whom. As individuals we are all given our heart-shaped boxes and left to figure out how to fit our personal needs and ideas of love into them. So when I was growing up with an open sexuality in the “either your gay or your straight” world, I definitely had more than one person checking out my banana costume. The 80’s were full of gay icons, and of course there were plenty of your straight variety, but bisexual was a different story. Often viewed by the gay and straight communities as the confused step-child, bisexuality has always had its opposition. Bisexuality has become the catch-all for anything that doesn’t fit into the gay or straight box. Either it’s purgatory for someone before they enter the land of gay heaven, or it’s experimentation for the primarily straight sex connoisseur, or it’s oversimplified as someone just wanting their cake and eating it too. Seriously though- what is the point of having cake if you can’t…GASP... eat it too!?! Like changing sides on a political issue, bisexuality is even referred to as the equivalent to political flip-flopping. Indeed, bisexuality can be all of these afore mentioned things, but it is so much more than that. It’s “more than one membership to more than one club,” it’s “spots and stripes (DiFranco, 1992),” it’s the independent party, and it’s the “other white meat” of sexuality. It is, in and of itself, a sexual orientation—not the gateway sexuality or the transfer station to either Straightville or San Francisco.

In the 1970’s lesbian activist and poet Adrienne Rich devised a little diagram along the lines of the Kinsey scale that looks at sexuality as a continuum rather than a static existence or box of choice. The continuum includes room for those folks that identify as gay, straight, and all the places in between. It provides a space for all identities and allows for fluidity and movement. The first time I read about the continuum, it was as if the heavens opened up and a choir of angels descended down to back me up for my rockin’ gospel debut complete with organs, hand-claps and hallelujahs. It became a model for which I viewed many aspects of my life, and more than that, it allowed me to fully validate that young girl with the simultaneous crushes of Boy George and Mary Lou Retton. It even opened up the possibilities to include RuPaul or Leslie Feinberg into my sexual repertoire if I so desired.

Throughout my coming-out process, personal discovery, and identity, the one thing that has anchored me and continues to move me through is love. It has showed me that by all means, bi is beautiful; it has worked as my compass through all my personal, political, and social endeavors, and always challenges me to think way outside the heart-shaped box. But mostly, it gives me the freedom to define love and attraction in all the succulent, wild, comfortable, cozy, butchie, luscious, lip glossy, vivid, joyous, cargo pantsy, colorful, sexy, silly, defiant and bold terms that describe the crazy and enigmatic shape they take for me.

~Inspired by David Sedaris and Audre Lord

References:

Definition of Ballot Measure 9, retrieved March 12, 2006 from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Ballot_Measure_9_%281992%29

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