You write a novel, the proof copies get passed around, panic sets in. Will they like it? Is it well enough written? Did I do justice to the characters? You wait to hear the cut and thrust of intellectual argument spearing down your literary faults.
But no, what I got instead was quiet corner confessions from half-a-dozen seemingly straight girls: “You’ve written my life. How did you know?” The confessionals refer to the straight girl in the book having a gay fling. Having a nice, loving husband at home and rushing off into the arms of another woman.
Well, I didn’t know. Not about them, not specifically – this is fiction. But I knew it was going on and since writing the book, I have watched in admiration the one or two who have been brave enough to be honest about it. Not for the first time, I have also heard about the tears of another broken-hearted dyke left by yet another straight girl who was, after all, just playing.
I am not a gender Nazi. I have no problem with anyone shagging anyone else, at any time, ever. (Other than my girlfriend. I don’t want her shagging anyone else, at any time, ever.)
I hate the double standard whereby a woman who comes out at 30 is more of a heroine than Zena, but one who eventually goes in is dismissed as a hasbian – either never really gay in the first place or finally giving in because she can’t hack the pace. Hell, maybe she actually wants the Volvo and the baby and the house in suburbia. I know I do. (OK, not the Volvo. Or suburbia.)
I don’t think there is a rule book that can be used for anyone’s sexuality. I know maybe a hundred or so lesbians and only two have never slept with a man. Most didn’t hate it, some liked it a lot and some will no doubt do it again. If the world were a different place, I might use the word bisexual to describe my own sexuality. I would also use it to describe the sexuality of many of my ex-lovers and friends, straight and gay.
But in common usage the word bisexual implies doing it with both. Not capable of doing it with both but actually, right now, at the same time doing it with both. So even if my own sexuality is that of a polymorphous slut, the life I live makes me a self-confessed, practising lesbian in a nine-year monogamous relationship.
We don’t use the word bisexual to describe sexual potential; we use it to describe sexual reality. And because of that unfortunate piece of literalness, we are forced to grab at either defining word the minute sex rears its lovely head. “Gay or straight? Quick! Make up your mind and stick to it – forever!” Which is a shame because how does anyone know until they’ve tried? Experimentation is fine: people change, desires change, what society will countenance changes and therefore so does the limit of what we are willing to try. What really concerns me is that when straight girls play in the gay girls’ camp, they tend not to do it with truth.
There are women like Madonna who do it for the publicity/shock value and the old boy tease of see-me-kiss-a-chick-aren’t-I-sexy. Well, no, babe, not to me. If it’s not real, it’s not sexy. You might as well snog a Barbie doll. Apparently the next series of Ally McBeal has her kiss a girl, too. Fair enough: with a body that thin, she’s got to have something soft to lie on. But when gays do it in real life, of course, we don’t get applauded for being brave or pushing back boundaries. We get bombed in Old Compton Street.
Then there are the straight girls who do it sometimes because girls are softer targets than boys. There are two problems with these babes. One, they’re crap at sex. They think it’s all about kissing and cuddling and soft breasts, and because they don’t view it as the real thing, there is simply no juice there. And of course the other, rather more pressing reason for a dyke to steer clear of wide-legged lesbian virgins is that anyone who is doing it for the first time is bound to expect so much.
Worse than their virgin excitement, though, is that these halfway dykes never have any intention of being out. Real out.
Not just telling your friends and snogging in the street at Pride, but the real thing: telling your mum. I’m bored enough with gay people who haven’t yet made it over to the side of truth – my out-ness making the streets and clubs safer for them while they don’t have the guts to be honest with their own families. I certainly don’t fancy putting myself out simply to make it easier for straight girls when they fancy a bit of skirt.
If you’re a straight woman wanting to play, by all means go ahead. But please don’t make the mistake of thinking it makes you interesting. Or, worse, daring. What would really make you interesting would be to tell the truth. You are a straight woman who wants a fling. Ideally with no complications. (Hang on. You’re thinking about going out with another woman. And you just want to play? Come on. Ask any straight bloke about the possibility of that ever coming true.) And don’t forget to tell the woman you’re hitting on that you’re straight and have little intention of ever coming out. None, in fact.
If she still wants you, then go ahead, break her heart. If, like every other bimbo who has ever wanted a married man and believed she can “love him away from the wife”, that deluded dyke still wants you, then maybe she deserves you. Better still, if you really want to be daring, you could pick up a nice gay chick and hold her hand. Then snog her. Outside the office of your local right-wing extremist party.
It isn’t just about finding women attractive and it isn’t just about going with what moves you. The world is simply not that lovely yet: while blacks and Asians don’t have the choice to be out and gays do, we all get nail-bombed. Which makes it just that little bit more serious than fancying something pretty for your next shag.
Who you have sex with simply isn’t a private matter. Like it or not, being gay gives you responsibilities. Gay, bisexual, gay-at- weekends, once or twice if I really fancy sex – sorry, but your bedtime personal is shot through with daytime political. Literally. Playing around for the hell of it just isn’t good enough.
In the end, it’s all about honesty. Shag who you want – go for it – but tell the truth to the person you’re shagging and to the rest of the world because otherwise it’s just playing, it isn’t real and you don’t deserve to enjoy the benefits the rest of us gain for you every day of our lives. The benefits that make the girl thing appealing and possible in the first place.
PS: Straight girl reading this and fancying a bit of a girl fumble? Feeling misunderstood? Left out? Under attack? Get used to it, babe. Being picked on comes with the territory.