Here's another essay I wrote for one of my Writers' Village University classes that I thought might be important to share here:
Attraction
I remember clearly the first time I told someone. The secret I had hidden for years. I remember the curve of the indoor track at our local rec center where my best friend and I walked, around and around, the endless loop creating a safe space for confession. The echoes of basketballs hitting the gym floor below, bouncing off rims and backboards, the background noise to our private conversation, masking it from any fellow gym goers who might happen by.
I didn’t have a label for myself. Just a prepared statement that expressed the truth about myself I had never shared. I told her, “I don’t think sexual attraction is tied to gender for me.”
This may seem like a trivial truth to share, particularly as I was already happily married to a man, as was my best friend. I had no desire to pursue a romantic relationship with my friend or any other person aside from my husband. Sharing this truth changed nothing about my life. And yet, I had to know it was okay. I had a deep down knowledge that, if I chose to open myself up to it, I had the potential for sexual attraction to my friend, or anyone else I was emotionally close to. Would knowing that change how my friend felt about me? Change her perception of me? Make her afraid to be close to me?
To my friend’s credit, it did not. She reacted no differently to me with that knowledge than she had without it. She did not fear my touch or assume it meant something it did not when I expressed my love and friendship in physical ways. Her lack of fear was a gift. If she was not afraid of this part of me, then I did not have to fear it either.
Even now, this truth about me rarely comes up. Others take my marriage to a man as proof that my heterosexuality looks the same as theirs. When the LGBTQ topic comes up, others assume we are talking about people who are not present. They know they do not fit in that category, and they assume I don’t either. I don’t correct them. Mostly because I don’t know fully myself if I belong to that category, nor do I want to become a topic of others’ conversations. To open myself up to unfounded suspicions and judgments from those who would fear my more complex sexuality. I have a lively interest in LGBTQ issues, especially where they intersect with religious beliefs, but since I live the life of a heterosexual woman—and very happily so—I feel like a bit of a fraud trying to claim I am one of them, that I know what it’s like to struggle with a sexual orientation or gender identity that is not the norm. So I watch from the sidelines and cheer them on, but I do not join my identity with theirs.
I often hear heterosexuals say that they can’t imagine being attracted to someone of their same sex. The very idea of it is repugnant to them. I have heard homosexuals recount stories of how hard they tried to date and be attracted to people of the opposite sex, but to no avail. I respect and believe both groups and the validity of their experiences. However, I do not relate to either one. I find myself wondering, “Why do body parts matter so much to you? Why isn’t the closeness of the relationship enough?” That is the mystery to me.
I found the best expression of my experience with sexual attraction in Julia Alvarez’s book In the Time of the Butterflies. One character says to another, “My body happens to also love the people that my heart loves.” In the whole debate over sexual attraction, this is what rings true for me.
