Hi I remember reading on your blog a while back a question where someone ask...

 

 

Sent to you by moya via Google Reader:

 

 

Hi I remember reading on your blog a while back a question where someone asked you if you preferred your intimate experiences with men or women. And I really like your response about it being much deeper and more complex about that to the point where you could even really address what was being asked. I am a queer-identified cis-woman and Sometimes I feel really disempowered in my sexuality. It frustrates me that I don’t KNOW. I can’t say that I’m a lesbian. I can’t say that I’m straight or bi or pansexual. I don’t feel like I really understand my sexuality in these ways. And then I feel guilty. Like I’m copping out of owning an identity “lesbian.” Like I’m not strong enough to be attracted to only women or to make the resolute decision that all I will ever date, be intimate with and care for are women. And so there’s an association with weakness there. And I also feel weak because I feel like after all the abuse I have witnessed and experienced at the hands of men, I should be a lesbian. I should be completely turned off of men and not attracted to them. In fact when I think of the violence they have perpetrated and the violence of men against women, it is enough to turn me off but only temporarily. It makes me feel like I’m putting myself willingly into danger by not rejecting my desire for cis-men and owning a lesbian identity. Like I’m betraying myself. At the pit of my stomach I don’t know if what I feel is a genuine attraction to cis men or a sort of defense that happens as a result of my internalized queerphobia and also my response to abuse. And I feel ashamed that the latter 2 may be possibilities and I feel even worse about not knowing. Like there is something wrong with me. If you wouldn’t mind sharing with me a bit about how you understand your queer sexuality and how you’ve navigated it, what your journey with your sexuality has looked like. Have you ever wondered these same things about yourself? I really need to hear some on the ground voices, not academic theoretical bullshit or any of the other dominant ways of understanding our sexualities. At the end of the day I think sexuality is a lifeforce and sexual direction comes from the inside but I need affirmations. and reassurance. plenty of that. thank you.

via maia medicine on 2/28/11

okay i thought about this question for a while.  and these are my thoughts. 

—sometimes i think there is too strong an emphasis on defining our sexuality.  in difft stages in my life, i have been attracted to difft people.  it gets fluid and messy (kind of like sex). 

—okay so lets for a second that an attraction to men, means that i am acting out of my internalized queerphobia and response to abuse.  that sucks.  but lets say that my attraction to women, also means that i am acting out of my internalized queerphobia and response to abuse.  see what i mean?  the internalized shit is still there.  i know women who are attracted to certain types of women, and admit that part of their attraction comes from their queerphobia, of not wanting to be that kind of queer, but this kind. 

so it seems to me that watching who you are attracted to, just paying attention to it, and understanding it deeply in all of its flattering and unflattering aspects, is a way to at least understand it. 

cause my suspicion is that all of us have really complicated reasons motivations for why we are attracted to whomever.  and not all of them are going to be pretty.  hell, a lot of them arent going to be flattering. 

so for me, its fluid.  and you know, when it comes to sexuality, well, sex is one of those things that can destroy our ego's sense of self with a healthy dose of real energy. 

 

 

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