That's the number of lesbians who are
married to a partner of the opposite sex. Lesbians who are married to
men.
I'm in a loving, affectionate, largely
platonic heterosexual marriage. I say “largely platonic” because
over the past year, our sexual activity has dwindled drastically and
is more or less non-existent at this point (it is currently 9 Feb and
we've had sex once this year). We love each other, and all of the
other affection is there, but we just don't have sex. And I'm kind of
okay with that. I jokingly said to someone last year that if Ark and
I never had sex again and I never had a penis inside me again, I'd
really be just fine with that. I said, I don't think I'll miss it
much... if at all.
Maybe that's when I started to worry.
But it's certainly not when I first started to see signs.
The first girl I loved was a friend in
elementary school. She was beautiful, popular (at least in my eyes),
and she was nice to me. Our
friendship continued through middle school, even though I'd moved,
and into high school, where we rarely saw one another but we'd had a
class or two together. I remember when I was in elementary, I had my
first (and as it turned out, my only) sleep-over birthday party, and
though I'd invited all of my girl friends, she was the only one to
attend. She's still my friend on social networking sites, and I will
never, ever tell her I love her.
Even
at a young age, I never really understood when my girl friends would
say “Oh, he's so cute!” I'd look over at the boy in question and
think, okay, this is what cute is. Maybe I thought I was just slow on
the hormones (even though I started my period young, at the age of
ten) and I would eventually think boys were cute and want a boyfriend
as bad as all the other girls did. Even when I did eventually get a
boyfriend, he was very feminine (he's quite gay now), and we started
dating as kind of a “we've been friends” and he'd already dated
literally everyone else in our class. I never sought out male
companionship; I just fell into relationships with male friends, and
even after break-ups, remained as good friends as I could with them.
I genuinely cared about them and I suppose I always knew something
was missing from my relationship with them, I just didn't know what.
In
high school, I had a crush on a female transfer student. I came out
as bisexual verbally to my sister first, then, and explained I was
nervous and that I wanted to wear something to impress her. She
suggested I talk to Mom about it, and I did... boy, was I terrified.
Though Mom had always preached that she didn't care “what” we
brought home “as long as they make you happy,” I was still
afraid. What girl wouldn't be?
But my
mom, bless every ounce of her soul, reacted in a TOTALLY unexpected
way. She was ecstatic. She was so happy. She told me even she had
some girlfriends over the years but she was afraid of what my sister
and I would think. (Well, Mom, I wouldn't have given two shits and I
bet my sister wouldn't have, either.)
After
that, I breathed a little easier. My crush was straight and had a
boyfriend back home, so my efforts to impress her were futile, but I
tried anyway. (I still have a thing for accents from a certain
country.)
I was
never really enamoured with penises.
Let's
just leave it at that.
That's
not to say that I don't enjoy sex with Ark; I do, and though it just
about never happens anymore, I told him tonight that I hope our
sexual relationship is not over. I enjoy the closeness, and I
genuinely do enjoy getting him off. I don't know why it's easier or
more appealing for me to have sex with Ark than with any other man
(the idea of it is repulsive, honestly). I explained to him, “I
just like all the other
stuff in the relationship more.”
Is it
possible to be a lesbian and be married to a man?
Is it
possible to have a working platonic relationship with your husband?
I
should rephrase that. Is it possible for me
to have a working, mostly
platonic relationship with my
husband? Yes, yes I think it is.
This
brings me to a new problem: Will most lesbians, and the amazing
lesbian/queer community here where I live, accept me as I am?
Probably not.
It is
very hard for a marginalized person like me to get into the very
cliquey and judgmental groups they live in.
Wait a
minute, I just read that sentence over again. Did you? Cause if you
see the same thing I see, you just might laugh out loud. If they're
cliquey and judgmental, why do I want to be "accepted" by
them? Is it because I want the kinship? I am certainly not
judgmental—I accept people as they are. I'm often shocked by how
racist, sexist and hateful queers can be. We are already
the “Other.” We are all linked—we have common ground—in that
we love differently.
If the community as a whole (I'm not speaking for individuals, as I
do have some lesbian friends who are just fine with my situation)
shuns me because of the way I live and the way I love, I guess I
should just let it go and not worry about it.
Ark
and I are doing great. We're treading carefully, but the playfulness,
the joy, the laughter, has returned. I'm happier... and so is he, if
I may be so bold as to say so. So what if other people look at our
relationship, as it is, and think it can't be done? So what if they
look at us and think we're crazy? We're doing it. And damn it, we
might be crazy, but we're also lovin' it.
