Day of Silence

I'm warning you I'm not going to be funny and/or clever today, if you ever find me to be in the first place. I'm also talking about sexuality more than I am sex per se. It seems to be a week of events.

Today is the Day of Silence.
I'm wearing an official shirt. I am not being totally silent, as that's not really responsible or feasible at my job. Phones need to be answered, directions need to be given, and bosses need to be spoken too.
Tonight is the night of noise. Having represented the silencing of the GLBTQ community all day, said community and allies then let the fuck loose - speak, scream, sing, holler out what it is that's been kept quiet all too long.

I've been thinking a fair bit about how this phenomenon of silence has affected me. There are the obvious statements that I could make about having been queer and closeted in High School, but that seems rather redundant. Instead, I'm thinking about the silence around not being gay or straight - which most people understand or label as 'bisexual,' but doesn't quite fit for me. There's been a good bit of trying to understand exactly what this means and how it works in by life -do I like girls? do I like boys? do I like boys AND girls? Something about the polarity of 'bisexual' doesn't sit right with me. It seems to imply a certain equality of desire and attraction that also suggest to many ears exclusivity, as though one goes back and forth as a veritable sexual metronome. That is not the case, at least not my case.

I've experienced a lot of what I now call 'lesbian wrath' for being in a relationship with a man.
I'm happy to say that not much of this has come from friends who knew me when I still thought I was gay. It has substantially been from people I've met since this relationship began in September of 2006.
ie)
Kinsey: Hey (name of girl) how are you? This is my boyfriend (name of boyfriend).
Boyfriend: Nice to meet you.
Girl: Boyfriend, huh? glowers
Kinsey: yep. smiles innocently

It would take a visually impaired, socially sheltered idiot not to clock me, especially in certain situations. I am a walking stereotype of outdoors-ey, riot grrly, animals and large vehicles, flannel wearing, furniture constructing dykiness. (Although I suppose less so now than when I was younger, and I clean up pretty darn good if I do say so) I can understand disbelief about my man-liking, but have been really surprised and dismayed by some of the accompanying anger, as though I am somehow the property of Sappho's sisters everywhere. Its exactly the same kind of attitude I saw in unenlightened heterosexual men when I did think I was gay, "But you're too pretty to be a LESBIAN"*

I find myself often not revealing the complexity of my sexuality, or my history with women because its easier to just let people think that I'm straight, have always been straight, and will always be straight. Its hard to let someone get to know me without including those facts, but I would much, much rather let me people think that I'm straight, and a devoted ally, than I would to give anyone whomsoever fuel for 'Its just a phase,' or 'She just needed to find the right guy.' kinds of attitudes.

So after all that, I will say a happy thing about perceived sexuality:
I was riding the bus in Boulder one day on the way to school. I was wearing, as I often do, a tshirt that said 'My girlfriend goes to Smith,' courtesy of the Smith College Debate Society. An older gentleman sat down across from me. He said,
"Does your girlfriend really go to Smith?"
Me: "Actually, my boyfriend goes to CU."
Older Man: "Oh, that's nice too."
It was so amazingly kind and well intentioned. He was asking the question genuinely, and it obviously wasn't pervy.

* I always hated that word.