I used to go into the grocery store and scan the room for the most attractive man.
As I moved through my shopping, I would wonder if he had noticed me.
I’d somehow find myself favoring the aisles where our paths would cross.
Between selecting the plumpest oranges and the bushiest kale, thoughts of getting noticed by him would weave in and out of my thinking.
Note that I didn’t say the man I was most attracted to.
He was just the “most attractive man” in that particular space.
This is the phenomenon of The Male Gaze.
I never noticed it at the time. Not until it disappeared.
In retrospect, it felt like a compulsory, unconscious orientation to be available to and performing for the intake of men.
Something I was conditioned to strive towards as early as 2, 3, and 4 years old. The same age that spaghetti strap tank tops and short-shorts show up in the girls’ clothing section so that they learn early on that their bodies - even as children - are intended for display.
Now, I go into a grocery store and the people could be cardboard cutouts for all the excitement they elicit in me.
I never noticed it until it was gone.
This liberation from The Male Gaze has been subtly exuberant.
Like growing up in a city of smog and then one morning waking up in the mountains after fresh rainfall and all of a sudden the air feels empty of something stagnant.
I’ve watched myself wear less makeup and test out different flavors in my clothing and choose my body’s comfort over it’s potential for display.
I’ve experienced myself feeling beautiful and powerful in grubby work clothes in ways that bubble up from an inherent sense of wonder rather than accomplishing a presentation of my body that looks good to anyone else.
I’ve also gone through a phase of sexual dormancy. Like my body is luxuriating in the peacefulness of itself without needing to perform a sexual hunger that is so present and fraught with frustration in all the media we consume.
The freedom is thick and calm. I’m a bit lost in it.
Alternatively, I went to an insanely funny comedy show the other night. One part stand-up + one part live, comedy podcast.
I was in a room of predominantly lesbians, a smattering of other queer folks, and I’m sure a few hetero cuties.
I felt so at ease and alive in the room.
I had that physical sense of belonging. Like my skin fit.
Being in predominantly straight spaces has never felt that way. I didn’t know it until I was on the outside looking in but I constantly felt just a tiny bit on guard.
Again, I didn’t notice it until it was gone.
Still, having grown up in a world that projects heterosexuality onto everyone and everything, I’m not sure what the new rules are…
Queerness stalwartly towers outside predetermined expectations and the confinement of heterosexual projections.
It wants you to be everything and all of who you are. It doesn’t have rules for who and how you can be.
The enormity, and unfamiliarity of that canvas can be daunting.
I miss the known devil of straightness and I’m so glad to be somewhere new.
I never feel queer enough, yet I’m so curious how queer I would have to be for my brain to feel it was enough.
I don’t like that my partner and I pass as straight in queer spaces.
I feel shame when I’m glad that we do in hetero spaces.
And in those same moments, I am grateful we can “get away with it” because then violent straight people won’t know to target us.
I simultaneously miss the ease and familiarity of knowing the heterosexual script for how to be while resenting how limited and militant it truly is.
I’m annoyed at the labor and unpacking I am constantly doing to dissolve what I’ve internalized while also feeling awed by the generative, unimagined expansion that lies in the creative cosmos beyond the binary.
I love it.
I’m frustrated by it.
I feel like a novice.
I miss what I knew.
I’m so grateful to be free of it.
I don’t feel queer enough.
I feel just right.
Invitations:
Please share this essay, or another one you liked, with someone in your world. I get all tender in my gratitude when I imagine your help in making this writing grow!
Little Gifts:
If you like comedy and/or openhearted stories of self-exploration and expression, check out my girl’s podcast “We’re Having Gay Sex”. It will make you laugh, cry, raise your eyebrows, confront your own internalized -isms, learn about folks who live in different worlds than you, and ultimately make you a better human inside and out.
If you are local to the Salish Sea, check out Field Trip Society. I went on a Shellfish Foraging field Trip with my honey last week. It was fun and informative. It reminded me of a childhood gazing into tide pools, petting anemones, and chasing itty bitty crabs.
It’s the golden hour. You roll down your windows. You turn up the volume. The clouds glow gold and indigo in the setting sun. And this comes on…