cough cough "i'm gay!"

The odd coupling concept in class was interesting to me because it opened up the idea that homosexuality is conceived as “fluid” in our society. It was discussed that if it is fluid it is somehow changeable and that makes it okay in our heterosexual society. The idea that homosexuality and being a lesbian is something that is chosen or “experimented” with allows for the dominant belief that being a lesbian or homosexual is more of a confusion, rather than something that is a part of you. A lot of times it is just a temporary experiment. In movies there are many lines made in passing, with minor emphasis, about, “Oh, it was college, I was experimenting with my sexuality.” Our society can normalize homosexuality and being a lesbian if it is in passing, temporary, not permanent. It is almost like an ailment, you were sick and now you are better. Being gay should not be treated as a sickness.

I also found it interesting that in Reinventing privilege: the new gay man, the author emphasized the gay males having the possibility to become heterosexuals while the women characters were never portrayed as possibly becoming lesbian. In contrast to this, one can look at Sex and the City’s Samantha, who was fluidly lesbian for a relationship and in the Canadian show, Degrassi, a main character, Paige, becomes a lesbian for a relationship as well. I think it is interesting that in these two instances the characters both had a reason to become gay. They did not struggle with being a gay character coming “out” or being ridiculed for becoming a lesbian, but instead they were in a relationship with another woman immediately. They had a REASON to become gay, rather than it being internal. This adds to the belief of homosexuality being a fluid thing.

A point that is amiss in all of these discussions however is bisexuality. Is that not a fluid thing? How can it be defined? Is it hurting the homosexual and lesbian cause? Is it just a heterosexual experimenting? Is a person bisexual if they did experiment with the same sex? Or was it just temporary? I do not have the answers, but they are certainly interesting to ponder.