Sexuality, Interrupted

I first watched the film Girl, Interrupted shortly after it came out in 1999. But until this past weekend, I hadn't revisited it in probably 20 years.
 
In 1999, I was married, something that seemed like the right thing. The natural thing. It’s what was supposed to happen, right? Settle down, move to suburbia, have a grill in the backyard, and maybe have a kid or two.
 
Spoiler alert – none of that happened. The marriage itself only lasted about three years. And devastated as I was to see it end, I would come to realize that ending it was the actual right thing. For me, marriage to a man – especially a vanilla man who only reinforced my belief that wanting to be tied up was weird – was not natural.
 
And one of the first clues, looking back, was my response to a scene in Girl, Interrupted. In my memory, Angelina Jolie leans over and places a passionate kiss on Wynona Ryder while they’re passengers in a van. The reality, I was rather shocked to discover, was that it was Ryder who leaned over and placed a quick, almost chaste peck on Jolie’s lips.
 
Huh, I thought. This seemed like a bigger deal at the time.
 
Because it was a bigger deal then. That is, it was to me. I got pants feelings. For the first time. About women.
 
I remember mentioning it to my then husband though I doubt I expressed quite how big a deal it was for me. I'm not sure I could have explained it to anyone else then. I barely understood it myself. All I knew was that there was a stirring that had never happened without a man being involved - or some type of bondage. I also remember him shrugging it off, possibly laughing. Because of course he did. He had probably gotten pants feelings too. He probably found my response cute.
 
It wasn’t cute.
 
All my life, I’d been told that the worst thing you could turn out to be was gay. And even at the age of 27, I didn’t yet realize that bisexuality was a real thing. Of course I’d heard the word, but it always felt the first step in coming out as gay. Elton John had come out as bisexual and look how that turned out. Only weirdos claimed to be bisexual and then it was just safer than saying you were gay.
 
It would take me several more years to realize that being bi was a very real, very valid sexuality.
 
My immediate response, however, was to compose a list. I called it my “If List.” That is to say, if I were a lesbian, I’d totally want to bang…these women.
 
First on it was Angelina Jolie. She held the top spot right up until the list was dissolved. Shakira, Salma Hayek, and others were all added in short order. Funny that now I can barely remember who all I included. Pretty sure Gina Torres got added eventually though, possibly Sara Ramirez. All I am sure of is that my type seemed to be petite, curvy women. Preferably of Latin descent.
 
Like so much about me, however, my type in women would evolve too. It wasn’t long before I also became attracted to more androgynous, even butch, women. Early in 2007, I would meet someone who would shatter everything I had ever believed about gender and what I was attracted to. They presented mostly female at the time despite an androgynous build and height of just over six feet. I have watched them dance with gender ever since, playing with it, defying people’s expectations of it, and reveling in the confusion they cause.
 
They went on the list too. Along with a couple of other women I met in the kink community. Adding people I had actually met felt odd but not wrong. I remember being surprised when the list approached double digits though.
 
S was different. They weren't like anyone else on the list. Even now, I find it difficult to make accurate comparisons where they are concerned. There are reasons that I have built two central characters around them - one male, one female.

Eventually, not only did they cement their place on the list, I was able to cross them off of it. And it was only then that the list began to feel irrelevant, outdated, and unnecessary. For if I could cross people off the list, there was no “if” about my sexuality. I'd gotten an inkling of it when I flirted with another woman (a *gasp* lesbian!) at my first dungeon party. But now it was clear. It was real and it was undeniable. I could be attracted to multiple genders.
 
It absolutely took some time for me to process that, come to terms with it, and finally own it. I was doing a lot of that at the time though, so it just seemed like one more thing. Groundbreaking as those changes were for me, I can trace many of them back to a single moment.
 
A single kiss that most people probably didn’t even notice. A single kiss that seemed to be aimed directly at me.