My experience identifying as a heterosexual was always about trying to be the kind of woman I believed would appeal to men. I wanted to be the ‘right kind of woman’: white, skinny, able-bodied, and hungry, with high cheekbones and pursed lips. Now that I identify as queer and am in a relationship with a woman, however, I feel more comfortable expressing and experiencing my own desire. It’s true that my current relationship is not affirmed by mainstream society the way it was when I was dating men: my current partner and I are two women of color who love and sexually desire one another, and because of this we frequently attract hostile glances and comments. But existing outside the heterosexual Hollywood romance script also has the potential to be empowering, because it allows us to live by our own standards, and redefine romance and courtship to suit our own needs. I may not be the 'right kind of woman’ in society’s eyes because I am mixed-race, queer, and don’t believe in the binary sex/gender system, but I much prefer living on the margins of 'respectability’ to the alternative of suppressing my desires, my needs, and my voice. Living as a whole person, and learning to accept my own messy contradictions, is not only politically powerful, but much more sexually satisfying.
Vanessa Fernando, Dear John, I Love Jane: Women Write About Leaving Men for Women
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