it’s ignorant to act like we’ve reached a point in society where our desires, as gay and bisexual women, are acceptable and mainstream. people truly underestimate the shame, confusion and self-loathing that can come from recognizing that you’re same sex attracted.
there’s been practically a movement in and of itself to completely and totally declaw women’s sexuality, only tolerating women’s love if it’s wholesome enough for greeting cards. do you truly think that the struggles we face are only about hugs and kisses?
it’s not as easy or simple as movies make it out to be. you aren’t always walking alongside a friend and realizing the whole world stops when she smiles, or in the middle of bidding her goodnight when you decide that now is the time to kiss her.
to be young, and to discover that you like girls - not just in the puppy dog way, but also in the late night fantasy you try to ignore the next morning way - is still something monumental.
even the most progressive of allies leave out the truth of what it means to want women as women: the disgust you have for yourself when you realize you look at her the way boys do, which means you must be just as predatory and vulgar as they are; the tears you cry when you wonder if you’re failing your parents by deviating from a narrative they never thought you’d question; the anxiety that charges through you like a current every time you graze your hand by hers, terrified that she can read your mind and see you for what you really are.
girls aren’t meant to like girls, and when we realize this, we try whatever we can to escape it, as if trying to purge a toxin.
sometimes you might try to change your focus. everyone assumes you like boys, but no, now you LOVE boys. even if you don’t get along with them, or you’re scared of them, or you do genuinely like them but not the way they treat you. it doesn’t matter - you dial it up, and now you’re boy crazy, a red herring to distract people from the deep longing you felt for a girl you saw at the bus stop, with her cropped hair and self-assured swagger.
other times you overcompensate for this desire in the other direction, declaring yourself superior to other women and re-framing everything you love about them into hate. when you see other women who somehow found their ways past the mountains you couldn’t climb, you hate them too. the budding love you had is ripped from its root to make way for a different seed, one that - years later - takes time and patience to remove completely.
or perhaps you might decide you want nothing to do with any of this. easier just to not think about it at all, imagining yourself sanded down of all your features like a mannequin. while your friends talk about dating and sex, part of the running joke becomes that you’re frigid, but you know that that’s not the full story. maybe you get so good at running from yourself that you truly do think that you’re broken, like you froze yourself for so long you’re not sure if there’s anything left at your center.
regardless of the shape your denial takes, society is content with it as long as you do it at all. in fact, society would rather you suffer in silence than forge your own path, through thick vines and tall grasses, to a place it doesn’t want you to find.
women’s love is gross, weird, even scary. it’s for the best, they’ll say without speaking, to keep it locked away.
so when you finally push past what they tell you, digging yourself free after being buried alive, it’s cause for celebration. despite being a nomad with no map, you found your way back home.
when you look at her for the first time and realize it’s okay - not just okay, but wonderful and passionate and magical - to love her, and to want to feel her and taste her and lie along side her, it’s a victory in its own right. they told you never to find the key, acting as if it’s a pandora’s box they warned you away from, but what you found instead was treasure.
yet even today, the struggles women face when learning to be themselves are dismissed and ignored. some are even so bold as to claim that it’s an act of hatred, of cruelty, to finally become who you were always meant to be. imagine spending all that time undoing the ropes of shame that bound you only to be told that you’re evil for doing so.
if you deny women the right to love each other, just know that it doesn’t matter what lead you to this position; you could be a sweat-laden pastor shrieking about devilry or a middle-aged mom uncomfortable with “those kinds of girls” or even a smug keyboard warrior lecturing women on twitter.
whatever reason there is behind your absolute hatred of women, so strong you hate even when they love each other, it’s all the same. there’s no need to act like you’re any different from other homophobes just because your breed of hate is repackaged.
you can try to disgrace and censor women, guilt them or bully them or tell them they’re everything from nasty to prejudiced to worthy of hellfire, but it won’t change a damn thing.
there is nothing wrong with loving women. there is nothing disgusting, unnatural, impure, hateful or bigoted about loving women. loving women - especially loving only women - is not a crime that must be punished or a stain to be washed out.
women’s love is beautiful, whether under the covers or under the stars, tender or carnal or both at once.
and for every girl who loves girls, who is forced to lose herself and lock herself away, there are scores of women who withstood the war zone of a homophobic world and are ready to guide these lost souls back home.
we will wait with open arms, ready to take them home where they belong: somewhere they can love and lust for and celebrate and center other women.
a place where we keep no locks or keys.
izzy806
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