1. I am a non-hetero person but I’m in a long-term heterosexual relationship with the person I think I’m going to spend the rest of my life with. How do I maintain the queer lifestyle while living a heterosexual life?
- Question submitted by Anonymous and answered by Amanda Palmer
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This is such an insanely personal question that I cannot dare to answer it. How we do our relationships is really up to us, the most important thing is that we come up with our guidelines and constructs and understandings and don’t let the outside script dictate our choices. Not all relationships are definable in the usual way, that’s for sure. We wind up getting ourselves into very tight boxes due to the fact that everyone has these super-strict ideas about WHAT things are. What a “marriage” means. What a “long-term” relationship means. What an “open” relationship means. It’s really all just names and words. The key is to come to an understanding with yourself and your lovers/partners/friends. And everyone else can judge all they want, but the thing you construct is not up to them to name.
As far as maintaining the queer lifestyle, think about what you’re saying. If the whole concept of queerness and freedom is to be able to BE YOURSELF and DO WHAT YOU WANT, don’t feel like you have to do a certain fucking dance and show for the world to belong to the queer community. If the queer community is judging you for who you’re sleeping with, they’re not the queer community I’d want to be hanging with, if you know what I mean.
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2. I feel I may be bisexual but have never kissed or had sex with a female. Perhaps doing so would help me understand better my feelings toward the same sex. Does one have to have sexual experiences on any level to truly determine their sexuality or does it simply depend?
- Question submitted by Anonymous and answered by Amanda Palmer
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I don’t think there’s a real answer for this. If what you’re trying to do is find out whether you’re REALLY TURNED ON BY SEX WITH GIRLS, it’s probably a good idea to have sex with one to learn how it feels. You’ll learn things. I have a lot of fantasies about women when I’m in bed but in “real life” I tend to skew more towards liking sex with men when it comes to reality, though it can really depend on the day and the person.
I tend to think we’re all somewhere between straight and gay, though some people are hard to the left or right. But I’d be amazed to meet someone who’s never even tested gay fantasies in their head, to see how it feels. And if you try it in that experimental “is this for me” context, it doesn’t always mean it translates in real-time when you’re faced with a pair of fleshy boobies. Sometimes fantasy just stays wonderful fantasies. Then again, you might find that you get so excited by boobs in person that you never want to give another blow job in your life. Only you will know.