I’m a walking, talking, babbling, ceaseless argument for the fact that sexuality is not a choice. Integrity is — though that’s not my point here.
As a sometime lesbian and appalled heterosexual, I’m well aware that the combination of qualities I adore are hopelessly rare in either sex:
Men are disgusting… Women are unbearable… And sadly, as friend Lori remarked, “There is no third sex… And goats are too chatty.”
But that’s not the point either, though there’s plenty of material there — and some of it’s even original. This is about nonconsensual sexuality: the understanding that most of us don’t choose our orientation.
To what do I attribute my own unforeseen, profound internal shift?
Brain damage. Obviously.
The answers that sound less flippant are somewhat less convincing to me. However, CRPS’s extensive disruption of the endocrine system (that is, system of hormone-secreting organs) is already amply demonstrated. I think that’s it.
When I was more lesbian, and other people were being silly about that, I used to ask, “Why would I ‘choose’ to be something that has led several companies not to hire me, my own government to refuse to let me marry despite my being such a good citizen, and at least one individual to try to kill me in cold blood?”
Now, nobody gets silly about my orientation, but I ask myself the complementary questions. They are a lot more trivial, but also much more intransigent: “Why would I ‘choose’ to be relentlessly attracted to a sex as ill-mannered as chimps, as emotionally corrupt as usurers, and as stable as malaria?”
But hey, nobody’s tried to kill me for being straight; same-sex marriage is heading towards legality; and I’m unhireable for reasons that have nothing to do with my orientation. If I were less lonely and more selfless, I would take these changes as major victories. (As it is, it’s more like a no-score win.)
But, at New Year’s, I’ll toast those victories nonetheless, in the names of all my spiritual kindred who can be a bit safer, a bit freer, a bit better recognized for being good people, good spouses, and good citizens.
Hope to hear your voices, and see your glasses, raised with mine! Who knows, I might even run into my own better half in 2011. Whatever that person turns out to be.