Questioning social norms and constructs

Some days I feel like a mute. I haven’t spoken one word and I am tempted to just shout something randomly on the pretence that I am going insane from lack of communicating. I found myself worried I would forget how to speak or if maybe I am toning my non-existent telepathic powers. I never used to have this problem. I used to be able to remain by myself. I did it so much in fact my mom, high school teachers and classmates thought I was an antisocial, recluse and a lesbian?

How did these people come to the conclusion that I may be homosexual even though I am most likely not?

It all started when I was 12. A time when I didn’t really even understand what homosexuality was. There was another girl near where I live that displayed somewhat homoerotic tendencies towards me, but being an idyllic innocent 12 year old I honestly never picked it up and I honestly don’t think my friend was aware of it either, but my mom read something into our friendship. I remember her looking at me with a sort of there is something wrong with you type look. She asked me about my friend and said she needed help Then she looked me in the eye and said if I were attracted to girls it’s against God, it’s unnatural and it’s wrong. I immediately became afraid of becoming a lesbian for some reason, which was really quite silly. The next day I made an ass of myself and asked my friend’s friend if she was a lesbian. I remember thinking it was hilarious or I was vilifying and exposing someone. She became major offended and I tried to mask it up with a joke, but it made me look like the lesbian. In the end I lost my friendship with my friend and I began to question my sexuality.

It was during this time that other girls thought I was a lesbian and were afraid to come near me in changing rooms or when a chain letter was going around and some bitchy girl said to her other friend quite loudly “I wonder if we should include her are sure she is a girl?” This furthered my paranoia or being revealed as to something I honestly had no idea what was about, but I know was considered almost evil by mom, my grandparents and the Mormon Church I went too.

When I was 17 I always had this feeling that my mom thought or was convinced I was homosexual. She would often hint that it was OK to be the way I was. She would often make comments after movies or something she read that homosexuality was normal. One day I out of morbid curiosity I asked her “Did you ever think I was a lesbian?” She said “yes, but I know your normal now because you have crushes on boys, but if you were I’d still accept you for who you were.” I reminded her of what she said when I was twelve, due to the very conflicting messages I had just received. She said she learnt it was natural from her college experience and that “I had nothing to be ashamed of it I was.” For some reason that really pissed me off, how can she say that it was wrong and evil five years earlier, then turn around and say it was OK?

I might add this was also a belief was shared by the majority of the school I went too as well. I was often associated with the butch looking book reading nerd in my class for some reason. Maybe because we were on the same intellectual level, liked books, dressed kind of daggy and again the antisocial type arose again. Even stranger I was a lesbian because I did well in class and the teachers liked me something else not considered normal.

So when this was taken all of these stupid things into account I was therefore gay. GAY! Captain Bottle Pop would have had a field day. It’s because my moms subtle hints that I would question my own sexuality because I didn’t feel like I fit into the norm. Funnily enough when I developed a crush on a boy at school the question of my sexuality was satisfied enough for my mom that she let it go. My classmates they did not know I had a crush on a guy so I was still constantly asked by if I was a lesbian because they had some morbid curiosity they had to fulfil. Oddly because I was taking beauty culture as a subject in high school the girls I knew backed off, associating me with femininity and normality because hair and beauty was a girl thing. Little did they know I was only in the class for the free hair cuts and hair colourings?

I also remember a lady my mom suspected homosexual because she didn’t have sex with her husband, similar to the one suspect about me and my lack of boyfriend, which I don’t think was a mere coincidence. One day we were driving around town and the lady pointed out an attractive well dressed woman. There may or may not have been anything sexual meant by the comment, but my mom freaked out. She became very defensive berated the lady saying I was normal and that I didn’t like girls that way. Again with the conflicting messages!

I remember from my recent trip to Sydney telling some of these stories to Chris’s boyfriend Jeremy and he said when I was 12 my mom was trying to stop me from becoming a lesbian and when I was 17 she has decided I was one so there was nothing she could do about it but accept it. He also said it shouldn’t matter what she thinks. Chris has said the same over and over again saying “I shouldn’t let one off things get to me and if I were a lesbian it wouldn’t matter and my family can’t touch me.”

I don’t know if this is the correct answer, but for some reason it explained the way my mom and others reacted. I read numerous books about the study of sexuality and gender for my class many of which say things that are deviant behaviours or behaviours that don’t fit into the norm are automatically and strangely enough associated with homosexuality. So because I was antisocial, which could be considered a deviant behaviour and because I had no boyfriend, which does not seem normal for a 17 year old girl. No offence but the later is a pretty narrow minded belief.

So why am I sharing this with everyone? It’s been on my mind lately and I am not ashamed to discus my sexuality. I consider myself heterosexual, but sometimes I am not so sure what I am, but I think the confusion is just derivative from past experience. This just proves another theory that heterosexuals such as myself are very insecure because they are constantly trying to fit into the so called norm, which is why although not homophobic I am skittish almost frightened when others question my sexuality when it has nothing to do with them.

P.S. I am now under the belief that gender and sexuality are social constructs.