On Queerness and Coming Out in My 50s

Today I am inspired to write this post after reading Moira Hayes’ wonderful piece, How to Stare at the Sun in the Femme Art Review. Here’s the first part that resonated with me, but so much of this piece does, even if I am much older than Moira and times were so different when I was in high school.

“Of all the things in life that are hard to look at, nothing has plagued me so acutely as the sight of a beautiful woman. When I see an attractive woman, I look away and I try not to look back. I’ve been asking my friends, my family, and random people in bars if they share this affliction. They don’t! So, why?”

Ever since I was a child, I always looked away. I had a gay best friend in high school and he was the most interesting person I knew, a role model in many ways. Introducing me to great literature and music. But he struggled. He was in the closet. We both knew he couldn’t tell anyone he was gay at our hetero high.

In my late fifties, I read the Adrienne Rich poem, Diving in to the Wreck. Perhaps it was the speaker’s claiming their gender fluidity and sexuality in this poem. I’m not sure, but suddenly I knew I wasn’t straight. It wasn’t a question. It felt freeing for me and lovely to realize it. I felt stupid too. I flashed back over my life, over all the crushes I’d had on women and gender fluid people. About how I kind of just dismissed the crushes over the years, brushed off my feelings. I feel for that teen age girl now. I wish I could reassure her and give her queer friends she could relate to, but the wall surrounding queerness was absolutely impenetrable.

In junior high, my classmates and I went on a school trip to Quebec City and my roommate, a beautiful girl with straw blonde hair got severely drunk. I helped her, held her head while she vomited, got her water. She was really angry with me after. And her cool friends accused me of being “a lesbo.” Back then to refer to someone as gay was to insult them. I was embarrassed. I wasn’t being remotely sexual with this girl, I was just being caring, but I did have a crush on her.

I had a crush on the girl who lived in my building and played baseball. I liked the way she seemed boyish and could play sports. I was the watergirl for her team and would go to every game, even though I didn’t care for sports at all.

I had a crush on the girl who traded me her Nutella sandwiches for my bland ham sandwiches and let me ride home with her on the back of her bike with a banana seat.

I had a crush on a girl with white blonde hair who I struggled to do a gymnastics routine with for gym.

I got excited when Carol Pope sang about creaming her jeans in High School Confidential.

But i was boy mad from a very early age and even with boys, I was constantly teased and insulted and made fun of if I showed any interest in a boy. But to show interest in a girl was worse, that got you beat up. I loathed school and did everything I could not to stand out.

Once a friend and I were in her bedroom and practiced lying on top of her big raggedy ann doll and kissing the doll. Then her brother and his friend took us to a tree house where the brother tried to french kiss me and I ran. Boys were always touching my thighs against me will or interest. Men were too.

Girls were mean and mocking through school. I had a few friends, but they were rare until much later in life. And I was careful not to show any affection or care for girls.

As an adult I was in a heterosexual monogamous relationship from my late teens until mid thirties. Sometimes while watching porn, I would be turned on by a woman and would fantasize about her later. I didn’t even consider that I wasn’t straight.

As a writer of erotic fiction, I wrote stories about straight and queer characters. I wrote one about a women in her forties who had a threesome with a man and her best friend, a woman. I based it somewhat on a woman I had non platonic feelings for.

I realized I was not straight after my mother died. Once when I went to visit her just before she went into a retirement home, she asked me if I was angry with her, and I couldn’t say that I was angry. But when I was a child, there were issues with my father and she didn’t stop it, even after I told her. So I guess I did feel a certain anger and I was also still angry with all those girls in junior high and high school who were mean to me. I even told people I wasn’t a feminist. I was an idiot. With my mother’s death, I felt freed from an anger and resentment I’d held on to for a long time. So yes, it was a realization and an awakening. And fuck yeah, I’m a feminist and have fought for the rights of women and non-binary artists to be paid for their work for a long time, even when I thought I wasn’t a feminist.

My husband isn’t straight and we are not monogamous. It wasn’t until we got together in our late thirties that we realized we are polyamorous. Our early forays together involved men and women, but I didn’t get sexually involved with the women. Childhood mockery and a history of trauma kept me from exploring my sexuality with women and non-binary lovers. I didn’t realize it. I just thought I was straight.

What I have realized is that gender is not the thing that triggers my attraction. I can celebrate the presentation of gender, but there are so many reasons why I’m attracted to someone, from the physical to the cerebral.

After I came out to myself and to others in my late fifties, I started to go to speed dating events. I chatted with women and gender nonconforming folks, but chatting has been as far as it has gone. The pandemic came and there just wasn’t the opportunity. Now I’m sixty and I just can’t even imagine putting myself out there without feeling extremely vulnerable. I feel like it’s too late. Even though I’ve met women my age at speed dating events who are still able to date, but age is still something that is heavily mocked. I’m a long-time slut since my thirties who has been slut-shamed for openly expressing my sexuality, even when I thought I was straight.

People find me “cute.” Not everyone, but enough to make me wary and feel out of place. Once a woman who was featured at a reading in a local pub, looked out into the audience and said she would read a sex poem because I was in the audience. As if I was the only person who enjoyed sex in the room. In fact, I don’t even like conventional sex. I need a little kink and a lot of brain friction, but I’m not at all keen on the missionary position and other hetero penetrative styles. That might have been a clue. I am a giver. I enjoy most of all giving pleasure to a lover during sex, and to bringing non-platonic joy to those who are not lovers.

I believe that love is infinite. I am generous and loving, particularly to dear friends, my chosen family. These friends are monogamous. I respect that. And most of my friends are in the literary community. For almost a decade now, I have had a rule that I will not get involved with anyone from the literary community. In my role as an editor and publisher, some see me as having a position of authority and I would not wish to exploit a power relationship. I believe in consent.

But I dream of the wild and fun and silly and whimsical flings and long term adventures I could have with trans writer pals, queer artists i know, lesbian librarians, dapper dandies. I am heartbroken by the hate and harm that is being directed at the 2SLGBTQ community. I pass as straight. I am white and cis-gender. I have a lot of privilege. And I don’t really give a rat’s ass what people think of me anymore. I have that luxury. My heart aches for queer young people today who must travel this difficult road in the face of anger and prejudice at their very existence. It is an outrage.

I am grateful for queer writers, musicians, filmmakers and artists. These amazing artists breathe life into art and forge necessary bonds with community, and from my personal point of view, they help this old white pansexual slut feel less alone. Here’s a bouquet to every queer and trans person who is struggling, who is harmed, who is afraid to come out, and sadly with good reason. You are not alone darling. You are loved.

Image description: a bouquet of pink and white peonies in full bloom and one closed up. On a black background.

If you like what I’m doing, but don’t care to subscribe, please buy me a coffee.