"Hey, Diana, how are you?"
"It's been forever!"
"This is my girlfriend Sunny"
This is how most conversations start when I meet up with my friends I haven't seen in a few months (read: years). We get to laughing and joking and catching up on life for an hour or so. But in the back of Diana's mind, she's thinking who is that woman with me again?
"So how do you two know each other?" Diana ask.
That's the question my girlfriend and I get constantly. It doesn't matter how many times we introduce each other as girlfriend and girlfriend. It doesn't matter how many times we wear shirts that say Vagetarian or Queer AF. She's what Cis and heteronormative people would call feminine and so am I. At some point in time before we were born, some decided that masculine and feminine were the categories and regardless of your sexuality, you can be one or the other and you had to date the opposite.
So when we say, "We're dating" people hear, "We're friends". This is something we generally only experience with young people.
My parents generation usually reacts like this.
Me: Mom, this is my girlfriend Sunny.
Mom: So which one of you is the boy?
Me: Neither of us are boys... That's kinda the point.
Mom: But if one of you has to strap something on, why wouldn't you just date a man.
Me: I really don't want to explain how I have sex with you but neither of us does it like that.
And this conversation goes on and on until I say something graphic enough that she never ask again. Ultimately my sex life isn't up for decisions with anyone unless I feel like sharing it. I tell her that my brother and his wife don't have to give a bedroom play by play so why should I. And honestly if you, reader of this, ever feel "curious" about your queer friends sex life, DON'T ASK, DON'T ASSUME, just leave it alone.
But that raises an age old question: Why the use of sex toys is considered a masculine role?
I'm here to tell you that inanimate objects have NO GENDER. That vibrator in your granny's dresser drawer isn't a replacement for your grandpa. She uses it cuz she likes it. Sex toys don't talk, don't get tired and go away when you're finished. Sex toys have one purpose: STIMULATION. You can use them with a partner or alone and they generally always do their job. It's not a gay or straight thing either, sex toys have NO SEXUALITY. Sex toys don't care what type of sex you like and they NEVER JUDGE. They are here to bring you happiness and orgasms.
In fact we could probably take a lesson from a sex toys.
