As a queer woman, I didnāt truly understand sexism until I dated a man.
Iād experienced and witnessed sexism through catcalling and slut-shaming on numerous occasions, as these acts of prejudice are so ubiquitous that they are impossible to avoid. Throughout most of high school, however, I didnāt spend much time with cishet (cisgendered and heterosexual) men. My closest circle of friends consisted entirely of members of the LGBTQ+ community and one cishet girl. For a long time, I remained happily ignorant of the true extent to which women are dis-valued and misunderstood in a hypermasculine society.
That all changed midway through junior year when I decided to try something new: date a boy. At that point, I was still fairly closeted at school. Outside of the LGBTQ+ club, there were only a few people who knew that I wasnāt straight. I had only dated women up to that point, but since none of my exes had gone to my school, it was easy to cover up my sexuality by referring to my girlfriends as āfriends.ā At some point, I got tired of hiding my relationships, however, I still wasnāt ready to be out. So I decided to try dating a boy, despite all the horror stories Iād heard about straight men.
I thought I was happy. My ex was, if nothing else, a funny guy. He could make me laugh, and we had enough fun together that I didnāt feel totally miserable. We also managed to become a high-profile couple, and it seemed like everyone adored us, which only added to my guilt for my growing sense of unease in the relationship. But this was all hidden. On the outside, we were a steady couple that connected on a deep, emotional level.
We stayed together for almost a yearāmuch longer than we should haveāfor a multitude of reasons. One of the reasons was that he was a man.
I didnāt think there would be such a difference between dating a woman and dating a man, but I was wrong. Behind the happy faƧade of our relationship was a year that chipped away at my self-esteem and bodily identity in a way that I didnāt previously know was possible. Although my prior sexual experiences were limited, there was much more communication, especially on matters of consent, within my female relationships compared to this one. My first girlfriend always made sure that I was comfortable with any given situation. Regardless of what it was, she always asked before she did anything. In contrast, my ex-boyfriend asked me for my permission before kissing me for the first time but neglected to wait for my response; when it came to touching, he neglected to ask for my consent on all points except for when what he considered āsexā was involved.
In addition to the lack of communication, another thing I noticed that was different in dating a man was the necessity to constantly reassure him of his manhood. About a week into us dating, he told me about the size of his dick. This was, mind you, long before we had had any real conversations about sex. Also around that time, he started sending me shirtless pictures, which I neither asked for nor particularly wanted to see. HeĀ had a lot of insecurities about his masculinity and sex appeal, and I found myself constantly having to reassure him that I found him attractive and competent. Early on in our relationship, when we hadnāt done much physically, he told me that he had confided in his therapist that he was worried that I didnāt want to have sex with himāas if my sexual desire or comfort level was something I owed to make him feel better. Itās not as if my ex-girlfriends didnāt have insecurities or desires as well, but it was never presented in a way that made it my job to be their emotional crutch.
Another thing I experienced in my relationship with this man was the legendary objectification of women. Iām bi, so I obviously find women attractive. In past relationships, my girlfriends and I would have conversations about celebrity crushes or how cute a girl weād seen on the street was. But there is, I found, a distinct difference between the way queer women express their attraction to women and the way straight men do it. In my experience, when women talk about other women, they use terms like ācuteā or āattractive,ā terms that, although unequivocally tied to physical appearance, stray away from the realm of overt sexuality. In contrast, men tend to use terms like āhotā or āsexyā ā terms that are tied to sex, not just aesthetic appreciation. My ex was no exception. It was difficult to talk about any media involving a woman without his mentioning something sexual about her; he even went so far as to speak about cartoon characters from his childhood that he found sexually attractive.
Of course, I was not exempt from this kind of objectification. We would be talking about a movie when my ex would compare my breasts to the lead actressā, or I would be opening up about a difficult time in my life when he would shift the conversation to how beautiful I looked and start kissing me instead of listening. There was even a time when, for some reason, he decided to grab my ass in front of his younger brother. I donāt think thereās anything wrong with an entirely physical relationship, but in our relationship, I thought we had agreed to have an emotional connection, too, which meant that there are different times for different things.Ā Having nearly every conversation devolve into one about my body and his sexual attraction to me was uncomfortable at best, and alarmingly disrespectful at worst.
The sad thing about all of this is that my ex is probably one of the better ones. He was always active in school discussions about consent, he makes an effort to consume media by female artists, and he acknowledges the discrimination women have faced both historically and in modern times. To deny that he is making an effort, or that he is more educated than the average man would be unfair. Then again, if you set the bar at the level of the average man, itās not exactly difficult to seem like an exception. I know that my ex is trying. Nevertheless, he was still sexist.
After we broke up, I pointed out that our first kiss was nonconsensual. His response? He said that he was sorry if he had pressured me, but that he remembered the event differently. When I brought up how uncomfortable his casual objectification of women had made me, he gave no apologies and said only that he had been brought up in a masculine environment, and that this was how he had learned to treat women. I know that he is trying, but it is not enough. His inhibited capacities for dealing with emotions and perception that women are something other cannot result in healthy relationships.
I do not think he will end up alone. Men like him have existed for a long time, men like him get married and live their lives never once escaping their ignorance. They donāt need to. Women are taught to care for men and act as the connection to the emotional part of human existence men often have little understanding of. As long as there are women out there willing to do emotional labor for men, men will not feel the need to change. And many women are willing. I was once willing.
Being with a man was not all bad. My ex is still a person, after all, and as long as two people are involved, they are sure to find something in common, some way of enjoying each otherās company. That being said, the love of a man is nowhere near comparable to the love of a woman. To paraphrase an idea from Lillian Fadermanās Surpassing the Love of Men, a queer womanās identity is more influenced by the male incapacity for understanding and connecting with women as equals than by an innate lack of attraction to men. I fully believe that the man I once dated did his best to love me. However, he came into the relationship with so many preconceived notions of what womanhood meant that he was incapable of looking past them to see the real me. To him, I was more woman than person.
My sexuality isnāt a choice, but my dating preferences are. I doubt that there will ever be a day when I donāt find men attractive, but that doesnāt mean I have to date them or waste my time with them. Until the day that society has progressed to a point where men and women are true equals, and I am confident that a man can see me more as a person than as a vehicle for sexual gratification, I see no reason to be with one. I am bisexual, I love women, and I donāt intend to date a man any time soon.