Can anyone explain queer heterosexuality to me?

[featherland]

I have noticed over the last few months / years more and more people I know on Facebook identifying themselves as queer, even though they are in heteronormative relationships.

For example, I went to a friend's wedding. It was very traditional - big white gown, all male speeches etc. she has been with her husband since she was a teenager and never (publicly) been in a relationship with a woman. She describes herself as femme and queer - and often posts photos of herself looking very beautiful and typically 'feminine' (makeup, pretty clothes ..) describing herself as such, with loads of pride emoticons.

I just .. Don't get it? I understand the desire to reject gender norms and heteronormativity. But surely those of us who are straight and in monogamous relationships can't just claim the word queer when we receive (willingly or not) all the social privileges of being straight?

And I can understand wanting to stand in solidarity with LGBTQ people. But don't we need to change heteronormative society rather than muscle in on the spaces created by and for people who are marginalised? Eg I am not married, mainly because I can't reconcile myself with the patriarchal history of marriage. I don't see that doing heteronormative tings and saying that you aren't is really queer? If there is such a thing as queer heterosexuality shouldn't it be about living in non normative ways?

[DJBaggySmalls]

Yeah, I cant support it. Actual lesbians are are having an especially rough time of it lately. Ignoring that and pretending to be queer while you are in fact straight is a flat out insult.

[newtlover]

It's about wanting to seem 'special' and 'interesting'
10 years ago they would have been 'spiritual' and plying you with crystals.

[VestalVirgin]

10 years ago they would have been 'spiritual' and plying you with crystals.

That was harmless against the genderidiocy. Disagreeing with people who believe in the power of healing crystals usually is much less dangerous for your health than disagreeing with genderists.

Let's hope featherland's friend doesn't identify as non-woman in any way, and her partner does not try to appropriate womanhood.

Appropriating "queer" to make themselves interesting is bad enough.

If there is such a thing as queer heterosexuality shouldn't it be about living in non normative ways?

I don't think heterosexual relationships should be described as "queer" at all. Ever. (Except perhaps in a Tolkien novel)

If a woman who works full time lives together with a man who is a stay at home dad to their children, and they aren't married, then that should just be ... normal.
Not labeled different and special.

[QueenLaBeefah]

Just plain old attention seeking.

[silkpyjamasallday]

I second @newtlover it's a desperate attempt to be more 'interesting' and 'alternative' I have no patience for people like this and unfortunately as I am in my early 20s there is a huge proportion of my peers who go along with all this crap. All you can do is ignore it and hope it eventually goes away and the sheeple seize onto the next identity fad.

[HeyRoly]

Sounds like she's created her own unique and very wide definition of "queer". In fact, it sounds so inclusive it probably includes all of us

[Datun]

Queer used to be the old, slightly insulting word for gay men. Then it got reclaimed, but only gay men could use it.

Now it just seems to be an all encompassing word for someone who is open-minded about sex and kinks and and calls their quite ordinary personality, non-binary.

I can't find the link, but a lot of LGBT people are pissed off about it. They want to preserve the boundaries of what LGB means.

[OvariesBeforeBrovaries]

I don't know. I've been told I can't be bisexual because I'm married to a man, and that I am now straight.

But I'm not. When DH and I have discussed our celebrity crushes, mine are predominantly female. I'm attracted more to women than I am to men, DH just got lucky and particularly took my fancy I don't think I'm now straight because I'm married to a man (but I do receive passing privilege, I'm not blind to that).

I agree that the definition of "queer" is about as broad as it gets these days and goodness knows what you have to do to not be queer in some people's minds, but I think sometimes calling people out for daft notions of queer can turn into saying that if you're in a man-woman relationship/marriage, you must be straight, which isn't true.

[MrsJayy]

I think it is to appear interesting and to show they are not dull most people have quite an ordinary life get up go to work blah blah being something is better than nothing I know somebody who Ids as queer obsessed with drag queens does the make up posts on facebook. In reality she gets up sorts out her children goes to work makes the dinner, like most of us being queer relieves the boredom imo

[MrsJayy]

Woman in question has been with the same man the dad to her kids for years as far as i know not had another relationship other than him.

[Datun]

OvariesBeforeBrovaries So is it meant to be like being bi but a bit more?

Is it meant to encompass people who are bi but will also sleep with trans-people, maybe? Which, to me is bi, really. Unless there are some bisexual people who will sleep with each sex, but not if they're trans (which to me is a lot less about sexual orientation and more about not picking people who will suck the life out of you).

[OvariesBeforeBrovaries]

Datun I think it's like being bi but a bit less.

Like a woman saying "Oh I wouldn't want to sleep with a woman and I probably wouldn't want to kiss one unless I was drunk but I once kissed a woman when I was drunk and I didn't vomit so I'm now queer, and I got an undercut so technically I'm also genderqueer, time to update Instagram".

As opposed to people who are bisexual because they'd happily have sex with a man or a woman; and people who are genderqueer/agender because they disagree with the concept of gender entirely and do not feel that they fit into society's "male" or "female" boxes.

Pansexual is the usual term for people who are bi but will sleep with trans people too. The slightly less-PC way I used to describe the difference between pan and bi is that I am bi because I want a sexual partner, not a Kinder Surprise . I would be fine having sex with a female-to-male trans, but not a male-to-female.

I think that's more out of protest at concepts like the cotton ceiling, and the male-to-female transgender community invading female spaces and shutting down conversations about female biology, menstruation, childbirth etc as it isn't "trans-inclusionary" - something that hasn't been replicated by the female-to-male trans community.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

Andrew Garfield was at it recently.

"I could be gay" he said, "if I ever fancied a man, shagged a man or did anything remotely sexual with a man, but I haven't, but I totally could, honest. Also I watch gay people on TV and some of my best friends are gay and everything. Like me! Find me interesting!". I may have slightly misquoted.

[CaretakerToNuns]

They're just a bunch of hipsters looking for attention. Just like transgenders, they take all the focus away from the LGB community and redirect it onto themselves. Bunch of wankers.

[Notmyrealname85]

I mean she could be bi and just missed an opportunity to partake but...

Sounds like she wants to be special. But she's borrowing a label that others have fought tooth and nail to wear without being subjected to violence, and she can go back to hiding with her husband if needed. Even in seemingly safe places there's still so much violence against LGBTQ. And if this sounds repetitive, it's cos the hate hasn't stopped!

She's probably just trying to snazz up a boring marriage tbh

A fair weather gay!!

[featherland]

Thanks for all the replies. Hmm it is sadly as I suspected.

[featherland]

ovaries I'm also bi, but met my dp when I was 22 so hadn't even come out to my parents yet. (I was in relationships with women, but not living with any of them). We have the same thing happen with celebrity crushes! But seeing as I was so young when I met dp, and dont plan to be with anyone else, I feel like I have to accept that to all intents and purposes I'm (seen and treated as) straight. There are loads of things about a heteronormative lifestyle that I find problematic, but while I receive passing privilege, I feel like i can't really claim to be anything else.

I suppose that I feel like the label 'straight' and also to some extent the cultural label 'mother' (which I also find really problematic) are attached to me whether I like it or not. Just like 'queer' was attached to people before it was reclaimed. I don't like lots of the associations of those labels but I recognise they also bring me privileges, and I feel likens have to reconcile myself to them somehow by challenging or expanding the terms.

But all of this is very personal to me - I've never really discussed it before. So I'm really interested in hearing how other people do it.

[Datun]

Got it.

Just another term to describe perfectly ordinary people, then!

Strewth. When did being cool beome only about who you shag? It's like nothing else exists.

All the different genders being about who you are, or are not, attracted to, today only, of course because tomorrow it's all different.

Sex positivity. Being queer. Pansexual. Ace. Incel.

When did it become peoples' defining feature?

And do they all talk about it to each other? Is this the limit of their conversation?

I've got all the information, and I still don't get it.

.

[Datun]

featherland

Forgive me if this is prying, but I'm trying to get my head round it. (I'm old and straight).

Is it because people just assume you are straight and therefore the fact that you are attracted to women is something that never comes up?

And that makes you feel uncomfortable because people make assumptions?

[SayNoToCarrots]

also to some extent the cultural label 'mother' (which I also find really problematic)

Sorry to go off topic, but how is 'mother' a cultural label, and why do you find 'mother' problematic? Surely you just are or aren't?

[IndominusRex]

It either means they think they have quirky hair, or they think they're kinky in some way. Neither is probably true. But yeah oppressed much, or something.

[M0stlyBowlingHedgehog]

I'm struggling with "mother" as a cultural label too. Surely you're a mother if you have primary care responsibility for a child (whether by giving birth to that child, adopting the child, or being in a LTR with the woman who has given birth to that child) and you're female.

Or are you thinking of the crap stereotypes that go with being a mother (HCPs saying "and we'll just ask mum where it hurts, shall we?" or people at dinner parties assuming you had a lobotomy along with your c-section and can no longer discuss politics or culture or science...)? Because that's just an extension of gender stereotyping, and comes back to the standard radical feminist analysis that we are oppressed because of our child-bearing capacity. It's not motherhood itself which is problematic, it's society's attitude to women generally and women who have become mothers specifically.

[VestalVirgin]

I mean she could be bi and just missed an opportunity to partake but...

She could, but then, wouldn't she use the word "bi" instead of "queer"?

After all, "queer" means nothing these days, and I assume most people are aware of that.

Not the way to go if you want your bisexuality to be visible.

[Lurkedforever1]

The simple explanation is that they are attention seeking idiots. It's just bollocks. Even more so if you need to validate your self worth by sharing a sexual identity that doesn't exist on social media.

[mayoli]

... or they're just bisexual?
Blimey.