"I like a girl with a dirty mouth
Someone that I can believe"
["Dirty Girl", Eels]
I was chatting with a few friends a while back and the conversation was around gender. A woman sitting next to me joked something offhandedly like 'I'm beginning to think I'm closer to the middle of the spectrum'. My gut reaction was to think "that's always how I've read you", but I caught myself and didn't say it out loud. I hesitated to pass such comment because people, even the most enlightened I've found, are still mired in what gender does or doesn't mean, how it differs from sexuality, and how to interpret the relationship between the two. While I thought what I thought in a very positive, affirmative way, I wouldn't have wanted her to think that because she - in my mind, at least, but I'm certainly not speaking for everyone - reads as less feminine or as more masculine than most women that it somehow implies less attractive. In my mind, she was no less attractive for it. At the same time, mind you, attraction is a subjective not objective thing. And so I'm sure there are those for whom such a quality would, I suppose, make her less attractive for them.
In any case, I came away from that experience with a lingering thought at the time, not about her but as little piece of introspection about myself: in my mind... she was no less attractive for being more masculine than many women.
A while ago, I posted a video clip of Robert Webb talking about toxic masculinity on Facebook, and Liza-Ann in response posted a comment about how she "[has] spent too much time apologizing for or hiding what society calls my masculine traits... ...These things i thought made me less of a girl." And again, to me, they don't make her "less". They are, in fact, some of the things I love the most about her.
In the last number of weeks, I have on several occasions, gone to do something around the house that some might term "manly things" (I don't recall specifics - minor carpentry? Lugging heavy shit around? Whatever.), only to find them already done, and thought, very matter-of-fact, "oh, LA must have done it. Alright." And I'm really glad to have a partner with whom this is a common occurrence.
And that's when it gelled for me. I've always looked for common elements among past girlfriends. There's a wide variety of differences, physical and intellectual, but few common characteristics I could ever put my finger on. But this is one: I don't remember any of them ever being a girly-girl. Physically feminine? Yes, absolutely. But mentally.... I can't recall ever being enamored with anyone who'd have been too upset over a chipped nail or who'd have tuned a TV channel to a beauty pageant. I've always preferred minimal-to-no makeup and simpler hairstyles. Girlfriends were always women who could "get ready to go out" almost as quickly as I could. It's not that I don't like girly-girls to look at, sure. But as partners? I've always sought strong, outspoken, aggressive women because I was raised in a household of strong women. I've never been comfortable with someone who'd play the damsel.
Now I'd love to sit back and suggest that my personal attractions have always been about personality-first, but that'd be a bold lie. I'm very much hetero in that regard. I know what parts catch my eye. I know what first gets my attention. I joke that I am hopelessly straight because male bodies just don't inspire me sexually at all (nope, not even Idris Elba).
But I know what catches my eye, physically, and I know what then holds my attention, mentally.
And when you think of it in those terms: not just a single-dimensional axis of physicality but also another axis for gender-identity or gender-expression... even without considering agender, non-binary, or gender-fluid... you've already arrived at an ocean of possibilities that's difficult to quantify.
What's that? The complexity of human sexual and romantic relations can't be easily distilled into a small handful of discrete categories?! Clutches pearls. Gasps dramatically.
And for the record: yes, I have no problem admitting that the realization I've always been attracted to perhaps "more masculine women" caused me to very briefly ponder what that said about my sexuality, right up until the 4 seconds later when I laughed, remembering that I really don't care.
[Also for the record, I didn't spot the dirty joke until long after I wrote it, so I left it.]
