So, you know, I don’t know if this is because I’m a writer or if it’s because I’m weird, but I feel like there are all kinds of sexualities and people inside of me that just don’t have an expression in my physical form and me as I live my life now. I often talk about “my inner straight man” or “my inner lesbian” or “my inner gay man” and I think people think I’m kidding. I’m not. My inner straight dude totally has a type and I get really hot and bothered and entirely flaily whenever I am around someone who meets his criteria. If I had a penis and was a straight dude, I’d have to ask the woman on a date or find a way to be closer to her. Alas, the reality I live in is I’m a woman, without a dick, and I’m straight, and like dudes. But…that guy is still in me. He’s still feeling really adoring of these beautiful chicks that he’d totally want to make babies with and do manly chores for.
My lesbian also has a type and that kind of woman is entirely different from the inner straight man’s preferred lady. She’s even marginally different from the actual, for-real, totally me-as-I-exist-in-the-real-world’s bit of bisexuality. I’m really not very bisexual, but there has been exactly one woman that I’d have been persuaded to share some passionate months with if I wasn’t married and monogamous.
Otherwise, the women that I find myself attracted to are really the province of the inner-lesbian. The gay woman who doesn’t get to live out her life in my skin because, well, I’m not her, but I am her. It’s weird. Like I feel like I’d need to look and just be different to ever really allow her to express herself. But, yes, her type of lady, the ones she gets all roused and hot over are not at all like the ladies my inner straight man likes. (Though, interestingly, neither my inner straight man or my inner lesbian like the media-ready model of a gorgeous woman. They like real, actual women, with real actual bodies and oddities.)
Inner gay dude’s type of man is 180 degrees different from my actual straight-lady-who-lives-in-this-straight-body type of guy. If I was a gay man, I’d want some moderately effeminate twinky guy for sure, but as a straight lady, I like “bear” types for lack of a better description. When I think about what my inner gay man wants, I feel taller, stronger, more focused and determined and would totally, definitely need a penis and a prostate. The kind of gay guys he’d be interested in would not be at all attractive to me as a viable sex partner. And yet inner gay dude is totally me, too. He’s just gay-dude me and he’ll never get to live an actual life, just like straight-dude me won’t, and lesbian me won’t either. It’s like they’re some AU version of Leta that exist on a plane that simply can’t touch reality.
Anyone else have these inner people that are you but aren’t? They aren’t characters either, they’re much more solidly me than any of my characters ever are, but they aren’t me, either, and they’ll never get to live outside of urges and attractions that don’t fit my life or my body. So, let me know…am I alone in this sense of different selves? Or do you have any of this, too?
