in relationship to

I feel like most things are dependent upon their relationship to other things... proximity, distance, and directionality.

There is this idea that sexual desire can be located in relation to one's sex. Or more precisely, the sexual organs which one wears. If I have a penis and I dig men, I am homosexual. Gay. If I have a vagina and dig women, I am a lesbian. But this language is confusing. Exhibit A: Bisexual. This term often gets confused by the general audience as meaning two-sexed as opposed to indicating a desire for men and women, or possibly, multiple genders.

Another example: If I am a butch dyke, someone who appears masculine, and read as an androgynous female to the naked observer and I am dating a femme, a woman who's expression of femininity is easily recognized to be in alignment with her sex.... on what basis do I say I am in a same-sex relationship? Based on my organs? This is where it gets confusing. The question from those who have not given too much thought about queerness often is: "So, who's the man, and who's the woman in the relationship?" This is to assume that any relationship that is valid starts from a point of heterosexual normativity. Sex normativity. Gender normativity. These are the standards from which relationships are often judged and classified. But this is besides the point.

In our search for terms that identify who we are and how others can conceptualize us in relation to themselves, terms based on sex organ relationships don't seem quite adequate. I'm just trying to deconstruct this a little bit to see where it goes. Would we use the term same-gender to indicate our sexual preferences in a clearer way? But this is problematic as well. Because if I apply this term to my dating preference, for instance femmes, then I would be in an opposite gender relationship. You get the idea.

Anyways, all this to say that we may very well be too caught up in how we label relationships and desire. Maybe a language that indicates neither/nor would be a better option. My partner. My date. My relationship. My desire. Of course this is not so easily understood and achieved by a broader paradigm which demands positionality so as to determine normalicy. There is also the basic function of indicating one's preferences in order to open the dating pool.

And we are perhaps not at a place yet where queer or non-normative relationships have been respected and honoured for long enough that we can take for granted that we do not need to reclaim our worth by way of self-identifying. But, it will be nice when such language is no longer required. I'm hoping this will be indicative of universal acceptance of diversity.

But in the mean time, I'll just use the word queer.