The Whiny-Ass Feminist Next Door.

Since I started this blog, I do think I've done a fairly good job with confining the topics of this blog to the subject at hand - feminism and/or equalism, and I've definitely tried to keep the topics interesting and give my readers (if I even have any) a colorful array of diverse topics and personal opinions to mull over. However, at the end of the day, this is still my blog, and as I stated from the beginning: I reserve the right to whine when I need to whine. Today, I need to whine.

So, in lieu of this, we're going to play a little game called "Let's Talk About Me Now."

I'm going to be talking a little bit about my girlfriend, but for the sake of identity-protection, we'll go ahead and refer to her as "Corinne" for this blog. As for my boyfriend, we'll call him "Oliver" today.

As I've mentioned before - but will again, for clarity's sake - I'm a lesbian, but I like to identify as pan/omnisexual, or simply "queer," if I don't feel like explaining what pansexuality is. Basically, primarily, I'm interested in romantic, sexual, and emotional involvement with cis-women. However, because I feel, for me personally, that it's rude, unfair, and marginalizing to confine love to one sex or gender-identity, I'm open to loving/dating anyone, regardless of sex or gender-identity. This means that I'm comfortable having relationships with cis-men, and trannies, and genderqueers, and intersex individuals, and... well, anyone else, with any sexual or gender-identity. I'm not allowed to tell people how to identify, and I'm not allowed to dwarf anyone's identity or disregard their gender-fluidity. Gender is a mental-construct that can be expressed in countless, countless ways. And I'm certainly not going to place limitations on something that's meant to be beautiful and boundless; love.

So, Corinne came upon the realization recently that, in this area, she's like I am; a lesbian who identifies as queer. She recently came out to her mom, and it didn't go very well. Out of deference to her, I'm going to leave out the gory details, but something her mother said to has been reeeeealllllly bothering me, since she told me about it. Corinne's mother told her that she was being disrespectful to gay people who have come before her, who fought for the sexual freedom we now have, because she's identifying as a lesbian whilst still having a boyfriend (we're poly, to be clear; she's polyamorous, and I'm polyfidelitous in the sense that I don't date other people outside of Oliver and Corinne).

Ever since then, I've felt really guilty.

When I began having a relationship with Oliver, I'll admit that I felt like my sense of self got skewed, slightly. I hadn't had a boyfriend since high school, when I was still slightly confused and thought I was bisexual, and I hadn't really intended on having another boyfriend, because, as I mentioned, in my mental-forefront, I am a lesbian. I soon realized that it was senseless to dwell on the fact that he's a cis-man, because that's exactly why I'm pansexual - because I want to be open to loving anyone, because everyone deserves to have the opportunity to be loved, love is as free and boundless as my spirit. However, my pansexuality is still a choice. My lesbianism is not. So it took a little time for me to adjust, mentally, to dating Oliver, but I was easily able to thrust all of those notions out of my head when I remembered that I didn't fall in love with him because of what he is, but who he is, on the inside.

What makes me feel guilty, is the fact that I have an open-minded, progressive parent, who will never judge me, or accuse me baselessly of being disrespectful to anyone based on who I love, and who will always love me, no matter what happens with my love life. It makes me feel guilty that I'm... lucky, if that makes sense. That I never have to face the opposition that Corinne is currently facing with her mom. It makes me feel guilty that I have the privilege of having a true save haven in a parent like that.

And now... I just don't know how to alleviate that guilt.