The Manila Times: Bi-curious

My long-time friend, the femme fatale of the group, without prior warning, declared a new found interest—in other women.

It was a Sex and the City moment reminiscent of Samantha Jones declaring that she is now a lesbian, making the three other ladies fall off their chairs.

As for my friend, her interest in men has long been established; her status as femme fatale solidified by titles like “best I ever had” awarded to her by some of the men who had, in one way or another, come into her life.

Her declaration was made at a party and well, not exactly without reason.

At the said party, a lesbian woman made her acquaintance. Let’s call this woman L.

The femme fatale, immune to most charms, was smitten right from the gruff shake of her hand that came with the introduction. The femme fatale engaged L in further conversation and was more and more enamored with every masculine hand gesture L made to emphasize certain points.

When L went off to get a drink, femme fatale turned to me. With a dreamy look and giddy voice that was not yet tainted with intoxication she said, “Oh my god. She is so gorgeous. All I can think of is making out with her.”

It was not her declaration that surprised me, but more the statement of our straight guy friend who agreed, “Yeah, she’s gorgeous.” He slightly shook his head in bewilderment possibly in awe at how the words “gorgeous” and “macho” seamlessly came together in the petite framed L.

L wasn’t scary. She was manly, yet gorgeously female. Think Sinead O’Connor or a much more attractive Grace Jones or a more boyish Ellen.

The femme fatale’s declaration had me thinking about a prediction that I made some years back about the lesbians catching up with the gay men.

Back in the day, gay men were stereotyped as high-pitched peacocks who deliberately exaggerated their actions and speech. They were called “parlor gays” and were best portrayed by the likes of Roderick Paulate in his movie heyday.

My earliest recollection of the paradigm shift from  “parlor gay” to “hot gay guy” (a phrase that now causes many women to swoon and sigh at the same time) was the Julia Roberts movie ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding.’

Rupert Everett brilliantly portrayed a well-dressed, cultured (remember in one scene when Julia Roberts called him, he was at a poetry reading session), extremely good looking, intelligent man . . . who just happened to be gay.

“Gay” was the new “hip” as evidenced by the number of BFF partnerships between gay men and straight women.  A number of movies and TV shows like Will and Grace followed. Even the girls in Sex and the City had their own ‘gay boyfriends.’”

A girl friend once told me that when single and going to an important event, her best accessory was a good looking gay guy.  That automatically ensured her of being seen on the arm of a gorgeous, successful man who was also a good conversationalist. A date that the other girls in the party would be envious of—never mind if he would never sleep with her.

The same paradigm shift from “butch” to “lesbian-gorgeous hottie” was bound to happen, right? All the laws of evolution dictate some kind of refinement of a culture over a period of time.

May be this cultural change started with Ellen de Generes who famously came out on national television.  The lovable and funny Ellen then went off and married Portia de Rossi, who, in an article, said that she was the one who fell in love with Ellen first.

May be to my femme fatale friend, her new found bi-curious attraction was a novelty emotion; something that had the same effect of a school-girl crush.

But I think it’s indicative of things to come in terms of not just tolerance, but acceptance of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender) culture and life.

Pretty soon, it will be the heterosexual community that will need to do some catching up in terms of cultural refinement in accordance with the laws of evolution.