Jenny (Part 2): Technology as a Practice Forum

As a member of the Oregon Trail Generation, Jenny came of age alongside technology. We have similar memories of this: chatting via AOL in middle school, discovering music via Myspace in high school and stealing it via Napster in college.

She described that feeling of entering her first chatrooms as a painfully shy middle school student.

"It was the first feeling of being anonymous," she said, "which gave me the freedom to say whatever...it helped me learn that I could say whatever and it won't be shot down."

Today, school kids are identifying 100% with their online profiles, and cyber bullying carries all of the drama and danger of face-to-face bullying, so I wonder how many young people today discover this feeling of anonymity. When technology first emerged, it was everything.

Jenny remembered her AIM chats with her first (male) crushes, and how she used technology to make friends senior year of high school at Interlochen Arts Academy.

At Interlochen -- again I was really shy, really self-conscious -- I started a Live Journal, which was like the first blog. A lot of us had them, and I ended up making friends through that, that I was having trouble making just in the world...We had this whole interconnected thing. Because I was so shy, people didn't know me very well, but they got to know me more through my Live Journal. Then, I ended up dating one of the people who I'd connected to on Live Journal. He was a male who, shortly after dating me, came out. And I took many more years. 

Jenny described Live Journal as a Facebook-like platform in which you have a network of people, and keep a journal. You could share your journal with the public, keep it to your friend network or make it completely private. I was surprised to find that Live Journal is still around.

Her description of Live Journal, and how it worked for her, made me think of how I'm branding this blog. Although I'm sharing the blog with friends and family and even a few colleagues, my name isn't on it.

I can explore this writing voice and connect to readers and like-minded writers, all in a relatively anonymous setting, thanks to technology. In a year or two -- if it continues to feel satisfying and vital -- I'll find a way to weave together my current education-focused brand with Gay Happiness. But right now, the task is simple: write.

When Jenny first came out, she went immediately to OKCupid, but the way that she branded herself on her profile changed significantly in a very short time.

"I wasn't very popular on there right away," she said. "I was like, 'I'm not sure if I'm gay. I'm pretty sure, but I just want to date some women.' I don't think anyone wants to read that!"

In those first iterations of her profile, Jenny was trying to be as honest as possible. "I identified as bi," she said. "That lasted for about a year, and I changed it gay. After I realized that no one was going to date me if I seemed so unsure, I got rid of all that."

And that's the luxury of platforms like OKCupid. You're name isn't attached to it. You're free to change your identity daily with little to no consequences. You can experiment, see what feels right. Sometimes, you even feel like you're leveling up.

"There was a question on OKCupid," Jenny said, "'Have you ever had a girlfriend or same-sex partner?' For a while, the answer had to be, 'no.' Then when the answer was 'yes,' I felt so great!"

From her first curious flirtations with gay boys in high school, to embracing her own gay identity in her twenties, technology was pivotal every step of the way.

"Technology has helped me be more comfortable in myself...it was this practice forum where I could be a more honest, less shy version of who I was...It would have been much slower for me to get comfortable with myself without technology."

And that's why we're lucky, the Oregon Trail Generation and everyone who came after. Relationships, identity and our future's course have been taken out of the domain of stuffy living rooms and parent chaperones. 

Increasingly, young people have the chance to explore what they want their own future to look like in a forum that is safe from ridicule. And thanks to the Internet, there are more and more stories of gay happiness for these young people to stumble upon and see: it really does get better. 

Fluid Sexuality and Why Everyone Is Queer

The movie Kinsey (trailer here) came out in 2004 and was my first introduction to the idea that human sexuality may exist not as a binary (with bisexuals carefully balancing between the two extremes), but as a fluid spectrum.

Today, there are dozens of internet hacks creating ridiculous surveys to reveal your sexuality to you. The most simplistic I found, at the very top of Google, was by Dr. Epstein.

Doctor of what, I wonder. (Yes, that's mine!)

There were less than a dozen questions about dreams, waking fantasies and real life. Each question had a weight of exactly "1," and they were added up in the end. Because the only difference, for me, was the frequency of sexual activity (much more with Sonia than with a random male), I was bisexual leaning toward homosexual, but with a range that took up nearly the entire chart. 

More thought went into OKCupid's Sexuality Spectrum Quiz, but don't try to take it unless you have an OKCupid account, or you're willing to get one. The questions were more nuanced and reflected a more contemporary understanding of sex and sexuality, but you can't see your results without an account. One of the perks of having a live-in girlfriend is that I don't need one of those anymore. So go have fun, kids. 

Where you fall on the spectrum changes through time. For me, I guess that means that I'm somewhere in the 2-13 range on Dr. Epstein's chart at any given moment in time, which is the same as saying nothing at all.

When I was twelve or thirteen and had my first sexual encounters with my best friend (a girl), I didn't label myself. At some point subsequently, I called those encounters "experiments."

Through high school, college and my early twenties, I was mostly straight. I identified as straight, I sought the attention of men and enjoyed it when I got it. I had at least one phenomenal boyfriend that I grew uninterested in for no good reason, and one good fuck buddy who was too old for me and broke my heart. I enjoyed all of it, and made out with some women, too. 

When I was 26, I met my first girlfriend in the basement bar of a gay nightclub. She hit me like a ton of bricks. Even though I thought it may be a one night stand, I called my best friend Liz immediately afterward, excited and giddy, as though the world had just opened up. 

"Your life story is not your life. It's your story." Who said this? 

I repeat it now because I'm aware of something I could have also said about that one good fuck buddy, who is still a dear friend: "He hit me like a ton of bricks. Even though I thought it might be a one night stand, I called my best friend Liz immediately afterward, excited and giddy, as though the world had just opened up."

Yup. It still works. 

As a result, I called myself bisexual, queer and gay. Now I use "gay" to explain my living situation in shorthand (we're not roommates), but most of the time, I just say, "My partner is a woman," or "Sonia is my girlfriend." 

The Oregon Trail Generation, and the millennials that followed are understanding this fluidity more than any generation. I'm so grateful to have been born into this time. Growing up with the Internet, I was able to find, in each city I lived, work, community and lovers who fit the life I wanted for myself. We can curate our lives with more grace and communicate ideas whose time have come with more speed than ever before. 

On the ground, that means more people identifying as (and joyously reappropriating) queer than ever before. Not only do I not want to be put in your box, but I won't presume to create my own label. I know that I am a mutable and developing being who won't stop changing until I'm dead. 

So let me live how I please.