“I don’t really consider myself to be a lesbian or bisexual for that matter. I’m typically only sexually attracted to guys… but there was just something different about Rachel.”
USF students Jane and Rachel, who have each asked that their names be changed, have been dating for almost three years. Rachel, 19, is a lesbian–but Jane, 20, considers herself to be straight.
“I don’t find the female body to be ‘sexy,’” said Jane as she sat close to Rachel on the living room sofa of her Brandon apartment. She has dark brown eyes, long brunette hair streaked with blonde and a strong yet feminine athletic build. She wore skinny jeans and a tight-fitting white blouse. “Girls don’t really turn me on, you know? I can just look at a hot guy and there’s instant attraction, but that’s never happened to me with any female. But then Rachel came along.”
The couple met three years ago at Bloomingdale High School during their flag football tryouts, but up until recently, Jane had been keeping their relationship a secret.
“No one knew about us. My parents were unaware for the longest time. My brother. I didn’t even tell my friends,” Jane said. “Rumors started going around about me being a lesbian my senior year in high school… I’d always tell my friends they weren’t true. They never even questioned me when I started hanging out with Rachel more often. Maybe because we were teammates.”
“I dress like a guy so everyone knows I’m definitely a lesbian,” Rachel said with a smile. She wore her long blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, loose fitting Levi 501s, sneakers and a sports T-shirt. “I’m sure people started speculating at a point. Even though we were teammates, me and Jane spent a lot of time together.”
Rachel was fine with Jane keeping their relationship a secret for the first year, but after some time, being introduced as a “friend” began to annoy her. She asked that Jane finally reveal the truth about their romance.
“I started with my friends,” Jane said. “I called my oldest friend and told her to meet me at the mall. We met up and I sat her down and told her that I was dating a girl… and I had been dating this girl since before we graduated high school. Her only question to me was ‘So, you’re lesbian or bi, right?’ ‘No,’ was my response. ‘I’m just in love with Rachel. I’m straight.’”
Is there a title for people in same-sex relationships who do not consider themselves to be gay, lesbian or bisexual? University of Tampa’s sociology of sexualities professor Jason Sumerau doesn’t think so.
“People in same-sex relationships that don’t identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual tend to fall between our current sexual categories,” Sumerau said. “In an examination of African-American lesbian women in NYC, for example, Dr. Mignon Moore found women who identified as the following: in the life, hetero-identified lesbians, women loving woman, same-gender-loving and sexually fluid women. In all such cases, women engaged in same-sex partnerships without necessarily identifying as gay, lesbian or bisexual.”
There are many possible reasons for people not wanting to identify with a certain sexual orientation even though they may partake in same-sex activities.
“Generally, the most common reasons someone will engage in same-sex activity without identifying as gay, lesbian or bisexual rely heavily upon their perceptions of sexual minorities and the discrimination, stigma and fear our society directs at non-heterosexuals,” Sumerau said. “At other times, people simply wish to avoid the negative treatment people deal with daily when they live openly gay, lesbian and/or bisexual lives, and one way to avoid this is to attempt to avoid the label.”
“Now, my parents always say: ‘When Jane was normal,’ ‘I miss the old Jane’ or ‘We should have let her out of the house more,’ and so on…” Jane said. “My friends have said that I’m in denial or that I’m trying to lessen the anger that my family may have towards me, but stating that I am straight but in love with a girl has not spared me any backlash from my family. I’m not in denial. I’m not a lesbian, and I’m not bisexual.”
There are many people in the same situation as Jane, and, according to Sumerau, many situations like this are not unusual and are actually quite common.
“The practice you describe is not new, historically speaking, but it has gained more attention in recent years (academically and in the media) in much the same way lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersexual and asexual practices and experiences have gotten more notice,” Sumerau said.
Jane, however, does not consider herself to fit into any of these labels.
“If I knew what to label myself as, I would,” Jane said. “But, for now, I consider myself to be straight but in a same-sex relationship. Love shouldn’t need a label anyway.”