Sex and Sexuality

When Lady Gaga first told a gay magazine she was bisexual at the end of 2008, she was still a rising star. "Just Dance" had just begun switching over from gay club anthem to mainstream radio hit, and sure, she could probably benefit from using her sexuality as a point of interest about her.

Since the original statement, she's been back and forth on the statement. In December 2008, she told Popeater: "I'm really free-spirited about love and sexuality, which I think is apparent in my music, and even the visuals, which are all very androgynous" but that she didn't want to label herself."

Then in February 2009, she kissed a female cop in her music video for "Love Game" and shortly after, "Poker Face" became a huge hit, featuring lyrics about women like "bluffing with my muffin" and switching between pronouns from he to she.

Okay, okay. Maybe Spencer Morgan just did it for attention. Maybe he just wanted angry women to comment on his fantastically misogynist piece in The New York Observer so that he could get more attention. Well, guess what? It worked.

OK, I'll be the first to admit that the whole Twilight phenomenon is interesting. Here at Bitch we've written about the movies, the books, the parody videos, and tons of other sparkly vampire stuff over the past year. People are obsessed! It's compelling! However, lately it seems like every single teenage behavior is being connected to the franchise in some way, from negotiating gender identity to interacting with parents. Could it be that Twilight is the compass with which we can navigate the state of Young People Today? Do we never have to think about the nuances and complications of human existence again because Stephenie Meyer has done that dirty work for us? Well, Jonathan Zimmerman at the Chicago Tribune certainly thinks so.

According to Zimmerman's article "Hooking up's gender gap," the number of young women who saw Twilight Saga: New Moon (which was a lot) tells us that, "Girls want love, not just sex." And he got this from New Moon how, exactly?

My girlfriend gets called sir a lot. Every time a stranger refers to her as a guy (sir, buddy, "him"), we give each other a smirky look, and can't help but feel bad for the person once they realize their mistake, as they most often do once she opens her mouth.

There are still times, however, they just can't tell the difference, either because they don't care to look beyond a customer if they're serving us in some way, or they would rather assume she's my boyfriend than believe we're lesbians. I look "too straight" and she, apparently, must be a guy in a T-shirt and shortly coifed haircut. (I call it the lesbian triangle.)