Still from Jennifer's Body.
essays,  film

My Favorite F***ing Movie: For the Girls Who Go Both Ways (Jennifer’s Body)

So I guess this is a released-at-the-beginning-of-the-month essay series now. It may have slipped your mind that June is Pride Month (it seems to have slipped passed every major corporation this year, for some reason…) But the queers are still here, and we’re here to stay. Get ready to add this to the multitude of essays about Jennifer’s Body and Megan Fox and coming out as bisexual. My lineage is long and storied and full of absolutely gorgeous women, and I’m proud to be just another adding to the pile.

Still from Jennifer's Body.

This essay has been coming for more than a decade. Sometimes I think it’s been inside me my whole life.

That’s the thing about sexuality, the thing that I’m relearning over and over: it is as expansive and as fluid as the ocean. It is—maybe not for everyone, but certainly for many, and definitely for those who care to do the work of exploring it—an ever-changing, ever-evolving creature.

But let me rewind a little.

You have to understand, especially if you’re younger than I am, that growing up in the early aughts was an extremely oppressive time to be queer. I can only think of one boy in my entire graduating class who was gay and out, and not only did many of my classmates mock him on a regular basis, but some parents did as well (yes, it was disgusting). Another example: One time in middle school, my best friend and I bought matching t-shirts at the mall, thinking it would be cute and fun to wear them to school the next day.

Fam? We spent the entire day fielding insults.

Read the rest of the essay here, and please consider subscribing.

I'm Claire, a.k.a. L.A. Jayne, and I'm a poet, writer, and podcaster. My writing explores stigmatized issues at the junction of feminism, sexuality, health, and pop culture. I write about women’s sex and health, recovery from chronic gynecological problems (incl. vulvodynia and vaginismus), review sex toys, and co-host a sex-positive podcast about romance novels and sexuality.

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