Why I Couldn’t Embrace My Queerness Until I Gave Up My Eating Disorder
I performed thinness to win the acceptance of men, when all I needed was to accept myself
The first time I had sex with a girl was in the context of a threesome. I’d met the boy through a dating app, knowing he was polyamorous and partnered, and not an hour into our first date he told me he wanted to introduce us.
Her name was Jamie, too. She was brown-haired and slender and beautiful — far more beautiful than I was or would ever be. She was a scientist and a yoga teacher. That first night the three of us tumbled into bed together, wine-drunk in the wee hours of the morning, she set an alarm for dawn. She’d planned on going to the beach to help the hatching sea turtles. Sure enough, when the first light broke, she left me there with her boyfriend, still fucking, and ventured out to do something good without even a second of sleep.
It didn’t take long to learn that she was the better part of the couple in far more ways than that. Two weeks later, I’d lost interest in him entirely, but couldn’t shake the memory of her body and her patchouli scent. She invited me to her house one night without him, ostensibly to make a stir-fry. But without the testosterone-driven catalyst of male lust, we could barely overcome our…
