Vampire Dimension Willow

I used to think that Vampire dimension Willow had different sexuality than Willow, but that proved untrue in the longer run.

I was always confused by Willow's sexuality. She was clearly attracted to men for a long time before she met Tara (Xander, Malcolm, Oz, her crush on Giles) but pretty quickly decided that she only liked girls after all, and it seemed like her previous preferences were entirely erased. And apart from clues from vamp Willow, she was never presented as anything other than straight until her sudden switch.

That never sat comfortably with me.

I don't think realising you like a girl means you automatically didn't like the men you liked in the past. Sure, you could realise that you much prefer girls and are therefore gay "by default" (in the same way that I am attracted to men and women but prefer relationships with men and am therefore "straight by default"), but I can't help but think that Willow should be bi. Women-preferring, sure, but bi.

It's like someone owning and liking cats for years until they get a dog and then deciding that they hate cats after all. Not gonna happen, unless you were lying about the cats in the first place.

And just to clarify in case anyone gets the wrong idea, I have no problems at all with anyone's sexuality as long as it exclusively involves consenting adults.

The fun story is that Joss still hadn't decided whether Willow or Xander was going to be gay by the end of their time in high school, but he knew one of them would be. So, I wouldn't read too much until human sexuality based on BtVS, as that was more of a writing decision than anything.

Right, and if you watch Season's 2 and 3 you can see potential clues planted for Xander if he had decided to go that way.  (It might have actually given Xander some sort of meaningful plotline after high school…not that I'm bitter about that or most of the rest of post high school Buffy)

Sooo... Is Buffy the Vampire Slayer set in Sentinel Comics?

So he presented them both as straight until he decided which one would completely change their sexuality?

Wow. That disappoints the hell out of me.

It didn't seem like a sudden change to me.  For Willow it was a series of strong disappointments that really convinced her that maybe guys weren't a good choice for her.  Especially concerning Oz.

That's not how sexuality works, generally. You don't stop being attracted to men because you've been cheated on.

Attraction isn't a choice.

I always assumed Willow was bi - like many people. We are obligated by societal constructs to categorize ourselves, but in reality attraction is a spectrum. She eventually identified as a lesbian once she met Tara and realized what she was feeling. Doesn't mean she would never have feelings for a man, again, just that she'd categorized herself in a way that she'd chosen not to pursue such feelings.

That's just my interpretation, though.

Indeed. Sexuality is more of a spectrum than a series of slots that one falls into (hush, you). I'm a firm proponent of listening to someone's own self-identity than anything else. As a personal example, I identified as straight long before I started dating guys. But guess what? I used to be attracted to women, legitimately and with no strings attached. At no point was any of this a decision I made; I just... shifted. I'm not even sure I identify as gay these days, despite having attraction to guys and none to women.

It's a strange beast. I was just talking with Jodie the other day about how I've decided gender and sexuality is stupid, and we should just get rid of it.

For many folks their gender is a large part of who they are and how they see themselves. You can take pride in your gender identity just as much as you can your nationality for example. I think thats a good thing.   I don't see the merit in suppressing that mode of identity for people who have found it as an important aspect of themselves.

But I'm a straight white male. My opinion doesn't hold much value at all on the topic.

With Willow, also, it was the realization that whoever she was with was the only person she was with because of the way she hurt Oz.

I thought it was one of the latter seasons. "Willow, gay me up."

Apart from a line to Anya when they were bickering at one point, which essentially boiled down to "You're being unreasonable not trusting me alone with Xander because I'm gay now." The implication was that she is no longer attracted to men at all.

I dunno. The whole thing would have worked better for me if she'd met Tara and realised that when you fall in love with someone their gender isn't important, rather than meeting a girl and deciding that men aren't attractive, period.

I've always believed that sexuality is a series of continuums anyway, with people falling somewhere between extremes on each. For some people there's fluidity. Similarly with gender. But people mostly don't move that far.

Agreed that labels can be unhelpful, useless or even harmful, and life would be much easier if we didn't have to use them.

And for the record I label myself as straight female for convenience, but I've never really thought of myself strongly as female (or any other gender). I don't mind being biologically female and I wouldn't change it, but if I work up tomorrow and my body had suddenly changed to male I don't think I'd care (apart from the obvious weirdness of the change of course). Straight again is convenient, because I'm attracted to women as well as men but I've never yet met a woman I wanted anything other than a very temporary relationship with.

It's just easier to say "straight female" than to explain all that when nine times out of ten it's accurate enough for people.

I've decided that I'm asexual (and aromantic) based on a complete lack of any kind of physical or romantic attraction to anyone ever. Okay so I suppose not being interested in something doesn't mean that you can't have a go at it...but I just have never felt like doing so.

It's interesting to me that you raise this. I have a friend who, after a long and unsatisfying struggle with gender identity, decided that he wanted to take the unusual step of becoming completely sexless (and not in an an abstinate sort of way, I mean ex-genitalia barbie doll). I feel that the fact that everyone in our group of friends have been non-plussed in a supportive and understanding way is indicative that we are moving moreso into an age where there is greater acceptance of a broader (and greyer) range of gender and sexual preferences. It isn't a thing, it's just the way he prefers to be at this time, but even just a decade or two back this would have been beyond even the begrudging acceptance of a two-box model of sexuality.

In case you were wondering, he has not legally been able to see through his desire and has instead consoled himself with some extensive therapy. I guess it's important not to make a rash decision on such a drastic step.

I think a lot of the problem is still socialization, and the classifications we use in gender and sexuality are often doing harm as people who don't fit the "normal" categories try to fit into "alternate" categories that they don't fit into either.

Part of the prolbem is a universal one, language cannot accurately portray truth, it just gives us points along a spectrum that are acceptably inaccurate.

The problem with socialization even now is that since we are language dependant we ascribe to categories, people are Gay or Straight or Bi, Male Female or A-Sexual.  There are even more than that, but they will always fail to perfectly describe who someone is.

I was frequently mistaken (often accused) as gay, and I always was confused as to how to tell people I was straight.  They assumed that I was gay because I grew up with women and no men, and so always had more female friends than male friends, as well as being awkward around guys.  (Why is being awkward assumed gay?  Maybe because we make it awkward to be gay?  I don't know.)

Anyway My response when people accused or just tried to insult me was to just say "what's wrong with being gay?" Which in my small christian school got a lot of fun answers.

Where was this going?  Oh yeah, it is really hard to be comfortable in your own skin, even more so when you don't have words to describe what you are.  A lot of humans do themselves harm by trying to fit into categories that don't adequately define them, and a lot of portrayals of sexuality go wrong because characters need to fit into a category in order to convey what they are to other people.

I too was dissappointed by how they handled Willow's change, although I'm sure some people do go through changes like that, I know a guy who went from straight to bi to gay over time, it was a lot of internal mess he had to sort through.

I don't know if that mess was unavoidable, or the creation of society, or how much or either it was made up of.

I've also been (unwittingly and to my shame) a mojor source of anxiety for a friend coming out.  To the point that they were pretending to be straight until we moved away, and then thought we'd react badly to the news.  It was eye-openning, and really humbling for me.

I find there is a lot more than gender issues that get stuck into categories.  Career expectations, attitude expectations, religious expectations...  All of it is classifications with a "either you fit in or you're not one of us" theme.  And the truth is probably half the people who say they are in their expected categories actually don't fit in them completely either!  So why make them in the first place?  All it really does is cause everyone to have more difficulty just being themselves.  All because we care about other people and want them to be happy with us.  When the real truth is, learn to be happy with yourself.  And those people who really like you will be happy with you regardless.  And those who aren't probably aren't happy with themselves either.

Truth.

The main problem with pigeonholing for me is that once you're in that box that you don't necessarily fit well, you're pressured into expected behaviours and assumed to fit better than you do. 

This is apparent from birth, or even younger. How often do you hear people say things like, "boys are more loving", "all girls are princesses", "boys need to let off steam", "I hope I have a girl so I can dress her in really pretty clothes"? It's incredibly limiting, and I think it's damaging.

Someone on Twitter yesterday overheard a parent in a museum gift shop telling a little girl she couldn't have a toy sword, while her brother was allowed one. Amazing. Swords are for EVERYONE! And I'm constantly hearing about little boys who are shamed out of their interest in caring for dolls or pretending to cook because that's somehow not "manly" enough. Since when is food gendered? And caring for children damn well shouldn't be either.

Okay, I'll stop. But yeah, it drives me crazy.

Donner: Thanks for mentioning religion in your list. I'm an atheist in a (blood) family that is definitely Christian, a few of whom are evangelical. They're aware that I stopped attending church a long time ago, but it's a closet I'm not otherwise out of yet to them.

Interesting. What consequences do you expect if/when you tell them?

Also, atheist solidarity! Someone once told me in confusion, "But you don't look like an atheist…" as if we all have devil horns or something. He seemed genuinely concerned that I could not be a good person and was essentially a ticking time bomb who would inevitably start torture babies and eating kittens and having sex with mosquitoes without the threat of eternal punishment in hell to keep me in check.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uA18sM_E0k