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Beds and Sexuality

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Beds and Sexuality
Nadia Fesz-Nguyen

I recently read the article “No One is Born Gay (Or Straight): Here are Five Reasons Why” by Jane Ward and, while the main focus of the article is establishing that sexuality is more of a social construct than essential, a smaller focus in the article is that viewing sexuality as a personal choice can, in fact, be seen as valid.

The night after I read the article I was climbing onto my lofted bed when I muttered to my roommate, and to myself, “Who would purposefully choose this lifestyle?” The word choice alone made my brain make a jump to sexuality.

Me. I’m who. The correct answer is: Nadia Fesz-Nguyen; I chose to loft my bed. I started comparing my bed situation to my sexuality, and it ended up being a surprisingly comprehensible thought process.

The specific bed setup is currently as such: the bed is lofted to the second highest point it can be, with that given frame. My desk isn’t directly under my bed but my desk chair is, and the desk is facing out towards my roommate’s side of the room, creating a den like atmosphere underneath my lofted bed.

It’s inconvenient to get to the den area. I have to crouch under my mattress and avoid hitting my head on the bed frame. It’s inconvenient to go to sleep. I have to climb up the side of my bed frame, avoid hitting my head on the ceiling, and pray I didn’t forget anything “downstairs.”

I deal with the inconvenience of the bed setup because of the benefits. Once I actually get into my little den area, I love it. I feel more comfortable there than any other part of the room. I also feel like I have more privacy sleeping where I’m not in plain view and easy to approach.

So now let’s relate this back to sexuality. Like the bed setup, for me, homosexuality presents both inconvenience and benefits. The inconvenience is obvious: social repercussions, isolation, misunderstanding, etc. Benefits: girls. Have you seen girls? That one’s pretty obvious too actually.

After weighing the costs and benefits (probably more subconsciously than sitting down one day and carefully deciding whether or not I’d like to be a faggot) it seems like I’ve decided that I’m down for all that comes with homosexuality!

But here’s where my whole bed metaphor extends past the basic “homosexuality is a choice” thing. My bed is currently lofted because it came as a loftable bed! There are other dorms where having your bed lofted is not an option. There are dorms where lofted beds are the only option. There are beds that have more height options and different options than others.

Some people might have sexuality that is fluid or sexuality that they can “choose” but others might have beds that are stuck in place or with more limited options. I think rather than saying a person chooses their sexuality as a whole- it may be more accurate to say that a person can choose what kind of sexual or romantic interactions they engage in.

Basically what I’m saying is, yeah, last semester my bed wasn’t lofted, and I got through life just fine. It was on the lowest possible height and it was really easy to quickly collapse onto when I was tired. But even though my setup now is inconvenient, I also find it infinitely more comfortable and I would never want to change it back.

What I’m saying is, yeah, I had a boyfriend in high school.

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