we're not gay, *all* women make out with each other!

[cimorene]

Like, what happens on stage or on the tour bus or whatever, that's honestly just how girls are. And you don't have to be a full blown lesbian to appreciate it; it's just how friends rock. A lot of guys know this and a lot of guys don't, but yeah, we just kiss each other for fun. Just because, and that is what happens, and we do. I almost don't have any friends that are females that I have not made out with. I have boy relationships, but I don't even really like boys; it's all about the ladies. You don't even need to be dating one; all you really need is a good lady friend, and life is good. I think the best question I ever heard from a journalist was after the show in San Francisco, and I did the interview right after the show, and this girl asked, 'So, did you gay up the show especially for San Francisco, or is it always that gay?' It's pretty much always that gay; it is a very gay show.

Usually everything that Emilie Autumn says in interviews makes me say FUCK YES, but while I appreciate her pro-gay stance, I'm really irritated that she "do[esn't] even really like boys; it's all about the ladies" and considers making out with girls a staple pastime, yet somehow that's not "be[ing] a full blown lesbian"? Okay, I'll grant her the "full-blown" since it is actually being a bisexual (although 'full-blown' still seems to imply that being a bisexual is being somehow less gay, or partly gay, when in fact it's having both het- and homo- attractions, and not somehow less of either), but:

• Just because you're a touch-happy bisexual who only connects emotionally with women doesn't mean that all women are.



• In fact, I suppose the idea that all women are "bisexual underneath" isn't disprovable (I know there is some scientific support for the suggestion), but just the existence of asexuals and people who don't like touching, or for whom physicality is connected to intimacy, means that in fact "we just kiss each other for fun" does not apply to all or most girls.

This whole statement just rubs me the wrong way; it reads like yet another round of We're Not Gay, We Just Love Each Other/Do Gay Stuff. On the other hand, she goes on to say some good things about gayness relating to the fact that apparently, that stage kiss I posted before is part of a nightly lesbian wedding between two of her performers that is now a permanent part of the stage show.

It was great, and I must say that now that we're having a lesbian marriage ceremony on stage as one of the bits; it's so fucking funny because this is 75 percent pure Vaudeville comedy. You have to balance out all the blood and suicide somehow. [...] Because of that, overnight we started doing that, and the most beautiful thing happened that we didn't expect: from that day forward, people would come from the audience with their rainbow flags and throwing rainbow bracelets on stage at me and would bring their flags to a signing to have us sign their rainbow flags. Overnight, people got it! Whatever it is that we stand for, we stand for everything: the absolute freedom of whatever it is. Your gay and lesbian marriage, we're making a joke about it, but we're doing it in the seriousness that it should of course be legal. In every state or country that we go to, because it went over so fucking well, and it was hilarious, Contessa and Captain Maggot later on in the show after all this tension, Maggot finally pops the question, and Contessa says yes, and then they go and consummate behind the shadow screen. Then we ask the crowd if gay marriage is legal in that state or country, and a few times...a few times, they'll say yes. In most cases, as we all know, they'll say no. But once we're in that venue, everybody's in my house now, bitches! So it's about asylum rules, and now you're on asylum ground, and we can just tell them, 'Well, it is now, bitches!' Then it all goes down, and overnight we became a gay and lesbian-supported show, and I'm so fucking proud of that. That is how it should be. We are making jokes, but they know that we are completely on that side.

Re-Gen magazine, "Emilie Autumn: Everything and Nothing", Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Comments

[viklikesfic]

Yeah, that pings weird for me. All women don't make out with their friends, and the way it's prevented is very much a raunch culture party girl thing, like yeah we all just make out and it means nothing and that's what women are like. That doesn't sit well with me. I mean I *am* gay and I don't just make out with my friends all the time...

[cimorene]

It comes off that way to me too, but I don't think she intends it performatively/for the benefit of a male audience; her whole schtick is very much for a female audience in spite of the growing male one. The fact that she seems to really be in earnest with those comments is weird to me, because... not so much that it's weird that there are homosocial, physically and sexually affectionate, non-monogamous women - I know there are - as that just the fact that anyone would generalize from that experience to thinking that it somehow applied to all women! I mean, is her experience of women so limited? Alternatively, perhaps that approach to sexuality/relationships/attachment is another result of the traumatic events she's been through.

[viklikesfic]

Yeah, exactly. I mean I know that some women DO make out with their friends and that's great and especially if they feel like it's a happy, safe space where they can share the love, that's wonderful. I can't say enough how amazing it was for me to have a platonic friend, for example, who snuggled all the time in college. After three or four years of having a hug or two a year since then, I really do miss that. But it's just not generalizeable, like it's odd to say "oh, girls do this!"

[msilverstar]

That sounds like her heart's in the right place, she's sincere, but she can't articulate what she means.

[cimorene]

Yeah, exactly.

[firecat]

*sends Emilie a whole bunch of "some"s*