Girls?!

 When I was eleven years old, I got my very first professional sketchbook. It was marketed to be specifically for artists that were looking for that authentic manga feel to their art – it even had a silly image of some anime boy on the cover. I was so excited to start drawing like a professional, to have a legit sketchbook with legit manga lineart pens, just for drawing all those pretty anime girls.

At the time, I was reading a relatively newly translated shoujo manga. I loved the story, I loved the main character, she was very pretty. I ended up drawing my versions of the covers of the manga volumes with her drinking tea and holding a whisk and a bowl in her hands in that new sketchbook I had just bought. As the story progressed and I got to know the characters even better, I found myself really liking one of the love interests. He was a sweet guy, somewhat pretty, and very relatable to me. I saw myself in him a lot as an isolated and abused kid who was afraid of literally everyone and everything after something traumatic happened to them. So I did the unthinkable.

I drew a boy. A male character.

This was such a monumental milestone to me that when I scanned the image with my dad's printer-scanner, I named the file "the only guy I have ever drawn".

...

So anyway, what do you mean you thought I was a lesbian, mom?

denial.

Apparently, not every animanga enthusiast out there watches or reads their favorite series for the pretty girls as the main characters. Not every mahou shoujo fan is in it for the cute girls doing cute things. To my knowledge, there are a lot of people out there who watch and read these kinds of stories for the male love interests instead.

And if you, as a girl, don't feel that way, but instead spend your free-time drawing countless pictures of your favorite anime girls and then plaster those drawings on the walls of your own bedroom, that somehow means you're... gay.

Believe it or not, this was news to me. It took me 20 wholeass years to find out I was a lesbian, when everyone around me and their fucking cousins had been looking at me obsessing over big-eyed girls in cute frilly outfits and just KNOWN...because of course they had.

I thought there was no way in hell I was a lesbian, because that would have meant that I liked girls. Like-liked them. Liked them enough to approach them, to talk to them. But I didn't. I kept myself far, far away from them, because I was too scared. I was too scared to see what they would do to me, how they might have taken advantage of me, exposed my secrets to everyone, including myself.

And above all, I was scared of what it would mean if I was gay; I would have to date another girl, that would be the only way to make it work. But how was I supposed to date someone who I have become fundamentally absolutely terrified of? Would dating for me mean subjecting myself to more abuse? 

I was too scared to find out the answers to these questions, and for years, I buried them deep within my heart. Until I didn't have to hide them anyone. Until, that someone stepped into my life. And now, I finally feel safe.

With love,

ichigonya