You ever watch Looney Tunes? As a kid, I was baffled by how Bugs Bunny tricked Elmer Fudd every single time. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me—or whatever.
Let me explain. Say Bugs Bunny dresses up as a barber. As the audience, we can see it’s still him—he literally has big, floppy rabbit ears. He’s winking at the camera. He knows we know it’s him. Meanwhile, Elmer Fudd settles into the barber’s chair, asking for a shave and a trim—despite being completely hairless.
This happens every episode. Bugs disguises himself as a woman, a schoolboy, a genie, a ballerina, a Viking, a cowboy, Little Bo Peep—the list goes on. With each wink, we in the audience think Elmer Fudd the fool, and ourselves, along with Bugs, the magician.
As a kid, I couldn’t understand how Elmer Fudd missed all the signs. It was obvious! It was right in his face! Everyone else could see it.
As an adult—having lived an Elmer Fudd life—I get it. It’s easy not to see what you don’t want to see.
For years, I fancied myself bisexual. I liked girls, had crushes on girls, even slept with girls. But every time I thought about pursuing one, I’d hear my mom’s voice. I was maybe fourteen when I told her I thought I was bisexual, but that I liked girls more. She said something like, “Being gay is hard. Not only because of discrimination, but because your dating pool drops to, like, five percent of the population. If you like both and have a choice, stick to men.” In some strange way, that felt like sage, practical advice.
In the 2000s, bisexuality for women was a party trick—tie a cherry stem, kiss a girl, cue Katy Perry. I kissed a girl and all the boyfriends didn't mind it. It made you the cool girlfriend. Man after man, I played along. It didn’t feel like a lie; it felt like I was choosing the easier, softer way. Cue Robert Frost: The Road Not Taken—except I took the one more traveled by, and that has made all the horrible difference. Thanks, Mom.
By my second marriage to a man, I decided I was basically straight. Ninety-nine percent of my dating history was penis—statistically significant, I figured. Maybe I was just plain yogurt: not vanilla, not fruit-on-the-bottom, and definitely not tropical. Call it a day.
Then one day—no gentle awakening, just blunt force to the head—Bugs Bunny tore off the tutu, and there it was all along: I’m a fucking lesbian. Not a shred of bi. Not “experimenting.” Not “liking both.” I’d been tolerating man after man like wet, limp, overcooked vegetables—because I thought it was the right, practical choice.
You can't always get what you want, ma'am! Not everything in life can be enjoyable. Sometimes you just have to push through it, like a horse pill you break in half to swallow.
In hindsight, yes, the heterosexual male dating pool was big, lots of options, but all gross and disgusting. Like cleaning a toilet, but without the satisfaction of a clean toilet at the end.
My God, if the men in my life knew how I actually thought and felt about them the whole time. I'm sorry, fellas! I enjoyed feeling wanted.
Now, what does this have to do with Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd? Well, that gay shit was there the whole time. How did I not see all the signs? It was obvious! It was right in my face! Everyone else could see it!
Maybe it was the fact that my favorite shows were Xena, Buffy, and Dark Angel. Or how obsessively possessive I was of my female friends. Or that I played a t.A.T.u. CD so much it melted in the boombox. I gave it a proper burial in the backyard. But at the time, I chalked it up to feminism. These things were a little too queer cliche to be taken seriously. I could recount a hundred little stories and you might still be on the fence—after all, straight women like Ani DiFranco too! So I’ll just present this one.
About three years into a job, my boss called me in. He thought he was doing damage control. In hindsight, I understand why. Another employee had told him that, on the shared drive, there was a document—an Excel sheet made by an interviewer who’d since left the company—listing all the job candidates for my position (including me), their qualifications, red flags, pink flags, and green flags. There were lots of positive notes about me under green flags. My boss assured me there were no red flags. But under “pink flags” (ha—the irony), it said: “Probably a lesbian.”
He apologized profusely, said it had been deleted, all that blah blah blah. Whatever.
I didn’t care. I’d already been there three years. I’d found that Excel sheet my first month on the job, and this was not news to me. “Probably a lesbian” seemed more like a green flag anyway. And besides, it wasn’t the first time something—or someone—had said I was probably a lesbian. I’d heard it plenty, including from ex-boyfriends. It barely fazed me now. Can't these guys come up with something new?
In that office, that day, that Excel sheet pulled off the hat to reveal bunny ears and winked at the camera.
And I still didn’t get the joke. I was just Elmer Fudding, still chasing that rascally rabbit.
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