PEOPLE
ON OUR TERMS
Emily Goddard and Claven Snow don't need a dictionary to define their relationship.
by Lisa Anderson
PHOTOS/JARED GAB
Bisexual
Heterosexual
Characterized by a tendency to direct sexual desire toward the opposite sex
Characterized by a tendency to direct sexual desire toward both sexes (male and female)
Homosexual
Characterized by a tendency to direct sexual desire toward another of the same sex
Pansexual
Exhibiting or implying many forms of sexual expression
Polysexual
Sexual attraction to more than one sex but not limited to men and women
Emily Goddard dated women for years before she met her current boyfriend. "I was afraid I was going to lose my queer membership card," the Lawrence sophomore says with a chuckle. After this remark, Goddard's smile fades as she gazes out the window and discusses her family and friends who are still trying to understand and accept her somewhat new life.
Loving someone your family doesn't love is difficult, but many queer people go through this, Goddard says. Until recently, when Claven Snow, Lawrence resident, and Goddard began dating, Goddard hadn't faced the
Goddard, now 19, came out as a lesbian to her parents when she was 13 years old. They responded with a positive yet unexpected, "We know." She came out to her friends and schoolmates when she was 15, and everyone was pretty supportive, she says. Recently, however, Goddard faced her father's hesitation and friends' confusion when she began dating a man.
family-versus-lover conflict.
Sex is entirely biological but gender is socially constructed, she says. Disappointed with her father's reaction, Goddard explained this to him, but he was still put off. "He
The couple met in 2003 at a radical art auction. Although there was an age gap between them — Snow was 23 and Goddard was 15 — she was attracted to Snow. "It was more like a school-girl crush," she says, so she wasn't concerned about her attraction to a man. The pair met again in 2005 and began dating in June of 2006.
Goddard's family was confused when she began dating Snow because they didn't see the relationship coming, Goddard says. While her mom and Snow built a friendship, her dad took a little more time to adjust. "He was comfortable with the idea that I was going to be with women," Goddard says. "It's the transsexual part that he didn't understand."
knew the mechanics, but couldn't put himself in that head space of being born one sex but identifying with another," Goddard says.
Snow classifies himself as a female-born man transsexual, meaning that he was born a female but identifies as a male.
Goddard and Snow describe themselves as polysexual. Polysexuality is not in the dictionary and was not coined by either Goddard or Snow. In fact, they aren't sure of its exact origin. The term expands sexual identity beyond the realm of bisexuality — sexual attraction to men and women — and opens up the conversation for transsexual people, i.e. male-born woman or female-born man. "That's the limitation of bisexuality. You are attracted to men and women, strictly." Goddard says.
"I really support folks making
"Pollysexuality differs from bisexuality because a person is attracted to more than or different from the male-female dichotomy." Snow says. For example, Goddard, who is female-born woman, has been in a relationship with a female-born woman and now a female-born man but has yet to have a serious attraction to a male-born man.
up their own orientation," William Burleson says of the term "polysexual," which he had never heard of. Burleson, a Minnesota STD/HIV prevention educator, activist and writer, understands why many people cannot understand an attraction to many sexes nor identification with different sexes. Part of this twofold way of looking at things is that we live in a very Northern European culture that is binary in its approach to life. Burleson says. "Everyone's one thing or another: black or white, for us or a terrorist, male or female," he says. "Sexuality is high among that and it's just not that simple."
Because of this binary view of things, Goddard worried about her father's acceptance and the
acceptance of her peers. The fact that she was a homosexual woman was what she and most of her friends had in common, Goddard was worried that when she started dating a man, even a transsexual man, she was going to lose some of the queer community, she says.
People who don't know her and see her walking down the street with Snow view her as heterosexual, but she doesn't think that way, Goddard says. "There is some hetero privilege, but I try not to let that take over," she says, grabbing her rainbow flag from her backpack."I think if I started to abandon the queer community and abandon what this means — diversity — I would lose a big part of who I am."
Queer
Differing in some odd way from what is usual or normal (Godard prefers this term to any other because it often simply means, "not heterosexual.")
Transsexual
A person who strongly identifies with the opposite sex and may seek to live as a member of this sex, especially by undergoing surgery and hormone therapy to obtain the necessary physical appearance
All definitions from Merriam-
Webster Dictionary Online with the exception of "polysexial" which was provided by Claive Snow and Emily Goddard.
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