- Middle Ground is a social experiment
that brings humans with opposing beliefs together.
These discussions may contain viewpoints
that are the result of misinformation.
Remember to seek out experts and to be critical
of your own biases while forming an opinion.
Please see the humanity in each participant. And as always,
we encourage empathy.
- I'm a black woman and I'm a dominant black woman.
So I must be gay. I must be a lesbian.
- What is that though?
Like what, why does everyone always say like,
oh, you look like a lesbian. What is that?
What does a lesbian look like?
(bold music)
- [Announcer] Step forward, if you agree with the prompt.
It's normal for straight women
to feel some attraction towards women.
- Yeah, I think that is completely normal.
Women are attractive.
We are cute.
We are hot.
We're fiery and yes,
we're attracted to each other.
- I've actually been on maybe like two dates with women
because women are attractive and they're beautiful people.
- My feeling has always been that
it's because I've had a past relationship with a man
that was significant, folks have said,
well, you should identify as bisexual.
Right? And I'm like, interesting.
You know, 'cause ultimately to me
calling yourself a label
is not so much a labeling as it is in identifying.
And it's like, you end up choosing.
- Yeah.
And so you can stop where you want, right?
Like, I think there's the journey.
And then for me it was like,
No, I stopped at lesbian and I'm staying here.
- Yeah.
So that's the word that I'm using.
- [Announcer] I do have a follow up question.
Have you thought about women while masturbating?
- Yes.
Again, women are sexy, even for me.
And I'm a straight woman. I don't always like straight.
Can I say the P word on here?
Porn!
I don't necessarily like straight porn.
- Don't they say like statistically, that women
in general, straight or not, watch gay porn
because you're looking at the woman
being, having pleasure. And that's -
- It's that, that pleasure sensation that we're looking for
that I don't always get,
when I'm watching men and women.
- That actually makes sense because I was a late bloomer
and I found out what porn was when I was 17.
When I saw it, I was like, oh, sex is for the man.
'Cause that's kind of how it looked.
It's for the man, it's for the man to feel good.
I, it never like clicked to me like,
oh, you're supposed to also feel something.
So I understand what you say when you mean that.
- Wow. - Yeah.
- Wow. - Yeah. Yeah.
(indistinct)
- Hi, my name's Sarah
and I'm a straight woman.
Physically, I've had attraction towards women.
I had a crush on a girl,
but that was it really, just a crush.
Other than that,
I haven't really thought about getting intimate
with women, sexually or romantically.
- [Announcer] "Girly girl" and "tomboy"
are problematic terms.
- Personally, elementary school I was the only girl
at boy's birthday parties.
Every time.
'Cause a lot of my friends were boys
and I was just told, oh, Claire's just a tomboy.
I mean, I was a dress wearing girl.
I had bike ramps in my front yard.
I wanted to do all that stuff.
And so like, she's a tomboy.
And that kind of fuzzied my queerness for me.
And growing up, I was very hyper fem.
I got Easter dresses and wore them year round,
those big like tulle Easter dresses.
- I did that too.
- It's the best, but I was then looked at as a girly girl.
So it's like, she can't be gay if she looks this way.
- Well, I think it's hard when you tell someone
what they are.
- What they are. Yeah.
- So that's the only thing that I'm like,
that could be problematic, 'cause like you said,
it fuzzied it for you.
And that's why I think it could be problematic,
because you can't put someone in a certain place.
They have to do it themselves.
- I think if you're self labeling, it's fine.
But like putting someone else into it, not great.
Hi, my name's Claire.
I'm 23 years old and I am team lesbian.
Compulsive heteronormativity is definitely a problem.
It's when you grow up being assumed as straight.
That definitely happened for me.
I grew up with only straight role models,
watching only straight people on TV.
All I saw was straight culture.
And I had those feelings start to develop
that I thought were wrong,
and I was repressing and pushing them down.
So I definitely think compulsive heteronormativity is a
problem in society and we need to have a lot more
queer role models in all our communities.
- So I think there's a split here to be made,
between being womanly and being feminine.
Right? Like I feel womanly,
but I'm masculine in terms of my presentation.
And I also am, I'm gonna say this.
Being feminine has emotional qualities
and being masculine has emotional qualities.
- Yeah. The expectation is I must be submissive.
I must be the one because I am female,
by default, I'm the submissive one.
I'm very dominant.
I'm dominant in the way that I present myself,
when I'm in a room and so men, especially will,
they're the ones who will suggest,
I'm a black woman and I'm a dominant black woman.
So I must be gay.
I must be a lesbian. I must be a lesbian.
- What is that though? Like what?
Why does everyone always say like,
oh you look like a lesbian. What is that?
What does a lesbian look like?
There is no look, it's just what you are and who you are.
I mean, my mom, when obviously when I came out,
my mom was like, okay, well you're a lesbian.
So why do you date women that like to dress like men?
Okay. At the end of the day,
it doesn't matter what they wanna wear.
That's what they wanna wear. Okay, great.
- So I was gonna ask you guys a question.
Like, do you feel girly girl or Tom Tom, Tom boy?
- I present like in a more feminine way,
but I feel like internally,
I don't know if I'm masculine,
but I feel like I embody a lot of like male traits,
where I'm like,
I think with logic and I'm like strong and don't really like
to say how I feel, but like externally I'm feminine.
But also it does like pose difficulty when I'm out.
Like, wanting to look at girls.
A lot of time, like I'm making eye contact.
They're like, why is this girl looking at me?
- The way the patriarchy functions is that,
it's like divide women and conquer women.
Divide and conquer.
Right. We're supposed to fight with each other.
We're supposed to compete over men specifically.
- Yeah, sometimes.
I feel like I always wanna believe the best in women,
but I feel like we've all had that thing where we're like,
why is that girl staring at me?
Did she not like me?
Like, is she mean, like what's going on?
Maybe she just likes me. Maybe she thinks I'm cute.
And I'll think that next time maybe I'm like, hey.
Hi.
I'm DIA and I'm straight.
Whenever I saw Waka Flocka Flame for the first time,
I knew that, that was my lane.
I did go through a phase where I was trying to see if I was
interested in girls,
but then it usually always led back to men.
- [Announcer] I have been confused by my sexual orientation.
- I think like there was a time in my life,
where I was like, oh, boys are great.
And then I got hurt,
like a real hurt, where I was just like, man.
Ugh, need a break.
And so then I was kind of like, well, where do I go next?
And so, you know, I went on my dates as I, as I told you.
And I just haven't found a woman that, you know, makes me,
go woo hoo hoo, you know.
- I mean personally, like I'm still confused every day.
But I think sexuality is so fluid.
Like, you can always be changing how you feel.
And it's also like this attachment to still holding on hope
that maybe I'll like a guy or maybe like I could feel
something with a guy.
- And even like identifying on like the lesbians side
was hard for me because I still hold on to that label
of being bisexual because I've dated men.
And because I still know,
I can like, make myself in a way, like men.
So it's like, do I like men because I like men
or because I've grown up thinking I should?
That's because yeah, because they gave us that dream
that you're supposed to find that Prince Charming
and you're supposed to fall in love and have these kids
and it's supposed to be like this thing. So.
- In my life I had this plan out,
like I'm gonna get married to a surfer guy.
We're gonna have all these cute little kids
and it's gonna be great.
And I went on a date.
It was my first date with a boy in high school.
And I was like, he's gonna hold my hand
at the movie theater.
Oh my gosh, it's gonna happen.
And he touched me and I did this.
And my body knew before my head knew.
Queer was not used that often.
Middle school, high school.
The derogatory term was gay.
That's gay, she's gay.
That meant lame.
So for me, I'm like, I'm not gay.
I'm not, I don't think I'm lame.
So, fell under queer, gay, lesbian as I got comfortable and
deconstructed those labels myself.
I think that family does play a huge role.
I was married to a man for six years.
It was a little bit hard for me to actually like,
have the courage to come out,
because I do come from a very strict
Latina household.
I tried to force myself into, you know,
being in a heterosexual relationship for the sake of my
family and for the sake of the what if.
What if it doesn't work out with a woman or me being scared
and terrified.
So I think that confusion is a very normal thing
in everyone.
- I would say the most confusing element of things for me
was literally the sexual aspect of my sexual orientation
because I was in a relationship with a man
for like seven years.
And I learned over time that like, the dynamic that we had
when we had sex was the dynamic that I wanted,
but I didn't want to be the me in it.
Then I slowly started to identify as a Butch.
I remember someone saying this and I don't know who it was,
but somebody looked at me and said,
Butch women couldn't get a man. So they're trying to be one.
It was like a double failure.
My name is Rachel and I'm on the lesbian side.
Heteronormativity in the sense of a set of norms that
disciplines people and subjugates them
is certainly a problem.
Especially in the way that it impacts girls
who are supposed to
have a man or as they say about Butch women,
try to be one.
That's not to say that heterosexuality is a problem.
It's not crazy for people to be heterosexual.
Just like it's not crazy that gay feeling and sexuality
is also natural.
- In my experience,
I've only been with men sexually and on dates.
So I've just, haven't had that experience myself.
But if I were to, at any point, have those experiences
with women, I wouldn't put a label in it.
The reason why I disagreed about being conflicted.
There's some things I don't ever explain to other people.
This is one of them.
I don't explain to you who I take home.
I don't explain to you what I do in my room.
I don't explain any of that.
I like women.
I've been on dates with women.
I've done what I do with women and men,
but I'm not going to, label myself
just so somebody else can put me in a category.
I just always wanted to know this.
Why is it so important that you are identified correctly and
the, the need to come out?
- Yep.
- The need to say I am this. I am that.
- Personally, I saw just the straight side of life
and I wasn't feeling the same way my friends were.
And like, when you get middle school, high school, college,
I felt wrong.
I was gonna disappoint my family.
I was gonna be looked at my whole life
as something less than.
And I don't, if labels are not important to you,
I think it's a personal thing.
But for me, finding people that were saying like,
this is why I feel this way.
I'm like, I felt that way too.
- When you said, well,
why is it such a big deal to come out of the closet?
Like imagine being in a closet. It's dark, it's lonely.
Like you don't have anyone to express your feelings to.
And I also think representation is so important.
- Yes.
- Like personally, I grew up with a mom and a dad.
Then my parents split up and now my mom is married to a
woman and they were actually the first black, same sex
couple to be on the cover of Essence Magazine.
- [Group] Wow.
- I know, right.
Representation is so important.
- What if there were no labels?
What would that look like?
- There would be no community.
There would be, no, I feel like if there were no labels,
it's sad to say but,
I feel like a lot of people would be in the closet,
would be in the dark.
Hi, my name is Aimee and I am a lesbian.
I did hide myself for a very long time,
just because I do come from a very strict household.
I did endure, you know,
actually being in that hetero relationship and actually
experiencing it firsthand.
It took me like a whole year of me basically ignoring him
for me to finally realize like, I can't be doing this.
Like, this is not who I am.
This is not what I want for the rest of my life.
- [Announcer] I believe traditional gender roles
are important.
- Oh wait.
- They're important to a degree.
You know, if a man were to
date a woman and they were to get married,
you would expect the man to provide
and the woman to, well stay home,
or work and just raise the children.
If we didn't have those gender norms then,
well, how would the world work?
- The reason I said that I agree is 'cause the word role
is that word for a reason.
A role is a performance.
So it's not, we don't need to naturalize it.
We don't need to say women are this one and men are this one
or whatever your body is, means your destiny is this.
I just think that the,
as social performances in ways of organizing our lives,
we're not ever gonna really get rid of the
masculine feminine thing.
So I think acknowledging it so that we can think critically
about it is what matters.
- I believe we're in a space
where we're starting to like,
tear down things that we are not entirely understanding
or appreciating why it was built.
We have to appreciate that
we have to have some type of structure.
Now does that structure mean that because I am born with a
certain genitalia, this is the role I'm destined to be in?
I don't know. It depends on which society you belong to.
I don't want to do everything. I don't.
That's why gender roles are important too.
You are designating.
This is what you do, this is what I do.
I think that's okay.
I am Marsha and I am straight.
I think a lot of the decisions that we make come from
pre-programming.
For one, I'm Jamaican born.
In Jamaica, being homosexual is a no, we don't do that.
There was only one way, you were straight.
That was it.
So part of my decision is definitely my upbringing,
but it's also from my experiences and realizing
this is my fit.
This works better for me.
- Me and my girlfriend.
We don't perform gender roles, at all.
Like, we care for each other equally and it's definitely
a bit different, I think.
- Do y'all live together?
- No.
- That makes a difference too.
- But we, for the past three weeks,
we've been living together though, so.
- That may shift, the longer you live together.
- Yeah.
- I mean, I don't see why,
like certain household responsibilities should be defined
by gender, especially 'cause like I grew up with two moms,
so I never was like, oh like this is like my mom and my dad,
like this is my mom and my mom and both my parents worked.
They like threw my ass in daycare and it was just like
in a way, I guess I had two dads,
if you wanna like put it in that way.
But like I think it's like about a balance of like sharing
responsibility, you know?
- Well, but does saying that the gender roles are important
mean that we're saying that they should be employed?
'Cause I'm not saying that they should be forced on anybody.
- It's just whether and how much you wanna like, take it on.
- They should not be forced on everybody.
But When you're talking about doing the dishes and whatnot.
My ex-husband was the person who stayed at home.
I was the one who was at work.
He was the one that was doing the dishes and cooking.
- [Announcer] The world would be a better place without men.
- Oh I was just like thinking historically like,
men have been the one that have caused wars
and created a place where women didn't have
the same respect or capacity to be heard and seen.
I think it'd be easier in a sense for me personally.
I think a lot of the times men don't understand,
that I could be a woman that doesn't want to
end up with a man.
That they wanna like change me or
a man and woman is like the only right way.
Hi, my name is Jayme and I am on the lesbian side.
I think it just comes down to that I know I'm capable
of being with men and I find them attractive
and like I could see myself being with them sexually.
But like romantically,
I don't think I could ever really connect to a man.
- With men's power, so to speak,
it gets like almost too extreme.
Like, you know, look what's happening today,
with the old white men trying to
control abortion or women's bodies.
But today, I think we would still need them in the world
just to have at least a different perspective.
- Yep.
- I mean, I really struggled with this question
because looking back,
the only person in my life who's ever hit me
was a fem lesbian.
I have had experiences with kind of,
unwanted sexual advances and things with men
and all of that's been bad too,
but like my very worst trauma that has just stuck with me
was a woman.
- I don't think it'd be better without men, but I do think
men need to be a little more educated on things.
Even how we're treated in school by boys.
Like growing up was always
- If they hurt you, they like you.
If they yank on your pigtails.
- So I don't think we should like abolish all men,
but I do think there needs to be some leveling out.
- I think that definitely we're getting there.
I feel like, because of what men have done in the past,
you know, in our history,
I feel like that's why they have this superiority again
over all of the women.
But I do think that we are here
because of what we've gone through.
(group applauds)
(soft jazz music)