You’ll get what you’re given
Vanilla it is. Your first scoop!
There is already some intro waffle on the About page, but I’m devoting this scoop to even more waffle, so you get a better idea of what’s going on, before I start waving my spoon around in earnest. (I’ll also tone down ice cream metaphors at some point.)
Vanilla is the title of a book I’m writing. A book about being cisgender and heterosexual, and all of the social constructs that seem to come hand-in-hand with those things. A topic with infinite potential, at least until the concept of gender and the labelling of sexual orientation have been entirely abolished, which is unlikely to happen in my lifetime, unless this newsletter is really successful.
Anyway, I was ranting to my friend P. about some of the things that Vanilla, the book, will contain and P. suggested I write a newsletter so I had somewhere to rant on a regular basis. So now Vanilla is also a newsletter. You’re in it.
A few definitions to get us started
sexuality
The way living beings experience and express themselves sexually. This involves biological, erotic(al?), physical, emotional, social, and/or spiritual feelings and behaviours and is therefore pretty difficult to define. Not to be confused with sexual orientation—that is, who (or what) you direct your sexuality at.
heterosexuality
The experience of being sexually attracted to, or turned on by, members of the so-called “opposite” sex or gender. Except men and women are not opposites and biological sex and gender both exist on a spectrum, as does sexuality, so heterosexuality is, in effect, a flawed concept and a ridiculous word.
heteronormativity
Often confused with heterosexuality, heteronormativity refers to the norms associated with traditional male/female gender roles and the assumption of heterosexuality as the norm (or at least more “normal” than other kinds of sexual orientation). Anyone can be heteronormative—a same-sex couple, for example, if they describe one of them as “the woman” of the relationship because he/she does the washing up. Wikipedia has a lot more to say on the matter.
gender
If biological sex pertains to everything about your body that can be seen or measured, gender is more about how you use your body, as well as the clothes you choose to wear, how you behave socially, the name you prefer to be called by and so on. All these factors can (but probably shouldn’t) be linked to being female or male, which is why some people confuse biological sex and gender.
social norms
The unwritten rules that exist between social beings. Breaking them has been known to cause confusion/discomfort/scandal. An example of a social norm could be when you enter a bus and there is only one other person sat on the bus, you’re probably not going to sit next to them. Social norms differ from country to country and from person to person. Nobody really remembers learning them, but most people follow them, or at least some of them.
Wokeness aside
Before Vanilla was conceived, I was reading through some things I’d written, and then I wrote another thing about doing that. It said:
It occurs to me that I might be writing about contemporary straightness. Heterosexuality doing its best to break away from heteronormativity, and perhaps also sexuality doing its best to break away from the box that is [heterosexuality]. I wish I could write about homosexuality, polyamory or anything else that is not considered ordinary, standard or “vanilla”, but I am a straight woman who often wishes she wasn’t. Who often wishes she could operate outside the structures that dominate coupledom and (hetero)sexual dynamics. Structures that are so overwhelmingly apparent in romantic and sexual relationships between man and woman. I’m attempting to break them down, as men and women (although, let’s be honest, mostly women) have been doing for centuries.
(Woke disclaimer: When I say I wish I wasn’t straight, I am not denying the privileges associated with being straight; I don’t expect any sympathy. But that doesn’t mean I can’t challenge the shit out of straightness, just as white people ought to challenge the shit out of white supremacy, and man people ought to challenge the shit out of masculinity.)
(Woke disclaimer II: Yes I’m a woman, but this is not a newsletter only for women. If you can’t relate, great!)
(Woke disclaimer III: Both biological sex and gender exist on a spectrum, but as this is a newsletter with a focus on heteronormativity, men and women are going to prove difficult to avoid. So I will use the word “women” to refer to people who have vulvæ and vaginæ and identify as women, and “men” for people with penii who identify as men. If otherwise, I’ll specify. Where possible, I will use “person” or “I”. Eventually, I hope to devise a new language so I’m not dancing around words/offending people all the time.)
Wokeness aside, I feel incredibly limited by the terms “straight” and “heterosexual”. It’s as if those terms have taken on extra meaning in society. As if being heterosexual also means you subscribe to traditional gender roles, vanilla sex, monogamy, marriage and the concept of the nuclear family. Which I don’t.
For a while, I did my best to be attracted to women, threesomes, polyamory or nobody at all. Because, I reasoned, in those setups it must be easier to stray from the recipe—you know, the one that assigns you a gender based on your biological sex at birth, assumes that you’re heterosexual and goes on to dictate how you behave towards those of the so-called “opposite” sex for the rest of your life.
Needless to say, it didn’t work: trying to alter my sexual orientation based on reason, not on actual desire. I still desired to be with a man, either because I was born heterosexual, because heterosexuality has been rammed into my brain since I was born, or because the man in question was (still is) a wonderful person and my desire for him had/has nothing to do with his gender (it did/does have a lot to do with his penis though).
In any case, I only really began to interrogate the concept of heteronormativity when I found myself in a relationship with aforementioned man and discovered that I’m not quite as queer as I thought/hoped I was.
Or maybe I am, but I still feel as if I’m on auto-pilot, blindly following this age-old recipe for a heterosexual relationship, where the majority of sex is penetrative, where we talk about marriage and kids even though neither of us (think that we) want them and where I thank him profusely whenever he cleans something because, strangely enough, I see that as “my job”. We also talk about non-vanilla sex, who does the washing up, so-called “emotional labour”, and how he’d like to be able to wear a dress in public, but that stuff feels revolutionary. And it shouldn’t.
In a same-sex relationship, there isn’t automatically “one who does the washing up” whilst “the other puts up the shelves”, and sex isn’t automatically a penis sliding in and out of a vagina. Instead, you get to (and have to) decide how washing up is done and how sex is and have lots of discussions about it. And, because you’ve already taken such a huge leap to break with norms, having those discussions comes easier (I assume). This is entirely possible in a vanilla (read: heterosexual) relationship too, but then you have to take a different kind of leap. A leap to defy centuries of heteronormativity, whilst existing within the very setup heteronormativity thrives in: a heterosexual relationship. I want vanilla people (of which I am one) to start having the conversations that homosexual people have to have, whether in relationship(s) or not.
In Vanilla, I’m going to dig into the minutiæ, into the stuff that exists behind closed doors, mostly in my head—basically everything I’m trying to understand and change (or not change) about my own vanillaness. Separate from politics and wider cultural analysis, but often symptomatic of it.
Recipe: Vanilla & jazz 🎷
There’s a lot you can do with vanilla. Until the result is anything but boring.
Get hold of some simple (but not bad) vanilla ice cream. Jazz it up with whatever you can/want: lemon zest, thyme leaves, salt (ideally the flaky sea kind), toasted nuts, berries, smashed up chunks of chocolate, olive oil, etc.
Congratulations, you’re now slightly less vanilla. Grab a spoon!
Optional toppings
🥕 On Heteropessimism, an essay by Indiana Seresin
📦 Fifty shades of gay, a TED talk by iO Tillett Wright
📕 The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity, which is also a lot about rethinking sex and relationships, by the genius Esther Perel
👀 @lianafinck on Instagram
This was a long one. Congratulations if you made it all the way down here. I hope you’ll enjoy Vanilla, and if you don’t, I hope you’ll quietly unsubscribe rather than commenting mean things on all my Instagram posts. Thanks.
— H. E.