When you’re batting for the other team, it means you’re a homosexual. Using this word always feels dirty to me because it wasn’t that long ago that ‘homosexual’ was removed from the Psychiatrist Diagnostic and Statistical Manual where it was considered a disorder for so long. So I prefer to use gay or queer or even homo. Homosexual has been a clinical derogatory term for so long, and used to refer to the LGBTQ community as disordered, diseased, and mentally ill.
But yeah, when you’re batting for the other team, it means you’re gay. I enjoy playing a game with either team now and then. It’s a bit of a black and white term, unless you for sure are 100% on one side or the other. And some people feel they are and that’s awesome. I guess I bat for both, but I’m a lot better at playing outfield, particularly second base. How far can I push this sports metaphor?
When I was young I played softball and I was pretty good. It wasn’t dyke softball, though in retrospect I kind of wish it was or I kind of wish I played on a dyke softball team now. I was, however, super into this chick without really realizing I was into her (like, I just thought I wanted to be her very best friend in the whole world, when what I really wanted was to watch her in the change room), and we became close. She had short hair before it was popular to have short hair (like, a cute little pixie cut) and sometimes it was blue and other times it was fuchsia, and she had a nose stud and 12 gage hoops in her ears and a tongue piercing and this short squat body and the way she ran the bases and threw a pitch was mesmerizing. I realized, by grade nine, that I wanted her pretty desperately.
I didn’t realize I batted for both teams when I was young, I always just knew that sex and sexuality and whom I was attracted to was everyone and anyone. I didn’t have a type; I just loved bodies and wanted to touch them. I wanted my body to flirt with another person’s body, I wanted them to find me desirable and it was always easy for me to find others desirable. The only problem was that I was terrified of rejection and couldn’t bare the thought of striking out when I went up to bat. So I stayed in the sidelines during those days and watched all these beautiful girls hitting home runs and throwing perfect pitches.
Oh to be young and massively insecure.
1. I bat for the other team, Marsha said, I’m a dyke. Sally stared at her best friend. Oh my god, are you hitting on me? Marsha rolled her eyes. Typical. Every straight girl thinks her best friend coming out to her is some fucked up form of hitting on her.
2. I don’t bat for the other team, the other team bats for me.
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