Years ago — because, much as it pains me to admit this, the first season of Severance was years ago — I received a lecture from a colleague about the true meaning of the word “queerbaiting.”
[Slight Severance spoilers ahead, sorry not sorry, you should have watched it by now!]
The context here is that I was complaining about the almost but not quite realized queer romance on Severance. It bugged me that John Turturro and Christopher Walken’s characters almost but not quite kissed, it bothered me that we got so close to seeing something happen between these two dudes, but then, nope.
I called it queerbaiting.
My colleague assured me that it was not.
Queerbaiting, she pointed out, only happens when the characters are never explicitly, canonically, named as queer. Queerbaiting is two ostensibly straight characters who are flirting just enough to maybe — maybe — make you think there might be something there, except the something there is never really anywhere but your imagination. Walken’s Severance character is shown embracing another man (presumably his husband or partner); he is, shall we say, CONFIRMED QUEER. We don’t get quite that from Turturro’s character, but it’s not really a stretch to assume that he is canonically queer. The fact that he doesn’t get a kiss in does not mean I was being queerbaited, disappointed as I may have been.
I thought of that years old discussion today because, well, apparently Megan Thee Stallion is being accused of queerbaiting? The logic behind the argument is basically what you would expect: oh she says she is bi, but where are the girlfriends? Surely she is just talking about wanting to hump girls to get queer attention, but why is she not actively humping girls in front of us so that we all have proof of her actual and fully realized queerness.
Or something like that, anyway.
Am I surprised by this? Not really. It’s been obvious for years that the culture only really likes bi women when we aren’t actually out; the second one’s queerness goes from theoretical — say, Taylor Swift — to acknowledged, you become a disappointment. Because the reality is that no bi woman, and especially not a bi celebrity, is ever really going to live up to the queer community’s punishing standards, because in order to do that we’d… have to not be bi.
Why doesn’t Megan Thee Stallion have a girlfriend? Who knows! Maybe she just hasn’t met the right girl. Maybe she doesn’t want to date women — and if her bisexuality is purely about sex, she’s still, sigh Valid™️. Fundamentally we should be grateful that she’s willing to openly speak about her queerness, that she’s not ashamed to be publicly sexual, that she doesn’t shy away from talking about being attracted to women. Those are all wonderful qualities about her. Those are all things that are ultimately beneficial for queer visibility.
But, of course, as long as she’s bisexual — as long as she hasn’t fully sworn off men — those will also always be used as proof that she’s just a tease, that she wants the queer attention without… I mean I don’t really know how dating someone is more of a risk than publicly talking about liking queer sex and making yourself and your sex life an object of discussion, but “without the risk” I guess. Those will always be used as proof that she’s “queerbaiting,” even though — as I learned all those years ago — you cannot queerbait if you are openly queer.
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