Buffy : Season 8

Early on in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, the comic book series that begins after the end of the television show, Buffy is awakened from a magical sleep by a kiss from someone who loves her. That someone is revealed in Issue No. 11, "A Beautiful Sunset," and it turns out to be a fellow slayer named Satsu. Given that one of Buffy’s best friends is Willow, a lesbian witch, one might expect that Buffy would respond at least sympathetically to Satsu’s affections, but she takes things several steps further.

The next issue opens with Buffy and Satsu in bed together, naked. "Wow," says a stunned Buffy, hand to her forehead.

"Yeah," agrees Satsu — and, I would guess, everyone else reading the issue.

As they process the aftermath of their actions, Satsu says: "I know what this is. I know you didn’t just … turn gay all of a sudden."

Buffy initially reacts comedically, asking, "How do you know that? Did I do something wrong?" But she soon acknowledges the truth: "I had a wonderful night. … But I’m not sure it goes any further than that."

When I asked Buffy creator Joss Whedon why the heretofore heterosexual Buffy had a one-night stand with a woman, he described Buffy as "young and open-minded." Sure, open-mindedness might be a euphemism for bi-curious, but I think the Buffy-Satsu story line is about more than that. Maybe for Buffy — and for lots of girls in their teens and 20s — sexual orientation just doesn’t matter anymore.

Just this month, 22-year-old singer Lady Gaga declared to HX magazine: "I don’t really consider sexual orientation in general. It’s like, people are born the way they are."

Her statement underscores the biological argument for homosexuality (people are born gay or straight) while simultaneously dismissing the entire construct of sexual identity. It may be that she wasn’t thinking clearly during her interview, but I think that she was speaking to a belief that is widespread among younger folks these days. You can hear it in every person who declares that she doesn’t like "labels."

For this generation, sexuality is much less about a unidirectional orientation than it was even eight years ago, when Willow came out as a lesbian. Willow had the coming-out story of my generation: We may have been with men in the past, but once we realized we were gay, we mostly stayed that way.

Buffy has her lesbian experience in 2008, after Willow’s two lesbian relationships, five years of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, five seasons of The L Word, and the legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts and California, with New York on the cusp of the same. The changes have been breathtaking.

I get the impression that sexuality, for many younger people, is now just about sexuality, and not that much about identity. Is this the beginning of the end, then, of identity politics?

The gay rights movement was built on recognizing and celebrating differences based on sexual orientation. But as sexual orientation becomes more like a space of fluid and changing experiences, rather than a series of boxes marked "gay," "straight" or "bisexual," sexual orientation loses its power as an organizing force. Can you have a Gay Pride march if everyone is merely "open-minded"?

Part of me feels sad about this. There is a loss here. The community of lesbians that was created because of identity politics will undoubtedly change if young women would rather be known as open-minded than as lesbians.

This reminds me of how I felt after encountering increasing numbers of men at my local lesbian bar. At first I felt angry that they would invade our space, and then as the months and years passed, I noticed that these guys were perfectly ordinary guys from the neighborhood. They weren’t there to take over women’s space; they weren’t there to pick up a chick for a threesome with their girlfriends; they were there because they lived down the street and they wanted a beer, and the Lexington’s a good place for a cheap drink.

I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that the community within the lesbian bar was being diluted by the presence of outsiders, but I did realize that my reaction was a defensive one. I wanted to defend the identity — the category — of lesbian. That’s what identity politics sometimes is reduced to: policing the borders and keeping out those who don’t fit in.

But let’s face it: Our "lesbian community" is broadening these days, and we can either be upset and defensive about it, or we can see the value of opening our doors. Buffy and Satsu may be a sign of things to come. Maybe in the near future, it really won’t matter what your gender is when it comes to who you fall in love with.

That argument, in fact, is one of the most persuasive arguments for the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States. In order to have our unions recognized as equal to heterosexual ones, we have argued that gay folks are no different than straight folks, and neither is our love. The consequence of this, ironically enough, is the erosion of our identities as gay people.

If those markers are peeled away, what is left?

Last spring I went to Connecticut to attend the christening of a friend’s son. This is a friend who used to dance on tables in college and joined a drag king troupe in her 20s. The idea of her being a parent — a responsible parent — was both bizarre and revolutionary.

She is still the same person I knew in college, with the same slightly repressed enthusiasm — or frustration — that sneaks out of her in funny, unexpected squeals. But she is also a different person, and it was clear from the way she held her son, a plump little baby boy with a shock of black hair. She bounced him as she walked, sometimes looking slightly nervous, often looking surprised at her own joy.

With the birth of a child, the world is made new. I think that most parents would do everything they can to make sure that their child has a wide, clear vista ahead of them, with no boundaries in sight.

I used to think that people who said they dislike labels were doing an injustice to the gay rights movement. I used to think that we simply had to choose a label; otherwise how would we make inroads against the homophobic mainstream? And perhaps that was true for many years, but now I think it’s time for my beliefs to change. With a wide-open horizon, we can see farther; there’s no need to look up at the sky through a pinhole.

Of course, Buffy’s experience with Satsu is not entirely post-identity politics. Neither of them seriously questioned Buffy’s sexual orientation, and Buffy continues to be mostly straight — Satsu is the exception that proves the rule. But their story line is another step forward in what appears to be an inevitable march toward a world in which sexual orientation is irrelevant.

If those markers are peeled away, what is left? Everything.