Los Angeles, CA, June 3 – Victoria’s Secret was my childhood nightmare. I closed my eyes, held my mom’s hand, and tried not to peek, as my 5-year-old self bumped into mannequins in lace around every corner. Growing up in a conservative Catholic home, I spent over a decade believing that this playground-aged instinct to shield myself from disrobed women was a product of the thorough modest conditioning my mother surrounded me with.
But, after decades of closeted questioning, countered aggressively by my conservative hometown, and traditional Catholic family, the pandemic simplified my sexual orientation beyond doubt. There I sat, pajama-draped and Clorox-wiped, quarantined with the most queer parts of myself that I had spent my whole life trying desperately to hide from. My bisexual expression had been so suppressed and condemned that only a dystopian-esque era could bring my internalized denials to crumble. [continue reading…]
