Though Lindsay Lohan kind of blazed the trail back in 2008 with the whole straight woman randomly deciding to date another female trend, at least Samantha Ronson was already a lesbian (or bisexual, if you prefer) to begin with–making one-half of the relationship at least somewhat sensical.
But in the here and now that is 2016, it seems as though the options have become so limited–even for celebrities who aren’t buttface ugly–that it’s easier to just “revert” to lesbianism. Take the most overt case in point in pop culture of late, Kristen Stewart and St. Vincent. While St. Vincent has always been one of those bull shitters that say things like, “I don’t really identify as anything… I think you can fall in love with anybody,” it seems as though Stewart is the first girl she’s been willing to go public with on such a casual scale (there was more fanfare surrounding Cara D, and look how that turned out).
And as for Stewart, well, she’s always been pretty on blast about her fondness for dick while dating co-stars Michael Angarano and Robert Pattinson (so very Brad Pitt of her). Granted, she made the segue toward women earlier this year by dating her personal assistant and Soko, a French singer-songwriter, for a few months before taking a more public plunge (is that somehow an innuendo?) with St. Vincent–maybe because she knows she can’t break her heart as callously as Cara Delevingne.
Stewart and St. Vincent aren’t the only ones who have seemingly taken a stance with bending the rules of sexuality in the face of extremely limited hetero options. Miley Cyrus, too, has been serving as the celebrity representative of pansexuality–the lazy and greedy person’s sexuality choice–declaring, “I don’t feel straight and I don’t feel gay. It’s because I’m not.” And yet, one can’t help but feel that if Liam Hemsworth wasn’t the most masculine man out there right now, she might feel differently.
Likewise, one imagines Stewart wasn’t exactly blown away by the male gender after co-starring with Jesse Eisenberg in Café Society. Perhaps on the heels of Stewart’s next film, Billy Lynn’s Halftime Walk, she’ll have a rejuvenated zeal for men. St. Vincent, on the other hand, is likely to stay into women if she couldn’t be allured by David Byrne. But the bottom line is, the twenty-first century takes the notion of being born with a certain sexuality and turns it on its ear with that other unexpected factor: limited straight person’s choices.
