i'm just gonna contemplate some hypotheticals here.
let's say you're a very young woman with startling talent as a songwriter and a performer, and you are dedicated to your dream of becoming a huge star. the particular genre your music has found its voice in (thus far) is country.
during the years you grow up, it's not really socially acceptable for a girl to not be interested in boys. and queerness in any form is even less supported, discussed, or accepted than it is today. so you talk about boys with your friends, convince yourself that you like them (and hey, maybe you really do!) but there's also something appealing to you about girls and you like them a LOT. maybe you haven't identified what it is exactly. you probably don't have the language or knowledge to understand what you're feeling. your culture doesn't provide you with that. but because girls are allowed to be very close and even physically intimate with their best friends, you are free to joke and play and explore your feelings without them being labeled as something unacceptable.
you work unbelievably hard and you finally get your big break as a musician. maybe your managers can tell something about you, maybe you've already figured it out about yourself, or maybe this is still unknown or un acknowledged by everyone in your circle. either way, your team starts to build the media narrative of the precocious american princess dreaming of love.
maybe originating from your pr team, or maybe starting organically in your fans, people start to love the idea that your songs are "confessional," like diary entries. they love the idea of knowing your innermost feelings. because this clearly leads to more sales and more revenue, you and your team decide to go along with this. you encourage it and play along. when you see the major interest that comes from revealing (or at least intimating) who a song is about, you use that as a marketing strategy and it works.
yes, your songs are actually brilliant and they are what keep people around, but the marketing strategies are what get most of them to bite the hook in the first place. the public has a massive fascination with the love lives and relationships of celebrities. you know this and exploit this and it works. maybe the guys you date are all pr set-ups, maybe you were encouraged to try dating them for real because it would benefit both of your upcoming projects, maybe you really did meet somewhere and sparks flew. but maybe there were other people who stirred your heart who your publicist told you "would not be a good idea." maybe you had to hide those feelings (or relationships!) but you could still write about those experiences by changing a gender pronoun here and inserting a male name there.
your strategy is working. you are quickly becoming one of the biggest country stars in the world, and then one of the biggest stars period. you expand into the more-widely consumed genre of pop. but more attention unfortunately also means more criticism and scrutiny. because people are obsessed with celebrity relationships, yours (real or not) become the only topic of conversation. not your music itself. this is heartbreaking for you. not only that, the strategy which once worked so well in your favor is now starting to tear you down. people slut shame you, call you a "serial dater," say that guys shouldn't date you because they'll "just get a song written about them." no one (except your fans) is actually paying attention to the beautiful art you are creating at a level of quality (and quantity) that is astonishing for anyone, let alone someone of your young years.
maybe around this time you meet someone who could very well be your soul mate. it's pretty much love at first sight. because you are both girls, you can let the world see how close you are, how you spend all your time together, even hold hands, and people can just call you "pals." maybe for a while that is what it is. but maybe one day you go from friends to this. maybe your behavior in public becomes a little too much to write off as "just pals." you both have careers as international superstars and it is very likely that a relationship of this nature would jeopardize them. the careers you love, that you spent your whole lives working toward, that other people's livelihoods depend on. so what are you to do?
your summer of the apocalypse comes. the world turns on you and you are sent into exile. you are devastated and what you thought was your reality has shattered and crashed. but you still have music, and you still have your great love. you step back from it all and reassess, rearrange, regroup. you find that you are happy, stable, grounded. but the only way to preserve that is by never again allowing the public so deep into your life. people loved you for your openness, how much of yourself that you shared. but then they used that to hurt you and you won't let it happen again. so you come up with a new strategy.
you want to write songs about a deep, intimate, long-lasting love, but your past "relationships" have only spanned a few months at most. you also want people to stop scrutinizing your actions, particularly your dating life; stop talking about it, speculating about it, criticizing you for it. you find a tall, blond, blue-eyed british boy. he will be part of the story you tell the world. he will be long-term, stable, happy. he will also be boring. no one will have anything to gossip about, and no one will go prying for anything under the surface. you take full control of your public image, to the smallest detail. eventually, your music will be heard for what it is, instead of as gossip-y tell-alls. you expand your creativity and meld "fact" with fiction to 1) throw everyone off the scent and 2) to create stunning art that you wouldn't have been able to when you felt limited to only write as the character of your public persona.
and behind the scenes, you can do whatever you want. are you still with your muse of 8 years? we don't know! are you dating other women, other people of any gender? we don't know! but you have your music and your privacy and you are at peace.
janainaart
stormborns
blakekathryn
annaxmalina
