Fun Home by Alison Bechdel - Blog 4 "Sexuality"

The theme of sexuality is portrayed many different ways through out the novel. Bechdel starts by speaking of her father's sexuality after his death. She describes the shock of finding out that he had affairs with other men after coming out to her mother. She does not know how to feel about this information and the encounters are what I seem to believe lead Bechdel to write this story. Sexuality seems to be topic that was never talked about in their home, the father always forcing Alison to be more "girly" or feminine, probably to account for the fact that he has had to hide his true being for his entire life. The idea that his daughter may be a lesbian may have crossed his mind long before she ever noticed it herself. For example, on vacation Alison really tries to convince her parents to be topless on the beach. "In Cannes, I argued compellingly for the right to exchange my tank suit for a pair of shorts." (Page 73) Although the image attached to this quote is humorous, it is also very important. There is an image of a topless woman (or maybe a man with an extremely low-hanging chest) walking behind her and her brother while they are playing on the beach. This gives a very innocent and almost questionable vibe to when Alison actually realized there was something different about her. The images of woman being topless around her, just like men, may have influenced her in a way that she began to believe that how she was feeling was normal, at least somewhere in the world. She was always trying to convince her father to allow her to wear what she wanted, even as a young woman, and he never failed to make her into who he wanted her to be, instead of who she is. When Alison begins talking about her more personal sexual experiences with woman, she explains how they were almost more experimental or based upon research than emotion. This may be because emotion was so frowned upon through out her childhood, but most of where she got her information on sexuality from was books and reports, not on real life. When she does start to delve into reality, she becomes wrapped up in the sexual aspects of being a lesbian, and around that time learns about her father. I think that this makes Alison feel more like she is doing something wrong than just being who she is and having sexual interactions with who she wishes.