Confessions of a Fruit Fly

Hello, my name is Emma Lind, and I have gay friends.

Fag hag, fruit fly, queer dear. The terminology may vary by woman and by context, but the meaning is the same. I am a straight woman who happens to hang around men who like other men. And more and more commonly, women who have friendships with openly gay men are being categorized by their sexuality—not their own sexuality, but the sexuality of their platonic companions.

I am not bothered by the title of “fag hag,” although I do find it interesting that people who would never call someone a fag to his face have no qualms about calling a woman a fag hag in the presence of her gay friends. In fact, when used by gay men, the term “fag hag” is endearing in that it is in many ways an affectionate reclaiming of a previously discriminatory term.

Being called a fag hag—even when it is primarily by my gay friends—seems to imply that when searching for the next victim of my friendship, I sniff out gays. Yet I’m not an insect drawn to the homosexual flame. Women with gay friends often get lumped together as some strange breed, but the phenomenon is actually quite simple. Just like meeting politicos though a roommate in the College Democrats, having one friend in the Harvard Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, and Supporters Alliance (BGLTSA) will get you in with the “fags.” Some people have more gay friends than others because of random interactions (compounded by the fact that queer folk are probably more amenable to people who are clearly not worried about “catching the gay.”)

The myth I wish to dispel is that being a “fruit fly” comes with a complex system of social benefits. At least in my case, the perks of having a lot of gay friends are really no different than the perks of having friends, period. My life is not one endless episode of “Will & Grace” in which my gay friends and I parade about discussing clothes, gossip, and sex. Instead, we sit on a crappy futons and discuss the Core, Drew Faust, and sex. My gay friends have never done my hair. Nor would I want most of them to.

At least, however, there is one advantage that my status as “hag” has bestowed upon me. My mom’s best friend is a gay man whom I see as a public health professional, an uncle, and a dozen other things before I see him as a “fag.” I could never thank him enough for one gift: giving me the tip-off, when I was about 12, that “gay” was not a synonym for “bad,” which is something that many 21-year-olds can’t seem to master.

But the label is unsettling beyond this image because it assumes that I specifically seek out gay male companions. And it is another way in which we judge people not as individuals, but by one aspect—the sexuality of the company they keep—that could be wholly irrelevant to the actual friendship. My gay friends are just that: friends who also happen to be gay, and not the objects of some sort of platonic gay fetish.

Emma M. Lind ’09, a Crimson editorial editor, is a history and literature concentrator in Winthrop House.