Buffy The Vampire Slayer Made Me Gay
a warning.
It was the year of our lord 2005, and I was in my bff Sophie’s basement. She and I were on her family’s shared computer - likely fucking around on MSN Messenger, because that was how we spent 98% of our time those days - and her older sister was watching tv. This was a fairly common occurance, and usually Sophie and I would do our thing and Carly would do hers and we’d kind of ignore eachother. But this day was different. Whatever Carly was watching seemed to draw me to the television like a siren song. I ended up entirely abandoning MSN and sitting next to Carly on the couch, watching in confusion as characters whose names I didn’t yet know argued and kissed and prepared to fight an army of vampires. (For context, the episode she was watching was Season 7 Episode 21, End of Days. If you know you know). I asked in teenage awe, ‘what IS this show?’ And she said the four fateful words that would change my life: “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
That was it for me.
I spent the summer between grade 8 and grade 9 devouring the show. This was, of course, before streaming services, so my viewing happened entirely on dvd. Every morning, I would ride my bike the 8 minutes to our neighbourhood Blockbuster; rent 3 discs (because that was the daily limit my parents had set for me); bike home; sit in the basement and watch as many episodes in a row as I could; then a few days later ride my bike back, return those and get the next three discs. I was at blockbuster at LEAST twice a week that summer. I spent DOZENS of dollars of my allowance renting all 7 seasons of the show and becoming absolutely obsessed with it - an obsession that persists to this day, almost twenty years later.
Now, I didn’t come out until a few years ago, when I was in my late twenties. And when I look back on my life, searching for markers of my unknown/unacknowledged queerness, I will admit there are a few. I’ve always been very into musical theatre. Most of my friends were queer. I thought that everyone secretly thought it would be great to kiss a girl. However, I do think that my discovery of and subsequent obsession with Buffy was when my ascent into gayness truly began. In defiance of Our Lady of Gaga, I don’t actually believe I was ‘born this way’. I believe that Buffy the Vampire Slayer actually made me this way.
How did Buffy make me gay? I’m so glad you asked.
Though I didn’t know it at the time I first encountered the show, I now know that Buffy the Vampire Slayer has long been regarded as a trailblazing piece of queer media. It showed the first lesbian sex scene on American network tv; Buffy’s secret slayer identity was often used as a proxy for queerness (as in the famous scene in Season 2, Episode 22 ‘Becoming’); it had a musical episode. While all of those aspects certainly contributed to pushing me toward queerness, the things about Buffy that made me gay were actually much more insidious.
Exhibit A: The Outfits
So many leather pants. So many leather skirts. So many pairs of 90s sunglasses. So many stylish trench coats and dusters. So many flowing blouses. So many tank tops.
Exhibit B: Faith Lehane
When I look back to try to figure out who my first queer crush might have been, Faith, as played by the extraordinary Eliza Dushku, is really the most obvious contender. She stormed into the Buffy universe, and also into my heart, in season three of the show, and I became absolutely OBSESSED with her. She’s from Boston! She owns her sexuality! She drops into town and disrupts everyone’s lives, but deep down she just wants to belong? Though I couldn’t name it at the time, Faith was my definitely my dream girl (which is certainly problematic for me because she does, you know, murder and betray a lot of people.) But she was beautiful, bossy, rebellious and could wear the crap out of a tank top.
Exhibit C: Spike and Drusilla’s whole thing.
The performances that Juliet Landau and James Marsters give as vampires Drusilla and Spike, respectively, are absolutely iconic. These characters and the absolutely unhinged way they behaved with each other was possibly my first real exposure to the concept of camp. The fact that neither of them are English and they are both doing fabulously over the top accents? Gay. The way they are always caressing each other and licking each other’s faces? Gay. The amount of red and black silks and velvets they drape themselves in? GAY!
Exhibit D: Spike.
My partner and I talk a lot about the roles fictional characters played in our coming to queerness; specifically, the confusion that often beset us when we weren’t sure if we wanted to be WITH a character or just BE them. This is a fairly common experience among my queer peers, possibly because of the binary, comphet stew of the 90s and 2000s through which we waded in our adolescence. When I think of examples of this in my own life, River Phoenix in Stand By Me is the earliest example that comes to mind. Did I have a crush on him? Or did I simply want to look and act as cool as Chris Chambers in his white t-shirt and Levis?
Spike from Buffy was and is sort of the ultimate example of this in my life. He has bleached hair and cool jackets and is a general asshole to everyone and has those cheekbones that could literally cut glass. Just like Faith Lehane, Spike was everything that I, as a musical-theatre loving, Animorphs-reading 14 year old, was not. He was dangerous and cool and sexy and I wanted to kiss him but also to be him? It was very confusing. And, in retrospect, very gay.
Exhibit E: S3 E16: Dopplegangland
Anyone who has watched this absolutely classic episode understands entirely. I’ll leave this here and say no more.
I want to be really clear - the intention of this piece is not for me to ACCUSE Buffy the Vampire Slayer of turning people gay. I’m sure there are tens of people who’ve watched Buffy who remain happily straight. All I’m doing is issuing a warning.
Beware, my friends. It starts innocently enough - tuning into a beloved teen show from the 90s.
It seems harmless, no?
The next thing you know, you could wake up 15 years later in a loving, long-term queer relationship, owning a cat, having a septum piercing, talking on the internet about how gay you are. The horror! The humanity!
I think the evidence is clear - Buffy did, in fact, make me gay. And boy oh boy, am I glad it did.
Willow Rosenberg once declared:
And you know, I couldn’t have said it better myself.
10/10 incredible read. as someone watching for the first time it’s been a pleasure to report all my buddy news to you xx