Ep 49: Being Queer at School Dances
SARAH: Hey what’s up hello. Welcome to Sounds Fake But Okay, a podcast where an aro-ace girl (I’m Sarah. That’s me.)
KAYLA: And a demi straight girl (that’s me, Kayla.)
SARAH: Talk about all things to do with love, relationships, sexuality, and pretty much anything else that we just don’t understand.
KAYLA: On today’s episode: Being queer in high school.
BOTH: — Sounds fake, but okay.
*Intro music*
SARAH: Welcome back to the pod.
KAYLA: We (clap) are (clap) back –
SARAH: You can’t clap.
KAYLA: (clap) together.
SARAH: You can’t, there’s an audio spike.
KAYLA: You’re the one – Do you know how many times I was editing and you cracked your knuckle, and the whole audio spiked like that? Yeah. I don’t edit anymore, so it’s fine.
SARAH: Because Kayla had to edit for three months, half of the episodes, not even all of them, and it was just –
KAYLA: It was more than half.
SARAH: We prerecorded about half of them.
KAYLA: It felt more than half.
SARAH: Well, it must suck to have to edit, right Kayla?
KAYLA: I do literally everything else.
SARAH: Yeah anyway, as you can probably tell from our rapport –
BOTH: (laugh)
SARAH: We are back together in real person human time.
KAYLA: Mmhmm.
SARAH: Same time zone.
KAYLA: (singing) Reunited, and it feels so good.
SARAH: We are sitting directly across from each other which we’re not, usually.
KAYLA: Usually we sit very close right next to each other.
SARAH: This is a different experience.
KAYLA: I feel like a professional, I think this is how the professionals do it.
SARAH: You’re sitting on my bed. But I’m sitting on a chair.
KAYLA: You took the chair, what was I supposed to do?
SARAH: You could have brought your own chair.
KAYLA: BYOC?
SARAH: Bring Your Own Chair.
KAYLA: No.
SARAH: Anyway, we’re back, we’re hitting the ground running, as they say.
KAYLA: They do say that.
SARAH: For those of you who are American, I hope you had a great Labor Day. If you are not American, I hope you had a great first Monday of September.
KAYLA: Woo.
SARAH: Woohoo. Yeah, we’re back. We have planned – Guys, we are so much –
KAYLA: We are businesswomen.
SARAH: Listen, after this summer, we got so much better at planning things.
KAYLA: Which, for Sarah especially is wild.
SARAH: I made a table.
KAYLA: She did make a table.
SARAH: It’s exciting. So we have some plans for things upcoming, we have some guests upcoming.
KAYLA: We have actual plans for guests.
SARAH: Big plans.
KAYLA: It’s scheduled.
SARAH: It’s wild. So be looking forward to that. Also guys, I’m looking at a thing right now that we’re not using right now, but I’m looking at it. It is a microphone, but only one of them came in the mail.
KAYLA: The other one’s coming tomorrow.
SARAH: The other one’s coming tomorrow.
KAYLA: And then Sarah’s going to learn how to use them, and so in a couple of episodes –
SARAH: Probably the next episode after this.
KAYLA: Yeah, next week, bitch, we’re going to sound so good.
SARAH: We’re going to sound so professional and lovely.
KAYLA: Bitch.
SARAH: Anyway, topic of the pod.
KAYLA: That was our life update. Thank you.
SARAH: Thank you. So I thought of this, don’t know why, but I did.
KAYLA: Us about every topic.
SARAH: Yeah. And we thought it might be festive to share now, because I don’t know about the rest of the world, but for American high schools, in the next couple of weeks/month, a lot of schools are having their homecoming dances, and so we thought this was a timely topic.
KAYLA: Look at us, doing timely topics.
SARAH: I know, right?
KAYLA: What?
SARAH: I made a table.
KAYLA: She made a table.
SARAH: But yeah, because I – Just for some background I guess on – Okay, before the background, the other background. For those of you who aren’t American, school dances.
KAYLA: Do people not in America not have any school dances?
SARAH: They do, but I think they are in some ways different.
KAYLA: I would assume so.
SARAH: So with school dances in the United States, it also differs between schools but at my school there was homecoming, and then there was some sort of dance in the winter, it was a Sadie Hawkins dance or it was just some sort of winter-themed dance. Everyone goes to homecoming, some people go to the winter dance, and then there’s prom was is just for seniors. I know we’ve discussed before that you went to prom three times –
KAYLA: Our prom was a junior/senior prom.
SARAH: But in my school prom was just for seniors. Either way, prom is more selective I guess, than homecoming, but in the United States there’s generally a homecoming court, and a homecoming king and queen that is voted on. I don’t think my school did prom king and queen.
KAYLA: We did, we had court and a king and queen.
SARAH: I don’t remember it.
KAYLA: We also had, our winter dance was set every year, we had homecoming in the fall, Winterfest in the “winter”, it was never cold by then, I don’t think.
SARAH: When was it?
KAYLA: I don’t know, maybe it was cold. I don’t remember. We had homecoming and then –
SARAH: We have long winters here.
KAYLA: Yeah, it probably was. We had homecoming and then Winterfest and then prom, which was combined junior/senior.
SARAH: But basically they have different levels of formality, I guess you could say. So at my school, homecoming was pretty formal, I know other schools, it can get pretty casual just in terms of the dresses that girls wear. At my school how it was is most people would wear short dresses, the occasional person would wear a long dress and that would be okay, but girls’ dresses would be, they would definitely have some kind of sparkle. They wouldn’t be the kind of dress you would just wear to a wedding.
KAYLA: They’re not sun dresses.
SARAH: It’s not casual wedding dress, not sun dress. They were nicer than that.
KAYLA: Cocktail dresses.
SARAH: I would say ours were nicer than cocktail dresses.
KAYLA: I thought cocktail dresses were the nicer ones?
SARAH: Yeah, but when I think of cocktail dresses, I think of plain – Nicer cocktail dresses.
KAYLA: Yeah, like satiny, bedazzled –
SARAH: No one was ever just wearing a single plain color, that wasn’t a thing you did.
KAYLA: I know what you mean.
SARAH: Some schools you could do that, some schools it was a lot more casual. At my school, it was normal to go to homecoming without a date. I never had a date to homecoming, I think we mentioned this when we were talking about coming out and that sort of thing, but I never had a date to homecoming, and I never felt weird about it because I always just went with a group of friends. Usually with that group of friends – Well, it depended on the year, but some years it was just a bunch of girls and just a bunch of friends, and other years it would be like, a couple of people had dates, most of us didn’t, was usually how it worked.
I don’t know if you had a similar experience?
KAYLA: For homecoming and Winterfest, I never had a date and it was just a big group of friends, or me and one friend and we’d meet up with other people. Our senior year homecoming, I went with a big group of friends, it was mixed girls and guys but none of us had dates or anything, we just went to someone’s house before and ate food, then we were like, lit.
SARAH: I never went to any of the winter dances. I feel like at my school, the people who went to the winter dances were the people who were on student council, or StuGo, Student Government.
KAYLA: Our thing about – So Winterfest was affectionately called Slutfest –
SARAH: Okay.
KAYLA: Because not as many people went, but the people that did, I guess the dresses were just tighter, I guess. I don’t know, there was just this certain connotation about Winterfest that it was just going to be somehow even more grinding in the grind circle and it was like, one time there was a used condom found in the middle of the grind thing.
SARAH: Oh my God, oh my God.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: I don’t like that at all.
KAYLA: It was used.
SARAH: I don’t like that at all. Okay, anyway at my school, it changed year to year. Sometimes it was just a winter dance, sometimes it was Sadie Hawkins –
KAYLA: We never had a Sadie Hawkins.
SARAH: If it’s a Sadie Hawkins dance, it’s traditionally the girl asks the guy, which is very heteronormative, and also kind of implies that normally the guy should be asking the girl. There’s a lot going on, there’s a lot to unpack.
But because Sadie Hawkins dances have specific rules almost of how to ask someone to the dance, it was pretty much exclusively reserved for people who had dates because you wouldn’t be like hey, it’s a Sadie Hawkins dance, let me ask my friends to go, you know? So I never went to one, also I didn’t have that much of an urge, it was always the smallest one. But then prom has a different connotation or implication.
KAYLA: See for me, I know you said that at your high school, it was a big deal, everyone had a date. At my school, it was more common, at least for girls, to go with a group of girls. That was not uncommon, at least in the circle of people I was hanging out with.
(10:00)
SARAH: I think it’s just because there was probably more weight on my prom because we just had one, because it was just seniors and so there was more weight on it. And so I did have, I had two friends who I went with who did not have dates. Everyone else, all of my other friends had dates and it was like, for most people you would get a date to have a date. Some people went with people who they liked, or some people would just go with someone as friends, but I don’t know, I know a couple of people who went with someone who they weren’t really friends with, they weren’t really romantically interested in, just to have a date.
KAYLA: See I, at least with people I knew, that didn’t happen. If someone was going to ask you, it’s because you guys were friends, or they liked you.
SARAH: So it was a very different scenario, and obviously there definitely were people who were like, who would ask someone because they liked them. If you’re in a relationship, you’re going to go with the person you’re in a relationship with, but it was unusual for me and my friends who went who didn’t have dates, to be there without dates. I didn’t care, but it was not what one would expect you to do.
I don’t know if – If you’re from another country, I have no idea what your situation is in terms of school dances. I know they have discos or whatever. If you are from other countries, I would like to know, I’m curious to see what the situation was at your school for school dances. So apologies to those of you who aren’t American, this episode is going to be pretty America-centric, just because that’s what we know.
KAYLA: Even then though, it seems like we had very different cultures at our schools about school dances, so even I’m wondering maybe if you go more towards the coast or more towards the South, if things are also [different]. Because we’re in the Mid-West, so I’m wondering if you go by region of the United States if things are even more different.
SARAH: Yeah I don’t know. I also know that it was different for our parents too, just even a generation back, because for my parents, when they were in high school, when you had homecoming, you didn’t go to homecoming if you didn’t have a date. It’s just very different for us.
I just wanted to talk about the expectations of having a date and everything that goes with it, because at that point in my life I did not have a grasp on what my sexuality was, but I also didn’t care that I didn’t have a date, I was like I know that the rest of the world cares, but I’m not bothered by it so I’m only going to be marginally bothered by it the day of. But if you are more comfortable with your sexuality, or maybe you’re not and you’re trying to figure things out, I can imagine that that would be very hard, especially if your school has a lot of pressure to go with a date in a heterosexual pairing.
KAYLA: Yeah, because I do know that a good amount of our listeners are high school-aged, and I would assume if you’re listening to this, you are at least questioning your asexuality, which is more than you were doing.
SARAH: Oh yeah.
KAYLA: So I just wonder if that’s – Because to you, you didn’t care, but if you had known you were asexual then, do you think you would have been more self-conscious about it?
SARAH: I have no idea.
BOTH: (laugh)
KAYLA: Imagine, maybe?
SARAH: I don’t know, I feel like maybe not, just because I didn’t think anyone else suspected it, so it didn’t bother me because I was pretty confident in being like, I don’t know that I’m ace yet, but whatever, this is what’s happening. I know that not all people are that confident in that aspect of them when they’re in high school, especially if they’re younger.
When I was a freshman, sophomore, so the first two years of high school, I anticipated that when I was a senior, I would have a date to prom, that’s what I thought would happen. It wasn’t until I was a senior that I was like, I’m not having a date to prom, whatever, and while my other friends were trying to get their dates to prom, I was not bothering. I could have acquired one, if I’d wanted to, but I didn’t.
KAYLA: See that’s something too, and maybe again it’s just the people I hung out with, but I don’t remember anyone actively searching for a date. Because traditionally, the guy does ask the girl but I never remember anyone being like, I need to get this guy to ask me, like you need to find the guy to ask you.
SARAH: No, that definitely happened.
KAYLA: To me, I never saw that. I don’t know.
SARAH: No, that definitely happened, I had a friend who, it wasn’t that she wasn’t friends with this kid, but she wasn’t good friends with this kid, it was just like we’ve gone to school with each other for a long time, our social circles almost overlap, and then after prom it just kind of was like, well that’s it, bye. And then another one of my friends, she went with someone who she had a thing with, and it went nowhere but they did go because they were interested in one another.
Then obviously people went because they were in a relationship, and then other people who just went with friends, but all of those people who went with dates, to my knowledge, were straight, are straight. I know one of – So I had two friends who didn’t have dates. The only time it was weird when we didn’t have dates was they did one slow dance, and it was just the three of us dramatically lip syncing to Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing –
KAYLA: (laughs)
SARAH: It was kind of great.
KAYLA: They always play that song.
SARAH: I know. It was funny because we were doing that, if we hadn’t then it probably would have been like, what the fuck are we doing?
But one of them I know now is bisexual, but I don’t think that really had any impact on her choice to not have a date. And I also don’t know how much of a choice it was for her to not have a date, I don’t know if she was just like well, I don’t know who to go with, okay bye.
So I’m just like, for people who aren’t straight, whether that’s gay or whether that’s ace or anything else, there’s probably – If they’re experience is anything like mine, there’s probably a lot of pressure to, for at least some dance at some point, have a date in a heterosexual couple, and how do you deal with that?
KAYLA: I don’t know, because I’m just thinking about this one tweet that I saw this lesbian couple that were going to prom together, and they got – It was pretty popular, because they both were gorgeous and they had some fancy car, whatever. So I just thought of that, but I’m like, that’s not everyone.
Also those are people that are already dating and you’d assume out, so if you find someone that’s gay or anything else and they’re closeted – I have no basis for this assumption, but I would assume it’s even harder because if you’re in the closet, as it were, typically I think a lot of people that are not out yet are trying to put up a front of straightness, and so if I was trying to put up a front of straightness and didn’t have a date, I’d be like, are people going to think I’m gay because I don’t have a date? Are people going to think I’m ace because I don’t have a date?
SARAH: And then you feel this extra pressure to get a date when you might not want to –
KAYLA: Because you’re trying to put up some front.
SARAH: Well it’s interesting because my sister, when she was a senior in high school, she had a girlfriend, and her girlfriend was from Ohio and went to school in Ohio. My sister was out to family in high school, but she was not necessarily out to the general public. She didn’t hide it necessarily but she also wasn’t flaunting it in any way, and so she went to her girlfriend’s prom with her girlfriend.
I don’t know how clear it was to the other people there that they were dating, other than her girlfriend’s friend circle, but my sister went alone to her prom, because she didn’t feel comfortable bringing her girlfriend to her own prom, even though they were dating, and she went to her girlfriend’s prom. I mean, I know a lot of people who aren’t straight do have straight relationships as they’re trying to figure things out, whether that’s just because they think they’re supposed to, or whether they’re trying to overcompensate.
KAYLA: Or if they actually want that straight relationship at that point.
SARAH: Yeah, but it’s just, I’m trying to think of what I would tell someone who’s in that situation where they feel pressured to have a date to something, and it’s like, it’s a hard question to answer.
KAYLA: Well I think it’s hard because it’s not just about sexuality. Even when you’re straight, a lot of times there is that pressure.
SARAH: Part of me just want to be like, just own the fact that you’re going by yourself, but that’s easier said than done.
(20:00)
KAYLA: That’s hard.
SARAH: And just because I was able to do it, doesn't mean that anyone else in whatever point of life they're in, are able to. If I had been a freshman and everyone had gone to homecoming with a date, and I was being like, I'm going to go alone, I would not have been able to have the same confidence that I was able to as a senior.
KAYLA: It also depends on the people you're with. Most of my friends also never had dates, because they didn't date in high school.
SARAH: Yeah, same.
KAYLA: And so for me to go to homecoming and then to go to my senior prom with just friends was like, whatever, because that's what all my friends had done all through high school. But if you're in a group of friends where everyone is getting dates or you're ace and everyone's boy crazy, then it's not just about sexuality anymore, because that could happen to you when you're straight.
SARAH: Yeah, that is also an interesting point because basically, none of my closest friends – That's not true, most of my closest friends didn't date in high school, and yet, they still felt the need to get a date to prom. And because they didn't date, it made it a lot easier for me to not date, for me to feel okay not dating, but at different schools and different cultures, I don't mean different country cultures, I mean different school cultures, that can be a very different experience.
Also, because the "popular kids" always have boyfriends and they all date each other –
KAYLA: Yeah, that's the thing, because I was not popular in high school. I was in band, I was in theater. So we weren't cool. So for us to not date in high school was normal because no one wanted to date us.
SARAH: The cool kids at my high school, there was a couple of people who were mixed in who never had relationships, but they were also just really nice people and I'm like, how are you friends with the rest of these people? To this day I'm like, you're such a kind person, how did this happen? Because not all of the popular kids were horrible people, but some of them were the worst.
But that's also the thing is, getting to the homecoming king and queen, prom king and queen sort of thing, it's a popularity contest, is what it is. I have so many with the institution of that. I remember though, my sister's senior year, that was around the time or right before [the time] it was cool to have the disabled kid at your school be prom queen or king, or homecoming.
But my sister's year, the girl who won homecoming queen was a girl who has Down Syndrome. But they didn't give her pity votes, they voted for her because everyone loved her. She was so nice and she was so likeable and they decided as a grade, they were like, yeah, of course we're going to vote for this girl.
KAYLA: That's also a popularity thing. She was obviously popular. People liked her. She's nice.
SARAH: Exactly. And it's like, yes, they made the conscious choice to nominate her and stuff, but they didn't vote for her to get on the news. They voted for her because they thought she deserved it, which was nice. But then there became a –
KAYLA: Yeah, now it's a thing.
SARAH: It's a thing. Yeah, absolutely, I think regardless of your physical ability or whatever, that you should have the opportunity to win homecoming queen or king, but also you shouldn't win it just because your classmates want to get on the news, just because your classmates want attention, but that's a whole other thing.
But it really is a popularity contest, but it's also really enforcing these heteronormative ideals, because you have a king and you have a queen. And for court, so how it works is you have a homecoming court. So you have four girls and four guys from each grade and that's the homecoming court for the grade. And then for the senior class – At least, this is how my school worked, for the senior class you had the homecoming court and then one girl and one boy won. So each grade just had a court and then the seniors had the winners.
And so you would have an even number, guys and girls, and at the homecoming pep rally, the day of the homecoming game, the entire school will get in the gym and you would watch all of these people arm-in-arm walk down the gym. And then at the football game, they would arm-in-arm, walk down the field. And they always had different dresses. They would have one dress for the pictures and then one dress for the actual homecoming, because they had a long dress for pictures and a short dress for homecoming, which is stupid.
KAYLA: That's a lot of money. Homecoming dresses are not cheap.
SARAH: Because if you think about it, it's a popularity contest. And this is a horrible thing, but the kids who are poorer tend to not be as popular.
KAYLA: Oh no. The popular kids at my school were definitely richer than everyone else.
SARAH: Yeah. And I come from a fairly affluent background, so I didn't to my knowledge go to school with anyone who was homeless, or that sort of deal. But the people who are popular are definitely not the kids who are living in the apartments, or the trailer park. They're the kids who are living on Million Dollar Mile in the big-ass houses, or at least in a decent sized middle-class house, families who can afford to buy two dresses for their kid. But also, all of the girls always wore dresses.
But just as another thing to do with heteronormativity, I never saw any girl at any dance wearing anything other than a "feminine dress", myself included.
KAYLA: Yeah. I still don't think you see that very often. I think you're starting to more now, but –
SARAH: Yeah, for sure. But I don't know, there's no opportunity to have any other type of gender expression. Because I was thinking about this, I was like, okay, I think the homecoming courts are stupid, but if we're going to keep them around for old times' sake or whatever, how can we make them more inclusive? I guess you could make it so there is no gender requirement.
KAYLA: Yeah, you would have two winners, because usually you vote for a boy and you vote for a girl, so you would put them all together –
SARAH: Put them all together, but would you still have a split... You have to have even numbers gender wise or could you just pick anyone? Could it be thirteen girls and two boys?
KAYLA: Yeah. If you wanted to make it that kind of – Yeah.
SARAH: But then in that case, so then would you still have two winners?
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Would it just be homecoming queen and homecoming queen, assuming that two girls won?
KAYLA: Yeah, depending on who won, I guess. And then you'd come up with a non-binary term for royalty.
SARAH: (laughs) For royalty.
KAYLA: That'd be fun. I feel like someone must have come up with something like that.
SARAH: Yeah. You know the one thing I always wonder? You have sir and you have ma'am. What's a gender non-binary way to say that?
KAYLA: Well there's zie.
SARAH: But not everyone uses that.
KAYLA: Yeah. I know. But if you wanted, those are the traditional –
SARAH: Anyway, we're off topic.
KAYLA: The one thing I think we haven't talked about with prom and homecoming yet is the promposal.
SARAH: The promposal.
KAYLA: Which is –
SARAH: Even homecoming proposals these days are wild.
KAYLA: I saw one on Twitter the other day and it's already happening. I don't think homecoming is any time soon, but that's a whole other thing because at this point, promposing and getting a date is this very performative thing.
SARAH: Oh, for sure.
KAYLA: Back in the day you would just go up to someone and be like, hey, you want to go to prom? And they'd be like, yeah. And you went. But now, you getting a date is on total display.
SARAH: Oh, it's totally on display. It's everywhere on social media. It's live-streamed sometimes.
KAYLA: Yeah. So if you want to take the pressure of not having a date, now everyone knows you don't have a date because they didn't see your promposal.
SARAH: Yeah. I'm just thinking of when I was going to prom, I helped some of my friends' dates ask my friends. And so one of them, he was at her house with this poster and these flowers, and he went and he knocked on her door. But of course everything was video-taped. And then there was one where I –
So I very briefly played lacrosse, and my friend was on the lacrosse team and her date was on the boys' lacrosse team. And she really liked the song Shut Up and Dance by Walk the Moon, which had just come out. We had a game that was a home game, and he somehow convinced the people in the box to play that song through the loudspeakers. And he was standing at the top of the bleachers –
(30:00)
KAYLA: That's really cute.
SARAH: With a poster. But then she was like, I've just been playing. I look gross.
KAYLA: That's funny. My first promposal, when I was promposed to was a scavenger hunt.
SARAH: Oh my God.
KAYLA: Around the school. It was pretty fun.
SARAH: But it's so –
KAYLA: It's very extra.
SARAH: It's so extra.
KAYLA: Did I ever tell you? I feel like I've said this on the podcast before, but I'll tell the story again because it was funny. A promposal I witnessed – So I was in Tarzan, The Musical. Have I told you this story?
SARAH: No. Maybe not.
KAYLA: Oh, okay. So I was in Tarzan, The Musical and the kid playing Tarzan was promposing to the girl playing Kala actually, so it was weird because that's his mom. So we had the rig where you swing across the stage. And so he came swinging across the stage with a poster that said ‘Prom’ and he had a flower or whatever. And so she says yes, because we're in front of the entire cast and crew.
SARAH: Oh, no.
KAYLA: So she's like, yeah, because we're in front of everyone. He comes swinging on stage. We're sitting there waiting for notes or something. It was during hell week or something. And so she says yes. And then she's like, I don't want to go with him, because he was a creep. There was a lot of stuff about him circulating, he was a creep. And so she ended up going to him later and being like, we're not going. And so they didn't go. And she went in a group of friends because she was like, I don't like you.
SARAH: Yeah. That's huge pressure is if you are promposed to or is there a word for homecoming proposals? Hocosed.
KAYLA: Hocosed. Hoposed.
SARAH: Hoposed. There's intense pressure to say yes just because –
KAYLA: What are you supposed to do?
SARAH: It's on display. It's like when people do really, really public wedding proposals.
KAYLA: Those are, I think only okay if you've talked about getting engaged before, because a lot of people talk about getting engaged.
SARAH: I really strongly believe that you should talk about getting engaged before you do it.
KAYLA: So that's the thing is if you want to do a very public promposal and you're dating, chill, because you know they're going to say yes. It's a guarantee.
SARAH: Right. Unless they're going to break up with you right now.
KAYLA: Oh my God, that would be funny. (laughs) That'd be great. But how are you supposed to say no when you're in front of an entire cafeteria, or entire cast? I knew someone that promposed, he got the teacher to put it as the last question on this girl's quiz. And then I think there was a fire alarm in the middle of it.
SARAH: Oh my God.
KAYLA: I think that was the story. But the teacher knew, the class knew.
SARAH: Right. Everyone knows, because you have to get so many people in on it for it to be a surprise. And then what happens when you're in a situation where say you're a little ace kid, and someone asks you to a dance, and you don't feel comfortable going with them, but it's been this huge spectacle and you have to say yes? You don't have to, but you also don't want to embarrass the person necessarily.
KAYLA: That's like your situation of when your one friend asked you out, and you freaked out. That's amplified by 100.
SARAH: Exactly.
KAYLA: What if it was just your friend, but they liked you and you knew they liked you, and then they asked you?
SARAH: A spectacle.
KAYLA: And you're like, but I'm ace. What are you supposed to do?
SARAH: But then because it's such a public thing, you might say yes and then you might go back and be like, no, later.
KAYLA: But then everyone knows.
SARAH: But then everyone knows.
KAYLA: Everyone knew that she went back to him later and said no. It was this huge thing and we were like, oh my God, that idiot.
SARAH: But then but then that leads to a situation where you could be outed because if your friend just asks you privately and you're like, listen, I'm ace, I don't really feel comfortable going to this thing with a date, that's one thing. But if it happens in front of the whole school –
KAYLA: You have to give a reason.
SARAH: You have to give a reason, and everyone's going to be like, why? And that gives an avenue where you could just be outed, because of –
KAYLA: I don't know if that's super likely, worst-case scenario though.
SARAH: I don't think it's super likely but it could happen.
KAYLA: Yeah. I can see where it would.
SARAH: And so there's just so much pressure to do that, and it's dumb. I don't think that pressure necessarily exists to the same extent in other countries, Americans are just crazy.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: What are we?
KAYLA: I will also say though, for people that are ace and not aro, this would perhaps not be as big a deal.
SARAH: Oh yeah.
KAYLA: Unless you're also in a school where the culture is, you go with a date and have sex afterwards.
SARAH: That's what I was going to say is –
KAYLA: Because that's also – I don't even know. I never knew what was going on with high school.
SARAH: Yeah, same. Same.
KAYLA: I never knew people went to parties. I never knew people were having sex. It was news to me that people got drunk during high school.
SARAH: Because none of my friends did it.
KAYLA: None of my friends did it.
SARAH: When I was a senior, I had a couple of friends who started drinking, but –
KAYLA: None of my friends did, so that was news to me.
SARAH: None of my friends had sex in high school.
KAYLA: So if you're going by the stereotype of oh, you go to prom, then you go to an after party and you're super drunk, then you have sex, okay, say you're not aro but you're ace, and that's the culture. Then what?
SARAH: Then you're in that situation, yeah.
KAYLA: Or if someone asks you and you are not straight and you are not attracted to their gender, but you feel pressured to have a date, but you don't feel comfortable coming out to that person –
SARAH: And then they think it's a date.
KAYLA: And then they think it's a date. Oh my God, that happened to my one friend. I was going to my first prom with my boyfriend at the time. And then his friend asked my friend and we were a group of friends, but he asked my friend. And so she was like, yeah, but she didn't really like him. They ended up dating for two years, and it started because me and this kid were holding hands at prom and being a couple. And so he started trying to hold her hand, and that's how their relationship started.
SARAH: Was she into him –
KAYLA: No.
SARAH: Or did she just feel like she was supposed to be doing that?
KAYLA: She didn't like him, but felt weird –
SARAH: She was just friends with him?
KAYLA: Yeah. Oh, we were all friends. They were in drumline together.
SARAH: But she wasn't romantically interested?
KAYLA: No, but he was just doing it because we were doing it, and so she felt like she had to, and then they dated for two years. And the entire time I was like, do you even like him? And she'd get really defensive. And then after it was over, she was like, yeah, I was just lying to myself, and it started with prom. I just remembered that story, it started with prom and them hanging out with a couple, and feeling like they had to act like a couple, because that's what their friends [were doing], and it was me. So sorry, I didn't mean it, I'm sorry. But it started with that.
SARAH: A lot of times that happens is because if you have a friend group where there's couples, and there's a dance situation, the people in the friend group who aren't necessarily couples might go together just to round it out, just so that you can all go together.
KAYLA: The thing is he asked her romantically and she was like, I'm still going to go because we're friends, but no. And then it all happened. It went on for so long, and the entire time I knew, I was like, she's not that into this.
SARAH: That's also just like a situation where if it were more – I know that it wasn't necessarily socially unacceptable for you guys to go without a date, but if it were more of a thing for it to not matter, then maybe she would have felt more comfortable just saying no, and just going in that friend group without officially being attached to him.
KAYLA: Well, no, the thing was we were sophomores that year.
SARAH: Oh, so you could only go if you had a date, if you were asked.
KAYLA: Yeah. So the only way these younger people could go to our proms was by invite. So some people that were older would bring just their friends because they were like, I don't have a date, my friend is another girl and we're friends and she's a sophomore, I'm just going to bring her. And that started being a whole thing that people started getting pissed about by my senior year because there was just a bunch of extra people there.
SARAH: It's like the Yule Ball. It's like how Neville went with Ginny because Ginny wanted to go.
KAYLA: Yeah, basically. Wow. But I was going with my boyfriend at the time and he was a senior and I was a sophomore. So obviously, I was going to go with him, because it was a senior prom. And then his friend was also a senior so wanted a date probably was like, well, I like her, they're friends. And so we went as a group, so there was no way she could have just gone.
SARAH: She couldn't have gone unless she had said yes.
KAYLA: Yeah. And it's not like she needed to go to prom our sophomore year. We had two others. But I was going, we were all friends, so she's like, why not? But it was also like, she had no one else to hang out with but us, because there was much older people that we didn't really know that well.
SARAH: Yeah. And I think then that begs the question of okay, so if it's restricted to grades, usually they say that you can only bring someone from another grade if they're coming as your date. But then it's like, well, say all of my friends were bringing juniors to the dance and I was like, I want to bring my buddy who's a junior to the dance, but I don't feel comfortable going as a date, I can't bring my – That's kind of a weird, specific situation. But I don't know. It's just weird to me that –
KAYLA: I mean, you could though, you just have to buy –
SARAH: You could.
KAYLA: They don't need to be your date.
SARAH: I guess, but like –
KAYLA: For us you just bought however many tickets. You had to be a junior or senior to buy the tickets. So that's why I'm saying people brought their friends.
(40:00)
I feel like I heard a story once of there was a guy and a girl that juniors or seniors that were dating, and their friends that were sophomores that were also dating, wanting to go, so they each bought another kid a ticket. I feel like happened.
SARAH: That's funny.
KAYLA: And that's at the point where people were like, what the fuck is going on right now?
SARAH: I don't know what the rules were exactly because I was obviously never buying a ticket for anyone else, but there's also the expectation of the guy buys the ticket for the girl. Stupid, dumb.
KAYLA: Well, I think what we ended up doing was he bought them the first year because I couldn't and he came with me my junior year, his freshman year of college, and I would've bought them because I was in school still.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: That makes sense. But it was also born out of necessity.
SARAH: Yeah. That's true. What was your age limit for the oldest a person could be to come?
KAYLA: I don't remember.
SARAH: Because ours was just 21. You couldn't bring a date who was more than 21.
KAYLA: I honestly do not remember. I know we had one.
SARAH: But if I'm 21, I won't go to a fucking high school dance.
KAYLA: I know.
SARAH: It's horrible.
KAYLA: Because you can't get – Well, you can get drunk, but –
SARAH: They probably would kick you out.
KAYLA: Especially after going to college parties, that's –
SARAH: If you're a freshman in college, maybe, but if you're 21, I'm not even 21 yet and I wouldn't do it.
KAYLA: I'm 21. If you're 21, that means you're a junior/senior in college. And at that point, why are you dating someone in school?
SARAH: What are you doing?
KAYLA: Please stop.
SARAH: I have someone who, it was a bad idea, also I'm not friends with her anymore, but she as a freshman was dating a senior in high school. So a freshman in high school, senior in high school. And he asked her to prom, but her mom didn't feel comfortable with her going to prom, because prom was senior-only. And so she got a dress and they took pictures and they got dinner and stuff beforehand, and then he went without her.
KAYLA: She got a whole prom dress for that?
SARAH: Uh-huh.
KAYLA: Those are expensive.
SARAH: Uh-huh. How expensive was your prom dress?
KAYLA: I don't remember, but it wasn't cheap.
SARAH: I want to say mine was $130.
KAYLA: I think mine was more than that.
SARAH: Maybe it was. I also saved money because it needed to be altered, and my grandma did it.
KAYLA: I feel like mine was kind of expensive.
SARAH: Yeah, I don't know. It's an expensive –
KAYLA: Event.
SARAH: Event. And you have to have a different dress every year –
KAYLA: I still have mine because I don't know what to do with them.
SARAH: I know, same. I'm like what am I – Well, that's a lie. I gave my very first homecoming dress to my cousin, and she wore it to homecoming.
KAYLA: Can we post pictures of us in our prom dresses?
SARAH: Oh, I thought you were going to say homecoming. And I was like, I was such an ugly child.
KAYLA: Oh my God. Look at these two because my first homecoming – Hold on, I want to find it and have a live reaction, I don’t know why I chose it because it's foul.
SARAH: Because by time I was a senior, homecoming – When you're a senior, prom is more of a thing than homecoming, so I borrowed someone else's dress for homecoming. Previous years I was like, I need to have my own homeconing dress. I'm never wearing a hand-me-down from my sister. And by the time I was a senior, I was like, I'm just going to borrow my friend's dress. I don't know what to wear.
Can I say, I just looked at my notes for this episode and it says homecoming/prom king/queen. Aside from being a kind of fucked popularity contest, she’s hella heteronormative. Is there a way to fix that? Just have two winners, gender not withstanding? Eradicate the practice, pull a Cady Heron and break crowns left and right? What if we just gave them broken crowns?
(Regarding Kayla’s photo) Oh, I've seen that.
KAYLA: It's so –
SARAH: You have a lot of blush on. I had a similar dress.
KAYLA: This dress, three people at my homecoming had this, freshman year homecoming. I was like, this is bullshit
SARAH: When I was a freshman –
KAYLA: The only makeup I knew how to do was dance makeup. So my mom was like, here's all of this blush, and I was like, okay Sandy.
SARAH: Yeah. It's a lot. But my freshman year homecoming was first time I ever wore makeup for something that was not dance, and so I was wearing one thing of mascara.
KAYLA: I didn't start wearing makeup until high school, except for dance.
SARAH: Yeah, me neither. I wasn't allowed to.
KAYLA: I have this tragic memory of when I must've been still in intermediate school, which for us was five, six. Maybe I was even younger. And I tried to put on green eyeshadow before going to church, because I thought it looked pretty. And then my parents yelled at me for wearing makeup, because I was too young.
SARAH: It sounds so bad.
KAYLA: And so I had to take it off.
SARAH: You were upset about that?
KAYLA: And then I was scarred until high school. I was like, I'm not wearing it because I just wanted to wear green eyeshadow, mom.
SARAH: Actually, it's a lie. My parents, and by my parents I mean, my mom, let my sister start wearing makeup in middle school, so in sixth grade, because riddle me this, my sister wanted to wear makeup in middle school, and I had no urge at all. And now here we are 10 years later –
SARAH: You guys are the exact opposite.
KAYLA: Right, opposite. You know what's the tea, is we also had a dating age. Me and my sister could not date until we were 16.
SARAH: I know people who had 16. I know people who had freshman year of high school.
KAYLA: We had 16 and my first boyfriend I started dating the day I turned 16, which was prom. It was the day I turned 16.
SARAH: Wow. Yeah, no, I have no idea what my situation would have been. I never asked. It was never relevant to me.
KAYLA: On one hand I get it, but also –
SARAH: I think my sister had her first girlfriend when she was 17.
KAYLA: It was never a problem for me until high school, because I was ugly as a child, and still am. So no one wanted to date me. But –
SARAH: I know people who were literally just waiting for the day that they could start dating.
KAYLA: Once I was – In freshman year, there's this kid I really liked in freshman year and thank God I had the rule, because he was foul. But I asked my parents, and so classic me, instead of just going behind their back and dating this kid, I was like, mom, can I please date him? She was like, no. But of course, me had to ask.
SARAH: That's what I would've done.
KAYLA: I know, but I could have just done it.
SARAH: There was a while in my life where I was like, do I have rules about dating? But I was afraid to ask and then time passed, and I realized not relevant. But I think instead of having a homecoming king and queen, we should just have one giant crown and just chuck pieces at people.
KAYLA: I like it.
SARAH: Cady Heron style. Anything else? Oh, if you had a piece of advice for someone who was a queer kid in high school, dealing with all of this pressure, what would you tell them?
KAYLA: I would tell them that – See, this is advice I would hate to have at that age though, because it sounds so demeaning. So I'm sorry –
SARAH: I think we have similar advice.
KAYLA: But this is my advice and I know it sounds like shit because if someone told me this, I'd be like, fuck off, you don't know my life. But high school dances suck so hard.
SARAH: I was going to say –
KAYLA: And they so don't matter.
SARAH: I was going to say it doesn't matter. It's okay.
KAYLA: They're bullshit. I cannot even remember my proms.
SARAH: I can, because I just had the one.
KAYLA: I remember them, but my best prom was my senior year when I didn't have a date.
SARAH: I think it's so easy to get caught up in the pressure from just high school in general. High school, there's pressure for all the things.
KAYLA: Oh yeah. I never dated in high school except for the one kid. And it was weird and no one else ever liked me, and everyone loved my friends because they were all cute and stuff. And that used to really bother me. But at this point I'm like, gross.
SARAH: And it's easy to get caught up in that, but I think the important thing is that first of all, you don't have to go to those dances if you don't want to. Second of all, if you do go, have fun. If you don't think you're going to have fun with a date of this kid that you barely even know, then don't go with that kid that you barely even know. Go with your friends. Dances are kind of a lot, and in some ways a little bit stupid. Find a way to make it fun for yourself.
KAYLA: You can definitely make it fun. For me, me and my friends would just dance stupidly or swing dance outside the grind pit, and we were disgusted when we looked at a grind pit. I say they suck, because –
SARAH: The institution sucks.
KAYLA: The institution sucks, but there's ways to make it really fun.
SARAH: I enjoyed all of the school dances I went to because of my friends. Where do you think my dramatic lip syncing started? High school dances. So yeah. I think if you have the right group of people, you can make it fun. And if you don't have the right group of people right now, that's okay, you'll get there eventually.
KAYLA: Yeah. And it's okay not to go.
SARAH: People will probably judge you, but I won't.
KAYLA: But then they'll forget.
SARAH: They're going to forget tomorrow.
KAYLA: No one has an attention span or a memory at this point. No one is going to bat an eye in a week.
SARAH: And I know that that can be hard to hear when you're in it, because it feels so important right now –
KAYLA: And it is so important right now.
SARAH: It is so important because it is important to you.
KAYLA: I think we just can see – It's because we're so many years out that to us –
SARAH: And we're three years out, we're not 50.
KAYLA: No, but even three years out, I'm like, oh yeah, that's not something that's important to me. But at the time, high school dances were a big deal at the time. I totally get that.
(50:00)
SARAH: And I think if you're our age and you're looking back on it, thinking, what a big deal that was, how cool it was that I was homecoming queen, then you peaked in high school. If it's going to matter to you in five years, then you were the popular kid.
KAYLA: Yeah, that's a good way to think of it too. If you are struggling right now or having a bad time, you can just think about the kids – I loved doing that in high school, just looking at people and being like, this is it for you, this is literally it. And that's a mean thing to do, and maybe not the best advice, but if you're feeling down –
SARAH: If you need it.
KAYLA: If you need it.
SARAH: Not every popular kid peaks in high school.
KAYLA: No, but the shitty ones do.
SARAH: But there are definitely ones who do, and you just have to realize that, especially if you're in the process of discovering your sexuality and figuring things out, you're on the upswing. It may be the worst now, but you are on the upswing, I promise you.
What's our poll?
KAYLA: I want to say, did you have a date to your high school prom? But I know a lot of our listeners are still in high school. So have you ever had a date to a high school dance?
SARAH: Or even a middle school dance.
KAYLA: To a school dance.
SARAH: To a school dance.
KAYLA: Yeah, we had middle school dances too. Those sucked.
SARAH: But you did not need a date for that.
KAYLA: I know, you did not dress up.
SARAH: If you did have a date, you – Yeah, you just wore your regular school clothes. You stood 12 feet apart. Yeah, I guess have you ever had a date to a school dance? a) yes, all of them; b) yes, some of them; c) no, none of them; d) I've never been to a school dance.
Nice. Kayla, what's your beef for the week?
KAYLA: Okay. I just had one.
SARAH: Want me to go first? I'm going first because Kayla forgot. I wrote down some beefs of the week. My current beef of the week is a little belated because I thought of it when I was driving home from California, which was now two weeks ago. My beef of the week is Californian drivers. The driving in California is an absolute hell hole, and it's not just LA. They're all horrible, they're erratic, they have no concept of the left lane. They will go 85 miles an hour in the left lane and very suddenly slam on the brakes and go 60 for no reason, if someone merges in front of them, they will slam on the brakes.
I get that the highway system in LA is bad and that's what causes a lot of the traffic, but I strongly believe that a lot of the traffic is also caused by just stupid driving. And so I was leaving California and I was like, oh, this is bittersweet, whatever. And then I was driving and I was like, these are the worst drivers ever. We're out of LA, we're literally in the desert and these are still the worst drivers ever. Get me out of this fucking state. And so then I felt much better about leaving.
KAYLA: Nice.
SARAH: Yeah. So if you're from California, please reevaluate your driving. That's all.
KAYLA: Very good. This was not the one that I had thought of earlier this week, but my new beef of the week for today is people who don't follow dress codes because – Well, okay. No, this makes sense.
SARAH: I was going to say, we literally had a episode about how dress codes are stupid.
KAYLA: So I went to some dumb recruiting event, and they were like, casual attire. And I was like, cool. So I went in what I was wearing today, some Pineapple shorts, a white t-shirt and a jean jacket because it's finally not 90 degrees. Can I get a God bless?
SARAH: God bless.
KAYLA: And so I show up and these fucking business students are in full suits, ties, dumb ass shoes. And I'm like, do you read? And so I was like, well, now I look dumb even though I'm the only smart one here who followed the dress code.
SARAH: The only one who listened.
KAYLA: What?
SARAH: You're the only one who listened.
KAYLA: I know. And I was like, bitch, if I wanted to apply to this place, I'd be the only one getting hired because I'm the only one that follows the goddamn directions.
SARAH: True. Also, that's just so –
KAYLA: That's so douchey. You think a recruiter can't see right through that? You think that's really going to impress them?
SARAH: Also, you think you're going to be the one person standing out. Joke's on fucking you, everyone put on a suit, you’re not going to stand out.
KAYLA: I was the one standing out, dude. I wore pink pants.
SARAH: Kayla’s yelling a lot and it's maxing out our volume.
KAYLA: I'm just saying, I know our business school teaches them to do it so they can stand out. But they know they're teaching that to everyone, right?
SARAH: Everyone's doing that. Also, it's just so funny to me because in Hollywood, business casual was jeans and a t-shirt. So to me, even business casual is way more casual than anything they would ever put on their body.
KAYLA: I just can't. I also have a class in the business school, and I was there for however many hours. Dude, I can't.
SARAH: She can't.
KAYLA: They're so weird.
SARAH: There’s a lot going on there. Alright, you can find our poll and tell us your beef of the week, and tell us about your high school/secondary school/middle school/life school dance experiences on our Twitter @soundsfakepod, you can also find us on Tumblr soundsfakepod.tumblr.com. You can also email us at soundsfakepod@gmail.com if you want to send us a really extended email about your experiences.
KAYLA: We’ve gotten some really nice long emails recently –
SARAH: We have.
KAYLA: That have been very sweet. I even got an Instagram DM the other day, and I was like –
SARAH: Speaking of which, let’s self-promo.
KAYLA: Oh, okay.
SARAH: You can find me on all social media @costiellie. I almost forgot midway through.
KAYLA: You can find me everywhere @kayla_kas.
SARAH: I’m just saying, I have a great Instagram feed, and someone who I only kind of know complimented me on it yesterday.
KAYLA: I’m just saying I posted a picture that Sarah took, and it’s actually doing surprisingly well.
SARAH: I’m a photographer, what can I say?
KAYLA: I really don’t know why it’s doing well. I know my caption was good.
SARAH: Yeah, sometimes pictures just do that and you’re like, I don’t know why this did so well.
KAYLA: Anyway –
SARAH: Yeah, anyway. In my last picture, my dress is wrinkly, but we can just pretend it’s not.
KAYLA: Okay.
BOTH: (laugh)
SARAH: We also have a website that’s really long, it’ll be linked. Wow, what’s next?
We have a Patreon at patreon.com/soundsfakepod.
KAYLA: And they allowed us to get microphones.
SARAH: They did.
KAYLA: And they’re going to allow us to renew our SoundCloud, so it means a lot.
SARAH: It really does. Our $2 patrons are Sara Jones and Keith McBlaine, our $5 patrons are Jennifer Smart, Asritha Vinnakota, Austin Le, Drew Finney and Perry Fiero.
And our $10 patrons are Emma Fink, you can find her on YouTube by looking up Emma T Fink, and Tristan Call who’d like to promote the DeviantArt and Tumblr page @rationallyparanoid. If you want to give us money so that, I don’t know, we have the mics now –
KAYLA: We have other things –
SARAH: There are a lot more things –
KAYLA: We have a lot more things we could buy and improve.
SARAH: Yeah, we got – They’re not the cheapest microphones in the world, but they’re not –
KAYLA: They’re good, though.
SARAH: They’re good, but it’s not like we bought professional grade –
KAYLA: They’re not, they’re, you know.
SARAH: It’s fine. But yeah, give us your money if you want, if you can’t, that’s okay. We appreciate your listen, give us a like, comments –
KAYLA: A review would be super helpful. We’re trying to be businesswomen and expand recently.
SARAH: We have been, it’s very exciting.
KAYLA: It would be very helpful.
SARAH: Thanks for listening, tune in next Sunday for more of us in your ears.
KAYLA: And until then, take good care of your cows.