The Importance of Leighton’s Coming Out in The Sex Lives of College Girls
And why I wish I had this show when I was a young woman in college.
So I’ve gravitated toward every lesbian character I could and can get my hands on since I’ve been out since I was around 14 years old, and even before I even knew who I was. I’m 28 now, so that’s 14+ years of scrounging mainstream media and the nooks and crannies of the interwebs in its infancy (lol remember dial-up) to find whatever modes I could to find whatever representation was out there. I remember staying up late at night and stumbling upon movies on the IFC channel like The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love or watching incredible Lifetime films such as The Truth About Jane. (An absolute banger 10/10 do recommend)
It wasn’t until my later teens where I got a coming out story that truly hit for me, with a show that aired on The N, a sister network to Nickelodeon, called South of Nowhere.
They were the blueprint. A show that lasted 3 seasons, but had a lasting impact with the very visceral, emotional plotline it followed with its main character, Spencer as she dealt with her feelings for her friend Ashely all the while coming to terms with the fact that she was a lesbian. It was unheard of in 2005 and nothing quite like this, intended for a teenage/young adult audience, has ever been seen since. Save for a few side-characters here and there on other mainstream shows.
This leads me back to Leighton and Alicia. On The Sex Lives of College Girls, we’ve watched Leighton struggle with her lesbianism. She finds women to hook up with, but in not wanting her gayness to ‘define her’ as she puts it, she cuts herself off from emotional vulnerability with Alicia.
Alicia is the kind of lesbian that Leighton is afraid of being with because in Leighton’s mind if she’s seen with Alicia, she’ll be ‘tainted’ somehow. The worst thing in a patriarchal society is to no longer be accessible to men, after all. Leighton knows this, which is why everything she does with women is done in the shadows and in secret. To be with a woman is one thing, to be with a butch woman? Or to put it another way, to be with one of those women? Unthinkable. It's why we largely see Leighton consciously, or maybe subconcisouly, choosing to pick dates that are white, long-haired, and made up on that lil dating app she has on her phone before she met Alicia.
*Inhales*
So the moment when Alicia speaks up and says to Leighton that she feels she can’t be in a relationship with her anymore because Leighton is too closeted is just about where I start to feel that familiar burn in the back of my throat. I didn’t expect for the show to take this turn! But I was really happy for Alicia to take this stance. Especially as Leighton began to go on a bit of an internalized homophobic rant about why she felt that she didn’t need to ever come out. And hey, I get it. Just like Alicia gets it. Coming out is hard. There are tons of reasons why people can’t come out just yet because of their environment or need for safety. But in this instance, Alicia has been through all of this, and Leighton is deep, deep, deeeeep, in her closet.
This part of their exchange seals the deal:
Leighton: “I don’t want to come out and have it affect how I act, and speak, and dress, and what things I do.”
Alicia: “Um..you’re describing me. The thing you so desperately don’t want to be is me.”
There’s something so wonderfully painful in this exchange between these two characters. One standing up for themselves and basically saying, ‘I care for you but I can’t let you treat me this way’ and the other just, floundering, but this being the moment where they realize that they can’t keep moving through life in the shadows anymore. Leighton loses Alicia for now, and maybe for good, because of the lack of vulnerability. They part ways, and Leightons next attempt to apologize to Alicia and win her back is met with a staunch rejection.
And here is where I wept. This scene is no more than three minutes long. It’s quite simple in its delivery and hits all of the points you would expect in a ‘traditional’ coming-out scene. But I would argue, and I think I will always argue, that scenes like this will never get old. Coming out scenes will always have their value. Not everyone comes from a safe or healthy environment to get the kind of positive reaction to a coming out that they should get, if at all.
I was afraid this would be blown off for a laugh at the last second, or played off like Leighton’s lesbianism wasn’t a huge deal. But Kimberly, one of Leighton’s roommates and arguably the best roommate to have had this conversation with her, had the best reaction that anyone in Leighton’s situation would have wanted to get. She said ‘I’m proud of you’, affirmed that this was a scary time and that it was most important that she be herself. I cried for like *checks notes* ten minutes when I first watched this episode.
Leighton and Alicia’s characters and stories were a great surprise when I sat down and watched The Sex Lives of College Girls on HBO Max (Plug! Watch it!) The show is hilarious, but I’ll be tuning in for season 2 to see where these storylines and developments go. I hope this isn’t the last we see of Alicia.
