Where would Missy Higgins be without her lesbian fans? Well, wherever she would be she would probably make a lot less money in ticket and album sales and fuel a lot less gossip in the rumour mills. From the moment her first album Sound of White came out (er, pardon the phrase) and the single Scar hit the airwaves… feel free to sing along ‘So, the next one came with a bag of treats / she smelled like sugar and spoke like the sea’… that pronoun ‘she’ became the spark that lit the fire. And three years later the fire of speculation, wishful thinking and very liberal interpretation is still burning.
The latest goss? An article in Cherrie, an Eastern States lesbian magazine, that asked Missy Higgins if she fell under the category of ‘not-so-straight girls’. Higgins reply, ‘Um, yeah, definitely. I think a lot of people fall under that broad umbrella term. I think sexuality is a fluid thing and it’s becoming increasingly more acceptable to admit that you’re that way.’
That remark led to a slew of headlines, including ‘Higgins Outs Herself’ (The Daily Telegraph), ‘Shock Revelation – Missy Higgins is a Lesbian!’ (Take 40), and my favourite ‘Missy Higgins sexuality revealed’ (Live News).
Really? Sexuality revealed? Go back to her actual remarks and it seems like they were anything but revealing. For me, her remarks sound like those I have heard from many of my, shall we say, theoretically bisexual friends who admit an attraction or interest or a belief in sexual fluidity. Some act on it, some don’t. And so, Missy Higgins’ comment that her sexuality is fluid seems less an outing and more a sign that she is an open-minded, Melbourne-bred musician of her generation.
With Missy Higgins the ‘Is she, isn’t she?’ game is far from over and women-loving-women everywhere can safely go back to their favourite pastime of overanalyzing Missy and telling tales of that friend of a friend of a friend who saw her snogging some girl at a gay bar in Canberra.
HAVE YOUR SAY: Has Missy Higgins outed herself?
