The Bi-Curious Case of Buffy Summers

In last month’s GLAAD Media Awards, Buffy: Season Eight won in the Outstanding Comic Book category. Well, it’s one gay-friendly book. There’s longtime lez witch Willow, whose girlfriend is Slayer Kennedy. Ken is there on the cover with another Slayer, Buffy’s two-night stand Satsu.

It’s been declared a few times by the characters (and writers) that Buffy’s still straight and she’s experimenting. To paraphrase Kennedy’s words, while Buffy can give her body to Satsu, her heart is something she can’t.

Yikes. Sounds like denial, or just an excuse to keep people at a distance. On the one hand, it’s good that Buffy’s open to just getting it on with a girl; on the other, identifying as straight instead of bisexual is like pretending to oneself even when everybody else already knows. Still, it’s more complicated than that; maybe she just doesn’t want to limit herself to what the labels traditionally imply. That, or she’s just going through an Anne Heche-ish phase.

Well, maybe Buffy’s done with Satsu, and all girls for that matter. Or, maybe not. In any case, the top Slayer’s sex life is just a fraction of the stories. It’s good to see her developing further, in a comic book where everything that happens is canon.