When Rebel Wilson’s relationship with Ramona Agruma was outed by a Sydney Morning Herald journalist during pride month in 2022, it begged the question: should we ever speculate someone’s sexual orientation? If there are circumstances where it is okay, then where is the line where it becomes not okay? What’s the difference between speculation and pushing somebody out of the closet?
As lesbians, we’re thirsty for representation. It hasn’t always been afforded to us. Growing up in a heteronormative society, we’re always on the lookout for women like us in order to fight back against the heteropatriarchal narrative that we’re innately designed to be in relationships with men. How can we be defective when so many sapphic women exist?
That’s why lesbians loved comedian Liza Dye’s Instagram @betteportergallery which, at the time I write this, is inactive. Titled “CELESBIAN TMZ,” Dye would update the sapphics on which female celebrity was dating who – and it required a bit of speculation.
You don’t have to be invested in celebrity culture to love seeing your sexual orientation represented by the biggest influencers in the world. It changes society’s mind. Seeing the most admired women in the world date each other battles our internalized homophobia, too.
It’s natural for lesbians to whisper “one of us” to each other in public when they see a woman they perceive to be lesbian, which is similar to what Dye was doing. A small-ish Instagram profile created by a lesbian or bisexual woman, who deep dives into the sapphic happenings between celebrity women, is not the same as the Sydney Morning Herald threatening Rebel Wilson with a “give us an exclusive interview when we break the news you’re in a same-sex relationship because we are going to out you either way.”
But why was Dye’s Bette Porter Gallery different? How was it different to the Sydney Morning Herald? Power, money, intention and consequences.
In an interview with Sydney Morning Herald’s rival newspaper, The Australian, months after being forced to publicize her relationship, Wilson said that there were family members in her or Agruma’s family, at the time, that needed to be handled differently, more sensitively, with regard to their relationship. “Across our two families not everybody is as accepting as what you’d hoped for, and we were trying to be respectful to those people and tell them in our own way,” she said.
When journalist Andrew Honery threatened to out Wilson and Agruma, Wilson took to Instagram to beat him to it – to rightfully reclaim control and minimise the Herald’s profit from the story. But the recently engaged couple had to rush conversations about their relationship with their family. “Basically, with the situation where a journalist is threatening to out you, you’ve got to hurry and some people we didn’t get a chance to tell before it came out publicly. And that’s not ideal,” Wilson said.
The Sydney Morning Herald is owned by Nine Entertainment Co., a major media company with holdings in radio and television broadcasting, newspaper publications and digital media. Nine was initially owned by a billionaire family, the Packers, but eventually merged with Fairfax Media, another major media company, in 2018. Nine owns other newspaper mastheads The Age and The Australian Financial Review, as well as mainstream, popular Australian television station Channel 9, on-demand platform Stan and real estate web portal Doman Group. Nine’s news reporting is known to have a right-wing bias.
Nine is Australia’s largest locally-owned media company. The Sydney Morning Herald was not interested in lesbian representation when they forced Rebel Wilson out of the closet. They were interested in a huge story about the sexual orientation of an internationally acclaimed Australian actress who is especially well-known in the US. They wanted to profit from the exclusive interview so badly that they essentially attempted to blackmail her for it.
Wilson and Agruma’s more homophobic family members would probably not know Dye’s Bette Porter Gallery even existed. Even if they did, Dye was speculating whether female celebrities were dating or getting it on; she didn’t have the power to threaten to out Wilson’s relationship if she doesn’t provide the exclusive scoop. Dye doesn’t interview celebrities. She’s not on the paparazzi’s media call list. She’s not offering family or friends lots of money to spill on their loved one’s private life.
When you are a journalist for a major newspaper exposing somebody’s sexual orientation, you have proof somebody isn’t straight, you know they’re keeping it private, and your eyes are on the privileged breaking story – instead of the human before you. That’s no longer speculation. You know the information. It’s borderline blackmail to then choke the prized interview out of her. Power, money, intention and consequence. That’s the difference.
Members of the public speculating on someone’s sexual orientation is usually fine because it’s all guesswork. It’s not an insult to suggest somebody might not be straight. However, accusing a woman of being a lesbian with the intention to bully her for it, airing proof she’s not straight for corrupt reasons, including profit, or raising speculation about her sexual orientation with the intention to encourage others to bully her for it, is homophobia. Speculation can only be fine if the intention isn’t opportunistic or homophobic.
How responsible is the innocent speculator for the homophobic consequences of suggesting a person isn’t straight? Lesbians doing deep dives, hoping a female celebrity is same-sex attracted, and sharing it with a lesbian and bisexual audience, is hoping for representation. Any information she finds is open to the public, such as couple-y social media comments between female celebrities. She’s making her own conclusions based on it. It’s not offensive to be assumed sapphic.
But that is completely different to media giants being privy to information about a celebrity’s sexual orientation, information inaccessible to the public, that has been tipped off for money by stalking paparazzi or those who interact with the individual in their private lives. Capitalism encourages breaking people’s trust because it’s profitable to exploit them. Luxury is defined by being inaccessible to the working class, so luxurious knowledge is capital.
In that case, media giants know someone is not heterosexual, they’re not speculating, and they’re banking on the fact homosexuality is still a divisive topic that gets clicks. The person is in the closet because homophobia is still rampant. If homophobia didn’t exist then someone’s sexual orientation wouldn’t even be a juicy story. There would be nothing to threaten them with and no profit to be made.
Lesbians seek representation because homophobia has suppressed it. That’s why we speculate female celebrities are more than friends, based on information accessible to the public, without having tangible proof that can actually out someone. Such tangible information is exclusive to the most unethical, male-owned media outlets that are powerful enough to do a lot of material damage to the individual, profiting off the homophobic heteronormativity that closeted the individual in the first place.
