#50: Guest Post – Considering My Crushes
Written by Karla Marie Sweet
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[Image description: Text ‘Considering My Crushes Guest Post’ on a lilac background]
Each time I’ve sent out a piece in this ‘Considering My Crushes’ series, I get messages from both friends and professional contacts saying how reading my mailout has made them have some fun thinking about their own crushes.
So I’m bringing back guest posts to let other writers entertain you guys with their own fruity memories and fantasies.
Almaz note: If you’re a new subscriber you can check out ‘#46: Considering My Crushes – No. 02’ from May, where I describe early 00s crushes on Sirius Black and Kingsley Shacklebolt from Harry Potter; Harvey, Romeo and Asher D from So Solid Crew. And in ‘#40: Considering My Crushes – No. 01’ I went back to the mid/late 90s, to my first crushes who were Peter Pan, Damon Albarn, Billy Kennedy, Ernst Robinson and US President Bill Clinton.
We’ve just come to the end of Pride Month so this piece is super relevant!
‘Considering My Crushes’ by Karla Marie Sweet, the writer behind the new Substack email newsletter The Ampersand
When I was eight years old, Zara, a girl in the year above, emerged from the Sex Education talk our school had just done for her year group, cornered me in the hallway and told me everything she’d just heard.
I was horrified. Surely this couldn’t be true. The idea of bleeding for a whole week every month and allowing someone else to put themselves inside of you sounded both terrifying and disgusting. Traumatised, I told my mother what Zara had said while on the walk home, in the hope she’d laugh and say that Zara was a wind-up merchant who was telling fibs. But she didn’t. She confirmed my fears (as gently as possible) but explained I wouldn’t need to worry about any of this stuff for several more years at least.
And so I didn’t, engaging in harmless crushes and enjoying the funny little fizz of fantasies without attaching the burden of too much detail to them.
The first dream I ever had that could be construed as sexual featured the pop and R&B star Usher. The odd thing about this is that I’d never fancied him or even thought about him in that context before. What’s even more odd is that, in truth, it wasn’t really a sex dream. He basically just gave me a really good hug. But, I remember the weight of him, how defined his muscles felt and, most notably, how thrilled I was by the whole experience when I woke up.
It was around this time that I developed five serious crushes.
The first was on a boy called Lee who used to come and wash my Dad’s car. My Dad drove an old white Citroen which, to be honest, he was perfectly capable of cleaning himself. But Dad took a shine to Lee and thought it was great he was so entrepreneurial and willing to work hard for the few quid he asked for in return. It made a change from the other local lads who spent their free time throwing eggs at windows and putting fireworks in wheely bins.
So, Lee ended up coming fairly regularly and, each time he did, it was the highlight of my week. I’d make sure I was wearing my favourite clothes and then I’d stand by the door chatting to him about God-knows-what. I’d usually only get a couple of precious minutes before Dad would shoo me away.
Lee was about 14, ridiculously good-looking and very, very cool. He was tall, lean, permanently tanned and, most importantly of all, he had a bike. I was eight and awkward but, for some strange reason, my child-mind convinced me I was in with a chance, despite Lee offering me nothing but mere politeness. The reason why I remember him always being so smiley is likely because he thought I was a funny little thing and perhaps, embarrassingly, it was entirely obvious that I was desperate to impress him.
Lee eventually stopped coming. Hopefully, not because of me. I think I vaguely remember Dad saying he’d started an apprenticeship, but his absence didn’t matter for long. I had already developed another crush. Another older boy who attended the local amateur dramatics youth group I had recently enrolled in. Danny wasn’t just chatty and charismatic like Lee was. He was talented. He could sing, dance and act like nobody’s business. And he was almost certainly gay. Unfortunately for me, this turned out to be the case for many of the boys I had crushes on between the ages of eight and 12. Even when they were age-appropriate, they were still out of reach.
But none quite so out of reach as my biggest childhood crush: Aladdin. Yes. The cartoon character in the Disney film. I couldn’t tell you how many times I watched that film as a kid. Not only was it the first time I’d seen a whole cast of cartoon characters with the same colour skin as me, but Aladdin was easily the most beautiful man I’d ever seen.
[Image description: Aladdin from the Disney animation smiles and has his arms raised in nonchalant shrug]
The smooth chest, that wisp of hair that always fell into his eyes and, of course, that million dollar smile, always shining bright, despite his “street rat” status. I imagined the voice actor must look exactly like him and how, one day, I would meet him and we’d immediately fall in love. What a shock it was to discover that all of the voice actors on the film were, in fact, white and the actor playing Aladdin couldn’t have looked less like him. Thankfully, this wasn’t something I found out until my twenties, and so that fantasy lived on for many years.
Footballer Paul Ince played for Manchester United when I was very small and his club legend status continued long after he left the club and went to play for Inter Milan. His official Merlin football sticker lived in a little box in my room alongside a few others, my burgeoning collection of pogs and a couple of Zig and Zag collectors’ items I’d got in cereal packets. I saw Paul’s time in Series A as a sort of sabbatical. He’ll be back, I told myself, as I stole clandestine glances at his sticker whenever I was alone in my room.
[Image description: Photo of football sticker featuring young, Black, Manchester United player Paul Ince]
And he was. At least, back in the Premier League. Only, he didn’t return to Manchester United. Instead, he signed for Liverpool, our rivals and my Dad’s favourite team. This meant he was on the TV all the time again, which only drove home the betrayal. He was back where I could see him except for the fact he wasn’t. He was there. With them. Our love affair was over. I had to move on.
One childhood crush I still stand by is Take That’s Jason Orange. Of all the members of the boyband I could’ve fancied, he’s the one who has arguably matured the best. Like my amateur dramatics crush Danny, he could sing (sort of), he could dance, and he always seemed like a relatively nice young man. He seemed less interested in fame than the other members of the group (illustrated by the fact that he’s almost totally disappeared in recent years) and I found an attractive mysteriousness in that. I imagine he is now living off grid somewhere like India or Indonesia, doing shitloads of yoga and meditation or maybe making art in some other form. I think we’d get on.
[Image description: Left; Take That member Jason Orange is naked except for boxer shorts and has a wide grin on his face. Right; Jason wears a black suit jacket and has his arms folded]
Between the ages of six and nine years old, I was pretty obsessed with the Spice Girls. More specifically, Mel C. In playground games of “let’s pretend”, my friends and I would do routines and sing their songs and I would always beg to be cast as Mel. And I was. Just... the other Mel. Don’t get me wrong, Mel B was awesome, I just resented being pushed into playing her simply because I was the only girl of Black heritage to hand. I wasn’t “scary”. I was “sporty”! Couldn’t they see that?
[Image description: magazine page featuring Mel C in a black mini dress, black glasses sitting sexily on a large green armchair]
It wasn’t until my mid-teens that I started to wonder if I did want to be Mel C or if it was something else. The Spice Girls had long since broken up, yet I still thought about her. I’d followed her solo career and knew all her songs but it was more than that. I liked looking at her. The same way I liked looking at boys I fancied.
Maybe I’m just curious, I told myself. It doesn’t mean anything.
You like boys, I said, over and over in my head. There was evidence of that written all over my journals and scrap bits of paper. My first name coupled with their last name. Meet a boy, fall in love, get married, have babies. Happily ever after. That was the “natural” order of things. This was just a phase.
But then, I developed a crush on a girl in my eighth grade English class. It was a year after we’d emigrated from Manchester, UK to Georgia, USA and let me tell you, the Bible Belt did not feel like a safe place to be LGBTQ+ at that time. I didn’t even want to question my sexuality, let alone admit to anything.
The girl in question sat in the row next to me, several desks towards the front of the class. In retrospect, it’s possible the reason I struggled to grasp English grammar was that, instead of focusing on the teacher, I was staring at my crush. Watching the way her long hair snaked down her back. Hoping for a glimpse of her profile when she turned her head slightly to the right. I thought a lot about being with her in ways I’d never thought about being with boys before. Until then, I hadn’t understood why anyone would want to kiss with tongues or have sex but this crush helped me get it. Even though she never, ever found out how I felt.
Thank God.
I read, in a magazine, that this was a phase very common for girls going through puberty. I was just curious, the writer told me. Curious about other women’s bodies. This was “normal”.
Another magazine featured Orlando Bloom on the cover soon after and I kept that issue under my bed, ready to look at every time I doubted my heterosexuality. He became a sort of litmus test. As long as I still fancied him, everything was absolutely fine. It didn’t matter that I also thought a lot about Jennifer Connelly in A Beautiful Mind, Eva Longoria in Desperate Housewives, Aisha Tyler’s guest stint on Friends and those pictures of actors Salma Hayek and Sophia Bush that I’d torn out of magazines and kept.
[Image description: Clockwise; Orlando Bloom, Eva Longoria, Jennifer Connelly, Aisha Tyler, Salma Hayek, Sophia Bush]
I moved back to the UK to go to University when I was 18. I was going out, kissing boys, drinking and not really thinking about anything beyond the next party and my studies. It was another three years before I came out as bisexual and, other than my Mum, it didn’t seem much of a surprise to anyone.
So what was the thing that finally got me out of the closet?
You would think, dear reader, it was the girl I had been on several dates with and had decided I wanted to marry. But it wasn’t. In all honesty, it was probably down to the TV show Sugar Rush because watching that was the first time I felt like it was genuinely okay for girls to like girls. It also made me realise that lesbians and bisexual women came in many different forms, despite the homophobic media landscape of the 90s and noughties attempting to convince us otherwise.
The Channel 4, youth-skewing comedy-drama was set in Brighton and was all about the misadventures of a teenage lesbian called Kim and her ridiculously fun and totally reckless friend Sugar. Coincidentally, Sugar’s real name was Maria Sweet (insanely close to my name, no?) and she was mixed race so this show really made me feel seen in a variety of ways. It also starred a young Andrew Garfield, who was apparently 22 at the time but looked about 14.
[Image description: DVD cover for TV series Sugar Rush featuring main characters ‘Sugar’, Kim and Saint]
Sugar Rush normalised Queerness for me by providing relatable characters excited about exploring and owning their sexuality. Plus, it gave me a whole new crush in the beret-wearing, sex-postive DJ, Saint, Kim’s long-term love interest. The show also massively romanticised Brighton, filling my head with fantasies: Walking along the beach front with salt and vinegar covered chip shop chips, arm in arm with the love of my life, dates in ice cream parlours and fun-filled nights in arcades.
These days, I’m engaged to a man (gasp) and I never actually made it to Brighton in the end. But coming out was still absolutely worth it. Growing up admiring such a broad spectrum of people is part of what makes me... well... me and being able to talk about all current and historical crushes without shame or fear is a privilege everyone deserves.
About the Author
Karla is a British-American actor, screenwriter, novelist and dramaturg born and based in Manchester, UK. Recent acting credits include Black Dog and season 2 of Hulu’s No Man's Land. As a writer, her credits include Cheetham Hill (for the Royal Exchange), This Little Relic (BBC Radio 3 and the Belgrade Theatre) and Othello (Watermill Theatre), a re-versioning The Guardian and WhatsOnStage awarded four stars each, calling it a "remarkable" adaptation that "moves with the pace of a thriller." She has multiple television credits to her name and her comedy-drama script DaSilva & Sharp landed her on the 2023 Brit List. Her debut novel is out in September.
Websites and socials
The Ampersand is a new Substack celebrating art and culture. It’s also a place for my writing in between bigger projects and musings on life, the universe and everything in between. You'll also find a podcast platforming creative conversations with fascinating people, as well as practical tips on writing and creativity.
karlamariesweet.com | instagram.com/karlamsweet
[Image description: Text ‘PRODUCED BY’]
I’m Almaz Ohene, a Creative Copywriter, Freelance Journalist and Accidental Sexpert.
This content is not behind a paywall, but since it takes time to create and upload each piece, do please consider becoming a paid subscriber of ‘She Dares to Say’ to support this project. Paid subscribers get additional subscriber-only posts each month and continuous access to the full archive. Paid subscriptions are either billed monthly at £3.79 or annually at £34.99.
If you would prefer to make a one-off donation, feel free to send a contribution via PayPal.
You can also show your enjoyment without spending £££, by liking, commenting, restacking via Notes or just generally sharing 😃
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This was so awesome!!! It felt like sitting at lounge listening to you share the kind of stories only our closest friends ever get to experience 🥰
Thank you opening yourself up in such a wonderful way friend!