Author: caryn elizabeth mallard (---.swbell.net)
Date: 04-26-2002 01:04
Kitty,
I just *had* to start a new thread, that one was *way* to convoluted! Anyway, you said:
----------------------------
On a vaguely connected note: I've never understood the need to take one aspect of a person and use it as a label. How can a person, with all their complexities and foibles, be described completely in a single word? Sexuality is an oft-quoted example of this. The term heterosexual -- or "straight", if you prefer -- tells you only that I find men, rather than women, sexually attractive. It doesn't tell you what my favourite colour is, or my views on life. You might as well label me by my hair colour. Or skin colour, for that matter. Either of those would sum me up as a person just as well. (Which is to say, not at all.)
[/rant]
Caryn, you imply that being queer is about more than just who you prefer in bed. Could you please expand on this a little?
----------------------------
For me, and for many of my friends, being a lesbian is about the people we spend our lives with, and how we live our lives, not simply the gender of our bedmates. The differences are fundemental. You live in the str8 world. That means more than you have male sexual partners. That means you have access to medical insurance, a community of faith (if you want one), the love and support of family and friends without thought or question, tax breaks, legal rights, simple human decency. You might not howl if my lover (assuming my g/f ever comes out) and I have a baby, but then, you wouldn't have beat some kid to death just for being queer, either.
Lacking these things, we have made our own place in the world, something that is often---and I believe mistakenly---called the gay community. We don't socialize with men, we don't date them. We don't bring them into our homes. Because we chose not to "endure" them. We choose to be with women. Not *just* the one or several we're sexual with, but women generally. We don't have to put up with marginalization of our relationships by men, with their belittling language sexist humour. We don't have to be surrounded by images of WWIQs, or watch ancient men fuck young girls and call it a "romantic comedy". We don't have to try and be thin, or blonde, or "dress nice". We don't *have* to do the dishes, or change the baby, as well as work. We don't have to put up with lousy sex because our partner thinks our body is nasty, or because our partner just doesn't care about our orgasm, beyond the fact that he brags about being "able to give" us "one". We get more than one.
So, it's about life. About talking, and laughing, and space, and sex, and intimacy. We have partners who *can* express emotions other than anger and lust. We don't have to change the way we behave when our friends come over, lest they think we are "whipped". We don't have to say, with deep chagrin, "guys....", as if their very gender excuses whatever disgusting behaviour they are responsible for. We don't have to dye our hair, paint our face, shave our underarms or legs, or trim our bush, just because men don't like body hair.
my /rant:
The whole "it's more sensative/it feels icky" bit is str8 women fooling themselves, or covering in front of men; I do know more than one lesbian who used to do both, and claim the same, until she stopped. I believe it's easier for someone with a sense of self dignity like yourself to say "I like to", than to admit "I would feel unattractive if I didn't". People would stare, giggle, call you a dyke. Other str8 women would hiss and gossip behind your back. Men would think you queer or a feminist, which to them is one and the same. It's just too much grief and pain, compared to just going along.
We don't have to have men interrupt every conversation, correct us like schoolgirls when their opinion's differ, defer to them when they pontificate, watch what we say lest they be angry, stroke and coddle their fragile egos, and tell them we don't mind doing all of it.
That frees up a lot of energy, space, and dialogue for us to fill with our thoughts, ideas, musings, and silences.
And that's the reason bisexuals want to belong, but can't. You can't be in a space without men, and be involved with men.
That's also why sex isn't the defining quality. Plenty of young women know their queer before they ever have sex, if they ever have sex, with another woman. Some struggle throughout their lives *not* to be gay (like, say, my g/f), and some actually succeed in allowing destroying their self and conforming to the norm, but they cease to be as people, and what a terrible price to pay for acceptance. Some just kill themselves to end the pain.
But some of us, just are. And some of us *fight*. It's not as though the world is going to hate me any less just because I'm "yappy", than because I'm a dyke.
Consider my thoughts expanded!
caryn
Y.R.D.
PS: Colonials my bum...that's you're old son, Oscar, who coined that turn of phrase, dearie...
|
|
