Thursday, September 01, 2005
BLACKOUT (Part 2)
So the first thing I did when I got back to L.A. was schedule a doctor's visit. Various studies ruled out any brain lesion. I felt pretty strongly it was not a matter of physiology. But you have to rule it out.
Other factors were ruled out also. Like altitude. We were probably at around 5,000 feet, cause perhaps for a little lightheadedness. But not two hours worth of a pretty total mental blackout.
Was I dehydrated? Low blood sugar? This thought occurred to me only recently, when I heard on the news that some diabetic blacked out at the wheel, causing a fatal car accident. He had no idea what he had done.
None of these factors entered into my case.
What the episode said to me was, you are ambivalent about yourself and other women, your feelings for other women.
On the one hand, you say you want to be with them, but on the other hand, when you're with them, you experience the experience as a kind of trauma. At least in this case.
Here you are blacking out. If I were your lady friend, I would take that as a kind of insult. In a way, I had abandoned her.
But on the other hand, she could read it as a sign of my growing attachment to her. I had been out of the dyke scene for quite a while, and now after that absence I meet J. I felt we had clicked, for various reasons. Suddenly, for the first time in many years, I was with a woman I really liked and felt strongly attracted to physically.
J may have chosen to read it that way, that I was getting so enamoured of her that I, quite literally, sent myself around the bend mentally speaking.
I have to weigh though, in my growing anticipation of wanting to see J again, if some part of me also felt intimidated by the occasion. I was moving into the deep end of the pool now.
One part of the encounter especially troubled me, apparently. This part I dimly recall. J had her fingers inside of me, and when she pulled them out they were covered in blood. "You're bleeding," I remember her saying. That really startled me.
From what J had told me about the lovemaking, we were not doing anything terribly violent, or even somewhat rough. In her opinion, that is. But I had never bled before, with men or women. I cannot really pinpoint whether I blacked out before the bleeding started, or after. Perhaps it triggered the blackout, who knows.
Maybe I saw the blood and at that point my mind took a hike. That would have been the logical sequence.
In any event, the episode was a turning point of sorts between J and I. We returned after the weekend to our separate cities, and a number of weeks went by before we were in contact again. I wrote to let her know my studies were all ok, nothing to worry about. I also had myself tested for all sexually transmitted diseases.
J was concerned because apparently, during the blackout, we engaged in sex that was not completely safe. So she was concerned about my health for that reason.
I was not sure if I believed her. Is it because I live with a bisexual man, I asked her. She professed not to have a problem with that. After all, I had told her already that D and I are scrupulously safe when he and I venture out with other people. So I thought she was reassured.
She said she was, and that the problem was with her, she had not been safe when she had last been sexually active. So she presented it as something she worried about for my sake.
I don't know if I fully believe this, though. Somewhere inside her, I felt J was worried about D being bi. And no matter what I said to convince her otherwise, I had a suspicion she would not completely believe me.
Dealing with gay women has been a real trip for me. They never quite fully say what they quite fully mean to say.
Could this be one of the reasons, among many, that (some) men want to kill us in our sleep?
- - - - -
Other factors were ruled out also. Like altitude. We were probably at around 5,000 feet, cause perhaps for a little lightheadedness. But not two hours worth of a pretty total mental blackout.
Was I dehydrated? Low blood sugar? This thought occurred to me only recently, when I heard on the news that some diabetic blacked out at the wheel, causing a fatal car accident. He had no idea what he had done.
None of these factors entered into my case.
What the episode said to me was, you are ambivalent about yourself and other women, your feelings for other women.
On the one hand, you say you want to be with them, but on the other hand, when you're with them, you experience the experience as a kind of trauma. At least in this case.
Here you are blacking out. If I were your lady friend, I would take that as a kind of insult. In a way, I had abandoned her.
But on the other hand, she could read it as a sign of my growing attachment to her. I had been out of the dyke scene for quite a while, and now after that absence I meet J. I felt we had clicked, for various reasons. Suddenly, for the first time in many years, I was with a woman I really liked and felt strongly attracted to physically.
J may have chosen to read it that way, that I was getting so enamoured of her that I, quite literally, sent myself around the bend mentally speaking.
I have to weigh though, in my growing anticipation of wanting to see J again, if some part of me also felt intimidated by the occasion. I was moving into the deep end of the pool now.
One part of the encounter especially troubled me, apparently. This part I dimly recall. J had her fingers inside of me, and when she pulled them out they were covered in blood. "You're bleeding," I remember her saying. That really startled me.
From what J had told me about the lovemaking, we were not doing anything terribly violent, or even somewhat rough. In her opinion, that is. But I had never bled before, with men or women. I cannot really pinpoint whether I blacked out before the bleeding started, or after. Perhaps it triggered the blackout, who knows.
Maybe I saw the blood and at that point my mind took a hike. That would have been the logical sequence.
In any event, the episode was a turning point of sorts between J and I. We returned after the weekend to our separate cities, and a number of weeks went by before we were in contact again. I wrote to let her know my studies were all ok, nothing to worry about. I also had myself tested for all sexually transmitted diseases.
J was concerned because apparently, during the blackout, we engaged in sex that was not completely safe. So she was concerned about my health for that reason.
I was not sure if I believed her. Is it because I live with a bisexual man, I asked her. She professed not to have a problem with that. After all, I had told her already that D and I are scrupulously safe when he and I venture out with other people. So I thought she was reassured.
She said she was, and that the problem was with her, she had not been safe when she had last been sexually active. So she presented it as something she worried about for my sake.
I don't know if I fully believe this, though. Somewhere inside her, I felt J was worried about D being bi. And no matter what I said to convince her otherwise, I had a suspicion she would not completely believe me.
Dealing with gay women has been a real trip for me. They never quite fully say what they quite fully mean to say.
Could this be one of the reasons, among many, that (some) men want to kill us in our sleep?
- - - - -
