Monday, July 03, 2006
One Or Two Reasons (Or Three Or Four) Why I'll Never Be A Lesbian (Pt.1)
Feeling snotty today, are we, hence this particular title. I got started down this train of thought by delving into Camille Paglia's "Vamps And Tramps" collection of essays late last night. Camille always derails me, she's just that kind of female. I would have loved to have met her, and have an affair with her. I discovered her this past year, and in so doing I have finally found a woman who shares a lot of my sentiments, especially about gay women and the nonsensical things they get up to.
As I read away last night I remember thinking, "I could never have been a lesbian, really." There were points in my life where I thought it could have taken place, but the older I've gotten the more convinced I am I just wasn't cut out for it.
Cut out for what, pray tell? Just how do I see the lesbian community that I like to think I am a part of, at least every now and then? At this point, I am probably very prejudiced against them. For me it just does not seem like mentally they are a very healthy bunch.
Recently a number of things have fired me up. Last weekend I received an invite to attend a pool party for an over fifty lesbian group here in the South Bay. I thought I had deleted my membership, but the email arrived anyway. I had attended my first function with a friend over a year ago, and it was not particularly inspiring. My bi friend M and I walked in and realized immediately we were terribly out of place. She and I mumbled excuses and fled.
It's a little disconcerting when you walk in to a new group of gay women and they're your age, but they don't look or act anything like you. Nearly all the women looked ill, or otherwise like they had just been discharged from hospitals. What on earth have they been doing that they look so decrepit? I feel I have little in common with them.
For me, I find it utterly unfathomable why so many gay women let themselves go. It used to be, back when the feminist movement was revving up, you'd hear gay and straight women rant and rave against the traditional beauty standards we all had to live up to. Still do to some degree. But is there anything wrong with looking good, just to please yourself? Or other women? It's a pain in the butt to put on makeup and dress up, but frankly, I like doing it. It's a change from my usual grungy sporty self, with wildly flowing blonde hair and a constantly changing array of tan lines. I like to transform myself into someone my usual associates don't recognize too often.
And what about the fatness that seems to invariably accompany the sad sack looks? Fat to me is a fortress, as much as emotional aloofness is in a person. Either way you can't get in. These are strategies designed to keep people out. So how do these women find partners? No wonder lesbians are so overwhelmingly into monogamy, because it is nearly impossible these days to find a compatible partner. Once they think they have her, they hang on for dear life. Which then raises other issues.
Hrumph. Anyway, this group of women invited me to a pool party. I scratched my head, wondering a) how many of them would actually bring a swimsuit (and no, it won't be a nude swimming session, and who the hell knows if they even OWN swimming suits), and b) I have this awful suspicion I will be the only one actually swimming. This I know for a certainty. Given the chance to swim, I am there, anywhere, anytime. Been that way since tininess. My mother would have to come and fish me out of the sprinklers, I would ride my trike into the middle of their flow and park and smell the flowers. I was always the last kid out of the pool too. My limbs might be near frozen, but I didn't care. I was having fun.
But swimming with this pack of girls would not be fun. So, as you might guess, I am not going to the pool party.
And I am especially not going when they aren't going to let ANYONE have a friggin' drink of anything, wine or beer or spirits. "We're scared," that's what this policy says to me. We've been around so many alcoholics and otherwise dysfunctional women in our community of lesbians that we just can't take a chance anymore. So all alcohol becomes verboten. Drugs like pot? Don't even ask.
Once again I butt up against the strange dichotomy I see with many gay women. On the one hand they are sexual outlaws, in society's eyes. But in their personal lives, they seem to be very conservative. Me they have endless problems with. I am not only bisexual as a theoretical proposition, but I live with a guy. Alright, so he's queer as hell but he's still a man and why aren't you using condoms? This is the reaction I get. Maybe that's what moves me against them. I try to remember the women who are in this age group that I know, like my friend N in L.A., and P over in Santa Cruz. They are not like this crowd at all, and neither am I.
But how the hell do we add to our numbers??
TO BE CONTINUED
As I read away last night I remember thinking, "I could never have been a lesbian, really." There were points in my life where I thought it could have taken place, but the older I've gotten the more convinced I am I just wasn't cut out for it.
Cut out for what, pray tell? Just how do I see the lesbian community that I like to think I am a part of, at least every now and then? At this point, I am probably very prejudiced against them. For me it just does not seem like mentally they are a very healthy bunch.
Recently a number of things have fired me up. Last weekend I received an invite to attend a pool party for an over fifty lesbian group here in the South Bay. I thought I had deleted my membership, but the email arrived anyway. I had attended my first function with a friend over a year ago, and it was not particularly inspiring. My bi friend M and I walked in and realized immediately we were terribly out of place. She and I mumbled excuses and fled.
It's a little disconcerting when you walk in to a new group of gay women and they're your age, but they don't look or act anything like you. Nearly all the women looked ill, or otherwise like they had just been discharged from hospitals. What on earth have they been doing that they look so decrepit? I feel I have little in common with them.
For me, I find it utterly unfathomable why so many gay women let themselves go. It used to be, back when the feminist movement was revving up, you'd hear gay and straight women rant and rave against the traditional beauty standards we all had to live up to. Still do to some degree. But is there anything wrong with looking good, just to please yourself? Or other women? It's a pain in the butt to put on makeup and dress up, but frankly, I like doing it. It's a change from my usual grungy sporty self, with wildly flowing blonde hair and a constantly changing array of tan lines. I like to transform myself into someone my usual associates don't recognize too often.
And what about the fatness that seems to invariably accompany the sad sack looks? Fat to me is a fortress, as much as emotional aloofness is in a person. Either way you can't get in. These are strategies designed to keep people out. So how do these women find partners? No wonder lesbians are so overwhelmingly into monogamy, because it is nearly impossible these days to find a compatible partner. Once they think they have her, they hang on for dear life. Which then raises other issues.
Hrumph. Anyway, this group of women invited me to a pool party. I scratched my head, wondering a) how many of them would actually bring a swimsuit (and no, it won't be a nude swimming session, and who the hell knows if they even OWN swimming suits), and b) I have this awful suspicion I will be the only one actually swimming. This I know for a certainty. Given the chance to swim, I am there, anywhere, anytime. Been that way since tininess. My mother would have to come and fish me out of the sprinklers, I would ride my trike into the middle of their flow and park and smell the flowers. I was always the last kid out of the pool too. My limbs might be near frozen, but I didn't care. I was having fun.
But swimming with this pack of girls would not be fun. So, as you might guess, I am not going to the pool party.
And I am especially not going when they aren't going to let ANYONE have a friggin' drink of anything, wine or beer or spirits. "We're scared," that's what this policy says to me. We've been around so many alcoholics and otherwise dysfunctional women in our community of lesbians that we just can't take a chance anymore. So all alcohol becomes verboten. Drugs like pot? Don't even ask.
Once again I butt up against the strange dichotomy I see with many gay women. On the one hand they are sexual outlaws, in society's eyes. But in their personal lives, they seem to be very conservative. Me they have endless problems with. I am not only bisexual as a theoretical proposition, but I live with a guy. Alright, so he's queer as hell but he's still a man and why aren't you using condoms? This is the reaction I get. Maybe that's what moves me against them. I try to remember the women who are in this age group that I know, like my friend N in L.A., and P over in Santa Cruz. They are not like this crowd at all, and neither am I.
But how the hell do we add to our numbers??
TO BE CONTINUED
