Thursday, September 28, 2006
The Crushes
My head was full of different affections for different people when I was growing up. For some reason I never really doubted my abilities to make sense of it all. It must have felt natural in a way for me to feel attracted to boys and girls. The attraction felt different at times. With boys I admired them usually from afar, but it seemed to me more of an identification thing I had going on with men; I wanted to be like them rather than that I wanted to be loved by them. With boys, I knew I could be a reasonable human being.
With girls, I could see already I was going to be anything but a reasonable human being. My heart went pitter-patter at an alarming rate when a fetching female wandered into my vicinity. Like K.D., who was a dark-haired beauty in my water polo class in high school gym. I knew I was attracted to her, and she even picked up on that at one point.
Mostly though I had crushes. Elizabeth Taylor was one of my first big ones. See, already I had narrowed it down to brunettes. No blondes for me. Something about that gorgeous face and those violet eyes. I was there for the ride, along with Nicky, Michael, Michael #2, Eddie, Richard, John, Richard again...I know there was a construction worker in there somewhere, but by the time he wandered down the pike I had moved on from Liz.
Closer to home was when I started viewing the films of Ingemar Bergman. I fell absolutely in love with his tall blonde leading lady at the time, Ingrid Thulin. She was one of the ladies who enjoyed quite an international career in films like Visconti's The Damned. She was very cerebral, and even though she was blonde I realized we had something intellectual in common. So not all blondes were evil and wicked for me. I tend to like Swedish women a lot. This goes back to days in film school, when I worked closely and very well with a Swedish director, a female, who had actually been raised in Paris. They are very down to earth and I love their good-natured, capable sensibility. I feel and look like I am one of the clan.
Much as I would like to meet a jock woman, someone like a Navratilova, or a Mauresmo, a lot of jock women types just don't do it for me. My friend N in Los Angeles is right about this: we may love our sports, but we may often not love the women who are performing them. There has to be something more cerebral for me. There needs to be that balance.
So now my perfect woman would be someone like social critic Camille Paglia, who's definitely got the brain power, the sarcasm, the writing ability - and - and - she feels studying pro football should be part of every literate woman's education.
Besides, I love her stories about going into lesbian bars and being ignored. Except by the gay boys of course, who are the only people who speak to intelligent women in dyke bars, it seems.
Quel domage!
- - - - - -
With girls, I could see already I was going to be anything but a reasonable human being. My heart went pitter-patter at an alarming rate when a fetching female wandered into my vicinity. Like K.D., who was a dark-haired beauty in my water polo class in high school gym. I knew I was attracted to her, and she even picked up on that at one point.
Mostly though I had crushes. Elizabeth Taylor was one of my first big ones. See, already I had narrowed it down to brunettes. No blondes for me. Something about that gorgeous face and those violet eyes. I was there for the ride, along with Nicky, Michael, Michael #2, Eddie, Richard, John, Richard again...I know there was a construction worker in there somewhere, but by the time he wandered down the pike I had moved on from Liz.
Closer to home was when I started viewing the films of Ingemar Bergman. I fell absolutely in love with his tall blonde leading lady at the time, Ingrid Thulin. She was one of the ladies who enjoyed quite an international career in films like Visconti's The Damned. She was very cerebral, and even though she was blonde I realized we had something intellectual in common. So not all blondes were evil and wicked for me. I tend to like Swedish women a lot. This goes back to days in film school, when I worked closely and very well with a Swedish director, a female, who had actually been raised in Paris. They are very down to earth and I love their good-natured, capable sensibility. I feel and look like I am one of the clan.
Much as I would like to meet a jock woman, someone like a Navratilova, or a Mauresmo, a lot of jock women types just don't do it for me. My friend N in Los Angeles is right about this: we may love our sports, but we may often not love the women who are performing them. There has to be something more cerebral for me. There needs to be that balance.
So now my perfect woman would be someone like social critic Camille Paglia, who's definitely got the brain power, the sarcasm, the writing ability - and - and - she feels studying pro football should be part of every literate woman's education.
Besides, I love her stories about going into lesbian bars and being ignored. Except by the gay boys of course, who are the only people who speak to intelligent women in dyke bars, it seems.
Quel domage!
- - - - - -
Thursday, September 21, 2006
On Being Bisexual (Pt.1)
As a woman, I would like to say that my early forays into bisexuality were the result of a few excellent women friends, or lovers. But actually, my guides into this realm were male figures.
I probably first said, "Oh, so THAT'S what I am," in my English graduate seminar in D.H. Lawrence at San Francisco State. We're talking early 70s here. Our 15-or so member class and prof were ploughing through Women In Love, Lawrence's classic tale of two sisters who find love and destiny in the arms of two male friends. Each of the pairs is nearly a polar opposite in terms of Lawrence's overall intention. One couple is on the fast track to hell, the other is more mundane perhaps, but also more capable of finding happiness.
But there is a fly in their ointment.
The love of one person is not going to be enough. Birkin and Ursula are left alone together at the hearth in the novel's wistful yet contentious final scene, with Birkin mourning the loss of his friend Gerald. He has committed his own strange form of suicide, by crawling off into the snow and sleeping until death. At last Birkin is finally able to express his love for the man.
But Ursula is shocked, and immediately threatened. The man is dead, but she knows an attack when she sees one. Even if it is coming from beyond the grave.
"You can't want the love of both," she cautions him.
Her view is the typical heterosexual view of the gay world in general, as it turns out. The gays threaten us because of the ease with which they lead lives driven by libidinal impulses. It is absolutely hateful to the straight world. The fact that people could actually want BOTH is the sticker for most of the straight world. That is very threatening. At least when a gay man wants another man, that is more understandable than a man who is married to a woman and still desires sexual contact with other men. The one is something society can now deal with; the other is still a scary proposition from hell.
Marriage was erected in part I maintain to keep us in check and overcome potential personal chaotic impulses. But still, we're talking Katrina floodwaters here, we need to erect even more defenses.
A good dyke is not enough.
Society attempts to censure itself here, we cannot simply act mostly on our sexual impulses. Chaos would ensue. Channelling needs to take place.
This is what the character of Ursula is arguing.
Birkin would say in rebuttal that the trueness of the impulse will direct the arrow's flight, it will chart out its proper course as it goes.
Ursula longs for hearth and home, and children. She wants the storm of upheavals that brought her and Birkin together to be done. This is an image of womanhood as being more traditionally compliant, and able to bear children.
Her sister Gudrun is very different, more intellectual. Lawrence made her an artist as well, and quite a good one; this is the highest being in his firmament, the artist. And it is to Gudrun that we turn to in the story, at least as far as the women go. Personally, it is around her character that our interest and feelings coalesce.
I obviously felt a world of empathy with Gudrun, but very little towards Ursula.
Gerald is Gudrun's lover, the powerful tycoon who lives as the embodiment of Nietzche's "ubermensch" ideal, the blond alpha male who can only know the world, and himself in it, if he is dominating it.
Birkin is the smaller, slighter man, the dark one, sickly perhaps, since he is a stand-in for Lawrence himself here. But at least he is in touch with his need to live life in the physical moment, even if he is floundering at the novel's beginning in his attempts to achieve that.
Nowhere in the novel does the word "bisexual" creep out. But there is a fascinating scene of nude wrestling between the two men, wherein it becomes clear that the bond between them is flavored with the homoerotic.
Clearly, Birkin wants more from his friend Gerald. But even he does not quite know how to express that.
How many times was I with a woman friend, and I felt the vibe that said, "Let's take this one step further?" What would that have looked like? I was uncertain at the time. Like Birkin, I knew I had feeling for this person. But what exactly does it want to be? Where does it want to go?
My first forays into bisexuality were framed around issues like this. I didn't know what I was doing, so I looked around me for guidance. Literature was certainly a good start.
Soon, I would start writing "literature" of my own.
- - - - - -
I probably first said, "Oh, so THAT'S what I am," in my English graduate seminar in D.H. Lawrence at San Francisco State. We're talking early 70s here. Our 15-or so member class and prof were ploughing through Women In Love, Lawrence's classic tale of two sisters who find love and destiny in the arms of two male friends. Each of the pairs is nearly a polar opposite in terms of Lawrence's overall intention. One couple is on the fast track to hell, the other is more mundane perhaps, but also more capable of finding happiness.
But there is a fly in their ointment.
The love of one person is not going to be enough. Birkin and Ursula are left alone together at the hearth in the novel's wistful yet contentious final scene, with Birkin mourning the loss of his friend Gerald. He has committed his own strange form of suicide, by crawling off into the snow and sleeping until death. At last Birkin is finally able to express his love for the man.
But Ursula is shocked, and immediately threatened. The man is dead, but she knows an attack when she sees one. Even if it is coming from beyond the grave.
"You can't want the love of both," she cautions him.
Her view is the typical heterosexual view of the gay world in general, as it turns out. The gays threaten us because of the ease with which they lead lives driven by libidinal impulses. It is absolutely hateful to the straight world. The fact that people could actually want BOTH is the sticker for most of the straight world. That is very threatening. At least when a gay man wants another man, that is more understandable than a man who is married to a woman and still desires sexual contact with other men. The one is something society can now deal with; the other is still a scary proposition from hell.
Marriage was erected in part I maintain to keep us in check and overcome potential personal chaotic impulses. But still, we're talking Katrina floodwaters here, we need to erect even more defenses.
A good dyke is not enough.
Society attempts to censure itself here, we cannot simply act mostly on our sexual impulses. Chaos would ensue. Channelling needs to take place.
This is what the character of Ursula is arguing.
Birkin would say in rebuttal that the trueness of the impulse will direct the arrow's flight, it will chart out its proper course as it goes.
Ursula longs for hearth and home, and children. She wants the storm of upheavals that brought her and Birkin together to be done. This is an image of womanhood as being more traditionally compliant, and able to bear children.
Her sister Gudrun is very different, more intellectual. Lawrence made her an artist as well, and quite a good one; this is the highest being in his firmament, the artist. And it is to Gudrun that we turn to in the story, at least as far as the women go. Personally, it is around her character that our interest and feelings coalesce.
I obviously felt a world of empathy with Gudrun, but very little towards Ursula.
Gerald is Gudrun's lover, the powerful tycoon who lives as the embodiment of Nietzche's "ubermensch" ideal, the blond alpha male who can only know the world, and himself in it, if he is dominating it.
Birkin is the smaller, slighter man, the dark one, sickly perhaps, since he is a stand-in for Lawrence himself here. But at least he is in touch with his need to live life in the physical moment, even if he is floundering at the novel's beginning in his attempts to achieve that.
Nowhere in the novel does the word "bisexual" creep out. But there is a fascinating scene of nude wrestling between the two men, wherein it becomes clear that the bond between them is flavored with the homoerotic.
Clearly, Birkin wants more from his friend Gerald. But even he does not quite know how to express that.
How many times was I with a woman friend, and I felt the vibe that said, "Let's take this one step further?" What would that have looked like? I was uncertain at the time. Like Birkin, I knew I had feeling for this person. But what exactly does it want to be? Where does it want to go?
My first forays into bisexuality were framed around issues like this. I didn't know what I was doing, so I looked around me for guidance. Literature was certainly a good start.
Soon, I would start writing "literature" of my own.
- - - - - -
Monday, September 18, 2006
The Dark Side Of Polyamory (Pt.3)
At this point in time my friend M seems more inclined towards answering men's personal ads; she seems to have given up on the women. Haven't we all. She finds, as so many of us bisexual women do, that things just work out easier with men.
Towards Dave, M seems to harbor odd feelings. I think part of her feels attracted, but whether it is to him specifically, or to me because we are attached, I cannot say. Her vibes are strong and we can feel them, but they seem to go in many directions.
I think it is more a matter that M is attracted to the idea of us as a couple. After all, from what I can see, we are something of a port of safety in stormy seas of sexual relationships. We've been together a while, and we seem able to separate and go off our own paths for a bit, and then reunite without problems or repercussions. People who are interested in polyamorous relationships wonder how we do it.
The answer is we try not to make a big deal out of it. I think sometimes M wants the theoretical to meet the practical, and I don't know if polyamory can be fitted into too many preconceptions. We are also fortunate in that both Dave and I are both equally bisexual. That helps. We feel no need to get bent out of shape over his bath house adventures, or her dating adventures online with other women.
Would you rather live in a social experiment or be just an average person trying to establish relationships? One at a time even?
M seems to want it all. At least she aimed high. But what M needs to look at is how her own personality gets in the way of what she is going after. She comes on very strong, and I think we are not the first people to fall back into a protective mode when we are with her.
For Dave, M reminds him a lot of his mother, at least in her behavior towards him. He finds her increasingly hard to deal with. His intention was to simply enjoy her as a friend and an occasional pot connection.
In some ways, we could say Dave and I are really not that polyamorous. He does not take after other women. I do not really go after other men. This is our little quirk I suppose, that makes all things tolerable. It would be interesting to see someone come along and challenge that situation.
- - - - -
Towards Dave, M seems to harbor odd feelings. I think part of her feels attracted, but whether it is to him specifically, or to me because we are attached, I cannot say. Her vibes are strong and we can feel them, but they seem to go in many directions.
I think it is more a matter that M is attracted to the idea of us as a couple. After all, from what I can see, we are something of a port of safety in stormy seas of sexual relationships. We've been together a while, and we seem able to separate and go off our own paths for a bit, and then reunite without problems or repercussions. People who are interested in polyamorous relationships wonder how we do it.
The answer is we try not to make a big deal out of it. I think sometimes M wants the theoretical to meet the practical, and I don't know if polyamory can be fitted into too many preconceptions. We are also fortunate in that both Dave and I are both equally bisexual. That helps. We feel no need to get bent out of shape over his bath house adventures, or her dating adventures online with other women.
Would you rather live in a social experiment or be just an average person trying to establish relationships? One at a time even?
M seems to want it all. At least she aimed high. But what M needs to look at is how her own personality gets in the way of what she is going after. She comes on very strong, and I think we are not the first people to fall back into a protective mode when we are with her.
For Dave, M reminds him a lot of his mother, at least in her behavior towards him. He finds her increasingly hard to deal with. His intention was to simply enjoy her as a friend and an occasional pot connection.
In some ways, we could say Dave and I are really not that polyamorous. He does not take after other women. I do not really go after other men. This is our little quirk I suppose, that makes all things tolerable. It would be interesting to see someone come along and challenge that situation.
- - - - -
Friday, September 08, 2006
The Dark Side Of Polyamory (Pt.2)
When I first met my friend M she was embroiled with a male friend and a female one. Actually, she began with the female, and along the way they brought in the male counterpart. The results here did not go well. The male and female gravitated together, and M was out in the cold.
Trouble ensued, there was a nasty falling out among all concerned. Restraining orders were taken out and the fur began to fly. I was one of several friends who accompanied M to court. Yes, polyamory can end up in the courthouses of America. Just so you know what you're getting into(!)
I was happy to lend my moral support to M, but the whole episode left me scratching my head. Her ex male friend was an east coaster, from a well-to-do family apparently but he was coasting along on a knife's edge. He liked his drugs, serious drugs, and with his habit he needed to constantly be in touch with people he could mooch off. This is where M came in.
When I asked what she saw in the guy, she replied he was "charismatic." I guess charisma still goes a long way in life. I like charisma too. But unfortunately the word has come, in my frame of reference, to mean "trouble." As in "drama." Sometimes I think this is why I am so attracted to Swedish men, among other Scandinavian types. They are considered boring by many women, even some Swedish women. But I find boring may get you farther than charisma.
M should have realized earlier on that her male friend was out to wring whatever he could from her. Meanwhile, the ex-girlfriend was siding with him against M.
One day in the rain M and I drove the girlfriend's bicycle over to where she was staying, and M proceeded to dump it in the gutter in front of the house.
Oi. I have never had nasty break-ups with exs, so this was quite an eye-opener. But who needs it.
M says to me, "I don't want you to think that I have drama like this all the time in my life, because I don't." But after knowing her for about two years now, there seems to be nothing but drama going on around her.
This tends to make me cautious. Is polyamory at fault here? The ex-girlfriend made a squeak to M about "you see what your polyamorous stuff leads to" sort of thing.
I try to see the whole forest in all this, and not just a tree or two. Or three in this case. Polyamory is neither good nor bad. The people involved are what make it so. And in this case, the personalities involved were just not destined to be harmonious. In this lifetime or any other.
M finally got over him, and her. But these are costly battles. I hate to see good people have to go through them, but in this case, for M, it was something she had to work through and she finally did.
TO BE CONTINUED
Trouble ensued, there was a nasty falling out among all concerned. Restraining orders were taken out and the fur began to fly. I was one of several friends who accompanied M to court. Yes, polyamory can end up in the courthouses of America. Just so you know what you're getting into(!)
I was happy to lend my moral support to M, but the whole episode left me scratching my head. Her ex male friend was an east coaster, from a well-to-do family apparently but he was coasting along on a knife's edge. He liked his drugs, serious drugs, and with his habit he needed to constantly be in touch with people he could mooch off. This is where M came in.
When I asked what she saw in the guy, she replied he was "charismatic." I guess charisma still goes a long way in life. I like charisma too. But unfortunately the word has come, in my frame of reference, to mean "trouble." As in "drama." Sometimes I think this is why I am so attracted to Swedish men, among other Scandinavian types. They are considered boring by many women, even some Swedish women. But I find boring may get you farther than charisma.
M should have realized earlier on that her male friend was out to wring whatever he could from her. Meanwhile, the ex-girlfriend was siding with him against M.
One day in the rain M and I drove the girlfriend's bicycle over to where she was staying, and M proceeded to dump it in the gutter in front of the house.
Oi. I have never had nasty break-ups with exs, so this was quite an eye-opener. But who needs it.
M says to me, "I don't want you to think that I have drama like this all the time in my life, because I don't." But after knowing her for about two years now, there seems to be nothing but drama going on around her.
This tends to make me cautious. Is polyamory at fault here? The ex-girlfriend made a squeak to M about "you see what your polyamorous stuff leads to" sort of thing.
I try to see the whole forest in all this, and not just a tree or two. Or three in this case. Polyamory is neither good nor bad. The people involved are what make it so. And in this case, the personalities involved were just not destined to be harmonious. In this lifetime or any other.
M finally got over him, and her. But these are costly battles. I hate to see good people have to go through them, but in this case, for M, it was something she had to work through and she finally did.
TO BE CONTINUED
Monday, September 04, 2006
The Dark Side Of Polyamory (Pt.1)
Polyamorous relationships are not always the ideal way for everyone. Even though my partner Dave and I seem pretty well-suited to this lifestyle, I do not assume that is true for everyone. Take for instance our friend M, who wants very much to be in polyamorous situations, but when she encounters them they have ended up rather disastrously.
M is late forties, Jewish, about 5'3" 140 pounds, with long thick salt and pepper hair. Her mom died and left her with a shitload of money and a house in Santa Cruz, so she does not need to work. She has time for community projects. Unfortunately though, the community is not always ready to deal with someone as out there as M is.
She identifies as bisexual, and polyamorous, has never been married or had children. Currently she seems to spend more time looking for suitable males than females. After all, we all know how hard it is to get women into bed. Much better to pursue men when you want sex.
Recently M was involved in a steering committee that was interested in raising the minimum wage in Santa Cruz County. M ran afoul of the woman who seemed to be in charge of the committee. I could not quite pull all the details out of her, but suffice to say that whatever M did to the woman, it pressed a lot of buttons.
The woman fired M from the committee, and refused to even engage in further conversation about her dismissal. What was the reason given? Well, apparently the woman felt M was sexually harassing her.
This is a serious charge. The sort of charge that can lead to trouble with the law. Clearly, whatever happened, it happened in such a convincing way that the woman wanted nothing further to do with M.
What do I think really happened? It's a personality thing going on here. M is really forward with people, she comes on very strong. I don't mean to imply she is a stalker personality, but her sense of boundaries is not always impeccable. This causes problems.
"I know my boundaries," M remarked to me once. I thought about that, and realized it was the truth. But M knows boundaries because, unfortunately, she seems to always be testing them.
She comes on way to strong for many people, and I think the woman on the committee was feeling cornered by M, and she reacted.
I met M nearly two years ago, on a women's hiking group here in the south bay. My first impressions were that she was a strong, capable woman with a good head on her shoulders.
That impression has been shifting gradually ever since. I thought I had made a new friend but was feeling pretty casual about how often we had to meet. M seemed to want a lot more of my company than I had intended to give her. So I probably sent the wrong messages myself to M. She seemed very needy at times, and talked a lot about needing the support of other people. I tried to offer that.
But M grew so assertive. When I joined Dave for a Memorial Day Weekend in New York City, M made a request of us. She wanted us to bring her a gift from our trip. I was more than a little surprised by her brazenness. I would never ask anyone to bring me back a gift from their trip. The thought would never even occur to me. But it did to M. We obliged her.
More and more M has insinuated her way into our lives. It would be different if she could be cooler about our relationship. But her sense of neediness seems so great that it spills out into all of our social interactions.
I am feeling very guarded about her now. How to proceed from here?
TO BE CONTINUED
M is late forties, Jewish, about 5'3" 140 pounds, with long thick salt and pepper hair. Her mom died and left her with a shitload of money and a house in Santa Cruz, so she does not need to work. She has time for community projects. Unfortunately though, the community is not always ready to deal with someone as out there as M is.
She identifies as bisexual, and polyamorous, has never been married or had children. Currently she seems to spend more time looking for suitable males than females. After all, we all know how hard it is to get women into bed. Much better to pursue men when you want sex.
Recently M was involved in a steering committee that was interested in raising the minimum wage in Santa Cruz County. M ran afoul of the woman who seemed to be in charge of the committee. I could not quite pull all the details out of her, but suffice to say that whatever M did to the woman, it pressed a lot of buttons.
The woman fired M from the committee, and refused to even engage in further conversation about her dismissal. What was the reason given? Well, apparently the woman felt M was sexually harassing her.
This is a serious charge. The sort of charge that can lead to trouble with the law. Clearly, whatever happened, it happened in such a convincing way that the woman wanted nothing further to do with M.
What do I think really happened? It's a personality thing going on here. M is really forward with people, she comes on very strong. I don't mean to imply she is a stalker personality, but her sense of boundaries is not always impeccable. This causes problems.
"I know my boundaries," M remarked to me once. I thought about that, and realized it was the truth. But M knows boundaries because, unfortunately, she seems to always be testing them.
She comes on way to strong for many people, and I think the woman on the committee was feeling cornered by M, and she reacted.
I met M nearly two years ago, on a women's hiking group here in the south bay. My first impressions were that she was a strong, capable woman with a good head on her shoulders.
That impression has been shifting gradually ever since. I thought I had made a new friend but was feeling pretty casual about how often we had to meet. M seemed to want a lot more of my company than I had intended to give her. So I probably sent the wrong messages myself to M. She seemed very needy at times, and talked a lot about needing the support of other people. I tried to offer that.
But M grew so assertive. When I joined Dave for a Memorial Day Weekend in New York City, M made a request of us. She wanted us to bring her a gift from our trip. I was more than a little surprised by her brazenness. I would never ask anyone to bring me back a gift from their trip. The thought would never even occur to me. But it did to M. We obliged her.
More and more M has insinuated her way into our lives. It would be different if she could be cooler about our relationship. But her sense of neediness seems so great that it spills out into all of our social interactions.
I am feeling very guarded about her now. How to proceed from here?
TO BE CONTINUED
