ask, and you shall receive
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Over a late breakfast of salsa scrambled eggs, toast, and sliced strawberries, we’re listening to NPR and sipping breakfast tea. Occasionally, we murmur commentary to each other on what we’re listening to. My mind wanders from the latest Energy Bill updates, and I look across the table and suddenly feel absurdly lucky. Her head is tilted, her eyes askance as she listens to (and grows indignant at) the radio, and I fleetingly feel like I just woke up from a long dream and this, this, is what is real. Out loud I say, “I’m so lucky,” and her focus shifts to me. She shakes her head affectionately and cracks up. “You’re a weird one,” she says, “I love you.”
***
We’re at a giant thrift store together, sorting through all the junk to find a few things to take home. She heads for the t-shirts, I dive into the sundresses. Ten minutes later, I’ve scoured the racks, have a few picks, and the first thing I do is stand up on my tip-toes, crane my neck so I can see over the racks, and look for her. I don’t see her right away. But after a few seconds, her purple hoodie catches my eye and I feel a wave of … I don’t know what, exactly. Familiarity, comfort, warmth, affection, love, security, and (dare I say?) a mild surge of arousal, all wrapped up in one feeling that doesn’t have a single name but it should. All of that, just from alighting my eyes on her in a crowded room. Do other beings have the capacity to feel this way? If not, why do we humans? Where does it come from?
***
I’m lying in bed, trying to fall asleep. I have to get up in the morning to go into the law firm to do some contract work, so I couldn’t go out with her and some friends. That’s fine anyway, because I read a bit, watched a bit of a movie I knew she didn’t want to watch, ate nutella out of the jar with a spoon, and took a bath. It was nice to have the evening to myself. But I can’t sleep without her in bed next to me, big spoon to my little. I slip in and out of half-consciousness, restless, unsettled, waking with a start at every noise, thinking maybe it’s her. She comes in, finally, around 2:30. She sits down on the bed to take off her shoes. “Hi,” I say, mustering all my sleepy energy to squeak out the single syllable. “Awwww you’re awake!” she says, “hi cutie!!” She goes out to brush her teeth, and I prep myself for Sleep Position, turning onto my side and curling up. Soon she’s curled up behind me, and I finally feel the heaviness of sleep settling in. “Did you have fun?” I ask. “Yep!” she says, “but I missed you the whole time.” Not melancholy, just a sweet matter of fact. “Me too.”
***
This is my life these days. Sometimes I think conflict (in my relationship or just in my life in general) is what most moves me to write. If that’s true, then that’s too bad, because moments like these are just as worthy of being captured.
The other night, I attended a volunteer orientation for the Frameline queer film festival. (You get a voucher to see a film for every volunteer shift you take.) There were probably a hundred fellow volunteers, and most of them were men. But when the volunteer coordinator stepped up to address us, I was surprised – because the volunteer coordinator was a woman. A queer woman. As in, asymmetrical haircut, half a shaved head, totally tatted, hip young San Francisco queer woman. And after a few moments of being surprised, I became perplexed, because after all, it is a queer film festival. So why the surprise at the volunteer coordinator being a queer dyke?
It reminded me of the feeling I got when I first visited my women’s college campus as a junior in high school. Until I visited, I had been pretty vehemently opposed to attending a women’s college. I had thought it would lack diversity (which in retrospect seems laughable). But when I visited, I was suddenly struck – wow, this all exists for the education of women. The male professors and campus police and facilities staff etc., despite being men, were working at an institution that educated women. Women matter! Holy shit! And it dawned on me that it had been so internalized in me that women don’t matter that I was actually surprised and delighted to be confronted with evidence to the contrary.
And I got the same feeling at the very first Dyke March I ever attended in San Francisco, in 2006. I was with my ex-girlfriend at the time, and I remember holding her hand, processing down Valencia, feeling giddy from all the solidarity and empowerment I felt, due in no small part to the fact that there were gay men hanging out of windows, waving rainbow flags and hoisting banners that read “FAGS <3 DYKES” and the like. And I was all, “omg! Gay men love us! They care! Whoaaaaa!”
And somehow I got the same feeling while at this orientation – because here was a group consisting largely of middle-aged-ish white gay men and they were all paying attention to this queer-as-fuck dyke, who, by the way, was absolutely hilarious and cute and rocked her job. I felt somehow vicariously visible. And it struck me again, as it did at my first Dyke March and when I first visited my women’s college, that I’m so accustomed to women being invisible to men in any way that’s not sexual. And it’s so consistently ingrained in women that we’re only useful to men as sexual objects that it surprises me every time I find myself in a situation in which I’m being genuinely appreciated, as a woman (or in which women in general are being genuinely appreciated), by a man for a non-sexual reason. And it makes me wish that it would happen more often. Not just to me, on an individual level, but publicly, and in media, and in culture-at-large.
You see, gay men and gay women are natural “bedmates” (har har).* We are among the few combinations of adult human beings that (in general) have a non-romantic/non-sexual connection. And there’s something really special about this bond, I think, that goes largely ignored. And it’s different from the relationship between gay men and straight women, which, if judging by the connotation lent by the term “fag hag” alone, is largely a mutually objectifying relationship (and, yes, that’s a gross oversimplification, but fag hags are not the topic of this post, and the relationship between gay men/straight women has been addressed again and again elsewhere). Maybe I’ll write about my thoughts on that some other time.
No, the point is, I wish the common bond between gay men and gay women were more acknowledged and respected. When I went to Berlin’s pride celebration in 2007, I was struck by how different it felt from San Francisco’s pride. In San Francisco, there’s Dyke March of course, and then Dykes on Bikes lead the main parade the following day. In Berlin, there’s neither – and without the women-centric portions of the celebration, I realized how gay-male-centric the whole celebration felt and was. Specifically, how middle-to-upper-middle-class-white-gay-male-centric. At the time, I remember having conversations with the folks I went with (a mix of genders and sexual orientations) about how these men were taking up all the “space,” probably without even realizing it. Gay pride parade means gay (male) parade. Gay bar means gay (male) bar. Gay issues are gay (male) issues. Gay white men are the default Gay, just like straight white men are the default Human in our society. And obviously, yes, gay men’s issues are super important. Of course they are. It’s just a matter of gay women’s issues also being important. And being similar, yes, but also largely different. The problem is, though, that there have been so few studies on lesbian/queer women’s issues specifically that we don’t even know what our issues are and what distinguishes them from gay men’s issues. And this, of course, isn’t the fault of gay men individually or even as an entity. It’s the fault of a society that naturalizes maleness as the default human, and that renders women a sub-category of human. (Same goes for queer people of color – their issues are woefully under-studied too, and POC are always just sub-categories of a humanity in which White is default and “normal.”)
So, right, individual gay men are busy taking up their own issues and fighting their own battles and taking care of their own survival, which completely totally makes sense. And yet I think it’s really sad that the bond between gay men and gay women is so often overlooked, or dismissed, or undervalued. I think it has tremendous value, as we are perhaps each other’s best natural allies. Sex and romance doesn’t get in between us, not personally and not in terms of prescribed roles. When I see a gay man, I see someone who both understands what it feels like to be queer in this straight world, and who will relate to me inherently free of any sort of sexual tension or sexual judgment. We understand what it feels like to be otherized. The homophobia we each experience often looks and feels different, sure, but when all is said and done, it’s the same animal. We can learn a lot from each other. I have learned a lot from my gay guy friends, and I count one of them as among the best friendships I have. I hate this phrase, but it just is what it is. There’s nothing underneath, no undercurrents, no invisible social glue that’s trying to glue us together in awkward ways. We just get each other. And I wish this were more typical, not just on an individual level but on a socially recognized level. Because then, maybe I wouldn’t be so surprised by gay men holding “fags <3 dykes” signs, or laughing at a queer gal’s jokes.
Has anyone else felt this way? Or is this peculiar to me? Maybe in other communities, gay guy/gal crossover is much more common. But even if that’s the case, where are our friendships ever portrayed in the media (TV, books, news outlets…)? Right, exactly. Never. And why do I not know a single gay male blogger? Where are they all? I just want to be friends, guys!
What’s your experience?
*In this post, I’m addressing specifically gay cismen and gay ciswomen — and yeah, I know that leaves out a lot of people, including queer but not-gay-identified folks, as well as genderqueer and trans people… Sorry about that, this is just what’s most familiar to me.
I’m over how my uncle talks about “the gays” as if we were some exotic species, and asks me weird personal questions about my relationship that he doesn’t ask my sister about hers (with a guy).
I’m over having phone conversations with mi’lady about what we’re up to with our respective families that include sentences like “this would be awkward for you” or “I don’t quite know how you would fit into this.”
I’m over trying to explain to old friends from high school why I don’t want to hang out with their ultra-Christian crowd.
I’m over having my sister tell me that she’s got it worse because “at least people don’t constantly ask you when you’re getting married.”
I’m over my mom saying “just get over it, of course people act weird about something they don’t get.”
I’m over being told by my dad, yet again, that he doesn’t see how people can have the “same kind of relationship” with non-biological progeny.
I’m over how my brother finds guys who really “shove it in your face” that they’re gay distasteful.
I’m over feeling self-conscious about recommending a book or movie to someone if it happens to have a queer character or sub-theme (because what if I’M one of those people who “shoves it in your face”?).
I’m over “OMG that’s SOOOO GAY!”
I’m over being left out of conversations about what everyone in the family is up to “because it could be uncomfortable.”
I’m over censoring myself in order to avoid making other people feel uncomfortable about something that’s so vital and important to who I am.
I’m over small-town USA.
I’m over how being around our families completely squelches our ability to be sexual with each other, even by distance.
I’m over being irrelevant to her Playing Straight life.
I’m over playing it straight in my own life.
I’m over sleeping by myself.
I’m fucking over it.
I can’t wait to go home. Four more days.
I’ve been wanting to write this post for a while, for months, really, and then when G posted about it recently it was just the shove I needed to actually sit down and write it.
There are so many layers of femme (in)visibility to me. There’s how we’re seen (or not) by straight people, by society at large. There’s how we’re seen (or not) by fellow queers. There’s how we’re seen by fellow dykes. And how we’re seen by each other. And of course, there’s how we see ourselves. And in all of this, there’s the personal, and there’s the political.
But I don’t really know how to write about it except in terms of my own experience. And of course, my experience isn’t representative of anything except itself. But I think there are probably parallels and similarities to and “mmhmm”s and head nods from other femme-identified folks out there.
It starts with not being able to see myself. That must be at the very root of it. As a little girl, I loved to play house, and I always wanted to be the mom. I loved to play school and wanted to be the teacher. I loved tea parties and dollhouses and dresses and patent leather shoes, I loved American Girl dolls and dress-up and imagining my future wedding. I was obsessed with Queen Elizabeth II as a little girl (I had a book about her written by her nanny) and with figure skaters and ballerinas. I fit snugly into my gender box. No questions asked.
Come junior high, I decided to start having crushes on the boys in my classes. Each year on the first day of school, I would scan homeroom for that year’s candidates. I carefully weighed my options, and within 20 minutes or so had selected the object of my external focus for the year. Seventh grade: Dillon. Eighth grade: Ryan. Ninth grade: Jason. In tenth grade I started dating, but never really cared much for the guys. In fact I think I was somewhat scared of them. Touching them, kissing them, doing stuff with them made me feel weird and nervous.
I’m not going to go over my whole coming out story here, but suffice it to say it took me quite a long time to come out to myself. I started questioning that year, tenth grade. I had a friend who I was in love with, but I couldn’t quite believe it. There was no way I was gay. It just didn’t make sense. I was a girl. I was supposed to like boys. That was that.
Understanding of sexuality is so, so so tied up with gender. That’s really what makes femmes so invisible. To ourselves as well as to others. There often aren’t any outward signs that we digress from the norm. They’re all inward. And society tells us (all of us, not just femmes) all the time that the inward things? Are figments of our imagination. Depression, addiction, anxiety, sexual orientation — it’s fabricated, it’s (no pun intended) just in our minds. You can’t get an MRI that says “whoops, there’s some depression in there, we’ll have to medicate you” or a pap smear that tells you “yep, yer gay alright, no two ways about it.” So unless you look different, unless there’s some physical proof of it (whatever it is), there’s plenty of room for people to doubt you. And judge you. And feel justified in doubting and judging. Because all that stuff? It’s in your mind. So I can tell you you’re wrong.
That’s what I, as a femme, was up against. Convincing myself that, actually, no, I’m right. That gut feeling that made me ask my mom, as an 11-year-old, whether it was normal to like other girls? That was right. Even though I liked ruffles and paper dolls and the Sound of Music. It took me so. long. to learn how to trust that feeling. I guess I’m still learning, really. In my first years after coming out for good, I went through all kinds of identity shifts, trying to settle on the self-expression that felt right for me. I just didn’t think it could be that I was both totally feminine and gay. I thought I was just fooling myself that I was gay. To be honest, I sometimes still do have those moments of doubt. “How is it possible that I’m gay?”
And, dude, I’m gay. I fuckin’ love pussy. The best compliment from mi’lady is when she looks at me in wonder, after a good fuck, and says, “you’re so gay.”
In fact, I think that’s probably the best compliment from anyone. Even people who mean it as an insult. To be recognized as gay makes me puff out my chest and stand up straighter. Really. I just want to belong here. I want people to know that I’m a member of the club. Sometimes, I do get some sort of signal, a wink maybe, and I just about die, every time. Especially when it’s the older, butch lesbians, in their late 30s and 40s. A wink from them is so gratifying. Not transgressive, not presumptuous, not inappropriate. Affirming.
I’ve spent up enough time and energy proving myself to myself, you know? I don’t have much leftover to try to prove anything to anyone else. So I don’t try, not much anyway. And for the most part, I don’t let the invisibility get to me. But those moments of visibility are all the more precious because of it.
Reading the comments to my previous post helped me clarify my thoughts about this femme fantasy. So I thought I’d do it “out loud” here, too.
I don’t think the fantasy I described of being perfectly domestic, perfectly sexy, perfectly exactly for my lover is the only way I conceive of myself as a femme. I certainly have my own goals and ambitions and social life and tastes and enjoyments, and I certainly want to keep nurturing those and developing myself as a person. (As greg said in the comments, I absolutely need those days of knotting the hair back, donning the cracked boots and jumping in the jeep. Well, I don’t have long hair or a jeep, but that’s the general idea!) Writing here is one of the ways I do that; doing the rape counseling work is another; keeping in touch with my friends, applying for graduate school, playing piano, doing yoga… all of that is stuff I do to continually round myself out and build myself up. And it’s absolutely necessary for me to keep doing that, always. Always.
But the fantasy is there, and I want to explore it. Until now, I’ve been angrily pushing it away, thinking “no! that’s co-dependency! get out!” For example: I feel like baking. What do I bake? Into my head pops the thought: “mi’lady’s favorite is strawberry rhubarb pie…” and I get all warm and tingly and excited at the thought of surprising her with a warm homemade pie when I see her in the evening. But before I get too excited, I cut myself off. “Why do you always want to do what she likes? You don’t even like pie! Bake something you like!” And so I’ll probably end up compromising, I’ll bake something I know she’ll like but that I like too, and I make sure to bake it not with her specifically in mind. So when I see her, it’s “look! I baked cookies today! Have one, they’re yummy!” rather than “look! I baked your favorite pie today, just for you!”
It sounds so selfish. But I guess I’ve thought it to be necessary, as a way of coaching myself to pay attention to my own wants and needs, rather than always catering to other people’s. I think it has a lot to do with vulnerability for me, too. I get angry with myself for giving too much of myself away to someone else. I get afraid that the more I give away, the more I’m allowing her to hurt me. I’m giving her power. And maybe I’ve thought of it too as a zero-sum game — that if I give her the power to hurt me, I’m somehow lessening my own power to heal from hurt.
So, to continue with the previous example, when I bake mi’lady’s favorite pie, just because I know she likes it, I’m making myself vulnerable to her by doing something for her. It’s saying, “you matter so much to me that I’m going to bake you your favorite pie, just because.” And what if it’s not reciprocated? What if she doesn’t like it? Or doesn’t really notice? Or just says, “oh thanks baby, that’s so sweet” absent-mindedly. Clearly if I spend my afternoon baking her favorite kind of pie, then my afternoon was about her. But what if her afternoon wasn’t even remotely about me? What if I think about her more often than she thinks about me? What if what if what if. So stopping myself from baking that pie is a way of holding back, keeping things level.
And that’s what it is, it’s holding back. Because really? I want to bake that pie. I guess I have to throw those what-ifs to the wind. Because she does matter to me that much. And I want her to know it. I want her to feel it. That’s not co-dependent. That’s so far from c0-dependent. What it is is trust.
Love is not a zero-sum game. I need to practice believing that in how I go about loving. There’s plenty to go around. There’s enough for us both. And the main thing I am now slowly coming to realize is, if I do something for her, I’m not necessarily losing myself, or giving myself away. I could be, for sure, depending on the context. But I could also actually just be reaffirming myself. So the next step I guess? Working all of this into my relationship with mi’lady in a way that feels right. Stay tuned, this could be a wild ride.
(Updated to remove weird duping of the post? It doesn’t appear in my editor but I tried to just delete all and re-paste so we’ll see if that works…)
I’ve been learning, lately, how to pay more attention to the little voices in my head. The ones that say “yay!” or “boo!” to all the little things I do. The ones that have the answer to questions like, “do I really love playing piano, or do I just think I love it because I was supposed to love it growing up? because my dad wants me to love it?” or “do I feel like myself when I wear this [insert item of clothing here]?” These voices have been buried in me for a long, long time. Digging them out has been quite an interesting process, and I think they’re still mostly buried, but at least now I know they’re there. And whenever I feel up to it, I can keep digging a bit more, and eventually I’ll have unearthed them all.
There’s something that’s been peeking out of the ground for a while now, and I’ve finally dug it up. It’s a fantasy, and it goes like this:
I am a nurturer. More than anything, I want to take care of you. I want to support you and give you what you want and be your pillar. I want to stand next to you proudly, “I’m hers.” I want to cook for you, and bake your favorite sweets for you, and clean. I want to notice the little things that make you feel better, and do them for you. I want you to dress me, in whatever you want me to wear. I want to be manicured, and pedicured, and wax my arms and legs, and spend a half an hour every morning and evening on my skincare regimen. I want to wear four-inch heels with peeping toes. I want to iron your shirts and make your bed and stroke your head until you fall asleep. I want to plan little surprises and encourage your passions and turn you on. Making you tick is what makes me tick. So.
As I said, that’s been peeking out of the ground for a while. I kept ignoring it, thinking it’s just another indicator of my co-dependency. My tendency is to want to exist for someone else rather than for myself. And I’ve always thought that that’s because it’s easier to take care of someone else’s wants and needs than it is to take care of my own. (The responsibility of making myself happy? Huge.) So it’s been really easy to write off that fantasy as something unhealthy and something I need to dismiss, something I need to work out. I’ve thought of it as the problem.
But maybe the problem itself is the very solution. Maybe it’s not co-dependency, but in fact a valid form of self-identity. Can this be? I have a lot of feelings about this. Frustration – have I really been working so hard to discover what I really want, only to realize that what I want is, again, just to do what someone else wants? Fear — what does this mean? Will I lose myself even further? Confusion — but I thought I was ambitious and driven and independent! Worry — how on earth will my friends and family take it if I come out to them this way? Excitement — wow! So much to work (and play) with here! Weeee! Intrigue – what would this feel like, to actualize this? what worlds might this open up for me?
So, I think I’m going to try this on for a while. See if it fits as well as it does in my fantasy. I need to keep reminding myself, though, that I’m doing this for me. In the end, I’m not really doing this to sacrifice myself for her. Rather, I’m allowing myself to indulge a fantasy. I’m going for a dream.
Maybe I don’t need to find co-dependency support. Maybe I need to find femme support. How about a Femme for Dummies: How to Make Sure You’re Taking Care of Yourself While Caring for Your Lover (and Others).
Anyone out there? Femme bloggers who’ve written about this sort of journey? Any femmes who read here who want to pop out and say hi? Maybe there is a Femme for Dummies that I just don’t know about? Oh my gosh, I feel so thirsty. Is this what it feels like to know what I want?
(Disclaimer: For me, the word that works best to encompass all this is “femme.” I fully realize that many, if not most, femmes probably don’t share this same fantasy and wouldn’t necessarily identify this fantasy as being femme in nature. For now, just realize that yes, I acknowledge that, and I apologize if anyone feels that their identity is stepped on. As this is all coming to light I’m sure I will write more about this in the near future, because boy do I have thoughts…)
I’ve been thinking a lot about cocks lately.
And no, I’m not questioning my sexuality, haha, thanks for asking. But I am questioning, well, something. I’m just not sure exactly what it is I’m questioning. Mi’lady and I use cock play (for lack of anything better to call it… is there something better to call it?) a lot when we fuck, in various ways. For example: I strap on and fuck her. I strap on, and she gives me a blow job (SO HOT, oh my god I don’t know if I can think of any image hotter than of my cock in her mouth, and her looking sweetly/seductively up at me). Occasionally, she straps on and fucks me. These are all ways that we use real fake cocks in our sex. (I know, real fake is contradictory, but what I mean is there’s a real cock there, a non-flesh one, a dildo, but it’s a real cock just the same.) These are the more straightforward ways of fucking with cocks, and these are the ways that don’t make me think much beyond HOT! TURNED ON! HOT!
And then there are ways that are more psychological. One of my favorite ways to get off is orally — her tongue has insane endurance and is oh-my-god so so good. There are no words. She is truly the mistress of licking pussy. Except… sometimes (dare I even say often?), when she’s between my legs licking my clit, I pretend she’s sucking my cock. And something about that psychological trick just turns me on so much that I can come really, really fast after that.
And I’m not the only one who does this. The only way mi’lady gets off is with my fingers on her clit (mmmm I love the feeling of her slick hard clit under my fingers…). And one time last week, I was rubbing her clit and she said “how do I feel baby?” “Slick and hard,” I said, “hard like a cock.” And she literally writhed in her sudden new arousal. “Oh baby yeah, jerk my cock,” she moaned, and for the remaining moments until she came, we dirty-talked cock imagery. Imagining that I was jerking her cock was a profound turn-on.
We talked about it afterwards. Though this kind of cock play is really hot and fun, it definitely brings stuff up for me (and for her as well, in similar ways, but I’m just going to speak for myself on my blog). For one thing, I’ve struggled quite a bit with the whole idea of Authenticity in the lesbian “community.” I’m sure I’ll write more about this at some point; I’ve touched on it a bit in my post “On Femininity” (see link under my Favorite Posts, over there on the left). It’s this whole idea that “gold star” lesbians are the most authentic lesbians, and on down the line until women who have sexual/romantic relationships with men as well as women are often peered at in suspicion, and lack total authenticity. (Along with that, I think, is the notion that women who present intentional or unintentional masculinity are automatically more authentic as lesbians, and women who present intentional or unintentional femininity are less authentic.) So, this whole thing of somehow liking cock in sex… especially as a femme-presenting dyke… brings up issues for me of “can I talk about this? will people doubt my sexuality?” And of course, it doesn’t matter whether other people doubt my sexuality. But it feels oppressive all the same.
But something that’s even more unsettling for me, I think, are questions of patriarchy and heteronormativity. Are we just buying into some sort of hetero-paradigm by including the cock in our own man-free sex? Are we in a way proving people right who think that the ultimate sex acts (“real sex”) have to involve a penis? (Clearly there are many things we do that do not involve the cock or any kind of cock play, but hey, those could be just foreplay!) And… do we have penis envy?? Are we proving Freud right? Women just spend our lives trying to make up for a gaping hole (to be utterly literal)? (It might be relevant to point out here that both of us do not identify as trans or genderqueer.)
As I sort of said above, strapping on by itself never raised these questions for me. I’ve never been uncomfortable with the idea of using a cock. It seems so blatantly and purely not straight, so clearly not pretending to be a man — it’s very much its own thing. So strapping on in itself has never seemed to me to be heteronormative or patriarchal. But somehow, imagining that my clit is my cock starts to make me think there’s a line I might be crossing. I don’t know. It’s hard to articulate. And mostly, I still just think it’s hot. But it makes me wriggle the tiniest bit just the same, in some sort of vague discomfort. Luckily, the vague discomfort isn’t enough to make me want to stop.
Oh my god, SO BUSY!
Mi’lady’s family is in town, and between catching up on work from vacation and hanging out with her family, my time has been completely overtaken. I usually post from work (bad me…) so when it happens that I have to leave work at a particular time in order to make a dinner date with the Lady Fam, and I have too much work to do in that limited amount of time in the first place, then posting tends not to happen. I’m one of the rare freaks of nature that doesn’t really use my computer at home all that much.
Today’s no different, so I’m just saying a quick hello, and that in the next few days I have a post or two coming up on various things, such as: “passing” as straight/femme-ininity (I could go on and on about this); cock eroticism (fetishizing?) in non-butch/femme dyke sex (the kind mi’lady and I have, since neither of us identifies as one or the other). Maybe some more on Mexico, though that’s already fading away into the distant past. More waxing on anti-depressants. Reflections on communicating. More specific thoughts about “alphafemme” as my identity–I’ve gotten several emails about that, asking me to elaborate on it. I like getting emails from people, it’s lovely! So I will indulge them.
AND, some exciting stuff that I’ve been up to in my own life, non-sex or -relationship related. I’ve been getting busy, but along with that comes more of a sense of ownership over my own self.
Okay, I guess that all adds up to more than “a post or two.” More like a lot. So, all that should keep my blog fairly busy for the next coupla. I find that the more I write here, the more I have a sense of belonging in this Blogosphere, whatever/wherever that is. I think I like it here.
Day 1 in Puerto Vallarta: GAY CRUISE!!!!!!!!!!!
 (Camera was aiming straight up at the sun in this one so I couldn’t see the screen at all… hence it being off-center. Sigh.)
When we were looking at lesbian things to do in Puerto Vallarta, Diana’s Tours was one of the only things that was listed for lesbians. It’s a full-day cruise around the Banderas Bay in a private yacht, including open bar, breakfast, snacks, snorkeling, swimming at a gorgeous private beach, lunch (mmm grilled talapia…) on shore, and the leadership of the amazing Diana, a tough butch Montreal transplant who one day 13 years ago came to Puerto Vallarta for vacation and decided to stay. (Would I had the courage to do something that impulsive!) So mi’lady and I thought “sweet! LESBIANS! and Diana can give us tips on lesbian nightlife!” (since none of the guidebooks, even in the gay sections, had anything at all to say about a lesbian nightlife).
We were wrong. We showed up at the dock the first morning (after confirming at breakfast at the (gay) hotel that we were the only women in the entire establishment), promptly spotted Diana, and were greeted with “You must be Alphafemme and Hr’lady! Welcome!” at which point we realized we were, in fact, the only women on the cruise as well.
Which was fine, of course. Gay guys are a ton of fun. We had a blast that day, and it was totally refreshing being around a group of 20 people with the knowledge that not one of them was checking us out. Plus all the guys were like “omg! lesbians! omg awesome! yay diversity! omg!” and so we felt very embraced.
But honestly, I don’t know that we would have felt as welcome, and might have felt somewhat out of place, if the leader of the tour hadn’t been a lesbian. Somehow, the fact that she was a lesbian validated our presence there. If the leader of the tour had been a gay man, though, and then we’d shown up to all the other passengers being gay men, we probably would’ve felt that we’d somehow not gotten the memo. That they only said they were a gay and lesbian tour in order to sound inclusive, but really, they didn’t actually mean it. Really, it’s just a gay guy party.
And as it turned out, there really isn’t anything for lesbians in Puerto Vallarta. Diana’s Tour is really about the lezziest thing you can do. We asked Diana whether it was just a low season in terms of lesbian tourists, and she said no — her cruise occasionally has a few women, but is mostly gay men. The gay hotels are all male-owned and phallocentric (for real — our hotel had pictures of penises EVERYWHERE). The gay bars and dance clubs are all populated entirely by gay men. The gay beach is a male meat market. “There’s one bar that’s lesbian-owned,” Diana told us, “but none of the clientele are lesbians.”
Where are all the ladies? I think there’s this devil’s spiral thing happening. Lesbians in general are not as affluent as gay men (24% of lesbians live in poverty, compared to 15% of gay men, and lesbian couples are much more likely to be poor than gay male couples–see this Williams Institute report). So financially, it’s not as smart to market to lesbians, because they have a much lower spending power than gay men. (Socially, too — and this is less measurable, but I would guess still a factor — I think lesbians and women are just taken less seriously than gay (and straight) men as decision-making consumers. Also, (white) gay men are just taken for granted as the picture of Gay.) And so gay destinations market to gay men, almost de facto. They include the “and lesbian” tag just to be inclusive, but when push comes to shove, marketing to both gay men and lesbians is hard — we’re different after all! — and so gay men get the push. We dykes get the shove. And then as a result of that, we don’t travel to gay destinations. We know they won’t be oriented to us, so we stay home. Or go into the woods. Or just go to straight places, where we won’t be completely irrelevant as the only women. Invisible, maybe. But not irrelevant.
I see two solutions:
1) “Gay and lesbian” has to start really meaning gay AND LESBIAN. If they’re going to cater to lesbians, cater to frickin lesbians! Show some tits and pussy! Blast M.I.A. and Tegan & Sara and Melissa Etheridge! Have women-specific events! Ladies nights! Anything!
and,
2) DYKES NEED TO GET OUT MORE. The end.
Note: I recognize that I am extremely lucky to be in a demographic that can afford leisure travel, like a trip to Mexico. I think, though, that this point easily transfers to a more general one: white gay men are the face of gay. And it sucks.
This is a meme borrowed from greg. I couldn’t resist because it has SEX in it. HA!
1. Boxers, briefs, hipsters, bikinis or none? Boxers post-sex, hipsters the rest of the time.
2. Last book you’ve read or are now reading? I’m in the middle of two books. (1) Brideshead Revisited (Evelyn Waugh). Good book, but the only edition of it I could find anywhere has the TV miniseries pictures all over the cover. Number one way to deter serious readers from a good book? PUT PICTURES FROM A TV MINISERIES ALL OVER ITS COVER. (2) Lolita (Nabokov). Read it before, hated it. So I’m reading it again to try to convince myself of its “literary merits” and ignore the sleazy pedophilia. Harder than it sounds.
3. When did the realization hit you that you’re a lesbian? Well, technically, sophomore year of college when I fell in love with my ex-girlfriend. (See my National Coming Out Day entry for the deets on that story.) But, really, it was in fifth grade when I had a huge crush on Joanna Eastmond. She moved to South Dakota the following year and I have no idea what’s happened to her. She’s Mormon though. So I think it’s safe to say that would’ve gone nowhere.
4. Give us some details of your first lesbian sexual relationship: Oh my god, eye-opening. Just, wow. I had no idea it was possible to get that wet, to be that turned on, to feel so explosively sexual. We were each others’ lesbian firsts, so we got to do the whole exploring-everything-because-it-was-all-brand-new thing. SO MUCH FUN!
5. Rate your sensitivity level from 1 (low) to 5 (high) for your hurtful feelings: Probably 4. I’m pretty sensitive. But then there are times when I’m surprisingly not sensitive, and then people will apologize to me for something they thought probably hurt me because I usually am sensitive, and I’m all like “what? what’d you do? I didn’t know you did anything.”
6. Name the farthest place you’ve traveled to from home: I guess Hawai’i was technically the farthest from my then-home (upstate New York). Greece (the island of Evia) is the furthest from my current home (San Francisco) (though at the time I was living in Germany!).
7. Ever get caught “doing it”? Or explain the most embarrassing if you’ve had many: Never been caught “doing it”, and the only time I’ve ever been caught hooking up at all was last winter, at mi’lady’s holiday party at her house. She calls me into her room in the middle of the party and we start making out madly on her bedroom floor (at this point we’d been dating for all of like, 3 weeks) and after maybe 10 minutes her best friend knocks on the door and then just BARGES ON IN! Like the knock was just a protocol? I don’t know. So we look up at her like deer in headlights, and she looks terribly flustered, goes completely red, and is all “OMG” and backs out of the room in a confused hurry. We mostly thought it was pretty funny.
8. What is your biggest accomplishment? Hmmm. Somehow I don’t feel all that accomplished. I guess it would be finishing my undergraduate honors thesis in philosophy, and getting magna cum laude on it. That felt pretty good, especially since as late as November of that same year I wasn’t sure I’d be able to finish it.
9. What is your major weakness? Relying on other people too much for my own sense of self-worth.
10. Do you normally keep your ex’s as friends? Nope. Never have. Once I move on, I’ve moved on. My college girlfriend and I are I guess “friendly acquaintances” now, but I just can’t do the friends thing.
11. Have you gotten your heart broken more or have you broken more hearts? Well, above-mentioned college girlfriend totally broke my heart after two years of dating — she broke up with me right before I was moving to San Francisco to be with her. (Luckily SF is a place anyone would want to be regardless of relationship status.) That sucked, and I lost about 25 pounds in two months (and people, I was only about 135lbs to begin with) and cried every single day and was miserable and alone. And then slowly but surely, I started getting over her, and several months later I found mi’lady, and then I broke my ex’s heart, because it turns out she’d been still in love with me the whole time and was harboring hopes of getting back together and was heartbroken when I told her I was with someone else now. Karma, y’all. So I think I’m even — heart broken once, one heart broken.
12. Ever cause any divorces? I certainly hope not!
13. Ever participate in a ménage de trios (three some)? No, and can’t say I’m really itching to either. I think I’d be overwhelmed.
14. Are you a boobs, butt or legs woman? OMG BOOBS. My tongue is hanging out of my mouth like a dog about to get a treat just at the thought of mi’lady’s. Mmmmmmmmmm.
15. Muffled or loud? Oh, loud, absolutely. I can stifle if necessary, but oh my when it’s good I just can’t be shushed…
16. Name the most unusual place(s) you’ve “done it”: Well this isn’t exactly an unusual place, but it shows my unusual skill, haha. I was driving down to LA with mi’lady, I was driving, remember, and while I was driving, I fucked mi’lady in the passenger seat. That was really, really hot, because I had to keep my focus on the road so I couldn’t look at her and couldn’t touch her aside from the fucking, but she was writhing and wet and groaning and trying not to be too obvious to cars passing us on either side… Okay I’m getting wet just typing it. And I’m at work, totally not a good place to be turned on. …. Other unusual places: bottom of a slide at a playground at night (we slid down on our backs with our heads first, and fucked with our heads hanging off the bottom edge of the slide), at the symphony (that took some skill, we weren’t even in a box! we had coats on our laps and had to be reeeeeally really covert), in the back of a cab (poor cabbie, I’m sure he knew what was going on), in the back of the car while my ex’s sister was driving and her husband was in the passenger seat (that was just rude, I feel bad about that now), in the fitting room at Target while trying on swimsuits…
Okay I need to stop writing about sex, because it’s way too distracting at work. And I’m NOT EVEN GOING TO SEE HER TONIGHT! Though I shouldn’t complain, we had sex three times last night. Well, maybe I should count it as all one time, since it’s not like we got up and did other things in between, but each time we were going to stop and then just couldn’t. We got this new toy, see–a rabbit vibrator dildo in a harness. Mi’lady has never been able to come internally, so we thought maybe with a vibrator and with some clitoral stimulation at the same time it might be possible. Oh BOY was it possible. Watching her come like that was insanely hot; since she’d never come that way before she was just so shocked and overwhelmed and a bit confused and her body had this whole reaction without her fully realizing what was going on. She just looked so completely vulnerable and at the mercy of this feeling. So amazing. But then afterwards she needed more, she needed another orgasm in order to feel full and completed. And then she needed another… Oh man. So, so good.
Okay now I REALLY need to stop writing about sex.
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