Last Friday night, part two.
So, my friend B's birthday party. We went out to a club, after much deliberation of where to actually go. A rather cool place called The Ritz, in Manchester. It looked like a converted theatre inside, or perhaps the atrium of a particularly posh hotel (hence the name? I'm not sure; I could look it up, but where's the fun in that?). Tall, square space inside, with a bouncy castle off to one side. As you do.
I had a go, of course.
Other than that, the club was big on heavy, heavy metal music and I promptly got a headache.
I'd checked train times before I headed out, and knew that I could either get the 00.53 out, or wait until 4.30 am.
I looked at the clock, it was 00.22, and I checked the pre-downloaded portion of Googlemaps that I had on my handy little iPod Touch thingy. (Which I'd downloaded to direct me from the station to meeting with B.) I found that the club happened to fall within that tiny section of map, and was clearly about ten minutes walk from the station...
So I left.
When I got to the station, and found my platform, there was a man lying facedown on the floor. Nobody seemed to notice. So I asked, to the waiting travellers in general, if he was okay. A young lady with faded blue streaks in her blonde hair told me he was just asleep and had asked her to wake him when the train arrived.
The young lady in question had two large suitcases and was travelling alone. I offered to help her put them on the train when it arrived, and we started talking. Turned out she was a student, heading home with practically her entire wardrobe - I sympathised, we swapped tales of similar journeys, we ended up sitting together on the train.
She turned out to be a Doctor Who fan. And Being Human, Torchwood, etc etc etc...
Her ongoing train, from my stop, wasn't until 6.40 in the morning. She was planning on waiting in the station for four hours.
I offered to let her come back to mine for a few hours, since it would be warmer. I expected her to refuse - after all, we'd just met, and while I'd been helpful and you and I know I'm sweet and innocent and harmless, she had no way of knowing - and she did, sensibly.
So instead, since we'd also discussed food and the like and I'd discovered she'd hardly eaten and wouldn't have much time to do so later today, as she was heading straight on almost as soon as she'd got home, I went back to mine, grabbed a variety of chocolate and biscuits and drinks, and took them back to her in the station.
We swapped first names and nothing else. I don't have her number, I don't have her on Facebook, nothing.
I appreciate this sounds very strange, on my part, and that's what I'm wondering.
Why is it weird for someone to help a stranger out?
If I'd been travelling that late and with all that hassle ahead of me, and someone had randomly presented me with an upoened box of chocolate fingers, I'd be pleased. But I'd find it weird too.
I don't know, maybe I'm just a freak. But harmless. Honest.
Friday 15 April 2011
Sunday 10 April 2011
Chivalry and headlocks
I had a strange night on Friday.
I went to my friend B's birthday party. We met years ago, at one of the two summer schools for creative writing I went to. She's been great about keeping in touch since, and I am and always will be filled with admiration for her for that. (Even if she occasionally calls me or messages me somehow at inconvenient times.) She's infinitely better than me at initiating and maintaining contact. I have a lot to learn from her.
But that's beside the point. Because weird stuff happened.
And I'm not talking about the bouncy castle in the heavy metal club, though that was pretty weird too. That was fun.
I'm talking about my overprotective side, and chivalry, and the lines between feminism and misogyny, and the etiquette of helping someone.
So, here we go. Part One.
I'd met a couple of B's friends before, at other parties of hers, but she had a new beau (not a boyfriend, they're not quite attached enough for that, she tells me) and a lot of new workmates.
Her boy, A, I had been told in advance, is highly intelligent, well-travelled, well-liked, kind, thoughtful, generous, experienced (hem hem hem) and so on and so forth. Her friend K, I was told briefly, is not particularly liked by the rest of her (B's) friends and workmates, and can be loud and mildly annoying.
So I met them both, and A turned out to be a little bit handsome (I can still tell, you know :P) and quite the charmer. He reminded me a lot of my old co-editor from university, with whom I created one issue of a long-running poetry magazine. Both come across as very sure of themselves, full of funny and interesting stories, very charming, a little bit dashing, all that sort of thing.
K got lost on the way, and we found her by Forbidden Planet. A good place to get lost, I suggested, and promptly revealed that K is a geek. And a bit ditzy, but in a rather sweet, endearing way. At least for the mood I was in; it's entirely possible that if I worked with her for 8 hour shifts day after day she would wind me up. But I can't say, since I don't. I found her rather adorable. She was quick witted and funny, geeky, modest, and inventive - she borrowed B's dressy shoes for the night, which were a few sizes too big, so she tied them on with ribbon, and it looked very good indeed. She wasn't as knowledgeable as many of the others at the party, a lot of whom were older than us, but she would ask if she didn't understand something, and that's a trait I always admire.
So, at this point I liked them both.
K, by the way, is about 5 foot 3 and not exactly built like a tank, and A is 6 foot something or other, with broad shoulders and years of martial arts training.
As the evening went on, and we hung around at an apartment B had rented for the night, waiting for everyone to get together before we headed out, we discussed all sorts of things, and most of the girls teased A by letting slip B had told us some details of their relationship (ahemhemhem). He wanted to know what exactly, and focused on K for some reason, despite the fact that others had said they knew more.
For quite a while A was King of the Castle, holding court and entertaining us all with stories of his travels abroad and the like. We were all suitably impressed, and that and alcohol probably helped contribute to a little flare of self-importance that came across him as things went on. I've spoken to B about all this since, and she freely said, with no prompting, that he can be quite arrogant. She tries to call him on it when she can, and has told him since all this that arrogance really isn't attractive.
Anyway, later on, B left the room for a bit to sort makeup and similar, and I'd moved from my seat on a couch next to K. A told her to go and sit on the couch next to him so he could ask her about this stuff. She, with a laugh, refused, and turned to find me, calling me to sit next to her again so A couldn't.
I went to do so, also laughing, and A dived across to get there first. K swapped to the couch where he'd been, he followed, telling her to stop messing him around or he'd punch her in the face, she swapped back, he followed again, they both went back to A's original couch, K tried to get out the other side and run around the table, and A grabbed her.
He pulled her back, still both just struggling in that joking sort of way people do, and then somehow, instead of holding her arms, he put one arm around her neck and hauled her back onto the couch by the throat.
K, at this point, loses any trace of joking and laughter. She tells him, "Let go, you're hurting me. Get off," and tries to push his arm away and wriggle out.
A pulls her back harder.
So I squirm past the rest of the party, who have fallen a little bit quiet and are blinking at A in surprise, and I grab his arms to help K. I push his arm off her throat so she can breathe, I pull his other hand off her arm so she has room to move, and then he really puts his strength into it.
I focus on keeping his other hand off K, grabbing his wrist with one hand and hauling it away from everybody, and tell K to push his arm off and slide out.
A laughs at us, and mocks us. "It takes two of you to handle me. God, you have no upper body strength. You're so weak. If I wanted to -"
I raise my eyebrows, and my left hand, and show him my nails. "Do you really want me to try?" To prove my point, I dig the nails of my right hand into the wrist I'm holding, just a little.
"Wouldn't bother me," he says, clearly thinking that the nails in the wrist is all I mean. He has no imagination.
K gets out and dives into free space, and A twists the hand I'm holding to grab my wrist in return, pulling me off balance so it's either sit on the sofa arm or fall on top of him. Naturally I go for sofa arm. He grabs K's hairbrush, which has fallen out of her bag in all this, and taunts her with it. She asks for it back, he throws it to the other side of the room.
One of the other boys quietly picks it up and gives it back to her.
At this point A starts in on something K either said while I was out of the room or said at work, or whatever. I have no idea of the context and I don't know why it came up. He insists he never called her stupid, and starts trying to regain lost ground with the crowd, proclaiming he was insulting the education system, not K in particular.
After a few minutes, warily, we both let go of each other's wrist. He keeps on about what he meant when he said this that and the other, and how K's taking it all the wrong way.
I tell him, "I don't know about any of that. I missed the original comment, whatever it was. But the headlock was a bit much, okay?"
"I didn't have her in a headlock," he protests. "I had my arm across her neck, not her throat. She was fine. It was here, I'll show you."
"No thanks," I tell him, fending off his approach. "I could see where your arm was, and you were hurting her. She told you that."
"If I really wanted to put her in a headlock, I'll show you how," he says, and gets up and persuades one of the boys to let him demonstrate. He does a 'proper martial arts' hold, which I've seen before, and offers to teach me how to get out of similar and defend myself should a man attack me.
"I know," I tell him, with a sigh. "Believe me, I know."
Later, when we're out at the club, he pulls me aside and tells me K has wound him up lots before, and he wouldn't want me to think ill of him, and I seem lovely and he doesn't want that to be my first impression.
Honestly, guys. Blokes. Come on. If you don't want my first impression of you to be, "will offer violence to women at the drop of a hat", then DON'T DO SO. Telling me you had reasons to do it afterwards doesn't help.
To be fair, had A had another of the guys in a headlock and said guy was seriously outmatched and crying out, "Let go, you're hurting me," I'd have stepped in and helped him too. I just step in with a little more anger when it's a man throttling a woman.
This is why I do pressups. You'd be amazed how often I need to use force in situations like that. Particularly when I'm the only sober one around.
I'd like to think that A only did this because he truly regards women as equals, and it doesn't occur to him that he shouldn't treat us in the same a-fight-will-solve-it-all way as some groups of men treat each other. But it really didn't look like that. It looked like he knew fine well he had the weight and strength advantage, and was going to use that to get what he wanted.
And that's the bully mentality, and I do not like it, for so many reasons.
Here endeth part one, otherwise the post will be far too long. :)
I went to my friend B's birthday party. We met years ago, at one of the two summer schools for creative writing I went to. She's been great about keeping in touch since, and I am and always will be filled with admiration for her for that. (Even if she occasionally calls me or messages me somehow at inconvenient times.) She's infinitely better than me at initiating and maintaining contact. I have a lot to learn from her.
But that's beside the point. Because weird stuff happened.
And I'm not talking about the bouncy castle in the heavy metal club, though that was pretty weird too. That was fun.
I'm talking about my overprotective side, and chivalry, and the lines between feminism and misogyny, and the etiquette of helping someone.
So, here we go. Part One.
I'd met a couple of B's friends before, at other parties of hers, but she had a new beau (not a boyfriend, they're not quite attached enough for that, she tells me) and a lot of new workmates.
Her boy, A, I had been told in advance, is highly intelligent, well-travelled, well-liked, kind, thoughtful, generous, experienced (hem hem hem) and so on and so forth. Her friend K, I was told briefly, is not particularly liked by the rest of her (B's) friends and workmates, and can be loud and mildly annoying.
So I met them both, and A turned out to be a little bit handsome (I can still tell, you know :P) and quite the charmer. He reminded me a lot of my old co-editor from university, with whom I created one issue of a long-running poetry magazine. Both come across as very sure of themselves, full of funny and interesting stories, very charming, a little bit dashing, all that sort of thing.
K got lost on the way, and we found her by Forbidden Planet. A good place to get lost, I suggested, and promptly revealed that K is a geek. And a bit ditzy, but in a rather sweet, endearing way. At least for the mood I was in; it's entirely possible that if I worked with her for 8 hour shifts day after day she would wind me up. But I can't say, since I don't. I found her rather adorable. She was quick witted and funny, geeky, modest, and inventive - she borrowed B's dressy shoes for the night, which were a few sizes too big, so she tied them on with ribbon, and it looked very good indeed. She wasn't as knowledgeable as many of the others at the party, a lot of whom were older than us, but she would ask if she didn't understand something, and that's a trait I always admire.
So, at this point I liked them both.
K, by the way, is about 5 foot 3 and not exactly built like a tank, and A is 6 foot something or other, with broad shoulders and years of martial arts training.
As the evening went on, and we hung around at an apartment B had rented for the night, waiting for everyone to get together before we headed out, we discussed all sorts of things, and most of the girls teased A by letting slip B had told us some details of their relationship (ahemhemhem). He wanted to know what exactly, and focused on K for some reason, despite the fact that others had said they knew more.
For quite a while A was King of the Castle, holding court and entertaining us all with stories of his travels abroad and the like. We were all suitably impressed, and that and alcohol probably helped contribute to a little flare of self-importance that came across him as things went on. I've spoken to B about all this since, and she freely said, with no prompting, that he can be quite arrogant. She tries to call him on it when she can, and has told him since all this that arrogance really isn't attractive.
Anyway, later on, B left the room for a bit to sort makeup and similar, and I'd moved from my seat on a couch next to K. A told her to go and sit on the couch next to him so he could ask her about this stuff. She, with a laugh, refused, and turned to find me, calling me to sit next to her again so A couldn't.
I went to do so, also laughing, and A dived across to get there first. K swapped to the couch where he'd been, he followed, telling her to stop messing him around or he'd punch her in the face, she swapped back, he followed again, they both went back to A's original couch, K tried to get out the other side and run around the table, and A grabbed her.
He pulled her back, still both just struggling in that joking sort of way people do, and then somehow, instead of holding her arms, he put one arm around her neck and hauled her back onto the couch by the throat.
K, at this point, loses any trace of joking and laughter. She tells him, "Let go, you're hurting me. Get off," and tries to push his arm away and wriggle out.
A pulls her back harder.
So I squirm past the rest of the party, who have fallen a little bit quiet and are blinking at A in surprise, and I grab his arms to help K. I push his arm off her throat so she can breathe, I pull his other hand off her arm so she has room to move, and then he really puts his strength into it.
I focus on keeping his other hand off K, grabbing his wrist with one hand and hauling it away from everybody, and tell K to push his arm off and slide out.
A laughs at us, and mocks us. "It takes two of you to handle me. God, you have no upper body strength. You're so weak. If I wanted to -"
I raise my eyebrows, and my left hand, and show him my nails. "Do you really want me to try?" To prove my point, I dig the nails of my right hand into the wrist I'm holding, just a little.
"Wouldn't bother me," he says, clearly thinking that the nails in the wrist is all I mean. He has no imagination.
K gets out and dives into free space, and A twists the hand I'm holding to grab my wrist in return, pulling me off balance so it's either sit on the sofa arm or fall on top of him. Naturally I go for sofa arm. He grabs K's hairbrush, which has fallen out of her bag in all this, and taunts her with it. She asks for it back, he throws it to the other side of the room.
One of the other boys quietly picks it up and gives it back to her.
At this point A starts in on something K either said while I was out of the room or said at work, or whatever. I have no idea of the context and I don't know why it came up. He insists he never called her stupid, and starts trying to regain lost ground with the crowd, proclaiming he was insulting the education system, not K in particular.
After a few minutes, warily, we both let go of each other's wrist. He keeps on about what he meant when he said this that and the other, and how K's taking it all the wrong way.
I tell him, "I don't know about any of that. I missed the original comment, whatever it was. But the headlock was a bit much, okay?"
"I didn't have her in a headlock," he protests. "I had my arm across her neck, not her throat. She was fine. It was here, I'll show you."
"No thanks," I tell him, fending off his approach. "I could see where your arm was, and you were hurting her. She told you that."
"If I really wanted to put her in a headlock, I'll show you how," he says, and gets up and persuades one of the boys to let him demonstrate. He does a 'proper martial arts' hold, which I've seen before, and offers to teach me how to get out of similar and defend myself should a man attack me.
"I know," I tell him, with a sigh. "Believe me, I know."
Later, when we're out at the club, he pulls me aside and tells me K has wound him up lots before, and he wouldn't want me to think ill of him, and I seem lovely and he doesn't want that to be my first impression.
Honestly, guys. Blokes. Come on. If you don't want my first impression of you to be, "will offer violence to women at the drop of a hat", then DON'T DO SO. Telling me you had reasons to do it afterwards doesn't help.
To be fair, had A had another of the guys in a headlock and said guy was seriously outmatched and crying out, "Let go, you're hurting me," I'd have stepped in and helped him too. I just step in with a little more anger when it's a man throttling a woman.
This is why I do pressups. You'd be amazed how often I need to use force in situations like that. Particularly when I'm the only sober one around.
I'd like to think that A only did this because he truly regards women as equals, and it doesn't occur to him that he shouldn't treat us in the same a-fight-will-solve-it-all way as some groups of men treat each other. But it really didn't look like that. It looked like he knew fine well he had the weight and strength advantage, and was going to use that to get what he wanted.
And that's the bully mentality, and I do not like it, for so many reasons.
Here endeth part one, otherwise the post will be far too long. :)
Gender battles
I discuss a lot of things with my male friend M. On occasion, he'll give me a beautiful demonstration of male privilege and unconscious patriarchal thinking.
Once upon a time, we were discussing fights, wrestling, strength - all that sort of thing. He, like many, many men before and since, was mocking me for lack of upper body strength and proclaiming how easy it would be to pin my arms, with his epic martial arts skillz and similar. (Which, gentlemen, is something any girl wants to hear. Tell your lady friends you can easily overpower them and render them helpless! They'll love it! Because everyone loves being powerless and at your mercy!) As usual, I rolled my eyes, and said something along the lines of, "Yes, if we're only playing with arms. But if it comes to it, knee, meet groin, and there's only one winner."
I met with disgusted horror, and was told in no uncertain terms that this was a terrible thing to say and a dreadful, unthinkable thing to do. Apparently this is cheating and is in no circumstances permitted.
My open-mouthed response was something akin to, "Dude, seriously, I was talking about a rape attack."
My friend M, who I am sure would never want me to be sexually assaulted, only got more angry at this. And proceeded to tell me five other things one should do to your potential rapist before you kick him in the balls, because that's still a lowdown dirty move. (The implications that maintaining your honour in combat is more important than preventing... shall we say the loss of other honour, for the sake of symmetry... is more than a little worrying.)
And there the conversation ended, because I was far too stunned to come up with a coherent response.
But you know what? Should a guy ever attack me and try to rape me, I will follow my friend M's advice, and gouge his eyes out.
WHILE I kick him in the nuts.
Once upon a time, we were discussing fights, wrestling, strength - all that sort of thing. He, like many, many men before and since, was mocking me for lack of upper body strength and proclaiming how easy it would be to pin my arms, with his epic martial arts skillz and similar. (Which, gentlemen, is something any girl wants to hear. Tell your lady friends you can easily overpower them and render them helpless! They'll love it! Because everyone loves being powerless and at your mercy!) As usual, I rolled my eyes, and said something along the lines of, "Yes, if we're only playing with arms. But if it comes to it, knee, meet groin, and there's only one winner."
I met with disgusted horror, and was told in no uncertain terms that this was a terrible thing to say and a dreadful, unthinkable thing to do. Apparently this is cheating and is in no circumstances permitted.
My open-mouthed response was something akin to, "Dude, seriously, I was talking about a rape attack."
My friend M, who I am sure would never want me to be sexually assaulted, only got more angry at this. And proceeded to tell me five other things one should do to your potential rapist before you kick him in the balls, because that's still a lowdown dirty move. (The implications that maintaining your honour in combat is more important than preventing... shall we say the loss of other honour, for the sake of symmetry... is more than a little worrying.)
And there the conversation ended, because I was far too stunned to come up with a coherent response.
But you know what? Should a guy ever attack me and try to rape me, I will follow my friend M's advice, and gouge his eyes out.
WHILE I kick him in the nuts.
Monday 28 March 2011
Please don't call me that.
I'm not a lesbian.
I've been thinking about this a lot, recently, and I've worked out quite a lot of reasons why.
Let me introduce you to some fictional people.
This is Taylor.
Taylor is straight.
Taylor is white.
Taylor is English.
Taylor is dark-haired.
Taylor is a Christian.
Taylor is a teacher.
This is Bob.
Bob is gay.
Bob is white.
Bob is English.
Bob is dark-haired.
Bob is a Christian.
Bob is a teacher.
This is Alex.
Alex is bisexual.
Alex is white.
Alex is English.
Alex is dark-haired.
Alex is a Christian.
Alex is a teacher.
This is Lucy.
Lucy is a lesbian.
Lucy is white.
Lucy is English.
Lucy is dark-haired.
Lucy is a Christian.
Lucy is a teacher.
Did you see it?
If not, try this: He's straight, she's straight, he's bisexual, she's bisexual, he's gay, she's A lesbian.
For some reason, generally speaking (I have heard people say, "he's a gay" or "s/he's a bisexual", but not frequently - though "bisexuals" is the more common plural, to be fair) everybody else gets their orientation referred to as if it's just another part of the description, something that just-so-happens-to-be, like skin colour, nationality etc etc etc.
But when it comes to gay women, suddenly She is A lesbian. Like she is A Christian, or A teacher. There's so much wrong I can read into that. Are you saying it's a choice? It's a temporary, controllable thing? I get days off? Or that it defines my current state of being more than my nationality? Does it change who I am?
I've heard people say, "Oh, before she became a lesbian..."
Now, maybe it's just me, but if someone tries to say, "Oh, before he became gay..." it just sounds ludicrous. And people tend to laugh at it, because most people these days (at least where I'm at) are used to the concept of your orientation not being a choice, but with you from birth. But the lesbian version? People nod sagely and carry on. Apparently you realise you're gay, but you become a lesbian.
It's description versus label. And I don't like the label.
Let's try some little reasons, too:
Say "lesbian". Put as much hatred, bile and vitriol into it as you can. Hiss that s, spit the b, drag it out and curl your lip in disgust.
Now say, "gay". Try and do the same. The most you can do is drawl the a, right?
For that alone, I dislike the word lesbian. I've been called it, with the hiss and the spit and the curled lip.
And how about this:
Gay. Try and shorten this. Belittle the imaginary person you're talking to. Take it out on Bob, who's just told you, "I'm gay." What can you say? And going for, "Oh, you're a gay?" doesn't count, by the way, because you extended it by adding another word, and just made my point about "a lesbian" as opposed to all the others.
Lesbian. Try this one instead. Belittle poor Lucy, who's also just told you, "I'm gay." What do you say, "Urgh, you're a lesbo?" Or, "Ugh, you lezza." Or, "Oh, gross, you're a lezzie."
For. Example. (Yes, I've had all of these. Among others. From strangers, acquaintances, and family.)
And then there's just the plain and simple little one I skirted by earlier.
How come gay women have a different word, when nobody else does?
Straight men and women, bisexual men and women, gay men, and lesbians.
Seriously, what?
Why?
Edit to add: I got an email today about the whole Apple removing the Gay Cure app thing. These are two consecutive sentences, bold is mine:
"After more than 150,000 petition signatures from Change.org members and saturation media coverage, news outlets worldwide are reporting that Apple has pulled an iPhone application launched by Exodus International that claimed to help "cure" gay and lesbian people.
This is a huge, public victory against the dangerous myth that gay young people can and should be "turned straight"."
I find this somewhat bizarre. It's like, "Oh, we can't just say gay, because that excludes women. Never mind the rest of the queer spectrum, but we'll add lesbians, that'll help" closely followed by, "You know what? We've clarified we mean both guys and girls at one particular end of the sexuality spectrum, gay'll do just fine on its own now."
I mean, make up your minds... Personally, as per the rest of this post, I kind of think the first one should be "gay and bisexual people" perhaps... Since it specifies people, rather than one gender or another.
I don't know. Right now, I can't work out how to say quite what I mean. I'm just hyper-aware of LGBT phraseology as it crosses my path at the moment, and I needed to stick this one somewhere to check back on when my brain is functioning better.
Also: Just filled in a form that required gender early on, then Sexual Orientation later. Your options are:
Heterosexual/Straight
Gay Man
Bisexual
Lesbian
WAIT WHAT?
So the question of "Attracted to Same Sex/Attracted to Opposite Sex/Attracted to Both Sexes" needs four answers?
Gender was clarified earlier, remember. So why do we need to separate homosexual orientation by men/women?
This makes me angry. Please explain why this is necessary?
Let the original post resume!
I've been trying to think of how things would work if the word lesbian just disappeared into the ether. Currently, all I can see is a lot of porn titles with a blank space, and "Lesbian Vampire Killers" having to be retitled. And let's face it, when "lesbian" is used in that context, who's it for? Who's it meant to titillate and draw in?
It's not me, is it.
Now I know, this is a... small issue, particularly in comparison to everything else going on in the LGBT community (there it is again, lurking...) at the moment, let alone the rest of the world.
And I know some lovely gay women who are perfectly at ease with the word lesbian.
But it's been winding me up for ages, and every time I hear it, it's getting so that all I can hear is every hiss-and-spit and every shortened slur.
Which is a shame, because even my friends have called me it at points (and I know you love me and would never, ever use the vitriolic versions, and didn't even know it makes me flinch. I'm not angry, I'm just clarifying my stance on it).
"Lesbian wife" is the only funny one I've had, from H, my male friend and flatmate, and I can understand that you wouldn't want to say "gay wife" in case people think it's a vaguely homophobic take on effeminate gay men. Which is a shame. And partly my point.
Anyway, the short version is:
I'm not a lesbian. And though I'm still not 100% sure of my placement on that lovely sliding scale of sexuality, I'm around 85% sure, so I can say this instead:
I'm a gay woman.
Please call me that.
I've been thinking about this a lot, recently, and I've worked out quite a lot of reasons why.
Let me introduce you to some fictional people.
This is Taylor.
Taylor is straight.
Taylor is white.
Taylor is English.
Taylor is dark-haired.
Taylor is a Christian.
Taylor is a teacher.
This is Bob.
Bob is gay.
Bob is white.
Bob is English.
Bob is dark-haired.
Bob is a Christian.
Bob is a teacher.
This is Alex.
Alex is bisexual.
Alex is white.
Alex is English.
Alex is dark-haired.
Alex is a Christian.
Alex is a teacher.
This is Lucy.
Lucy is a lesbian.
Lucy is white.
Lucy is English.
Lucy is dark-haired.
Lucy is a Christian.
Lucy is a teacher.
Did you see it?
If not, try this: He's straight, she's straight, he's bisexual, she's bisexual, he's gay, she's A lesbian.
For some reason, generally speaking (I have heard people say, "he's a gay" or "s/he's a bisexual", but not frequently - though "bisexuals" is the more common plural, to be fair) everybody else gets their orientation referred to as if it's just another part of the description, something that just-so-happens-to-be, like skin colour, nationality etc etc etc.
But when it comes to gay women, suddenly She is A lesbian. Like she is A Christian, or A teacher. There's so much wrong I can read into that. Are you saying it's a choice? It's a temporary, controllable thing? I get days off? Or that it defines my current state of being more than my nationality? Does it change who I am?
I've heard people say, "Oh, before she became a lesbian..."
Now, maybe it's just me, but if someone tries to say, "Oh, before he became gay..." it just sounds ludicrous. And people tend to laugh at it, because most people these days (at least where I'm at) are used to the concept of your orientation not being a choice, but with you from birth. But the lesbian version? People nod sagely and carry on. Apparently you realise you're gay, but you become a lesbian.
It's description versus label. And I don't like the label.
Let's try some little reasons, too:
Say "lesbian". Put as much hatred, bile and vitriol into it as you can. Hiss that s, spit the b, drag it out and curl your lip in disgust.
Now say, "gay". Try and do the same. The most you can do is drawl the a, right?
For that alone, I dislike the word lesbian. I've been called it, with the hiss and the spit and the curled lip.
And how about this:
Gay. Try and shorten this. Belittle the imaginary person you're talking to. Take it out on Bob, who's just told you, "I'm gay." What can you say? And going for, "Oh, you're a gay?" doesn't count, by the way, because you extended it by adding another word, and just made my point about "a lesbian" as opposed to all the others.
Lesbian. Try this one instead. Belittle poor Lucy, who's also just told you, "I'm gay." What do you say, "Urgh, you're a lesbo?" Or, "Ugh, you lezza." Or, "Oh, gross, you're a lezzie."
For. Example. (Yes, I've had all of these. Among others. From strangers, acquaintances, and family.)
And then there's just the plain and simple little one I skirted by earlier.
How come gay women have a different word, when nobody else does?
Straight men and women, bisexual men and women, gay men, and lesbians.
Seriously, what?
Why?
Edit to add: I got an email today about the whole Apple removing the Gay Cure app thing. These are two consecutive sentences, bold is mine:
"After more than 150,000 petition signatures from Change.org members and saturation media coverage, news outlets worldwide are reporting that Apple has pulled an iPhone application launched by Exodus International that claimed to help "cure" gay and lesbian people.
This is a huge, public victory against the dangerous myth that gay young people can and should be "turned straight"."
I find this somewhat bizarre. It's like, "Oh, we can't just say gay, because that excludes women. Never mind the rest of the queer spectrum, but we'll add lesbians, that'll help" closely followed by, "You know what? We've clarified we mean both guys and girls at one particular end of the sexuality spectrum, gay'll do just fine on its own now."
I mean, make up your minds... Personally, as per the rest of this post, I kind of think the first one should be "gay and bisexual people" perhaps... Since it specifies people, rather than one gender or another.
I don't know. Right now, I can't work out how to say quite what I mean. I'm just hyper-aware of LGBT phraseology as it crosses my path at the moment, and I needed to stick this one somewhere to check back on when my brain is functioning better.
Also: Just filled in a form that required gender early on, then Sexual Orientation later. Your options are:
Heterosexual/Straight
Gay Man
Bisexual
Lesbian
WAIT WHAT?
So the question of "Attracted to Same Sex/Attracted to Opposite Sex/Attracted to Both Sexes" needs four answers?
Gender was clarified earlier, remember. So why do we need to separate homosexual orientation by men/women?
This makes me angry. Please explain why this is necessary?
Let the original post resume!
I've been trying to think of how things would work if the word lesbian just disappeared into the ether. Currently, all I can see is a lot of porn titles with a blank space, and "Lesbian Vampire Killers" having to be retitled. And let's face it, when "lesbian" is used in that context, who's it for? Who's it meant to titillate and draw in?
It's not me, is it.
Now I know, this is a... small issue, particularly in comparison to everything else going on in the LGBT community (there it is again, lurking...) at the moment, let alone the rest of the world.
And I know some lovely gay women who are perfectly at ease with the word lesbian.
But it's been winding me up for ages, and every time I hear it, it's getting so that all I can hear is every hiss-and-spit and every shortened slur.
Which is a shame, because even my friends have called me it at points (and I know you love me and would never, ever use the vitriolic versions, and didn't even know it makes me flinch. I'm not angry, I'm just clarifying my stance on it).
"Lesbian wife" is the only funny one I've had, from H, my male friend and flatmate, and I can understand that you wouldn't want to say "gay wife" in case people think it's a vaguely homophobic take on effeminate gay men. Which is a shame. And partly my point.
Anyway, the short version is:
I'm not a lesbian. And though I'm still not 100% sure of my placement on that lovely sliding scale of sexuality, I'm around 85% sure, so I can say this instead:
I'm a gay woman.
Please call me that.
Sunday 27 March 2011
This is me.
I'm Lali, online - and to quite a few people in reality, which is fine with me. The essential facts about me are as follows: I'm a young English woman, who's rather keen on the whole author lark, more than a little bit geeky, and currently unemployed and thus with far too much time on her hands.
Oh, and I'm also gay.
Hence the blog title.
I also hate injustice and have a tendency to spot unfairness and rail about it. There will likely be a lot of small, random posts here about little, everyday incidents that have wound me up or shown up something new and skeevy that I haven't noticed before and need to explore in words.
Comments are welcomed and encouraged, as are sensible, reasonable debates.
Let's see how this blog thing goes along, shall we?
Oh, and I'm also gay.
Hence the blog title.
I also hate injustice and have a tendency to spot unfairness and rail about it. There will likely be a lot of small, random posts here about little, everyday incidents that have wound me up or shown up something new and skeevy that I haven't noticed before and need to explore in words.
Comments are welcomed and encouraged, as are sensible, reasonable debates.
Let's see how this blog thing goes along, shall we?
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