Thoughts from a Dressing Room

So this here's the thing:

I forgot to mention during my presentation that one example of heterosexism is the fact that glamour mags don't print articles on how to please your female lover, only "your guy." I think my point was gonna be that there *are* fashion-conscious lesbians out there who would like to get their fashion, celebrity smut and sex advice all in one place.

Why should we have to buy *special* magazines like Curve to get our sex advice (more on Lesbian Bed Death later) when all those magazines I read at the hair salon could just as easily in put ONE lesbian article per mag (or even just an answer in the relationship Q&As now and then) and make me a happy customer there in the salon?

'Cause it's not like the salon carries lesbian magazines.

And do not tell me, "Then, UCM, you should go to lesbian salons to get your hair done."

Because, as most of us can observe from looking at your typical lesbian hair style, that is NOT an option. OK, I'm sure in SF, there are lesbian salons (or lesbian-owned salons where lots of men get their hair done) that cater to your fashion-conscious lesbian. But I'm talking HERE. Where the hair runs shag-shaggier, and the mullets are not so soft.

(It's important to note that while I am a fashion-conscious lesbian, I'm not especially fashion-responsive. I look, I like, but I don't ... do. This has more to do with the size of my body and the size of my budget -- and some strange desire (that's falling by the wayside) to just kinda *blend in* -- than it has anything to do with my lez-bionic genetics. If I had my druthers, I'd dress like Diane Keaton, some kind of mix of sensible, sexy and ... uh, how shall we say it? ... very, very independent. But this not being my situation, I am currently wearing The Lesbian Uniform: cargo shorts, a Pride t-shirt from several years ago, and ... let's not talk about my shoes.)

Anyway, I was just thinking today -- when I was trying on a new pair of cargo shorts with this one top that, when I put it on, I said: OH YEAH, now that's *hot,* baby! but didn't buy it 'cause it's out of season -- that I'd forgotten to put that bit in my presentation last night.

This would be the presentation titled, "Social Invalidation of Same-Sex Relationships." Although it was way too long, it was actually pretty darn good -- if used as part of a weekend workshop or, in the Debutante's mind, a two-credit class.

For a straight girl, The Debutante seem particularly touched by her participation in the development of this mental health intervention, which it was also her idea to create. It strikes me that she may have been on a steeper learning curve about gay culture and the gay experience than I knew.

Tiger-Woods on the other hand ... she taught *me* a thing or two about the lesbian experience. Not that she's got any first-hand knowledge of it. She just told some stories about her lesbian friends that gave old UCM's heart the warm fuzzies. I don't think I've ever seen a straight person embrace the Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name quite so romantically, to spin a yarn about a really interesting lesbian wedding quite so enthusiastically, nor to express so poetically the belief that two women can love each other just as deeply (if not more so) as a man and woman.

In fact, Tiger-Woods' presentation on "fusion" in lesbian relationships was very interesting to me, because she attacked the pathologizing of that experience as both sexist and culturally biased. "Women have different ways of relating," she said. "So do different cultures. In the American individualistic perspective, I am fused with my family. Latinos have different family relationships."

She threw up a PP slide with this comment: “One person's 'fusion' can be seen as another’s intimacy, and judgments about what is 'too much' or 'not enough' closeness are fraught with personal bias."

And she talked at great length about how Lesbian Bed Death is both mythological and a misnomer, as "sex" seems to have been poorly and inconsistently defined in research. I found this part of her presentation enlightening. It took me back to a discussion I was having with Bubba a couple months ago in which it became obvious that she and I have wildly different definitions of "sex."

Anyway, Tiger-Woods and The Debutante both taught me a thing or two about lesbians. And I apparently taught them in return, so I guess it all worked out swimmingly.

The down side is that there are a few people in the class who needed a substantial education, and there's just no way that our presentation got through their heads.

One of them -- the 50-something white male mentioned in a previous blog entry -- actually engaged in, as Dr. M said once, "what in improv they call blocking." (God save me if I didn't quote her right....) He tried to stymie our role play, refusing to take a question seriously and standing in the way of progress. Never fear, your UCM pressed the question, because I don't put up with shit like that.

But whatever. The thing's done. The Deb, Tiger-Woods and I did our best, and we had some sweet and curious and yummy experiences across the way. And we enjoyed playing a little with the shock factor. The other night in class, it raised a few eyebrows when Tiger-Woods said to me, across the room, "I am not a expert on this lesbian stuff, right?" To which I replied, I'd say you became one when we had sex last weekend. (What can I say? I'm *always* playing to the young, naive Mormons in the room.)

But damn was that all anti-climatic! We worked our butts off, and gave this rather thorough, well-researched (and perhaps a tad boring, in the finest academic tradition) presentation, and then ... it was over.

So we had beer afterward.

The night ended with me telling S2 that I am unfit to be a counselor. Because even though I might be far enough in my development to be more racially and cuturally sensitive than that bozo in our class, I am lagging way behind in fair and decent resolutions of certain Ericksonian conflicts I should've crossed off the list a long time ago. (Not that you're ever really done, but still....)

But that's a discussion for another time. S2 argued that I've probably been learning some stuff in reverse -- that I learned at 5 what I should've learned at 30 and vice versa. Everyone needs a friend like S2. Pied Piper or not, her version of the story sounds good to me.

So I'm gonna stay in grad school. Not like I was actually thinking of quitting. And I'm gonna keep advocating for gay rights in my own little way.

Although many of my friends would expect me to be hard on the bandwagon for gay marriage (given that whole damn presentation and all), what I'd actually like most right now is either some serious glamour in the lesbian magazines, some lesbians in the glamour magazines or some glamourous lesbians in the serious magazines.

Is that too much to ask? Or has someone written a Constitutional Amendment to keep that from happening, too?