ThreeWay: The Plight of the Straight Lesbian

Good lord. You could protect all the corn in Iowa with all the strawmen strewn through the comments in this blog.

Nowhere in the original blog did anyone say that lesbians should not have straight friends. I saw nothing in the original blog that sounded as though the writers thought they were "superior." In fact, multiple times they stepped back and looked at the situation from other perspectives. For example:

K.L.: I know. But we're all at fault too. Sometimes I think that because we're all so butch/ femme, we tend to think that we're not a part of the whole Melissa Etheridge/hairy armpit/same outfit-wearing culture. But let's face it, we are. It's internalized homophobia.

Nowhere did Grace say anyone must "base the worth of a person or the things they do or create solely on whether or not they are a lesbian."

If people don't believe there's such as thing as lesbian or dyke culture then why come to this site? You come to this site because you get access to information about our politics, our references, our artists (musicians and fine artists, designers etc), our writers, our topics, our sexuality, our economics, our discussions, our points of agreement AND disagreement* that you don't get anywhere else.

*Grace's definition of our culture.

to the couple i would say.. try living in alabama.  and maybe then u will truely appreciate lesbian culture and especially community.  when you live in nyc i guess its easy to say that doing "straight" stuff is more enjoyable because you know good ol' hen's is just down the street whenever you need a pick-me-up. 

Maybe this is just one of those conversations that doesn't work as well without body language, voice tone, and the ability to clarify in real time.

I will say that when I read it I found the angry tone disturbing. When I reread it I realized that the "angry lesbian" angle was there right off the bat. I will admit, that phrase tends to rankle me, so that is probably where my hairs started to raise. In a personal conversation, I would have stayed more open and engaged. But as I read the angry, seemingly judgmental words that followed, the feeling grew.

In the end, I hesitated to trust the initial evaluation of the person who met these individuals. Had her willingness to be the "angry lesbian" kept her from asking non-confrontational clarifying questions? Had she too soon leaped to the conclusion that these individuals were self-loathing? Would a more open attitude on her part have led their responses in a different direction?

I don't profess to know. No one in the room for the discussion asked the questions that I would have asked, perhaps because they had all of the nonverbals that we do not have here. I don't know if the actual tone was a bantering diss of the self-loather met at the bar, or an angry judgmental response to the self-loather met at the bar. But really, I don't take the whole self-loather angle as a given.

I have met people who have always been comfortable in their own sexuality and I truly believe never stopped to question or expected anyone to care. As a group, they tend to be less interested in a segregated community; less in need of its support. I know one such queer identified woman who has been fortunate enough not to be disillusioned, yet. She doesn't hang with me because I am queer. What we share is a love of tactile art. We don't discuss queer politics. I knew her for three years before I met her long distance girlfriend. I always knew she was a cool and open individual, but until that day didn't know she was queer. Everyone at her work knew because GF had come to the company holiday party first year in. I didn't know because she just happens to be queer. And yes, if you asked her about lesbian bars, she would probably tell you that she found them silly and limiting, but hey, if it works for you, enjoy it.

So, maybe this angry lesbian at the bar is a repressed, self-loathing lesbian. Or maybe one attitude begot another.