Much Ado About Having Sex With Lesbians

It’s been a big week for homosexual-related first person narratives in liberal-and-feminist-but-mostly-heterosexual publications!

Our first piece comes to us via xojane, the women’s website headed up by Jane Pratt (my hero)

(I’m serious) of Sassy and Jane. Entitled “I’m a Lesbian Pillow Princess,” this piece is part of the “It Happened to Me” feature which also existed at JANE magazine and consists largely of writer/reader-submitted accounts of subjectively fascinating personal experiences.

The anonymous author of this piece, who I’ll call “Ariel,” is actually bisexual, but because she readily provides blow jobs to her male partners but doesn’t date or often go down on women, she is, she explains, technically, only a “Lesbian Pillow Princess.” (She also refers to herself as “mostly straight” and “straight” at other points in the narrative.) Her reputation began, she explains, when her first lesbian hookup — a smokin’ hot dyke named Kelly at her college — went down on her for an hour. She la-la-la-loved it and then immediately fled the scene fearing her own inability to perform such fantastic cunnilingus upon Kelly for such an extended period of time.

She writes:

“Needless to say, word got around that she and I had hooked up and that I’d left her hanging, which had the odd effect of giving me folk-heroine status. Kelly called me a “pillow princess,” and henceforth, I was one. It was like some sort of movie conceit where the hero is mistaken for a celebrity and gets to ride in a limo and stay in a fancy hotel because of it.”

This apparently totally worked out in her favor, as she romped about in college hooking up with lots of “aggressive types who got off on the idea that I was reluctant to let a girl touch me.” Post-college, she moved on to the internet, where she advertised her relaxed status and often met up with girls for NSA sex.

Near the end she problematically explains that when hooking up with a woman she’s not attracted to, she simply closes her eyes and envisions someone else “while [the lesbian] does her thing.” Sometimes it seems like she wants women to eat her out just because they’re allegedly better at it than men are. She could go down on them but “I’m not dating them, and I don’t think I would want to have my fetish corrupted by caring for somebody enough to give back.”

I wouldn’t want to sit next to Ariel on an airplane, but her one-sided sexual encounters are consensual and she’s just telling a true story of her life, so I’m not really sure what to make of this (and I’m interested to know what you make of it, if anything).

Then, on Jezebel (via The Good Men Project) we have I Married a Lesbian (And I’m a Guy). The author, Hugo Schwyzer, “tended to get crushes on the same type of girl: the star basketball player, the soccer forward, the swimmer. Some were lesbians. Some weren’t.” He wondered:

What is it that drew me so often to women who were same-sex attracted? It certainly wasn’t the stereotypical male fantasy about what they were doing in bed, and it certainly had nothing to do with a macho belief that I could turn a gay woman straight.

In parts, the piece (which does tred on some stereotypical ground) reminded me of this quote from The Girls Next Door, which I quoted in an article about female masculinity:

“…if we had to make one other generalization about lesbian taste, it would be that a lot of us are powerfully attracted to women, gay or straight, beautiful or not, who look as if they can take care of themselves.”

The author eventually marries a lesbian who presented as straight, and he found their ensuing sex life to be unsatisfactory. She refused to give him blow jobs and didn’t really like penetration but happily accepted his offerings of cunnilingus. When their sexless marriage ended in divorce and a drug relapse (for him), he is seemingly compassionate to his ex-wife’s struggle rather than labeling her as deceptive (as many of the commenters do):

 She had come from a conservative family who would have been deeply embarrassed to have a gay child. She may always have known, but did her best to hide it, perhaps hoping that her feelings might change. Or she might have been like more than a few women I’ve known, and only discovered her true sexual identity after already being married to a man.

What’s redeeming about this essay to me that the writer’s conception of his own gender is mostly free of the traditional masculine posturing one might expect in a piece like this (he even refers to himself as “femmy”). Maybe it just seems that way because men so rarely write about wanting strong, athletic, powerful women with short hair; but it’s refreshing nonetheless.

I don’t fault Hugo or Ariel for telling their stories, but it’s worth mentioning that both narratives seem to ride on the idea that bedroom behavior is the ultimate/only litmus test of sexuality. Hugo and Courtney enjoy each other’s company, but Hugo cites Courtney’s disinterest in penetration as a “warning sign” he missed, when penetration is hardly an exclusively heterosexual act (it seems more likely Courtney feared the intimacy of penetration with a man she didn’t truly want to be with, but really who knows) and falling in love, ultimately, is about your vagina but it’s also about your heart and it’s mostly about having romantic feelings. Those romantic feelings are what turns a hook-up relationship into a relationship, after all.

Finally at nerve.com we have a sweet story straight from the horse’s mouth — My First Time: Female. 17. San Francisco. I think this is the first time the “First Time” series has featured a lesbian.

Basically, in ninth grade, the author confessed to her best friend that she had lesbian feelings for her, and her best friend reciprocated, and they proceeded to carry on a covert lesbian relationship and they are still together now and she is a grown-up in the military! It seems they’ve yet to take their relationship out of the closet, which is a bit puzzling, but whatever. [ETA: Turns out this story was written before DADT was repealed, even though it just got published, therefore there is nothing puzzling happening here. This is just straight-up sweet in every way, unequivocally.]

The focus of the piece (which is very cute and sweet) is on the author’s discovery of what lesbian sex IS:

 We had never gone down on each other, and I was pretty sure that’s what we’d meant when we said we wanted to have sex. (Now I realize that there’s more to fucking than licking a girl’s vagina and calling it a day.)

 She concludes:

I know that a lot of people disagree about what virginity means to a gay woman, but virginity is totally subjective, and it really depends on who you’re asking. Some people might say penetration has to be involved, but I think it’s up to the person losing his or her virginity. If I feel like I’ve lost my virginity, then goddammit, I have!

I’ve spent most of the morning and afternoon staring at wordpress, trying to figure out what point I could make about any of these pieces. I thought a lot about why we’d never publish “I Was a Lesbian Pillow Princess” on this website but can’t get past the explanation that I’d fear 50 of you would vow to never return here and the remaning many-thousands of you would fight with each other about bisexual erasure/lesbian erasure until the heat death of the universe. I pictured someone submitting “I Was a Lesbian Pillow Princess” to us via email and then I imagined the editorial meeting where we’d get to that story and all say “NO” at the same time.

In searching for a point to gleam from these stories, I’ve tried to figure out what you would think or say, and I can’t, and I want to finish this post as soon as possible to speed up the process of me finding out what you think about these stories. Yup, for the first time ever since beginning Autostraddle, I’ve got no idea what to say about a thing. So maybe I should just ask you — what’s your reaction to these pieces?

Krisily Kennedy Bisexual: Star of World’s Straightest Reality TV Show Comes Out

I’m gonna just take a wild guess here: you’ve got no idea who Krisily Kennedy is.

Well, I’ll tell you: In 2005, Kennedy made it to the final two on the world’s most heterosexual television program of all time: The Bachelor. Not satiated by her Bachelor experience, Krisily Kennedy went on to appear in Bachelor Pad, which I believe is a show about what happens when your girlfriend kicks a bachelor in the nose and then uses a menstrual pad to stop the bleeding.

Well, yesterday Life & Style Mag, a bastion of journalistic integrity, revealed that Krisily Kennedy is bisexual.

She shared this information exclusively with Life & Style at the annual GLSEN Respect Awards in LA on October 21st. Krisily has since tweeted that she appreciates Life & Style’s “tasteful and respectful story.” There is so much respect going on!

Anyhoo, according to L&S, “she can no longer hide the fact that she dates men and women and that she began dating women three years ago.”

Krisily: I’m completely open to still dating men. For me, this is all very new, and I was lucky to have had my friends and family behind me… People have said, ‘Oh, she was on The Bachelor and she was Miss Rhode Island — why would she date women?'”

Krisily is 31 (Generation Catalano) and recently broke up with a girlfriend she’d been dating for a year.

Krisily: “I want to fall in love with anyone and I don’t care who they are. I just want love. I want long-term and I want commitment. I really want those things and if people open their hearts to it, you can find that with anyone.”

Krisily is a good kid: this former Miss Rhode Island 2003 has supported charities including The Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, The Station Family Fund and Susan G. Komen For the Cure and is presently working with GLSEN to make schools safer for all people.

Krisily:“I feel like there are teenagers unnecessarily killing themselves. I personally have never felt like that, but I’d like to be able to go in to schools and talk to kids to try and change their minds.”

Krisily wants to be a television host and her dream is to one day be on Ellen but right now is working as a full-time personal assistant or as an event planner, depending on which version of her bio you read. (There are two available on Krisily Kennedy dot com.)

Krisily’s life story involves the following events:

+ Krislily Kennedy won a scholarship to John Casabalanca’s Modeling School, wherein she gained “poise, confidence and self-esteem.”

+ Krisily has been in a “zillion parades.”

+ Krisily loves The Red Sox and worked as a host on The Red Sox’s pre-game show on NESN and that season they won The World Series, so. Basically she makes baseball teams win.

+ Krisily was born an only child to a single Mom. Krisily had ADHD as a kid and the teachers decided “the hallway was the only place [for her].”

+ “There were so many years I was so awkward and goofy, going back and forth, trying to be a tomboy and not really knowing what was next for me. I honestly don’t think I really knew who I was until much much later in life, which in most cases is true for all of us.“

+ “Krisily is passionate about sharing her trauma and triumphs with other woman so that they too can become strong-minded independent women.”

So, kids, if you’re bisexual and someone questions your sincerity due to a healthy history of heterosexual exploits, you can now point out that a girl who made it to the final two on the world’s straightest TV program (really, it’s too straight for straight people) is bisexual. So.

She’s expressed her concern about the Gay Teen Suicide Epidemic and published a video last week on Spirit Day:

Krisily currently lives in West Hollywood, California. You know what that means.

I highly recommend Krisily’s tumblr, which is about shoes.

Study Shows that Bisexual Men Exist, Bisexual People Not Surprised

In an infamous 2005 article titled “Straight, Gay or Lying? Bisexuality Revisited,” the New York Times reported on a Northwestern University study that claimed that bisexuality in men does not exist:

In the new study, a team of psychologists directly measured genital arousal patterns in response to images of men and women. The psychologists found that men who identified themselves as bisexual were in fact exclusively aroused by either one sex or the other, usually by other men… Using a sensor to monitor sexual arousal, the researchers found what they expected: gay men showed arousal to images of men and little arousal to images of women, and heterosexual men showed arousal to women but not to men. But the men in the study who described themselves as bisexual did not have patterns of arousal that were consistent with their stated attraction to men and to women. Instead, about three-quarters of the group had arousal patterns identical to those of gay men; the rest were indistinguishable from heterosexuals.

There are plenty of problems with this study. Chris O’Guinn, a writer for AfterElton.com, breaks down the various issues with it: the small sample size, the unreliability of the device used for measuring “arousal,” the assumption that only Kinsey 3s count as “real” bisexuals, the fact that it pulled many of the participants from ads in gay magazines (skewing the results toward gay-leaning bi men), and perhaps most importantly, the assumption that arousal is the only important part of sexual orientation. (The Klein Grid, for example, lists it as only one of seven factors that determine one’s sexual orientation.) The study was also denounced by both GLAAD and the National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce, as well as by FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting).

Yet, it’s often difficult (at least in my personal experience) to talk about bi men without someone quoting this study like it’s incontrovertible truth — even if we’re just speculating on the sexuality of classmates or famous people. And since myths about female bisexuality tend to run the opposite way (i.e., that all women are bisexual), I’m not always in the best position as a bi woman to tackle this. After all, I’m not a sex researcher, and I’m clearly biased toward the belief that my sexual orientation is real. While the 2005 article is careful to quote one professor, Dr. Randall Sell of Columbia University, claiming the study doesn’t say anything conclusive and noting the problems that would arise if therapists take the study too seriously, the author makes his conclusion clear with phrases claiming the study “casts doubt on whether true bisexuality exists, at least in men” and “lends support to those who have long been skeptical that bisexuality is a distinct and stable sexual orientation.” The popularity of this article is, in many respects, a perfect example of the problems with bad science reporting.

via biunity.org

But luckily, even if some fans of the Northwestern study won’t listen to its critics, the people who carried it out did. J. Michael Bailey, the Northwestern psychology professor behind the earlier study, is one of the authors of a new study claiming that, indeed, some men do have bisexual arousal patterns. As reported by The Advocate:

In both studies men watched videos of both male and female same-sex intimacy while their sexual response was monitored. The results [of the new study] showed that while bisexual men responded to both male and female videos, gay and straight men did not. “Someone who is bisexual might say, ‘Well, duh!'” lead study author Allen Rosenthal, a doctoral student in psychology at Northwestern, told The New York Times. “But this will be validating to a lot of bisexual men who had heard about the earlier work and felt that scientists weren’t getting them.”

While the current study has the same issue as its predecessor with small sample size and excessive focus on arousal, it was much more careful about recruiting men for the study. For starters, it advertised more on sites and in publications focused specifically on a bisexual audience. It also used more stringent criteria in deciding which men should be included in the study: “This time, instead of relying on self-reporting of sexual orientation, men only qualified as bisexuals if they had had sex with at least two members of each sex and had carried on a romantic relationship of at least three months with a member of each sex.”

Obviously, this comes with its own set of unfortunate implications. I am bisexual and I don’t fit those criteria, and I consider myself a Kinsey 3. The results would obviously leave out a lot of bi people who lean more toward one side or another, or people with diversity in their romantic vs. sexual inclination — for instance, a man who’s bisexual but heteroromantic might have only dated women. Personally, though, I don’t think the people who conducted the study are necessarily saying that only men who fit their criteria are “truly bisexual,” despite the poor choice of language from the author of the Live Science article. Indeed, the end of the article indicates that at least one of the authors, lead author and psychology Ph.D. student Alan Rosenthal, understands just how wide the bisexual umbrella is: “‘I think that both studies are correct, but about different populations of bisexual men.’ …If they can generate funding for such an experiment, the Northwestern psychologists will scale up their study in order to profile bisexual males of all types.”

The thing is, there are some people who use a bisexual identity as a stepping-stone to coming out as gay or lesbian — or as an experimental phase before deciding they’re actually straight — and requiring study participants to have significant romantic and sexual histories with both men and women is going to filter most of those people out, along with filtering out many genuine bisexuals. But unlike the previous study, they’re trying to prove a positive here, not a negative, so it’s not necessarily essential that they represent the full range of bi men in this study. The fact that male bisexual arousal happens at all proves its existence against people who believe men are only “straight, gay or lying.”

via etsy.com/people/buttonmeupbuttons

Of course, some people still used this to draw the conclusion that it’s ok to judge “inexperienced” bi people as lying about their orientation. For example, Dan Savage, who, after first claiming his bisexual critics treat him like “Gaydolph Hitler” by accusing him of biphobia, had this to say about the study:

How’s that for irony: once researchers controlled for the young-and-temporarily-bi-identified or the gay-and-kidding-themselves-about-being-bi — once researchers refused to accept the professed sexual identities of the bi-identified men they recruited, once researchers acted like biphobes and bigots — they were able to demonstrate that “bisexual arousal patterns” actually exist…Feel free to print out a copy [of the study] and wave it in the faces of any gays or straights who claim that bi guys don’t exist and any bi guys who insist it’s a crime against humanity to point out that some bi-identified guys are lying.

Yet, as I said before, I fail to see where the study’s authors are claiming one should automatically be skeptical of young, “inexperienced” bisexual people, as Savage is when he says things like “I meet someone who’s 19-years-old who tells me he’s bisexual and I’m like, ‘Yeah, right, I doubt it. I tell them come back when you’re like 29 and we’ll see.'” That’s a much stronger sentiment than just “some bi-identified guys are lying.” Additionally, the study did not control for age, only experience; that hypothetical 19-year-old bi guy would have been eligible had he dated and had sex with both men and women. There’s no reason to suspect the researchers view youth and bisexuality the same way Savage does. But most importantly, while it’s essential to the authors of this study to make sure those participating are who they say they are, it isn’t Dan Savage’s business to pester people to “prove” their sexual orientations to him. We’ve all met people whose stated sexual orientation seemed questionable — but the right thing to do, as an ally and a friend (and especially as someone who is committed to making LGBT teens feel better about themselves) is to keep that skepticism to yourself, to wait for that person to come to that conclusion (or not!) on their own. You’re not a sex researcher, either — for civilians, there’s no need to take up proving or disproving these things.

In more good news for bi men, the Northwestern study is not the first this year confirming that bisexual arousal is real. From the New York Times article:

In March, a study in Archives of Sexual Behavior reported the results of a different approach to the question. As in the Northwestern study, the researchers showed participants erotic videos of two men and two women and monitored genital as well as subjective arousal. But they also included scenes of a man having sex with both a woman and another man, on the theory that these might appeal to bisexual men. The researchers — Jerome Cerny, a retired psychology professor at Indiana State University, and Erick Janssen, a senior scientist at the Kinsey Institute — found that bisexual men were more likely than heterosexuals or gay men to experience both genital and subjective arousal while watching these videos.

Clearly, at least some scientists recognize now that bisexual men exist. Now we just have to get our whole society on the same page.

Lisa Diamond Calls Out Boehner’s DOMA Team For Fucking With Her Shit

You might remember Lisa Diamond from a number of places — maybe your Mom bought you Sexual Fluidity in an attempt to express passive acceptance of your lifestyle with a nod to the possibility that you might flow back on over to hetero-ville (this actually happened to somebody I know, could be an isolated incident) or maybe you remember seeing her in The Real L Word, in which she met with Nikki Weiss and Jill Goldstein about the TV series the now-married couple optioned from Diamond’s book.

Or maybe — and this is the most likely position of all — you have no fucking idea who she is. Well, neither does The Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the United States Representatives, apparently, but that didn’t stop them from extracting quotes from her work to support their unsupportable thesis!

As you may recall, Paul Clement, Legal Eagle of the Universe, left his law firm in order to defend DOMA, as requested by John Boehner, who is an idiot. Their whipsmart crack-team of legal experts are presently hard at work ensuring 81-year-old widow Edie Windsor’s relationship with her deceased partner is not recognized by the federal government. As Rachel covered for you when their spectacular document was revealed, it truly is an anti-gay masterpiece.

Misrepresenting research — whether that means presenting faulty/biased research as fact  or presenting actual research with inaccurate context — is essentially all the anti-gays can do in these cases because, as aforementioned, their case is fundamentally wrong. DOMA is based on discrimination against gay people, plain and simple. Discrimination is a difficult thing to defend in court, so instead they make shit up, mostly about babies, indoctrinating children and being born gay.

Yesterday, Lisa Diamond filed an affadavit to complain that her work was being distorted. Diamond, an associate professor of developmental psychology at the University of Utah, says her areas of specialty “include the nature and development of affectional bonds and the nature and development of same-sex sexuality.” She also wrote Dear John, I Love Jane: Women Write About Leaving Men For Women. This is what Diamond lays out in her affidavit:

BLAG misconstrues and distorts my research findings, which do not support the propositions for which BLAG cites them. Specifically…BLAG quotes the following statement from one of my papers: “…there is currently no scientific or popular consensus on the exact constellation of experiences that definitively ‘qualify’ an individual as lesbian, gay or bisexual” – as support for their claim that sexual orientation is not immutable. This is incorrect. My quoted statement concerns the scientific and popular debates over the defining characteristics of LGBT individuals and it says nothing whatsoever about the immutability of sexual orientation itself. Hence, BLAG has incorrectly characterized my research.

BLAG goes on to state on page 11 that “according to multiple sources, a high number of persons who experience sexual attraction to members of the same sex early in their adult lives later cease to experience such attraction” and in support of this claim they provide the following quote from one of my articles: “50% [of respondents] had changed their identity label more than once since first relinquishing their heterosexual identity.” The quotes statement refers to sexual identity labels (i.e., how individuals describe and interpret their sexuality), and not to sexual orientation. Neither this article nor any of my other published work supports BLAG’s claim that “a high number of persons who experience sexual attracton to members of the same sex early in their adult lives later cease to experience such attraction.” Hence they have completely misinterpreted my research.

Alvin McEwan at Pam’s House Blend points out that this is far from the only problem in the BLAG’s documents — just like the bogus science from the the Prop 8 case.

McEwan focuses on the “Plantiff Mistates the Science on Same-Sex Parenting” section,which he categorizes as “a huge mess.” The work of George W. Dent is used to make the case that same-sex parenting is inferior to heterosexual parenting, but Dent backs up his thesis with completely fabricated statements as well as citations of discredited researcch and researchers. This includes the work of George Rekers, the ex-gay movement icon recently caught taking a European trip with a rentboy. Rekers has also been in the news lately for his role in the eventual suicide of one of his patients, who entered treatment for homosexuality at the age of four, and who at no point experienced successful conversion to a straight man.

Some of Geroge W. Dent’s crazy shit includes:

Every child with homosexual guardians has lost at least one biological parent. Loss of a parent is universally regarded as a great misfortune. If the child has one biological parent, the other adult is a step-parent. In fables step-parents are typically hostile to their step-children.

 At this point I want to laugh at the ridiculousness of it but it’s just not funny anymore! It’s exhausting. I know I’ve only been alive for 29 years but i wish people could just stop making shit up. The bad research and inept researchers brought to testify in the Prop 8 trial were one thing; anyone who has ever served on a jury can agree that not everyone speaking before the judge is going to be a blue-ribbon witness. This, however, is a case being brought by the actual government of our actual country, and which John Boehner wants the Justice department to pay for. In short, this isn’t just embarrassingly bad research being presented with the brazen hope that no one will actually look at it; this is your federal tax dollars at work! And also Lisa Diamond’s — that lady is well within her rights to complain.

You Need Help: It’s A Hard Knock Life For Bisexuals

Welcome to You Need Help! Where you seek advice and we try our very best to give it.

This has traditionally been done by way of individual Formspring accounts, Autostraddle’s Tumblr and a Formspring Friday column, which has all been very fun and insightful. But, because Formspring has a character limit and we’re wildly optimistic w/r/t our time-management skills, we thought we’d go one further and let you use our ASS private messaging to share advice-related feelings, too.

For more info on sending in questions, see the bottom of this post. Let’s get down to bossing people around on the internet! Today’s contestants include someone who’s trying to figure out what happened in her open relationship, and a lady whose lady is bisexual and wants to stop getting shit about it. Enjoy!

PHOTO CREDIT: FLICKR USER FANTASYFAN

Q:
I’m bisexual in an open relationship with a lovely boy and the other night I hooked up with a girl I just met who I wasn’t attracted to simply because I’ve never kissed a lesbian. I would have slept with her if I could. He’s disappointed in me. Why did I?

A:
Ok, here’s the thing: I know this isn’t how you want this answered, but is this about why you kissed this girl, or about why you’re now in a fight with your boyfriend? (Sorry if that’s now what you call each other, I’m just gonna go with it lacking any other information about terms you use.) I think, based on anecdotal evidence and OKCupid, that open or poly relationships are made up of a (straight?) dude and bisexual/queer girl fairly often, and in that situation it can be easy to get your sexual-orientation feelings mixed up with your relationship feelings because who you’re attracted to and who you act on that attraction with are parts of your relationship. I recognize that these things get kind of messy and interrelated, but bear with me.

I don’t know why you kissed her. No one else can tell you. Because you wanted to? Because she was there? Like Everest? People kiss people for a lot of reasons! I just watched that documentary where people kiss like the Eiffel Tower and fences! If this is your way of asking “Am I actually gay???” because you kissed a girl for reasons you can’t fully explain or even though you suspected your boyfriend wouldn’t like it, you will need to figure that out on your own. If you’re worried that you kissed her because you feel like you need to prove something to yourself or others, that’s worth thinking about, and I encourage you to do it (on your own, your boyfriend may not be the best person to hash that out with.) I can’t tell you the answer, though. But I CAN answer the second question of why your boyfriend is “disappointed” and you’re feeling guilty, which is: you guys do not have the parameters of this open relationship nailed down.

PHOTO CREDIT: FLICKR USER TESTPATERN

It sounds like he thought there was a “only when overwhelmed by passionate, uncontrollable lust” clause which you were unaware of. Ideally, (and of course this kind of only happens in a perfect world) there are no rules of your open relationship that only one person is aware of. You need to talk to him, but not about her, about you two. Why did this bother him? Does he feel like it’s okay for you to be with other people only if you have a certain magnitude of feelings towards them? How much of a margin do you get for not being sure about your feelings? Figure these things out with him! If the other person has a secret set of rules and guidelines aside from the rules and guidelines you’ve actually established (because you have, right? Like earlier? You’ve established boundaries??) then there is more trouble in your future. Sorry!

Q:
I’m a gold star who has always dated other gold stars. My girlfriend now is bisexual. I have NO problem with this. I figure if she likes me now, it shouldn’t matter who she has liked in the past, right? But other people in my life dont see it that way? People ask me if she’s gay, and I don’t know what to do with their reactions when I tell them she’s not.

A:
First, I’d like to apologize for making up the last line of your question after “people ask” because formspring cut it off. But I feel like that was the gist of it, no? Correct me if I’m wrong.

Basically, I feel like there are a few ways you can handle this. Are you ready?

PHOTO CREDIT: FLICKR USER TERYKATS

1. Talk to your girlfriend. Not like “this is an issue in our relationship and we need to fix it” talk because this isn’t an issue for you guys, this is an issue for other people, and obviously you get that. What I mean is that your bisexual girlfriend has probably dealt with this SO MUCH and SO OFTEN and it may be worthwhile to say “Hey, dealing with people who act shocked by your being bi or refuse to take it seriously is really new to me, and I’m upset and not sure how to handle it. Do you have strategies that work, or something you usually say, or any advice to pass on?” Note: this is not necessarily the best option, because your girlfriend may end up feeling like she is having to take responsibility for other people’s obnoxious attitudes, and also at this point in her life may just feel really “over it” as far as talking about what being bisexual means or how to deal with it. Which is totally understandable! So you can also try one of the following:

2. Pick one sentence, preferably a short phrase, and decide to just use it every time. I read about this technique in a workbook given to me by my therapist, so you know it’s legitimate. The idea is to just use it coolly and calmly without letting the other person take the conversation where they want it to go, until they lose interest and stop. Here’s how this could go:

Them: Whoa, your girlfriend is bi?

You: Yup.

Them: So that means, like, she used to date guys?

You: Well, now she’s dating me.

Them: But has she dated other women?

You: Well, she’s dating me right now.

Them: Is she, like, really sure she likes girls?

You: I mean, I’m a girl, and she is dating me right now.

See how boring that conversation is? No one would want to keep having it! But you’re not being rude, and you don’t have to defend your girlfriend. Perfect!

3.  Thirdly, you can take my preferred route, which is to be kind of an asshole. If the above technique is refusing to engage in a healthy and assertive way, this is refusing to engage in a childish and passive-aggressive way, by acting like a dick and making fun of them and refusing to answer the question. I guess that is technically not advisable, but hey, you know what else is childish? Interrogating people about their sexual orientation or that of their partners! Here’s some examples:

Them: So does being bisexual mean she has a boyfriend at the same time? I don’t get it.

You: Nope! It actually means she can shoot lasers from her eyes.

+

Them: Aren’t you ever worried she’ll cheat on you?

You: I guess, but I’m more worried about how she insists on us singing Lyle Lovett songs as a duet while we have sex.

+

Them: So is she, like, into threesomes?

You: She’s actually really into pottery from feudal-era Japan, which is weird but kind of cool! It turns out it’s really expensive, so I need a new job.

SO! Does that solve EVERY PROBLEM you have? Probably not. But maybe it’s a start! Let us know how it goes!

Also, as always, let us know your own suggestions in the comments, and/or tell us how angry you are that we talked about bisexuality, either one.

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This is a Gay, Lesbian & Bisexual “True Blood” Post

k-stew looking sharp at comic-con

There’s been a ton of buzz around True Blood for the last week because in addition to being the best show on television, nearly the entire cast visited Comic-Con in San Diego last weekend. Before I continue talking about True Blood, which was amazing last night, last week, and the week before that, let me ask you this — do you know what Comic-Con is? If so, skip the next 2 paragraphs. If not, read on.

I didn’t know what it was until I started this here website, so if over the last week or so you’ve been hearing a bit of chatter about this or that person relevant to your interests/pants saying/doing something neat/important at an event called “Comic-Con” and don’t know what it is, I’ll tell you: Comic-Con International is a four-day conference held annually in San Diego, founded as the “San Diego Comic Book Convention” in 1970. Originally, Comic-Con showcased (yes this is a link to Wikipedia)  “comic books, science fiction/fantasy and film/television and related popular arts” but has since expanded to include “a larger range of pop culture elements, such as horror, animation, anime, manga, toys, collectible card games, video games, webcomics, and fantasy novels.”

Dr.Who Panel at Comic-Con

Events a fan might find at Comic-Con include panels, seminars, workshops, upcoming movie previews, “screening rooms devoted to Japanese animation,” awards ceremonies, costume contests and various screenings as well as an exhibition hall for movie studios, comic book dealers and so forth. There tends to be an undue emphasis on the cast of Twilight, regardless of whether or not a relevant Twilight film is happening any time soon. We’ve already shared with you the Glee revelations from Comic-Con, though honestly I don’t know why Glee was at Comic-Con.

Anyhow! Onto True Blood!

Kristin & Alexander at Comic-Con

At Comic-Con, the cast were given multiple opportunities to field questions and subsequently answer these questions, often on videotape. In addition to sharing selections from some of these interviews, I will also share with you an “extended trailer” for Season Four, which contains spoilers I suppose, and the cast’s “It Gets Better” videos. I will share the extended trailer right now, and the “It Gets Better” videos (which are a tad strange) at the end of the post.

[yframe url=’https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvvLacE7lcg’]

Firstly, you can watch the entire panel on YouTube, it’s in five sections.  Speaking of videos, Entertainment Weekly interviewed the cast of True Blood and Eric and Pam are super-cute.

But let’s get down to the heart of the matter, and by “heart” I mean “vadge.” Let’s start out with Michael Ausiello, Master of Spoilers, discussing Tara’s sexuality with Rutina Wesley in a videotaped interview (partially transcribed for you by me right now):

Michael Ausiello: Lesbian, bisexual, going through a phase?

Rutina: Going through a phase!? Lemme tell you what I think. This is what I think. My backstory is — this has not necessarily been talked about — I think it’s one of those things that just sort of happened. I think she maybe met her [Tara’s girlfriend], didn’t realize she was being hit on, next thing you knew, things happen and she was like “Hm. Interesting. I kinda liked that”… I think she wanted to spend more time with her and then that sorta led to a relationship. I really do think there’s a love there, and I really do think it is a relationship. I would say she’s bisexual, but I don’t think it’s a phase, because I think she really is into this woman. And I know people who like, there’s been one woman that they’ve been into and then, that’s it. But she’s definitely attracted to her but I don’t think she saw it coming, I think she kinda got sideswept.

Because I know a lot of people are like, I’ve never seen her like women, you know this is like all of a sudden and bla bla… I mean, yeah, [Tara] was sort of was taken for a ride and I think that that’s okay, and I ultimately like it because she’s happy and she’s smiling… it’s nice to see her happy and it’s nice to see her with someone who I think really likes her too for who she is.”

Michael Ausiello: How did Alan Ball explain to you that this was gonna be your storyline? Did he call you to say, “Guess what, you’re a lesbian on the show now?”

Rutina: “I had a lot of little birds tell me things very early on and I was like, fine whatever. I was totally fine with it I mean, I’m an actor. And it’s True Blood. We signed up for a show that was very racy and you have to expect stuff like that. We take off our clothes, we run around naked… we’re having orgies in the middle of the forest! I was a little like OKAY, but I also was like “Is she gonna be happy? Is she gonna be duct taped to a toilet? No? Okay, cool. Fine.”

At E! Online, some follow-up questions regarding my number-one desire for this program:

We loved one idea pitched at last weekend’s panel for the HBO hit: Hook up Pam and Tara, now that T’s ditched dudes for cage-fighting cuties and all.

In fact, we totally can’t believe we didn’t think of it first.

“Wouldn’t that be fun?” Kristin gushed when we asked if she approved of the pairing.

“I would love to work with [Rutina Wesley]. You never know what these guys are going to write. We hear all sorts of different things, and the cast, we cook up stuff we’d like to see, but it would be pretty interesting because they hate each other at the moment. So how these writers would ever manage that, I don’t know. But it’d be fun to see.”

Well if they managed to get Sookie to smooch on sexy (but sometimes über-evil) Eric Northman, we’re sure they could find a way for Pammy and Tara to hit the sack.

Well! That was fun. Now — I promised myself and my grandchildren that we’d never post another “It Gets Better” video on this website. But then Pam went and made an “It Gets Better” video. That being said… well, what do y’all think about these videos? Is it strange that “It Gets Better” videos don’t even mention being gay anymore?

Alan Ball:

[yframe url=’https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ln0A_Tazk-w’]

Kristin Bauer:

[yframe url=’https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdGq0KukZfM’]

Alexander Skarsgard:

[yframe url=’https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faw-8iEpfUs’]

Rutina Wesley:

[yframe url=’https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzHKZlfYWg4′]

His Girl has a Girlfriend: On Bisexuality in Hip-Hop

Way back in 2006, Young Dro climbed the charts with his one and only hit, “Shoulder Lean”. As much as I would love to regale you with stories of how this song was played at every party for the following two years, the reason I bring it up is because it’s the song that started it all. In my mind at least. Young Dro’s seemingly innocuous throwaway punchline started a trend that will probably outlast hip hop’s greatest obsession — comparing one’s self to shit.

This everlasting trend is using women to attain other women.

And then I pimp a hoe, take a bitch to Berlin
Bitch break niggas, after that we fuck they girlfriend
My girl got a girlfriend, Chevy blue like whirlwind
Young Dro – “Shoulder Lean”

Hip hop and R&B remain genres fraught with tension when it comes to relations with the LGBTQ community. Between Nicki Minaj’s faux bisexuality and Chris Brown’s what-seems-like-weekly homophobic rants, who would’ve thunk that male artists would be so affirming of the queer lady lifestyle…kind of? In these industries, being a gay male is equated with weakness and failure as it’s the exact opposite of the “I got bitches” mentality that’s so prevalent. Why then are lady loving ladies the holographic Charizard card of urban music?

I’m super fly
A few of my
Lady friends is super bi-
Sexuals and usually high
Might even give you a try
T.I. – “My Girl Gotta Girlfriend”

I hope she cleaned that strawberry

Using supposedly bisexual women as a pawn in their mastermind scheme shows just how cunning the artist is. In a landscape where sexual prowess is as important as money and power, sending sexy woman folk out to do their bidding has become the ultimate bragging right. These men are only interested in lesbian action as it relates to them. The sexual conquests and flawed versions of bisexuality strangely assert and negate women’s sexual agency simultaneously.

I’m a cold young midwest Cleveland represtenter
My bitch could take your bitch home with us
Chip Tha Ripper – “All Talk”

These guys don’t even have to do the work anymore. They simply hand the responsibility off to their women because her bitches are their bitches. The oft-perpetuated falsity of females never being an active participant in sexual activities or having their own desires makes it impossible for two women to have significant sexual encounters without the presence of a man.  The song and video for “My Girl Gotta Girlfriend” by Ray Lavender shows how these sentiments impact this phenomenon.

Lavender’s girlfriend cheats on him with another woman and he doesn’t give a shit because both women are still attainable for him. I guess what Santana said about the plumbing is true. Or maybe he falls into the ‘eating ain’t cheating’ camp of lore. Either way, it never occurs to him that his girlfriend may be in search of something else. Namely, boobs. Or that the woman she cheats on him with, whom he has only seen in the context of a same-sex relationship, may not like men at all. Especially not his ass. He has no reason to get mad. His love life is the McDonald’s apple pie conundrum: if you can get two for basically the same price as one, why would you ever get a single pie? Now replace “pie” with “women” and you have this song:

Cuz having two chicks
Is better than no chicks
I’d rather just join in
Keep my girl and keep the other one too
Ray Lavender – “My Girl Gotta Girlfriend”

[yframe url=’https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fh5OeSuOhA’]

These women aren’t valued for their own bodies alone but by their proximity to another. These bodies are to be won or lost… by MEN! Bisexual women fit right in to the male’s conquest for the freakiest of freaks because you know, a lesbian relationship can’t possibly be normal. Same-sex attraction automatically means you’re a sexual deviant and in the musical world, that means “freak.”

Maybe cause T.I.P. girls leaving with girls
And in the morning they’ll be waking up with six girls
T.I. – “Freak Though”

[yframe url=’https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apjNSt3ZCjI’]

Where are the mainstream artists to offer an alternative to these images of bisexuality? Though never confirmed, lesbian rumors about Shawnna, Queen Latifah, Missy Elliot, and Remy Ma have circulated. And then there’s Nicki Minaj. I’ve never been a fan which is reason enough to get me shunned in these parts. It’s also reason enough for me to have actively avoided “Lil’ Freak”, her song with Usher that I’d forgotten about until Rachel reminded me. There was no half-stepping in this one. The entire song is about fetching women for him unlike the happenstance of Lavender’s song. In Minaj’s verse she tells the woman the only way to get to Usher is by proving her worthiness (read: freakiness). This will be accomplished by letting Minaj touch her “kitty cat”. It’s coercive and overall just weird that Minaj is acting as guardian to Usher’s pants. Watching the video I half expected her to emerge from underwater at some point to inform us that the royal penis is clean.

[yframe url=’https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNVNzRzDt-k’]

Whereas the other songs rapped about these voiceless bisexual women, Minaj is actively acknowledging her role and participating in the dialogue. While she and other mainstream female artists are busy denying their queerness, male artists continue to revel in their ability to use women as a cultural currency. And not just straight ones. Not anymore. Their collection of women now includes an obsession with acquiring queer ladies (though only a specific kind).

Does the acknowledgment of queerness help the cause of homophobia in hip hop? Does it perpetuate stereotypes about bisexuality or even about lesbians? Is this more problematic than the usual flaunting of straight women?

WNBA Player Sheryl Swoopes Is Now Engaged To A Man

Even people who don’t follow basketball, or sports at all, think they know at least one thing about the WNBA: all those women are gay, right? In 2005, when Sheryl Swoopes came out as gay, that suspicion seemed like it was confirmed. But now it’s 2011, and Swoopes has announced that she’s no longer with Alisa Scott, her former partner, and is now engaged to marry a man.

In some ways, this news isn’t a surprise. When she first came out, Swoopes didn’t shy away from the word “lesbian,” but she also said something a little unusual – she didn’t believe she was born gay. For most people in her position – had a child with her highschool sweetheart, separated and fell into a long-term relationship with a woman who she met through basketball – the narrative would be of someone who had always been gay, and had hidden it from herself for most of her life until this moment. But that’s not what Swoopes said to ESPN:

“I can’t help who I fall in love with. No one can.…I didn’t always know I was gay. I honestly didn’t. Do I think I was born this way? No. And that’s probably confusing to some, because I know a lot of people believe that you are…Discovering I’m gay just sort of happened much later in life… I’m content with who I am and who I’m with. Whether people think that’s right, whether they think it’s wrong, I don’t care.”

Or later, in an interview with Outsports:

“I’m not bisexual… I don’t think I was born [gay]. Again, it was a choice. As I got older, once I got divorced, it wasn’t like I was looking for another relationship, man or woman. I just got feelings for another woman. I didn’t understand it at the time, because I had never had those feelings before.”

SWOOPES AND SCOTT

So if she’s not a lesbian, and didn’t identify as bisexual, what’s going on? Swoopes’ life as a gay woman has made so much sense, and seemed like nothing short of idyllic for a top athlete who risked being taken even less seriously than female athletes already do by coming out. She was the Most Valuable Player of the WNBA the year she came out, and since then has remained a force to be reckoned with while maintaining family life with her partner and her son; she was a spokeswoman for Olivia Cruises and is reported to have “frequently appeared at LGBT fundraisers.” It appears that no one in the industry even knew, except for quiet rumors, that she had split with Scott and was now dating her current partner and fiance, Chris Unclesho.  How do we describe the change? It seems like a significant number of headlines are going with “not so gay after all,” which is not entirely unfair, if a little derisive.

Swoopes doesn’t seem to have a word for it herself – she seems to have no interest in going through another sort of ‘coming out’ process as not-gay. ESPN writes that “Swoopes didn’t seem to want to have — for lack of a better way to put it — a ‘coming out as straight again’ interview. She wasn’t renouncing homosexuality or saying she wished she hadn’t said what she did in 2005.” There’s no indication that she considers her relationship with Scott a mistake or, worse, a “phase.” All the evidence, what little of it there is, indicates that Swoopes is exactly where she said she was in 2005: in love, and wanting to be honest about it without compromise. Her words then were “I’m tired of having to hide my feelings about the person I care about. About the person I love.” Is this different?

In 2005, Swoopes was described as “the first African-American professional athlete to come out while at the top of her game.” Six years later, she doesn’t seem to be the out-and-proud lesbian face of basketball that many had wanted. But maybe she’s something else, something that could be even more groundbreaking. Even minor gay characters in media or TV used to be viewed as major progress, but now there are major gay storylines in shows as mainstream and popular as Glee and Grey’s Anatomy. Now the boundaries are being broken by characters like Franky in Skins; where pop culture once was barely ready for men with lisps, now they’re taking on a genderqueer pansexual kid. In 2005, seeing a successful and wildly talented woman risk everything she’d won by being honest about who she loved was big news. But in 2011, maybe we’re ready to see this as a story about being honest about everyone you love and have loved, being honest about the weird and indescribable ways love works inside you by refusing to really try to describe them at all. For a culture as obsessed with labels as ours is, that’s truly brave and transgressive. And for anyone else who doesn’t feel like they were born into a label, Swoopes may now be a real role model – the question is whether everyone else will be able to accept those terms, or whether “not so gay anymore” is the story we’re going to stick with.

Editor’s Note Update: Comments on this article will be moderated as normal. Thanks for contributing to a healthy discussion! 

Also. Also. Also: Bi Actress Bai Ling is a Survivor, NFL Ballers Pose Shirtless for Gay Equality

+ Bisexual actress Bai Ling has revealed that she was a sexual abuse survivor on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew.

Ling, who became a soldier with the People’s Liberation Army when she was just 14, was sexually abused by Chinese army officers. She told the Associated Press that she was “opening a wound that was very secret to myself, that even my parents don’t know.

Ling says she was pressured to have sex with her superiors, as were other women serving with her in Tibet. They were often plied with alcohol and her abuse that led her, on one occasion, to pregnancy and abortion.

+ At OUT Magazine: “Michael Irvin, Ben Cohen, Hudson Taylor, Mike Chabala, and Nick Youngquest star in our salute to the small band of straight sports stars who have stood up for fairness and tolerance, shoulder to shoulder with their LGBT peers.” (Feministing has a bit more on Michael Irvin)

+ A gay guy says he got kicked out of Pizza Hut for wearing a dress. Pizza Hut says they kicked him out because he came in three times and didn’t buy anything.

+ Zack Rosen, the guy who invited Autostraddle Katrina to go to NetRoots this year to represent Politically Progressive Lesbian Website Autostraddle, is stepping down as editor of The New Gay for largely mysterious reasons.

+ This story from The Onion is first-rate [SATIRE ALERT]: “I know what scripture says about homosexuals, but when I stop to think about it, I can’t get past the fact that the Bible is just a book, and Tony and Craig are real people.”

+ Buffalo Republican Sen. Mark Grissanti, our favorite Republican who cast a vote in favor of same-sex marriage despite the fact that his constituents had been lead to believe he would act with the bigotry they hold so dear, is banking some serious bucks from pro-gay-marriage people. He’s raised over $50,000 for his campaign after the vote, which is awesome. It’s really important to throw support in the direction of whomever is standing up for us to encourage them to keep doing it. It’s like a gold star that costs $10,000.

+ The first African-American lesbian to serve in a U.S. State Legislature, Simone Bell, will be speaking at The Women’s Pride Brunch in San Diego this weekend.

+ A town clerk in Barker, New York (population: less than 3,000) has quit because she would rather quit than have to marry any gay people.

+ Gay pop star Ari Gold and his partner were holding hands on the bus, so the bus driver literally told them to move to the back of the bus. They refused, so the driver fucking called in the state troopers.

+ Are you on Google+ yet? Because now, in addition to being able to select “other” as a gender, Google+ users may now conceal their gender from public viewing.

+ Kansas has been systematically eliminating abortion clinics by enforcing harsh restrictions and making it nearly impossible to maintain a practice in the state. At this time, there is only one abortion doctor in the entire state, but Dr. Mila Means is a complete badass who drives a car with lightning bolts.

+ A long time ago Jamie Leigh Jones had contended in court that she had been raped and defrauded, but recently, a Houston jury rejected all of her claims. According to Jezebel, her alleged rapist “had contended that the sex, which occurred in Iraq while Jones was blacked out, was consensual.” Because that makes sense.

+ A Catholic church in Massachusetts held a controversial mass for LGBT Catholics. Also in Catholic news, the Catholic church returned a donation to a New York politician who voted in favor of marriage equality.

+ Chile might legalize civil unions!

+ A hospital transformed itself from being among the worst in LGBT treatment to being a safe place that “protects lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender patients and employees from discrimination.”

+ Professional video gaming: it’s a really intense thing.

+ Fiction is sometimes a better way to understand people than real life or non-fiction.

+ A lot of Generation X’s parents are divorced, but Gen X-ers aren’t divorcing at rates that are nearly as high. Instead, they’re getting married later in life and/or living together out of wedlock.

+ Chris Brown said something homophobic again. I don’t recommend reading the comments on that story.

100 Ridiculously Hot Lesbian & Bisexual Women

Due to Exec Editor Laneia & Editor-in-Chief Riese‘s personal preference for more masculine-leaning women and this website’s constant effort to promote gender presentation diversity in our imagery, we sometimes forget about people like Sarah Facepalmer/most of the world.

Sarah Jesus Christ P*lmer, a Contributing Editor here at Autostraddle, would describe herself as “a gay girl who likes gay girls who look like girls.” Now before you get offended about the “girls who look like girls” idea, take a deep breath and recognize that you know what we mean, and we’re not the enemy, and then exhale and move on.

Okay! Now as you may or may not know, we’re not into the habitual worshipping of straight models/actresses  over here — this is a queerlady site and we wanna talk about lesbians and bisexuals and other queer ladies!  Also we’d rather introduce you to a lesbian you’ve never heard of but sure would like to make out with than devote any screen-space to like, Megan Fox. Because come on really, Megan Fox? Really? Right?

So, basically we asked ourselves: what would happen if the Autostraddle Hot 100, the AfterEllen Hot 100, GO! Magazine’s Women We Love and the Maxim Hot 100 got together and had a baby?

Well — here you have it, as judged by the universally accepted standards of beauty, 100 SMOKINGLY HOT PHOTOGRAPHS OF SCORCHINGLY BEAUTIFUL HOT 100 LESBIAN AND BISEXUAL WOMEN OF THE WORLD … mostly femme-of-center but some fancy masculine-of-centers too.

Dear femmes — next time your uncle/ex-boyfriend/neighbor/barista says “you don’t LOOK like a lesbian” — just link them to this gallery. ((and maybe also to this roundtable.)))

This is what that baby will look like:

[CLICK TO ENLARGE FOR SLIDESHOW GALLERY SITUATION!]

Bisexual Lindsay Lohan “Still Likes Boys,” is Bisexual

LINDSAY LOHAN:

Lilo opened up big time in a new interview with Australian radio hosts Kyle and Jackie O, chatting about everything from the disses against her on Glee to rumors of being un-insurable, to her sexuality. She doesn’t watch the show but says she’d still allow them to use her music even though:

“…they’ve made a lot of snarky remarks about me. Which I don’t know why, they don’t need to do that. I think they’re all really talented though. And their work schedules are insane I’ve heard. It’s a lot, it’s like 7 days a week, which doesn’t sound legal.”

She states that she is single as of today and that boys “still have a chance” with her. When the female host asks if she has a chance Lilo’s response is priceless. To check out the whole interview, just let the player continue. It’s separated into smaller clips, but it’s all there.

Her statement regarding still liking boys was a huge deal in the media, which is confusing, because she’s more or less identified as bisexual, right? I feel like “bisexual” means that she likes boys and girls.

+ Single Lindsay Lohan reveals she’s still interested in men after two years

+ Lindsay Lohan on dating boys again — I’m available!

+ Lindsay Lohan hasn’t given up on men

+ Lindsay Lohan swings both ways

+ Lindsay Lohan admits she’s still into guys

+ Lindsay Lohan is still interested in men

+ Lindsay Lohan — I’m still into boys, too

Meanwhile, Fox News is really really really concerned about Lindsay’s breasts and the possibility that they are starting to sag. Because if Lindsay Lohan ages, the terrorists win.

I mean — WOW! Fox News interviewed bra EXPERTS for this. Unfortunate that it’s none of their fucking business.

ROSEANNE:

Roseanne offers one of the most insightful, funny and honest takes on fame, sexism and television industry I’ve ever come across in her article “And I Should Know” for New York Magazine. On the subject of fame and Charlie Sheen, Roseanne writes:

She details a history of how her old show, Roseanne, per her original vision, almost never came to be — and her sense of how it could never exist today: “Viewers now prefer their comedy dumb and sexist.” The show she cites to illustrate her point? Two and a Half Men.

KRISTIN CHENOWETH:

.
Any interest in watching this? Check out a video promo.

LADY GAGA:

DVR alert! Gaga is the musical guest tomorrow night on Saturday Night Live with host Justin Timberlake. Speaking of Gaga, I’m sure we’re all aware by now that Born This Way has leaked (and is also streaming online for those in the UK).

HEATHER MORRIS:

Wanna stare at Brittany S. Pierce’s hot bod for a few hours? Heather Morris is the covergirl for the new issue of Women’s Health:

Dear Lizzie Thinks Bi-Questioning Teen Should Just Not Think About That Right Now

Wanna help me pick apart this advice columnist’s response to a 14 year-old girl who may or may not be gay or bisexual? Ok!

Dear Lizzie,

I am a 14 year-old female. I think that I might be a lesbian. I don’t know if I’m a lesbian or I’m bisexual. I don’t even know if this is just a phase that I’m going through.

I have liked boys, but I have also liked more girls then boys. I’ve told a few of my friends that I’m bisexual. They seemed OK about it.

What I’m worried about is going into high school and me being the only one who’s a lesbian or gay. I don’t want to stay in the closet forever.

I want to be able to tell my family that I’m gay or that I have a girlfriend. I don’t know what to do please help me!!
– Worried, Connecticut

Dear Worried,

In the beginning you said you weren’t sure, and then at the end of your question, you said you are gay. You seem a bit confused about where you stand sexually, and I think that’s where the problem lies.

The fact is you are 14 years old. You are still so young. My advice would be to wait it out a bit.

You have plenty of time before high school begins. At your young age, this shouldn’t be your main concern.

I know it may be in the back of your head, and you are starting to explore and learn about your body. It’s OK to be young and be confused.

You shouldn’t be telling anybody at school. Nobody needs to know about your private life right now.

If friends are pressuring you into telling them things, and badgering you about it, you don’t need to give in to that. Peers at your age can be very cruel and misunderstanding about such important matters.

Just be yourself, and don’t give in to peer pressure. You don’t need to come out of the closet when you don’t even know if you are in one yet.

I think at your age you should be worrying about homework, academics and sports.

Wait until you’re older to get serious about it and worry about it.

If you grow up to be gay or lesbian, there’s nothing wrong with it. You are still a person, and good for you for being yourself and following your heart.

The thing about high school is you would NOT be the only gay or bisexual student there. School can, however, be a rough time for a homosexual individual: There is bullying, friends may treat you differently, and there is an increased rate of dropping out.

But have no fear: A lot of high schools have gay and lesbian alliance clubs and anti-bullying programs. You cannot be treated differently because of your sexual orientation.

As far as approaching your parents about it, I’m sure they love you and will understand. If you are closer to your mom or dad, approach that parent one-on-one and open up. Your parent will be on your side.

Whoever you decide to date will come naturally. Don’t force it or ignore it, as you are young and shouldn’t be worrying about having a girlfriend or boyfriend.

I personally know a lot of people that thought they were gay or lesbian, and it turned out they were not.

Just enjoy being young and being happy. You will figure it all out on your own time at the right time.

I’m going to translate this for you into what everyone actually means. Please note that the bold emphasis below is my own, because that’s a very important part.

Dear Lizzie,

I’m a 14 year-old female and I’ve been romantically interested in both sexes, but more girls than boys. I’m not sure if this means that I’m a lesbian or a bisexual or just going through a ‘phase.’ I’ve told some of my friends that I’m bisexual and they seem fine with it.

What I’m worried about is being the only gay person in high school. It seems like if I’m the only one, I’ll never have a girlfriend. I want a girlfriend and also I’d like to be able to tell my parents about her. I don’t want to stay in the closet forever.

Are there gay people in high school?

— Worried

Does this sound like a girl who’s drowning in a sea of sexual confusion? Or a girl who wants a girlfriend and would like to know what her chances are re: getting one next year. B! It sounds like B!

But that’s not what Dear Lizzie heard. She heard a girl who has no idea what she wants.

Also apparently Dear Lizzie heard a girl who lives in a pre-MTV world where no one under the age of 22 has ever heard of lesbians or knows what having a girlfriend would even entail and therefore would be totally content just hanging out with her little sister, reading some Sweet Valley High books and thinking about horses.

Fourteen is not “still so young.” Patronizing much? The columnist, Elizabeth Mahoney, basically dismisses everything written after “I don’t even know if this is just a phase that I’m going through” and chalks it all up to complete and total (but normal for her age!) confusion.

Do you think a lot of straight 14 year-old girls are wondering if they really like boys or if they might want to date girls? Because they’re not. Only the queer kids are ‘confused’ about that, thanks to being raised in a predominately heteronormative culture where being gay is typically either something that only exists on the periphery, or is abnormal, disgusting or immoral enough to warrant total rejection or possibly death. I mean, who can blame a girl for weighing her options, really.

Mahoney then proceeds to shame this girl even deeper into denial / self-loathing with the classic “You shouldn’t be telling anybody at school. Nobody needs to know about your private life right now.” You know the deal: “We don’t mind if you’re gay, as long as you don’t flaunt it.” and “What you do behind closed doors is your business. I don’t need to know about it.” I’m pretty sure my mother still doesn’t understand the ignorance of that last one.

Also, what the hell does she think teenage girls talk about? The stock market? No, they obviously talk about their ‘private’ lives. It’s like, what they do. Mahoney feels like this teen should focus more on homework / academics. Hahahahhha yeah join the club, lady.

Lizzie redeems herself slightly by telling this woefully confused youth that there are other gay girls in high school, that it’s good to follow her heart and that GSAs exist.

But then Mahoney makes the most absurd assumption of all by advising Worried to — if the need arises, of course — come out to the parent she’s closest to first, because that parent will be ‘on her side.’ Mahoney tells her that her parents will understand and love her regardless. Wouldn’t it be fabulous if we could hand out that guarantee with the birth certificates?

I feel like Elizabeth Mahoney meant well with this reply and probably felt like she was being super progressive to even consider the fact that this girl might truly NOT be just having a ‘phase.’ She took the time to cover almost every possible angle.

Except, of course, the one where you trust a young person’s ability to know a thing or two about herself and the world.

Why do adults insist on equating adolescence with stupidity? Worried wasn’t worried about being gay, she was worried about being the only one and worried about when in ones queer life cycle one must inform the others, which is a pretty common theme among gay youth. It’s why we fight to keep And Tango Makes Three in school libraries and make It Gets Better videos and why Team Autostraddle even exists and why people say “visibility matters!”

Because it does! Because you’re not alone out there.

Are You Sexually Fluid? The Real L Word’s Nikki & Jill Want You.

Despite Showtime’s greatest efforts to portray Nikki & Jill Weiss-Goldstein as money and wedding obsessed barbies on The Real L Word, in reality they are indeed hardworking, productive members of society with real jobs and passions! You might recall their on camera meeting with Lisa Diamond, author of Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire, about a television series they were developing featuring women who do not classify themselves as a particular sexuality, but rather in the gray area that lies between. As my friend Shane once said, “whether you’re gay, straight or bisexual, you just go with the flow.”

Well, they are finally looking for interview subjects and this is where you come in! Per the open casting call:

+ Are you someone who doesn’t believe in labeling your own sexuality?
+ Have you been attracted to both men and women at different periods in your life?
+ Have your emotional and sexual attractions ever caused you confusion?
+ Have you been with men most of your life but are now involved with a woman?
+ Do you consider yourself gay but have also found yourself attracted to someone of the opposite gender?

If any of the above describes you and you’re willing to discuss your thoughts on camera, please send your contact information and a brief description of yourself and your relationship history to: sexualfluidity [at] gmail.com

Meanwhile, Jill now has her very own health and fitness column in Curve Magazine! Can we talk about her abs?

And if you haven’t seen it yet, check out Riese & Alex’s cameo on Nikki & Jill’s Flip Friday Video on Facebook!

We Love Documentaries: 5 Documentaries Relevant to Your Interests

I took some time off at the beginning of February and that presented me with plenty of documentary-watching opportunities. I REALLY LIKE DOCUMENTARIES and here’s why: documentaries put you in the middle of something you would otherwise never have the opportunity to know. The more you know about things, the better you are at being a good human. I particularly enjoy learning new things because then I have more to talk about when I drink beers with people. Also look:

Newfound knowledge via Dogs Decoded: NOVA

Obviously I owe a large chunk of my documentary watching to Netflix Instant streaming through my Wii machine. I would like to talk to you about all the documentaries I have ever loved, but that’s what personal blogs are for. Instead, let’s take a look at a selection of documentaries that I believe are relevant to the interests of at least 95% of you.

Bi The Way

[watch via Netflix Instant]

synopsis:

The iron curtain between gay and straight is crumbling. The Bible belt is unbuckled. Recent studies suggest that bisexuality is drastically more widespread than we ever thought. And for young people, dating a girl one week and a guy the next is no big deal.

Journeying through the changing sexual landscape of America, the directors of BI THE WAY investigate the latest scientific reports and social opinions on bisexuality, while following five members of the emerging “whatever generation” – teens and twenty-something who seem to be ushering in a whole new sexual revolution.

Bi The Way is what you watch when you’re feeling alienated or alone in your corner of the world and you need proof that other bisexuals / queer people exist and that they aren’t self-loathing mind-fucks, but really normal, adorable people just trying to be happy.

The film naturally skews pro-bisexuality or, you know, pro-common sense / open minds / YOU DO YOU, and that’s good because queers like and need validation. However, something that sort of stuck out to me was the few bigoted and ignorant comments that made it into the documentary, probably in an effort to make it appear unbiased? Maybe? To me they were totally unnecessary. Queer people know what bigots think. I don’t understand why they were given a platform in this documentary, other than to illustrate how stupid people can be (but again, we already know this).

Aside from that, eleven year-old Josh is amazing and will give you more hope for future generations than you thought possible. Also there are lots of gratuitous clips of girls making out, so.

Letter to the President

[watch via Netflix Instant]

synopsis:

Narrated By Snoop Dogg, Letter To the President is a feature documentary that showcases the close-knit ties between the Hip Hop Music community and America’s social and political policy in the last 30 years.

Ok honestly, they had me at ‘narrated by Snoop Dogg.’ I expected Letter to the President to be mostly about the evolution / devolution of hip hop music, but it goes way beyond that to show how the genre both affected society and mirrored it, as well as some really real talk about post-civil rights racism, government-funded modern-day slavery and how totally fucked things are in this country.

This changed the way I looked at um, everything. Basically you have to watch this.

Prodigal Sons

[watch via Netflix Instant]

synopsis:

In high school, Kimberly Reed was male, a straight-A student and captain of the football team. But since leaving his rural Montana hometown, he’s become a woman — and a filmmaker whose documentary could not be any more personal. Half the story involves her attending her high school reunion as a transgendered female; the other half involves reuniting with her siblings, including her estranged adopted brother.

You think Prodigal Sons will be about Kimberly and what it was like for her to return to a group of peers who’d only known her as a male, because there’s definitely enough material there to make a good documentary, but it’s also a fascinating look at family dynamics and how each person’s life experiences play out in their relationships with everyone else. I think I sat with my mouth open for at least a quarter of the movie.

Word is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives

[watch via Netflix Instant]

synopsis:

First released in 1977, this landmark documentary chronicles the experiences of some two dozen gay and lesbian Americans living throughout the country during the early days of the gay rights movement. Directed by a coalition of gay and lesbian filmmakers, the movie features interviews with poet Elsa Gidlow, activist Harry Hay and others who reflect candidly on growing up in a country that was still deeply and almost uniformly anti-gay.

If all of your aunts / uncles, grandparents and parents were gay or bisexual and they sat down with you over cucumber sandwiches and iced tea flavored bourbon to tell you what it was like to grow up and exist in the world when they were teenagers or twenty-somethings, that would be this documentary. Word is Out is the heart-to-heart talk you probably can’t get from older family members, because they’re not queer and they didn’t go through anything like this.

The strangely comforting yet mildly horrifying thing is, the stories told in Word is Out are SO FAMILIAR. Even though these people came out in the 50s / 60s / 70s, their basic experiences and feelings are still, in some ways, being recreated and re-lived today. You can see how far we’ve come as a country, but also how much ignorance and hatred stunts even the most promising progress.

The stories were sweet and sometimes really funny and always really good to hear.

black./womyn.: conversations with lesbians of African descent

[buy this film]

synopsis:

black./womyn.:conversations… is a feature-length documentary focusing on the lives and views of lesbians of African descent from various backgrounds. The documentary is structured by interviews-”conversations”-the director had with each of the women. It features candid interviews with black lesbian women discussing coming out, sexuality and religion, love and relationships, marriage, patriarchy, visibility in media, discrimination and homophobia, activism, gender identity, Black lesbian youth and elders, balancing gender/race/sexuality, and, finally, what it means to call oneself a Black lesbian today. black./womyn.:conversations… is a piece that provokes honest, progressive dialogue and critical thinking among people in general-and Black lesbians in particular-about how Black lesbians are viewed and affected by society. black./womyn.:conversations… features interviews with close to 50 out, Black lesbians including Poet/Author Cheryl Clarke, Filmmaker/Activist Aishah Shahidah Simmons, Poet/Author Staceyann Chin, Filmmaker Michelle Parkerson, Artist Hanifah Walidah, Hip-Hop Duo KIN, and Author Fiona Zedde.

This film encourages progressive dialogue about images of Black lesbians and the stereotypes resulting from their portrayal in media and society at large. The director hopes to create conversation among Black lesbians of differing ages, backgrounds about the lack of communication among these groups and how this affects the overall unity of Black lesbians as a group.

Saying that black./womyn features a variety of ages, gender identity / presentations and life experiences is a monumental understatement. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many aspects of queer life represented in one place before. Some of the stories are heartbreaking but so many are inspiring and eye-opening. There’s not a lot of narration, so the documentary does end up feeling like a conversation, and director / producer tiona.m. covers every topic imaginable: coming out, dating, marriage, activism, identity, ‘types’ of lesbians, etc. black./womyn was enthralling for a lot of reasons, not the least of which being that I’m a white girl and have no idea what it’s like to live these experiences, so I really truly appreciated how honest and open everyone was. Telling each other our own stories is important.

“At the root of the film I wanted to make something that would have benefited my younger self in a way. I think with film/media you have a chance to transport and immortalize ‘voice’ in a sense. With ‘black./womyn.’ I wanted to present a transparent film that would do just that — transport a portion of the Black lesbian community to places where we have not had the space to share our experiences via our own voice be that in cinema or in the privacy of one’s home.”

from an interview with Black Gay Gossip

Have you watched any of these? Do you have feelings? This is where you get to judge my film selection and opinions, while simultaneously providing your own film selections and opinions! Oh, internet, you’re so wacky!

Evan Rachel Wood is Bisexual, Toppy, Romantic, Will Pay For Dinner

Evan Rachel Wood is bisexual. She told Esquire Magazine all about it very recently so it’s a super big deal. I mean just google “Evan Rachel Wood bisexual.” She’s like the new Anna Paquin! Im going to type “Evan Rachel Wood Bisexual” a few more times. Evan Rachel Wood Bisexual.

No but really — I think we all could deduce, at least, that Evan Rachel Wood Bisexual had a fairly progressive view of gender after her on-again off-again and passionate long-term relationship with Marilyn Manson, who she told the press she liked because he wore eyeliner.

From the oh-so-tastefully-and-not-remotely-objectifying titled article “Evan Rachel Wood: A Guided Tour of a Woman We Love”:

“I love [Oh! You Pretty Things!]! I grew up in love with David Bowie.*”

*PING

She has a tattoo on her upper thigh to prove it, a heart with an Aladdin Sane lightning bolt.) “So I was always into very androgynous things. Guys, girls … I’m into androgyny in general.” She says this helps explain the appeal of her ex Marilyn Manson.

Later on in the interview:

“I’m up for anything. Meet a nice guy, meet a nice girl…”

This is the third such hint in the conversation, after that androgyny comment and saying she’d “marry” her Mildred Pierce costar Kate Winslet if she could.

You date women?

“Yes,” she says proudly, as if she was waiting to be asked.

Do you look for different things in men than in women?

“Yeah, I’m more kind of like the guy when it comes to girls. I’m the dominant one.” It’s with women, she says, that her inner North Carolina gentleman comes out: “I’m opening the doors, I’m buying dinner. Yeah, I’m romantic.”

We spent most of the day scratching our heads thinking that surely this isn’t the first time Evan Rachel Wood has mentioned being Bisexual. Were we confusing Evan Rachel Wood with the plethora of lesbionic characters played by Evan Rachel Wood? I mean, Evan Rachel Wood is right up there with Mischa Barton, Piper Perabo and Olivia Wilde, among others, as a frequently kissing other girls on the screen/teevee.

See back in 2007, Evan Rachel Wood told YRB Magazine:

“I’m not a lesbian, but I don’t think it’s weird or gross or anything. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I’m bisexual – I don’t sleep with women. But I definitely appreciate women and there have been times where I have been attracted to a woman,.”

“I’m not afraid of sexuality. I think too many people get called skanky or a whore just because they are sexual.”

She was 20 when she answered that question. Sometimes these celebrity self-outings — and our collective traceback to when they first broached the topic — are no different from our own stories. When we were younger many of us knew we were attracted to women but weren’t ready to let ourselves or the world know that we might sleep with them too. Then we broke up with our psychotic boyfriends and started looking for psychotic girlfriends. Evan Rachel Wood Bisexual is Just Like Us!

Clearly,here’s no day but today for an Evan Rachel Wood bisexual retrospective:

As straight but maybe bicurious teen Tracey Freeland in Thirteen (2003):
+

+

+
As lesbian teen Jessie Samier in Once & Again (2000):

+

+
As Kimberly Joyce in “Pretty Persuasion” (2005)

+

+

+
As Sophie-Anne Leclerq in True Blood (2010):

+

+

More importantly, Esquire reported that Evan Rachel Wood would like “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” played at her funeral, which is badass, but also somewhat alarming because I think Pink Floyd wrote that song for Syd Barret, who got really fucked up with drugs and was therefore much like a crazy diamond because he was like receding but also brilliant.

Anyhow hopefully Evan Rachel Wood will date a girl or something so we can become unnaturally obsessed with her every move. Ideally Lindsay Lohan, so we can multi-task.

SaveSaveSaveSave

New Book Claims Gandhi “Gay Or Bisexual,” Already Banned in Gujarat

A new book on Gandhi by Joseph Lelyveld may be banned in India before it’s even published. It’s already been banned in Gujarat, the state Gandhi grew up in. This is problematic, but then, so are the suggestions that the book suggests that Gandhi might have been bisexual and that this is a. relevant and b. a bad thing. Let’s discuss.

Lelyveld’s Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India draws on historical letters and other research as a means of exploring Gandhi’s life, his struggle for social justice, and the evolution of his values. It is currently available in print in the U.S. and as an e-book but has not yet been published in India. However, on the basis of several reviews, it’s launching debate anyway.

In what seems like an intentionally inflammatory review in the Wall Street Journal, Andrew Roberts argues that this particular depiction “gives readers more than enough information to discern that he was a sexual weirdo, a political incompetent and a fanatical faddist—one who was often downright cruel to those around him.” He also argues that Gandhi was a hypocrite, because he denounced lawyers but was one; quotes from people who called him “devious and untrustworthy”; and mentions his hemorrhoids. In a section of the review that seems to be causing a large amount of controversy, he also writes that Gandhi was in love with with Hermann Kallenbach, an architect and bodybuilder Gandhi lived with in Johannesburg, South Africa. Roberts speculates on alternative uses for the cotton wool and Vaseline that Gandhi’s letters say remind him of Kallenbach (Lelyveld relates these to the enemas Gandhi gave himself) and suggests that when Gandhi asked Kallenbach to “promise not to ‘look lustfully upon any woman” he meant himself as an alternative.

The review ends with a statement of Roberts’ belief that Gandhi’s campaigns were ineffective, and the only one that worked — getting the British out of India — was only successful because they were leaving anyway. To Indians who regard Gandhi as a father to the nation and his philosophies as part of the foundation of the country, this is deeply shocking and offensive. Other reviews, such as those in the Daily Mail and the Mumbai Mirror cite the same passages that Roberts does, in one case under the headline, “Book claims German man was Gandhi’s secret love.”

GANDHI AND KALLENBACH

The book, which has not been published in India yet, is being considered for a ban on the sole basis of reviews like the one in the Wall Street Journal (Roberts, who is a British historian, also has a book coming out in May, and is probably getting a ton of residual publicity from his review). This is before anyone in India has actually read it.

In an interview with the New York Times, Lelyveld, who has previously won a Pulitzer, emphasizes that he “treaded very carefully” with the book and says “I’m surprised to find myself at the center of [a spectacle], because I think this is a careful book, and I consider myself a friend of India.” Additionally, in an email to the Associated Press, he writes, “The book does not say that Gandhi was bisexual or homosexual. It says that he was celibate and deeply attached to Kallenbach. This is not news.” He also says he hopes someone will read it before it gets banned.

But right now, on the basis of the reviews alone, things aren’t looking good. Narendra Modi, chief minister of Gujarat, said the book was “perverse in nature” and that it “has hurt the sentiments of those with capacity for sane and logical thinking.” M. Veerappa Moily, India’s law minister, said “the book denigrates the national pride and leadership” and that officials will consider banning it. While it’s possible for anyone to suggest that a book be banned, less than one a year actually is.

According to the New York Times, the central issues at play are the public perceptions of both sexuality and Gandhi. While India has recently become less sexually conservative, coming out as anything but straight is still a big deal, and a law against sodomy was only struck down in 2009. Additionally, despite Gandhi’s status and influence, like any public/historical figure, there is a wide range of knowledge about his life and philosophy, and a lot of it is idyllic.

Finally, and perhaps most relevant to your interests, there is the issue of whether or not Gandhi was gay. Roberts snidely suggests that he was. Andrew Sullivan, in the Atlantic, suggests that “based on this evidence” he must have been. Lelyveld says his book does not say Gandhi was gay or bisexual. It would be radical in India to sugget that Roberts and Sullivan are right; it would be radical anywhere else to suggest that Lelyveld is, and that two men can care about each other as deeply as Gandhi and Kallenbach seem to have without being in a relationship. Or even more radically: maybe, in light of everything he did, Gandhi’s sex life should not even be an issue.

The “Lesbian Until Graduation:” Now A New York Times Most Emailed Article!

Before I start telling you about the article the New York Times wrote about LUGs, I should tell you two things:

1) I have never believed LUGs really exist

2) I think the NYT is frequently unintentionally hilarious. Disclaimer.

In other news, though, the New York Times wrote an article about LUGs.

The “lesbian until graduation” is the cultural archetype of a [usually white, privileged, overeducated] girl who “experiments” with same-sex relationships in college either as part of a rebellion against her parents/hometown/former life as a high schooler with a curfew or as the result of a newfound feminist political consciousness that can only truly be manifested by touching another girl’s vagina.

Its pervasion of mainstream consciousness can maybe be traced back to the 2003 New York Magazine article “Bi For Now,” which uses the term “hasbian” a lot but is otherwise a lot fairer than I would have assumed, focusing more on the lesbian community’s rejection of bisexual women than mocking those women itself. Although there are gems like this:

If there are more hasbians today than ten years ago, Sharpe thinks, it may have to do with the excitement of the gay-positive early nineties. “The aesthetic of gay politics was really cool. There was that whole act up thing, and it was easy to be gay. You had k.d. lang on the cover of Vanity Fair with Cindy Crawford, and there were all these lesbian movies like Go Fish. The gay community felt more exciting back then, and there was something alluring about entering into that scene… It’s like a junior year abroad to Gay World,” says Sullivan.

Maybe more familiar are the tropes of this popular Onion article:

An ambitious student who was active in student government at her Mamaroneck, NY, high school, Oppel first showed signs of an emergent lesbian identity in September 2000. That fall, shortly after enrolling in an Intro To Women’s History course, she began wearing Birkenstock sandals and listening to Ani DiFranco. She quickly rose through the ranks of Oberlin’s progressive activist scene, becoming a fixture at Student Empowerment Network meetings… According to friends, [Oppel’s girlfriend] started getting “weird vibes” from Oppel upon her return from a December trip to Barbados with her father, investment banker Jonathan Oppel, 55, and his new wife Cassie, 31. Sources close to the Oppels report that Amanda, who had been distant from her father prior to the vacation, “really bonded” with him on the trip. She also reportedly spent a great deal of time with fellow travelers and close family friends Greg and Karen Garner, and even more with their son Brad, 23, heir to the Garner office-supply empire.

Hahahahaaaaaaaaaaa.

The thing about both these articles is that while they’re ostensibly discussing the phenomenon of “LUGs,” neither of them really take it seriously – NY Mag references them skeptically in the opening paragraph, and then spends the rest of the article highlighting the lives of real women who are being ostracized and castigated for the genuine emotional attachments they’ve made. The Onion is a humor magazine, dedicated entirely to the discussion of things that are not real. This is the thing about the NYT article, though: it seems to have missed the memo on both those things? So, really, there’s two different stories here: the story that the NYT was actually trying to report on, which is that same-sex relationships actually have a higher incidence among women who didn’t finish high school than women with higher educational degrees. But then there’s the second story, which is that the New York Times apparently thought gay relationships in college really were just about “experimentation.”  Both deserve to be talked about.

First of all, the facts:

…according to the new study, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, based on 13,500 responses, almost 10 percent of women ages 22 to 44 with a bachelor’s degree said they had had a same-sex experience, compared with 15 percent of those with no high school diploma. Women with a high school diploma or some college, but no degree, fell in between.

Six percent of college-educated women reported oral sex with a same-sex partner, compared with 13 percent who did not complete high school.

There are a few reasons this could be. If I had to guess – and I shouldn’t be allowed to, because I am not a social scientist – I would guess that these women have been there in some population all along, but haven’t been sampled properly before.

As Amber Hollibaugh of Queers for Economic Justice says, “the results of the federal survey underscored how poor, minority and working-class lesbians had been overshadowed by the mainstream cultural image of lesbians as white professionals.”

Basically, poor minority queer women with less than a high school education are about as invisible as it gets in America, and of course you’re going to overrepresent an activity in a population if it’s the only thing you’re looking at. It may also be an economic shift that just makes sense: Barbara Risman, a sociology professor, says that “the new findings may reflect class dynamics, with high school dropouts living in surroundings with few desirable and available male partners.” [Sidenote: this is NOT about the stereotype of bisexual girls choosing to date whichever gender is “easiest,” it’s about the way that economic realities shape our relationships. Because gays should know at least as well as anyone that relationships are economic as well as romantic bonds. (DOMA you guys!)]

And so, yes: this is interesting! Which is more interesting, the new statistic significance of a heretofore ignored population or the receding of a (possibly imaginary the whole time) different one? Is this about homosexuality becoming less associated with privilege? Is this about smarter researchers? Is this about Papi? They’re interesting questions but hard to answer right now, without more studies.

Also hard to answer: Why is the New York Times so weird about this?

The popular stereotype of college campuses as a hive of same-sex experimentation for young women may be all wrong. To the surprise of many researchers and sex experts, the National Survey on Family Growth found that women with bachelor’s degrees were actually less likely to have had a same-sex experience than those who did not finish high school. “It’s definitely a ‘huh’ situation, because it goes counter to popular perceptions,” said Kaaren Williamsen, director of Carleton College’s gender and sexuality center.

COULD STILL DATE GIRLS AFTER COLLEGE

It’s like someone told them Kissing Jessica Stein was a documentary? Anyways, the NYT’s seemingly genuine shock throughout the whole piece is weird, but it’s only one of many disparate points of view they bring in here. It’s like good cop, bad cop, sex researcher cop, and economic injustice cop up in here. I feel like they didn’t know how to handle this study, had a nervous breakdown about it over lunch and then just decided to interview EVERY SINGLE PERSON who has any kind of insight on gay or sex stuff ever. I mean basically, here’s what we’re working with:

We Are All Special Snowflakes: “It’s like a Rubik’s cube of sexuality, where you turn it a different way, and the factors don’t fit together,” said Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. “It may be that the commonly held wisdom was wrong, that people just liked to imagine women in college having sex together, or it may be that society has changed, and as more people come out publicly, in politics or on television, we are getting a clearer view of the breadth of sexuality.”

The One I Personally Agree With Most: “I always thought the LUG phenomenon was overblown, in the context of it being erotically titillating for young men,”[special note: and/or comforting for young men in that it reassures them that our desire for each other isn’t real and that their sexual prowess is the only thing we will ever ever REALLY want] said Barbara Risman, an officer of the Council on Contemporary Families and a University of Illinois at Chicago sociology professor. She added that the new findings may reflect class dynamics, with high school dropouts living in surroundings with few desirable and available male partners.

The Realist: “Working with a gay-rights group is now something you’d put on your résumé,” said Ms. [Amber] Hollibaugh [of Queers for Economic Justice], who did not attend college. “Lesbians who aren’t college-educated professionals are pretty much invisible.”

The One From The Intro: “It’s definitely a ‘huh’ situation, because it goes counter to popular perceptions,” said Kaaren Williamsen, director of Carleton College’s gender and sexuality center.

PEOPLE

The One Who Is Dan Savage: Dan Savage, a gay sex columnist in Seattle, said the LUG phenomenon may be overrepresented in the national imagination because so many students sought attention for their sexual exploration: “A lot of them are out to prove something and want their effort to smash the patriarchy to be very visible,” he said.

The One Who Watched The Oscars This Year: Lisa Diamond, a professor of psychology and gender studies at the University of Utah, said that with gay relationships so much more common throughout society, college campuses may have lost their status as the “privileged site” for women’s exposure to different kinds of sexuality. “Maybe our stereotypes are just behind the times,” Ms. Diamond said, adding that while lesbian and gay couples raising children were still assumed to be sophisticated white professionals, as in the movie, “The Kids Are All Right,” the latest parenting data showed that “holy-moly, it’s less likely to be upper-middle-class same-sex couples than ethnic minorities and working-class couples.”

The Franky Likes People Award: “It’s becoming more acceptable, at least in some parts of society, to see your gender identity as fluid,” said Joan Westreich, a Manhattan therapist. “I see women whose first loves were women, who then meet and fall in love with a guy, and for whom it seems to be relatively conflict-free.”

So what this means is: no one knows what this means.

Or everyone does, but it all means something different. Maybe this is just one more person talking crazy on the internet, but: there are, again, two things happening here. There are turning out to be more women with same-sex experiences in more places than we thought, and it’s apparently less of a big deal to them than people had assumed it would be. And in response, people are kind of freaking out, pulling confused faces that there’s a kind of lesbian that isn’t painting “END PHALLUS SLAVERY” on her breasts and marching in circles around the Women’s Studies building. Maybe that’s the simplest and most accurate way to put it, maybe that’s the real news here. Girls being with girls is normal, or at least more normal than it has been before; for the first time, we’re becoming aware of a group of women who are seeking each other out and it’s not because someone taught them about The Lavender Menace in their $7000 freshman seminar. And consequently the people who had convinced themselves that that kind of woman could never exist are weirded out and kind of scared. It’s about where they’re at, not us. It’s about growing pains. You’ll know that they’re over and we’ve made it when you don’t see any more headlines in the New York Times announcing “Women Have Sex With Each Other, No Cherry Chapstick Involved?”

Ani DiFranco Appreciation Club Meeting #3: She’s So Gay

Ani DiFranco Appreciation Club is an all-inclusive space devoted to the appreciation and discussion of Ani DiFranco’s music. Meetings are open to anyone with a love of Ani DiFranco; new members welcome. We strongly encourage everyone to buy Ani’s music and not download it illegally, please.

Hello! And welcome everyone to the first Ani DiFranco Appreciation Club meeting of the new year! It makes us smile just to dream of it, how have you been? We’re excited to see so many familiar faces, and if this is your first meeting, welcome! Please take a moment to sign the attendance sheet in the comments. Is there a volunteer to take the minutes? Excellent, thank you wallow14. Vegan, gluten-free cookies and soymilk are available at the snack table by the door, please remember to compost your soiled paper products when you’re finished with them. Now we’ll just wait for everyone to settle down and we can begin.

How many of you are here with your same-sex partners, show of hands. Mm. I see several of you are sporting undercut hairstyles, and I think I see at leeeeaaast one pair of suspenders in the back. Don’t be embarrassed, they’re lovely. Everyone please take a moment to look around the room and note the abundance of queer and queer-allied persons. This is no coincidence. Have you ever stood in line for an Ani show? Probably half the lesbians in your town were there. Probably before you even went inside somebody said to somebody, “Omg she’s here; she’s here with her new girlfriend kill me DON’T LOOK SHE’LL KNOW WE’RE TALKING ABOUT HER fuck I hope we don’t end up standing next to them.” Which brings us to the focus of today’s meeting: Ani’s Gayest Songs.

What’s interesting is that Ani doesn’t have that many “gay” songs, you know? She references being with girls on just a handful of songs released in the early and mid-90s, which isn’t very much considering her vast repertoire.

But, as we’ve mentioned before, Ani writes about love/relationships/emotions the way nobody else can, so people of all orientations can relate to her music. She’s also always been a champion for fringe-y types – feminists, queers, lefties, activists, DIYers, artists, shit-disturbers – so it makes sense that she has a huge gay following. We love her because she gets us. She also wrote “I am thinking of her fingers as I walk” in like 1991 and cemented lesbian attendance at her shows for the rest of her life.
And here we are all today. Talking about Ani being Gay!

She Says (Not So Soft, 1991 / Like I Said, 1993)

BUY ON ITUNES

Riese: It’s sad when you know a person could love the fuck out of your stupid shit and you just can’t. Maybe someday, maybe somehow you’ll be ready to be LOVED BY A LADY but just not now while my insides are so effed.

bcw: Everytime it rains in the city I get this song in my head. Even the guitar sounds like rain falling.

Please try not to love me. You know I have no vacancy.

In or Out (Imperfectly, 1992)

BUY ON ITUNES

Riese: This song was the epigraph for that book I never finished writing about bisexuality. The lyrics give you permission to be pissed off that somebody wants to put you up on any shelf, and I liked that she was independent and came alone/left by herself. Like it was ANI FIRST and LABELS SECOND. I feel this song would be an excellent anthem for the YOU DO YOU movement.

bcw: Imperfectly is arguably Ani’s gayest record, and was the first record of hers I ever heard. This record made me realize I was gay, there is no doubt about it. And ‘In or Out’ was the song that did it, probably because it occurs early on the album. But I also identified as bi when I first came out, and I don’t know, to my 15-year-old self, the lines about stripes and spots and not ordering the same thing at the restaurant were like, life-altering. I immediately learned how to play it on acoustic guitar and did so constantly in front of the mirror in my bedroom.

The Whole Night (Not So Soft, 1991)

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bcw: I was never suuuuper into this song, honestly. I found it a bit cheesy, and it always annoyed me the way she sang “the who-o-ole niiiiight.” It’s cute though. It’s a cute song. People like it. It’s about girls kissing and thinking about each other’s fingers.

Riese: “The Whole Night” is a story of heartache and yearning and impossible desire but the song sounds plucky & happy & free and the language is so light, too. It’s hopeful/scheming. It planted lyrics in my head but they didn’t “flower,” so to speak, ’til maybe a decade later.

I literally feel like I wrote this song. Like, word-for-word. I have held hands like paper dolls, we have tried each other on in the privacy within New York City’s walls, and we’ve kissed our girl cheeks and we went home thinking what it would be like if she or I did not have a boyfriend and we could spend the whole night.

Also, I am thinking of her fingers as I walk — thank you Ani DiFranco for writing that line, god bless you.

Little Plastic Castle (Little Plastic Castle, 1998)

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bcw: This song meant so much to me not only because it marked a musical departure for her that blew my tiny mind, but also because of that line about that girl being the cutest. This song makes me think of sunbeams breaking in and early morning road trip coffee and frosty windshields. It has a pretty fun little bassline, too. I think this incarnation of her band – with Andy Stochansky and Sara Lee – is still my favourite.

riese: This is gay because there’s that part where they go into the coffee shop and despite how fucking cute your girlfriend is, you can’t kiss her because you might possible be among ‘phobes. You never know.

bcw: Also it has that GIRL POLICE line that we’ll probably address in another post. This song has everything. It’s a good-time song.

riese: “AA Club #4: ani difranco is trying to break your attitude about her outfits/lovers”

If It Isn’t Her (Imperfectly, 1992)

BUY ON ITUNES

Riese: I have playlists, folders, emails, everything —> titled “a girl-girl thing.” If I ever get married/commitmentceremonied, I want “this is a girl-girl thing” to be on my wedding invitations instead of the word “wedding.”

You’re going to throw stones at me and desecrate my website for saying this — but IN MY EXPERIENCE,  falling in love with a girl has a special feeling to it that falling in love with a guy doesn’t quite match. It’s not even a gay thing, I think heterosexual men feel the same way. Because girls are so giant and complicated and tangled up in these heart-shaped soft bits of desire and mystery and wanting and stuff. And then there’s nothing else in the world but Her, you know?

bcw: God this record was gay. I listened to this album non-stop on my SONY DISCMAN (I couldn’t afford that fancy anti-skip Panasonic Shockwave) on the OC Transpo to and from high school for what feels like a year but was probably a period of two months or so circa 1998. I didn’t listen to any other albums at that time, just Imperfectly. I have vivid memories of staring out the bus window at that big hill at Hurdman station, listening to her sing about it being a girl-girl thing and feeling like my whole self made sense suddenly but was also still a super-scary secret that only Ani understood. I always loved the line “my imagination is rattling its cage.” Imperfectly changed my life, it really did.

Shameless (Dilate, 1996)

BUY ON ITUNES

Riese: I don’t know what I said last time, but I can’t say anything about this song without saying everything. TOO MANY FEELINGS

bcw: We covered this song at our first meeting, but it’s her Big Gay Anthem so we can’t exclude it. How do you get into a room if it doesn’t have a door? Unresolved. No but seriously I read this “Unauthorized Biography” of Ani DiFranco at one point many years ago (I’m pretty sure I’m the only person on planet Earth who has read this) and she talked about how one day, early on, she looked out at the crowd and it was all babydykes with shaved heads and overalls and she was like, ‘How did this happen?’ and then I think she started playing ‘Shameless’ less at shows? I don’t know but I always felt a bit weird about that, like why did it matter that it was all lesbians. Did anybody else read that book or am I for real the only one.

Two Little Girls (Little Plastic Castle, 1998)

BUY ON ITUNES

Riese: This experience is just making me realize how often I’ve co-opted Ani lyrics for email subject headers, blog titles and (once upon a time) myspace headlines. From this song I snatched (har) “this little girl breaks furniture/this little girl breaks laws.”

You’re the one who knows what’s up, who knows who she is/was and what she needs, the parts of her that the other girl co-opted for herself and pumped with drugs/destruction and you’re the one who will be there to call 911 and you’re the one who lightens the mood with your jokes or furrows your brow — you are all of these things, effortlessly, and you feel confused as to why the world isn’t paying you back for being all those things.

bcw: I want to hear what Rachel has to say about this song because at our first meeting she implied she had a lot of feelings. Rachel, you have the floor.

Both Hands (Ani DiFranco, 1990 / Like I Said, 1993)

BUY ON ITUNES

bcw: I think this song is pretty gay. Riese doesn’t. Not that it’s about a girl necessarily, but ‘gay’ in the sense that it’s beloved by gays. I don’t know, it’s one of Ani’s many, MANY, it-could-be-about-anything-because-it’s-about-feelings songs but I challenge you to find me a lesbian guitarist who doesn’t know how to play this. BOTH HANDS NOW USE BOTH HANDS. Gay.

Riese: I would actually say that the sexuality of this song is fluid. I would say it is going with the flow. Because when I first heard this song I was watching a male chest rise and fall and now I watch a female chest rise and fall. It’s bisexual, just like Ani DiFranco. Also you may or may not be able to email me at iusebothhands at gmail dot com, but I definitely won’t write back.

bcw: It has universal gay straight bi queerio queer queer weirdo feelingsy appeal just like Ani and it can be ‘claimed’ only insofar as we all claim each other.

Riese: Ultimately in the end all we really have are our big gay feelings and our handsy acoustic guitars.

What are your thoughts? Did we miss anything super important to your gay self-actualization? Are you SO INSULTED by something in this post? Tell us all your gay feelings about Ani in the comments!

Christina Aguilera Gets Divorced, Likes Girls After All, is Not Dating Samantha Ronson

Christina Aguilera has filed for divorce from her husband Jordan Bratman, with whom she has a son. Bratman, it would seem, is a producer and enjoys sporting varying levels of facial hair from day-to-day. They had an open marriage allowing for sexual activities with all genders. It has taken us three days to write this post due to vacillating peaks of interest/disinterest.

You may remember Christina Aguilera due to her being a famous talented superstar, as well as from such “bisexual” events as her music video for Not Myself Tonight and the Great Madonna-Britney-Christina Kiss and for being one of the best vocalists of her generation. She came out as bisexual at the height of her career.

Furthermore, Aguilera was honored by GLAAD for using gay & transgender images in the video for her song “Beautiful” and has spoken out against Prop 8 and supported other LGBT causes.

The divorce, according to heaps of totally unreliable sources like Radar Online, is somehow related to Christina’s lesbionic tendencies. Within the context of an open marriage, this makes only remote sense and therefore unreliable sources encourage us to speculate that perhaps [insert something random here]. It has been said that the divorce “got ugly.” Also there is the suggestion of irreconciable differences, which is the official reason for the divorce and also a relatively vague, meaningless term that could defo mean “Christina is a homo.”

Other sources have reported that the divorce was spurred forward by Christina’s all-girl vaycay in Mexico a few weeks back with Samantha Ronson and Nicole Richie. Many other sources report that Christina Aguilera is now dating Samantha Ronson. Furthermore, additional sources report that Christina Aguilera is NOT dating Samantha Ronson. Also, according to the United Nations, a child dies every 6 seconds from malnutrition. Check out freerice.com to learn how you can help be a part of the solution.

Here’s Radar with their anonymous unnamed Abbey-crawling source:

Christina Aguilera and hubby Jordan Bratman are getting a divorce but RadarOnline.com has learned the couple had an open marriage when it came to Christina’s lust for women.

“I was at The Abbey one night when Christina’s bodyguard approached me,” a woman who wishes to remain anonymous told RadarOnline.com.

“He said, ‘My boss would really like you’ and pointed over to Christina.”

“I met Christina in the bathroom and she told me she liked to play with girls.

“I ended up not pursuing anything with it because the situation just seemed so weird to me, but Christina was definitely looking to hook up.”

According to the source, Christina has been known to frequently approach women while out at gay bars in Los Angeles.

Huh. Well. What the hell. We’re not sure if this is supposed to annoy us or not. But you know what it DOES make us think of? Back in May Christina Aguilera said the following for her OUT magazine cover story:

“I don’t get to kiss all the girls and the boys,” she says. “But my husband knows that I get into girls. I think it’s fun to be open and play.”

Nevertheless, Aguilera knows what this girl wants. “I don’t think I could ever really be with a woman because that’s a lot of…” Aguilera pauses. “Yeah, there’s a lot of estrogen and I’m a lot to deal with when it’s that time of the month, so I can’t imagine it times two.” She then shakes her head and adds, “And you know, I love dick. To be honest, that I cannot live without.”

… Sia explains, “I feel like Christina’s probably supporting the majority of the lesbian scene in Los Angeles because she really only works with gaylords, like her dog walker, her personal trainer, her cowriters.” As Stein puts it, “Bisexual or not, Aguilera is queer in the word’s most literal sense.”

We found this maddening because we’ve heard it so many times and anyhow let me just copy-paste that this is what we had to say about that:

Seriously. Seriously now. [“I love dick”] is just the most annoying thing in the world to say. You can buy a penis if that’s your primary concern. And although wearing a strap-on does not feel like being a man with a penis, being fucked by one does not feel all that incredibly different so JUST STOP SAYING THAT THING.

Remember last year when Pink was asked about her bisexuality, and she said, “I never said I haven’t [been with a woman]. I just said, going forward, I like penis.” That was annoying too.

Let’s refresh. These things are boring, and we are over hearing them:

1. Girls are crazy and have so many feelings!
2. I love penis!

Can’t you just say, “I’m straight! But kissing girls is fun!” Because you know, that’s fine. It is fun! Some lesbians like to kiss boys too for fun. Kissing is fun! We should all kiss each other a lot!

Essentially, “I love dick” is dumb. It’s a dumb argument and it doesn’t make sense and it’s unlikely to be true. “I love the male body” certainly makes sense. But you know, this seems to be a standard-issue answer when a lady doth protest too much.

Maybe if it was true — that she’s not truly open to relationships with ladies — she’d have a better reason why or wouldn’t feel the  need to explain. Maybe I’m just saying this because “girls are so crazy with all their estrogen I can’t imagine ever dating one” is something many of us said once to deny accusations of our homogayness.

If anyone wants to go try and hook up with Xtina and get back to us that would be great.

Victory, Howl, Bisexuality, Death, Glee, Labor, Freedom

DADT:

Sunday Funday is a time of joy and celebration, so we are not going to remark upon the emotional toll that the insane rollercoaster of DADT news is having on us, and merely be glad that today is a moderately positive day in this special magical journey that we’re all on. A Washington court ruled yesterday that Margaret Witt, an Air Force medic who was discharged under DADT, must be reinstated because the military could not prove that her sexual orientation had an effect on unit cohesion or morale. Specifically, the court has ruled that she should be given the chance to return to her job “at the earliest possible moment,” and that DADT violated Witt’s due process rights under the Fifth Amendment. (@washingtonblade)

We have very little knowledge of the repercussions of cases like this; we know that the ruling on Witt’s case only directly applies to Witt, and does not imply that anyone else needs to be reinstated or force the military to repeal DADT. But, like, it can’t mean anything bad, amirite? At the very least, I think it’s safe to count this as a moral victory, or at least one singular instance of the outside world confirming our understanding of how the universe works, therefore postponing our complete emotional breakdown over this issue for a short period of time. And seriously, thank God for that.

HOWL HOWL HOWL:

I am simultaneously excited about finally reading a review of this movie and enraged that someone else got to it before me. IT IS ONLY PLAYING IN VERY LIMITED THEATERS IN MY CITY. But just you watch, I will review this movie. I will review it so hard. Anyways, here’s what Slate said. “You think it’s a conventional indie biopic of the Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, with an earnest but mannered lead performance by James Franco. Instead, it’s a minimalist oddity, a full-length movie devoted to the recitation, comprehension, and appreciation of a single poem—that would be “Howl,” of course, published by City Lights in 1957 and made famous in a landmark obscenity trial.” omg omg omg omg omg HOWL (@slate)

ETA: As commenter Itsonlymemories points out below, HOWL can be seen, inexplicably, via Directv pay-per-view! WHAT I DON’T UNDERSTAND THIS EITHER. It’s like that episode of Friends when Joey got free porn except it’s not free or porn but that’s ok because it’s HOWL.

BISEXUALITY DAY:

I think Riese’s birthday may have been “Celebrate Bisexuality Day”? Is it me, or is that really funny? Also, Queerty used a photo of Malcolm X for their post on this, which I have a lot of feelings about. The end. BISEXUALS WE LOVE ALL OF YOU. (@queerty)

JILL JOHNSTON

Jill Johnston, celebrated author of ‘Lesbian Nation,’ has passed away this week at the age of 81. She will be fondly remembered for her seminal and intensely personal writing and her contributions to political lesbianism/lesbian politics. (@kansascity)

GLEE:

Hi, do you want to listen to every track from the Television Event of The Week, the Britney/Brittany episode? Or would you like to talk about race, gender and sexuality in the second season? Because both of those are totally options you have on the internet right now. (@jezebel) (@ontd)

STEPHEN COLBERT:

Continuing on the theme of not understanding anything that is currently happening w/r/t the legal system in our country, somehow Stephen Colbert was allowed to testify in character on a Congressional hearing on migrant workers. That happened? Yeah, I know! (@bestweekever)

FRANZEN:

Are you one of the approximately eighteen million thousand Americans reading Freedom right now and therefore preventing me and everyone else I know from getting it from the library? If so, maybe you are interested in hearing Jonathan Franzen to talk to Slate about his book and stuff. “Q: Obama famously was photographed with a copy of “Freedom.” If he read it, what do you hope he took away? A: I hope he was so preoccupied with urgent national affairs that he wasn’t able to take away much more than a general enjoyment of the experience. I didn’t vote for him in expectation of his mooning around pondering literary novels.” (@slate)