Where Everybody Knows You're Numb

 

Psych Lit wrote:

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Oh, PLEASE! LOL. And I suppose there are no chaste and/or virginal lesbians??

now this would make an interesting topic. i remember some womens studies groups in the early 90s where this was oft mentioned. i thought it odd then and i guess i think it odd now. other than nuns the identification as a lesbian by people who would never have a lesbian sexual experience.  someone explain that to me cause really i dont get it. i get the woman bonding aspect of it but one doesnt have to be lesbian to feel that. 

 

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Ah. I may have glossed over the "never" above (which I've put in bold, so I won't make the same mistake twice.  )

Well ... "never" is a long, long time ...

Maybe it's a part of the process, while these women are working through acceptance of their sexual preference, and coming to terms with religious backgrounds, etc.

I'm wondering if they would have a heterosexual experience, of it it's just "no sex at all, ever" (at least for the time being.)

I'm wondering too, where those women in then the early 90's are today in terms of sexual experience, and also, if there are fewer who identify with that group, due to subtle changes in social acceptance of homosexuality. Would be an interesting follow up poll, hey?

I don't know that if someone opts to be chaste, that we can fairly assume them to be a defaulted heterosexual, can we? Surely at LEAST 10% of them could be assumed to be homosexual, and I would suspect that number to be significantly higher. I was chaste until my first lesbian sexual experience, and considering the croud with which I ran, in my youth -- young womanhood, that was almost anachronistic, reallly. I didn't yet know I was lesbian, but I knew I didn't want THAT. Figured I was sort of emotionally deformed, or something ... clearly there was something "wrong" with me, because I didn't want ANYTHING to do with THAT whole "guy" thing, and I knew I was "supposed" to. Hard as it is to now imagine, I was largely unaware of lesbians at the time. I can only remember once hearing about "them" while in high school, and that was in relation to motorcycles, leather jackets, and chains. Back then (and perhaps now, to some extent) at least the image of "bikers" was pretty much politically apart from where I was, politically, and more in keeping with the politics of the folks in the FFA. Oddly, in retrospect, they would probably have been better lumped with my politics than that of the Future Farmers of America, in that they were more "liberal" than conservative, but this was during Viet Nam, and that issue seemed to be the over-riding segregator politically speaking.  

You know, a year or so ago, back when there was all that scuttlebutt about Oprah and Gayle being secret lesbian lovers, even though they've continually denied it, Oprah finally addressed the rumors, and said something which found a very strong resonance in me. She said her relationship with Gayle was "other worldly" and intended it to mean, I think, friendship plus ... something more than "just" friendship, or loving in that capacity of friendship.

That reminded me of my pre-awareness days, and the way I felt about my "best friend." It was ... just different from the way I perceived other women/girls around me feeling about their "best friends." Obviously, information about homosexuality is widely more available now, than when I was a kid, and I'm sure Oprah has seen most, if not all of it, and I'm not about to dispute her assertion as to who or what she is, because obviously, she would better know than I about this. That "it's other worldly" thing though ... did give me pause.  

I think, Psych, there is an emotional step beyond the "women bonding" thing, of which one may be aware, and that might be the nugget for which you're searching here. I know I felt it, any way. If I'd had the tools back then, when I was blossoming, sexually, I probably would have IDed as lesbian, even though I'd not yet chosen to have a sexual experience of any sort.

I think there is a mental process through which some of us must go, before actualizing sex with another woman... growth, acceptance, yadda yadda. For me, it was incremental, and I did a TON of reading on the subject before I could wrap my brain around the fact I was lesbian, and came to that conclusion probably a good year before I actualized that awareness physically with another woman -- a woman with whom I was madly in love, and who was my first partner. 

Her name was Pandora. 

               

  "When I look at you briefly, then I can no longer speak, but my tongue is broken, at once light fire has run under my skin ..."  (Sappho)

Nightowlhoot3 wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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Psych Lit wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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Oh Lordy! Asexuals who label themselves lesbian. It has been heartburn for me more than once. When did sexual identifcation leave us? And, why? I'm all ears:)

apparently this is something not as rare as i might have thought it to be. i ijust googled it and got a new york city meetup blog attached to a queer site and an asexual lesbian message board. mebbe i should pop over and ask? or would that be rude?

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I think you should. It's not rude at all to stand up for ones sexual identity.  To me it's wrongly identifying as Lesbian and, I just won't have any of it. No more so than allowing transgendered people to identify as Lesbain with gonads intact. And, to do so is rude. It props up those that have sterotyped Lesbians as troubled sexless creatures. Expressing love through sex is a beautiful, natural thing. Now I'm flushed;)

 

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So again, I ask: how frequently "must" a lesbian have sex with a woman (if at all) before she may ID as lesbian?

I'm not comfortable with the implication that being lesbian is about having sex. I was a lesbian in my head LONG before I actualized it physically, and I've also gone through long stretches in my life, between partners where I was, by choice, celibate. I'm pretty sure I didn't stop "being a lesbian" during any of those times.

Sure, "expressing love through sex is a beautiful thing" but is a person "in love" with someone every minute of their lives? And even if they ARE in love with someone at the moment, I cannot imagine imposing some "rule" about sexual activity upon them. 

IMO, a woman is a lesbian first and foremost in her head and heart. I know that may not be the techincal definition of lesbian, but I don't think the more accurate defintion has yet caught up with reality. To think otherwise would be to assert that if a woman is living in a small town where there are no other lesbians, she cannot be a lesbian, because she's not sexually active with another woman.

I don't think there's ANYTHING wrong with opting to be a celebate lesbian, if that's what a woman wants to be. Why should there be? There are plenty of celebate heterosexuals, and no one questions their sexuality because of it, right?

 

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Psych Lit wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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Oh Lordy! Asexuals who label themselves lesbian. It has been heartburn for me more than once. When did sexual identifcation leave us? And, why? I'm all ears:)

apparently this is something not as rare as i might have thought it to be. i ijust googled it and got a new york city meetup blog attached to a queer site and an asexual lesbian message board. mebbe i should pop over and ask? or would that be rude?

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I think you should. It's not rude at all to stand up for ones sexual identity.  To me it's wrongly identifying as Lesbian and, I just won't have any of it. No more so than allowing transgendered people to identify as Lesbain with gonads intact. And, to do so is rude. It props up those that have sterotyped Lesbians as troubled sexless creatures. Expressing love through sex is a beautiful, natural thing. Now I'm flushed;)

 

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Anonymous wrote:

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Oh Lordy! Asexuals who label themselves lesbian. It has been heartburn for me more than once. When did sexual identifcation leave us? And, why? I'm all ears:)

apparently this is something not as rare as i might have thought it to be. i ijust googled it and got a new york city meetup blog attached to a queer site and an asexual lesbian message board. mebbe i should pop over and ask? or would that be rude?

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 Psych Lit wrote:

Nightowlhoot3 wrote:

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For a second there, when I read your headline, I thought you meant Hillary R Clinton.

ha. well maybe if she had become the pres. did you notice who wrote the article? look at it fast. lol

 LOL!

"...that include comments that look, sound like, stand for, hint at, abbreviate, or insinuate content of a potentially sexual nature,"


Oh, PLEASE! LOL. And I suppose there are no chaste and/or virginal lesbians??

now this would make an interesting topic. i remember some womens studies groups in the early 90s where this was oft mentioned. i thought it odd then and i guess i think it odd now. other than nuns the identification as a lesbian by people who would never have a lesbian sexual experience.  someone explain that to me cause really i dont get it. i get the woman bonding aspect of it but one doesnt have to be lesbian to feel that. 

Well, when I was working at ACLU, there was a guy who came in who'd lost his job as a police officer, because he'd mentioned to his sergeant that he THOUGHT he was gay. 

He told me he'd never had a gay encounter. Typically, I think I would have been dubious, but honestly, THIS guy?? I believed him. That later changed, of course, but at the time...  

How often does a woman "need" to have sex with another woman to keep her "membership" up to date?

I think I "knew" I was lesbian before I ever had a lesbian encounter. Of course "lesbian" didn't occur to me right away -- the first step was "maybe I'm bi-sexual."

I went to chat with a counselor, and mentioned that I thought I might be bi-sexual. She just nodded, and there was a pause, and she asked me if I'd ever had sex with a woman, and I said "no" and we then talked about something else for a while, and then she asked me if I'd ever had sex with a MAN, and I said: "No, not by choice." And she then asked: "So, what makes you think you're BI-SEXUAL???" 



I had to think on that for a while. A good, long while. After that, I began being more aware of "clues" and finally, I decided that I was lesbian -- although I'd still not had a lesbian enounter ... well, not technically, any way. At some level, I'd been having "lesbian encounters" since about fourth grade. They just never manifested in sex.

For me, it really wasn't about the sexual thing at first. It was about where my heart always went. It was always about with whom I was falling in love, not bed, that lead to my realization I was lesbian. Still is, to some extent, I suppose.   

Psych Lit wrote:

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Woman Banned From Xbox Live for Identifying as Lesbian

by Lee Bains, posted Feb 27th 2009 at 11:03AM

A former Xbox Live user has been banned by Microsoft because her profile stated that she was a lesbian, according to a report in The Consumerist.

Identifying herself only as Teresa, the woman told her story in an e-mail to the site, reading, "[My] account was suspended because I had said in my profile that I was a lesbian." This should not come as a total surprise to anybody who recalls the story of the (admittedly) unfortunately named Richard Gaywood, who was banned from the service last year due to his user name -- 'RichardGaywood.' But this story goes one step further, as Teresa claims she was being harassed online by other gamers. In her e-mail, she wrote, "They followed me into the games and told all the other players to turn me in because they didn't want to see that crap or their kids to see that crap."

Following The Consumerist's lead, reporters from Ars Technica went to Microsoft for comment. Read the company's surprising official response after the break:"[A] member may not create a gamertag or use text in other profile fields that include comments that look, sound like, stand for, hint at, abbreviate, or insinuate content of a potentially sexual nature," an unapologetic Microsoft spokesperson told Ars Technica. "In regards to sexual orientation, for gamertags or profiles we do not allow expression of any type of orientation, be that hetero or other. Players can, however, self identify in voice communication where context is more easily explained to all players involved."

In an interview yesterday with MTV News, however, Microsoft's program manager for policy and enforcement on Xbox Live, Stephen Toulouse, admitted that his employer's solution is "inelegant," citing that the textbox field when creating gamertags is "freeform," meaning the only option the company has is to kick folks off if they seemingly violate the policy. MTV's Stephen Totilo then suggested that Microsoft simply add a sexual orientation field to player's profiles. Toulouse is taking the suggestion under advisement.

http://www.switched.com/2009/02/27/microsoft-bans-woman-from-xbox-live-for-identifying-as-lesbian/

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For a second there, when I read your headline, I thought you meant Hillary R Clinton.

"...that include comments that look, sound like, stand for, hint at, abbreviate, or insinuate content of a potentially sexual nature,"


Oh, PLEASE! LOL. And I suppose there are no chaste and/or virginal lesbians??





 an unapologetic Microsoft spokesperson told Ars Technica. "In regards to sexual orientation, for gamertags or profiles we do not allow expression of any type of orientation, be that hetero or other. Players can, however, self identify in voice communication where context is more easily explained to all players involved."


I wonder if they would have banned Richard Straightwood.
Yeah, right.