I'm gonna sit at the welcome table....
Hello! Nice to meet you. I am going to let you in on a little secret. Well...it's not really a secret, but seeing as how we just met: yes, I, Erin Kennedy author of "I'm blogging! Like Gangbusters!" am a lesbian. I don't really prefer that label, but I use it mainly because it is the term that best describes a certain component of me. Now that you all know the "shockin truth" (cue R. Kelly's epic Trapped in the Closet) you are probably asking yourselves, "What insights does she have into the gay community?" Good question! All of this Pride Month razza-ma-tazz has got me thinking. Why do I not have lesbian friends? Aside from the fact that I dislike Ani DiFranco and the scent of patchouli, I never meet other lesbians who share my interests. I guess I am not particularly interesting by comparison to others. For starters, I am white, middle class, and I move through the "mainstream" culture with relative ease. I like clothes (from stores), I have career aspirations that don't involve the words "community activist" or "free-gan," and I spend an ample amount of time in the bathroom tending to my hair and makeup. I have tons of straight and bisexual friends who are some of the best anyone could ever have, and I am up to my neck in gay men. What, then, is it about me that prevents me from finding and maintaining friendships with other lesbians? Is it as simple as changing my status on the Facebook?
Perhaps I am lying in my "I refuse to unite around a specifically constructed identity" bed that I made. Or maybe it is because I am not a huge fan of gay marriage. Make no mistake, I will support and defend any queer person's right to marry, but the whole hetero model is not really for me. Too bad the state grants benefits based on that model. Am I a queer contrarian? Hopefully I am not turning into the lady Andrew Sullivan.
This is from one of my classes- "I think Margaret Sanger was into eugenics for the right reasons"
posted by Erin @ 8:45 AM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
Aaah the plight of the lesbian who doesn't fit in.
I'm the weirdo lesbo in my group of friends - or, the token queer chick who wears make-up and skirts, but they accept me.
I actually wish I had *more* straight friends, so I suppose I'm in a different situation than you.
Whatever, you totally kick ass and I'm 100% up for spreading the word to anyone who would think or say otherwise.
Damn cliquey homos, anyway.
The reason you have difficulty finding normal, mainstreamy lesbians to befriend is largely a function of perfectly normal market functions. In this case, cartel tactics have worked against you to artifically inflate demand by removing supply. You see, like De Beers diamonds, I keep all of these lesbians in a vault near Sedalia, and allow only a few out every year, keeping their desirability high. It's not that they aren't "out there," its that they are, more accurately, "out there in Ben's vault." Until I am bought out or GLAAD finds out where I've stashed all the gays, you'll have to take solace in this: it doesn't matter that you're uninteresting when you have such pretty clothes!
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