Island of Misfit Lesbians

This video is some preacher in North Carolina blabbering about getting rid of my people.   He suggests we sequester all gay people inside an electrified fence until we disappear.  Since women cannot reproduce with women and men cannot reproduce with men, he posits that we’ll all die off soon enough. 

There appear to be two groups who need to be sequestered:  lesbians and queers/homosexuals.  Are lesbians not queers/homosexuals?  Let’s send Pastor Worley a dictionary.  Also, somebody should probably tell him he’ll need three encampments; otherwise, where would he put the trans folks?

Regardless, I want to focus on Pastor Worley’s proposed lesbian encampment.  His proposal is not grossly inhumane.  I mean, he supports dropping food into the encampment.  That’s kind of him, right?  But does he really think this is a punishment for lesbians?  One, lesbians are reclusive, tribal creatures.  We love women-only spaces.  We also love the outdoors and camping.  His proposed encampment – let’s call it the Island of Misfit Lesbians – would just turn into a year-round Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival.  Within a menstrual cycle, we’ll have that encampment running like a well-lubricated dildo complete with several softball leagues.  Most lesbians I know are social workers and nurses, so we’ll Hull House the shit out that place.  Even if we lesbians grew tired of our confined space, does Pastor Worley really think a large society of lesbians couldn’t cut the power to that electric fence with just a little duct tape and a tampon string?  Obviously, Pastor Worley doesn’t know the lesbians I know.

Of course, the most ridiculous part of his argument is that this strategy would eliminate homosexuality because when we all died so would that love that dare not speak its name.  The last time I checked, most of my people were spawned by heterosexuals.  I mean, sequester us if you want, but YOU’LL just make more of us.   

Facial Hair

If you know me, you know that I was once married to a man.  Now that man dates guys and I date women.  (This fact, I think, makes my opposite-sex marriage a gay marriage, doesn’t it?  Just something to think about.)

I knew I was a lesbian before I married him all those years ago, and he knew I was too.  Why, then, were we attracted enough to each other to get hitched?

I can’t speak for my ex-husband, but I think, in some ways, I was his starter boyfriend.  Being with me was kind of like being with a guy, but my vagina made it socially acceptable.  When he eventually came out to his mother last year, he even told her that being with me was basically like being with a guy, because, as he told her, “Tami likes outdoorsy stuff, and to wrassle.”

So what attracted me to him?  There’s nothing feminine or girly about him physically.  Aside from being a male nurse, he’s a fairly butch guy, in that nerdy caffeinated gamer kind of way.  My ex-husband was and is a great guy.  He’s kind, funny, smart, and sensitive.  But why did I first want to make out with him?

I’ve never had a good solid answer to this question until recently, but it turns out that it’s all because of his facial hair.  While discussing our mutual man-crush on Robert Downey Jr., a fellow lesbian pointed out the following:  “I think a man with a goatee looks like he has a vagina sitting right up on his face.” 

My ex-husband, as it turns out, has had a goatee since we first met in high school.  Interestingly, the only time I can ever recall him shaving his goatee was to dress as Dr. Frank N. Furter to attend a midnight showing of Rocky Horror.  (I, of course, went as Eddie, complete with mutton chop sideburns.)    

I had never thought of facial hair in this way before, but now I can think of nothing else.  This even explains my attraction to Eddie Izzard, who is either in women’s clothing or has a goatee.  I’ve been reading up on how women feel about beards to see if this relates to the possible lesbian fascination with facial hair.  I read one article that suggests that women prefer men with light beards or stubble, as opposed to clean shaven or bushy bearded.  I completely agree with that, for both facial and pubic hair.  Hair is a signifier of maturity and adulthood, both on faces and vaginas.  That’s why I’m not a fan of the clean-shaven, pre-pubescent look on either, and no wants to go searching for lips through a Grizzly Adams beard/bush.       

I have now seen my relationship with my ex-husband through a new lens; I was his starter boyfriend and his goateed face was my starter vagina.  Isn’t that romantic?