Vol. 1, Post #11 Eat Me Completely
When did everyone become a lesbian? My ongoing sex tips for girls* (*girls who are holding on to mid-life by a thread). A dating odyssey for Young Olds, AKA, people with readers.
Earlier this week, I attended an “embroidery as spellwork” workshop in neighboring uptown Kingston, NY (“the Brooklyn of the Hudson Valley”) and lest you think that I am mocking the event, I can assure you that I am not.
The idea was to focus on something you wanted to manifest or something you wanted to release, and then create an energy-fueled/intention-laden piece of embroidery around that concept. Attendees were encouraged to bring materials to work into their embroidery that were meaningful to them — a lock of a lover’s hair, a snippet of their grandmother’s sweater, you get the idea. The woman who taught the class was a third-generation crafter, who said she grew up with a mom and grandmother teaching her the art of embroidery and sewing and that the idea that each piece was imperfect, yet imbued with power by the person who made it, got her thinking about embroidery and spellwork, which is, after all, “handiwork” in its purest form.
Well, I thought that was captivating. I’ve always wanted to learn to embroider, and Sweet Merciful Jesus, Buddha, Adonai, and Dolly Parton alike know I have some shit that I’m both manifesting and releasing, so off I went to class at Holding Space. And that night, I stayed up till 4 a.m., embroidering away and also watching the Worm Moon partial eclipse. Paging Stevie Fucking Nicks.
Back to announcing that you eat pussy, our topic at hand (although that in NO WAY defines being a lesbian), I was amused/bemused by the embroidered slip that our class instructor @trip_club_ was wearing (see above, it’s the featured photo — the front of her slip read, “Sorry I missed church.”)
Why is everyone suddenly a lesbian? Or, specifically, how has “I’m a big lesbian” become a sort of coded phrase for “I’m GGG and it’s all fine.” (GGG, as I referenced in last week’s post, is “good, giving, and game” for the uninitiated, and refers to skills in bed. Online, people often write “GGG” as a way to let their potential dates know that a good time will be had by all.
As a hetero-focused bisexual (this means that while I never say never, I’m more attracted to men. I’ve had girlfriends, had a nine-year-relationship with my ex-wife, and more recently, was fine to “play” with women during my polyamorous period), I LOVE that the younger crowd has “normalized” pleasure for the sake of pleasure, fucking for the sake of fucking, and being good with “anything goes.” It really speaks to the only two hard and fast rules I have in life (SC, that«« was for you). They are:
Never go out of your way to hurt yourself.
Never go out of your way to hurt others.
How positively amazing that the youngsters seem to have zero hesitation in being precisely who they are, or who they want to be. Couldn’t love that more, and in memory of people I’ve loved and lost who remained sadly closeted up till their deaths, whose professional lives were governed by what others thought, whose families did not practice Love Is Love, I’m over-the-moon that Millennials, Gen Z, Gen Alpha et al are proudly, loudly, and shamelessly saying “fuck that noise.”
But why lesbians? I don’t see a ton of 20something and 30something guys loudly proclaiming, “I love dick,” or “Dick is the New Coke,” or whatever, on a T-shirt. Unless they’re gay. And then, HONEY. Below, one of my favorite shirts sighted at Tea Dance, Provincetown 2022.
Ok, so to continue…why is it somehow part of the new rhetoric to announce that even if you are not gay, you are ok with letting everyone know that you are lesbian? Is that akin to saying you are a witch, a heathen, a heretic, a rabble rouser, or a troublemaker?
I love that the young’uns are carrying on the traditions of Stonewall and I also wonder if Lesbian is the latest way to say “I march to the beat of my own drummer.”
I once had a very butch girlfriend. Very. Like, wow. Our thing was not very long but it was very intense emotionally and while the sex was red-hot, the conversations were just as captivating. Once, we were discussing the human “food chain.” At the top of it, you’ve got white straight men…at the bottom, butch lesbians (bonus points if those lezzies are BIPOC). Why? Here’s my theory, and there’s no manhating here; it’s just the way that it is…historically, not only do lesbians “distract” women from their god-given “task” of procreating, but butch lesbians “steal” the more feminine women away from men, so therefore are a threat (and the winner of “most air quotes” in one post — Abbe — fucking — Aronson! The crowd goes wild!)
While we don’t need to discuss any of that ^^^ bullshit, nor get into how not every lesbian couple has a butch/femme dynamic, the fact remains, not so long ago, that a lot of people subscribed to this nonsense. And some still do.
So back to my cutiepatootie embroidery instructor and her Lesbo slip. I have no idea what turns her on, or what her larger personal life is like, except to say that I think her boyfriend is a doll. To the average stranger on the street, who see her wearing that slip, do they assume, “Ok, dyke coming towards me. I will process that.” Do they assume, “Weirdo alternative chick coming towards me. I will process that.” The beauty of it all is that my instructor either doesn’t care or is glad to give that stranger something to think about. I like that no matter lesbian or not, in this instance, my instructor is Agent Provocateur. I’ve been there. I hope I’m still there. Which brings me to my other thoughts on this.
The fluidly fluid gender and sexual politics that the younger generation practice are second-nature to them. If we have kids, most of us have seen this first-hand. For those of us single (or newly single) in these Young Old years, don’t be surprised if you run into a date or two who is puzzled by it. “Defining” who we are by our sexual preferences or sexual identity is very old school and while there are elements of old school that I love (a phone call over a text from a potential lover, for example), I’ve had a few encounters with dates in the early days of “getting to know ya” chat who have told me that they don’t understand bisexuality, polyamory, whatever, and further, could never imagine themselves in situations where they’d be curious enough to explore, or even ask questions, based on societal norms. That, in a word or two, is not hot. That, in a word, is limiting at its finest. And for me, anything that limits me more than my vaguely wonky, aging knee limits me is a hardy No Thanks.
My final thought on this (and I delayed my post because I went to see Christeene and friends perform Sinead’s “The Lion and The Cobra” earlier in the week which is No Thanks Societal Norms Incarnate. BTW, here’s a pic of me at front of stage from photographer Nikki Sneakers, worshipping)…
…can be summarized in a Rainer Maria Rilke poem (I quoted another Rilke poem in this post about pleasure).
Go to the Limits of Your Longing
God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand.
From Rilke’s “Book of Hours”
You can call me a lesbian or a poem slut. Go forth, Dear Readers. Make some trouble.
I adore the poem! I wanted to add something that I believe is happening in the world as more and more people (not only the younger generations) are embracing fluidity and tossing gender and sexuality norms. Humanity is evolving mentally, technologically, energetically, and spiritually. Women have been more in touch with emotions and energy, so more easily expand and evolve in these intimate ways. As society still holds men (particulary white men) to outdated standards, they are both less likely to explore those feelings and also less likely to come out about it if they are. Thanks for your candid writing and authenticity always!