![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I was in San Francisco this weekend. By some twist of fate and my complete ignorance of calendar's beyond my own social calendar, it just happened to be pride week. So, out with the gay people marching with rainbow flags there were all the Jesus freaks preaching hell-and-damnation and a painful end to everyone who doesn't believe exactly what they believe.
Nothing unusual, you say? Well, here is where it gets interesting, at least for me.
My partner in crime on this jaunt was Yo!Mello. Yo!Mello is the only person ever who doesn't mind that I am a physically affectionate person. She doesn't mind that I stroke, hug and generally pet. She sits still for it and, actually, even enjoys it. Yo!Mello and I have been known to cuddle for hours.
No, we are not gay. But it seems that affection shared between members of the same sex automatically has to mean homosexual. Sitting on a bench waiting for a friend to meet us, Yo!Mello gave in to exhaustion and put her head in my lap for a quick nap. Well, Yo!Mello has a head full of the most glorious hair ever and I have always loved playing in it. So, I rubbed her head, much as my mom has rubbed mine, and the entire time we sat there we got an amazing number of second glances and double takes from all of the redneck tourists littering the Fisherman's Wharf. I sat there and thought: we're not kissing, hugging or holding hands. All of which I don't see a problem with. I'm not interested in frenching her, but hugging and holding hands are all things I've been known to do with 'girlfriends'.
And let's visit for a moment with that term. I've always used the term 'girlfriends' when I refer to my close friends who are girls. It wasn't until three years ago that it was brought to my attention that the meaning of the word has shifted. My new roommate asked me how I was getting into the city and I said: "My girlfriend is picking me up from the airport." I never thought twice about it until she asked if I was gay. I said, "no, why would you ask that," with a great deal of surprise. She pointed out that I mentioned that my girlfriend was picking me up from the airport. I was thinking girlfriend like the TV show "Girlfriends" she was thinking girlfriend like the TV show "The L Word." Suddenly it's a loaded term and every time I use it, I feel the need, although I don't give into it, to follow-up with "No, I'm not gay."
I'm pretty stunned to realize how society has compartmentalized love and affection, reducing it to a strict definition of hetero-social interactivity. Homo-social interactions, of any sort, slowly seem to be eroding into ideas of hyper-masculine and hyper-feminine identities predicated upon themes of competition. I've met many people, especially women, who's idea of friendship is located in one-upmanship with their 'girlfriends'. Who is prettier, who can get the most attention, who is the first to get married, have children, etc. They steal each other's boyfriends and break up because they see one another as serious competition and at some point they have to find less attractive, less interesting, less male-targeted friends. A good friend of mine told me stories over coffee of girls who had broken off friendships and their reasoning was that Tex was too pretty and got too much attention. Tex is pretty, but Tex is that girl who goes out to have a good time with her friends and hang whatever boys are trying to peep her out. My observation has been that those are the girls who often get the most genuine attention. The girls who are out just having a good time with friends and not on the 'make.'
So, I am amazed, shocked by the limitations that I am beginning to see as the marked boundaries of relationships. Of course, there are those who continue to push the boundaries, resisting society's insistence on clear, normative definitions. I am talking about more than just bi-sexuality. I am talking about heterosexual soul mates, best friends like me and The Crazy Jamaican who live in each other's back pockets. We are celebrating our 20th anniversary in September and she is my soul mate. We've recognized that connection in each other since we were nine-years-old, although then we didn't know the name for it. We have no sexual interest in each other, but when we talk about getting old, it's always the two of us together after children have grown-up and husbands are gone. The two of us in a house on a hill living out the rest of our days together. She is my other half, my missing piece. I am whole when I am with her. She let me hang and hug on her. I can tell her anything. We are closer than sisters, closer than lovers. And Yo!Mello lets me play in her hair.
When I am attracted to someone (read men), it's pretty obvious. I am very flirtatious and the quality of the petting changes. I've never been good at hiding reactions and everyone can usually tell. There *is* a difference. The touches are lingering, the cuddling is less about comfort and support and more about me leaning in and letting go. When I kiss boys, tongue is usually involved. And I like boys in a way that I don't like girls. There are women whom I find incredibly attractive. I call them my girl crushes. Those girls that I might change teams for. Women who are just so beautiful or somehow attractive that I can't help but stare and marvel and think, damn, she's beautiful. But there still isn't the same attraction that I get for guys. There isn't a heart pounding, belly-flip-flop, sinking, spine tingling moment that I get with guys that I find attractive. I'll stare and want to touch but not because I want to own a piece of it, but because it's a marvelous, beautiful thing and I like to admire beautiful things. I like to touch, but not 'touch'. There is a difference and it amazes me when people are so unsure or uptight or self-conscious about their own sexuality that they can't understand and/or recognize the difference. So, I always find myself prefacing statements to girls that I don't know: "I'm not gay and I'm not trying to get on you or anything, but I just think you're beautiful." I find that I have to verbalize the difference because for some reason they don't always pick up on the absence of sexual tension. With guys, I find it palpable, but I don't feel it for girls and so, I have to make sure that they realize it as well because if it's one thing American's are good at, it's misconstruing sexual intentions. We are good at fucking it up and making it uncomfortable and shameful and cheap. And that totally sucks.
I love my girlfriends, but that doesn't mean I want to get on them. I express affection through touching and I enjoy being touched in love and friendship and with no other motivation then that it feels good and it's comforting. Maybe it's the way that I was raised. My mom always hugged me, cuddled me, rubbed my belly, no matter how old I got. It was the way that she showed affection, too. Now, when I begin to notice the glances and I hold on tighter because I refuse to let an increasingly conservative society determine for me how I should love my friends. There is a difference between romantic and platonic love and I think that people forget that. So, I hug and pinch and kiss. If you hang out with me, you WILL get manhandle. It is inevitable.
Nothing unusual, you say? Well, here is where it gets interesting, at least for me.
My partner in crime on this jaunt was Yo!Mello. Yo!Mello is the only person ever who doesn't mind that I am a physically affectionate person. She doesn't mind that I stroke, hug and generally pet. She sits still for it and, actually, even enjoys it. Yo!Mello and I have been known to cuddle for hours.
No, we are not gay. But it seems that affection shared between members of the same sex automatically has to mean homosexual. Sitting on a bench waiting for a friend to meet us, Yo!Mello gave in to exhaustion and put her head in my lap for a quick nap. Well, Yo!Mello has a head full of the most glorious hair ever and I have always loved playing in it. So, I rubbed her head, much as my mom has rubbed mine, and the entire time we sat there we got an amazing number of second glances and double takes from all of the redneck tourists littering the Fisherman's Wharf. I sat there and thought: we're not kissing, hugging or holding hands. All of which I don't see a problem with. I'm not interested in frenching her, but hugging and holding hands are all things I've been known to do with 'girlfriends'.
And let's visit for a moment with that term. I've always used the term 'girlfriends' when I refer to my close friends who are girls. It wasn't until three years ago that it was brought to my attention that the meaning of the word has shifted. My new roommate asked me how I was getting into the city and I said: "My girlfriend is picking me up from the airport." I never thought twice about it until she asked if I was gay. I said, "no, why would you ask that," with a great deal of surprise. She pointed out that I mentioned that my girlfriend was picking me up from the airport. I was thinking girlfriend like the TV show "Girlfriends" she was thinking girlfriend like the TV show "The L Word." Suddenly it's a loaded term and every time I use it, I feel the need, although I don't give into it, to follow-up with "No, I'm not gay."
I'm pretty stunned to realize how society has compartmentalized love and affection, reducing it to a strict definition of hetero-social interactivity. Homo-social interactions, of any sort, slowly seem to be eroding into ideas of hyper-masculine and hyper-feminine identities predicated upon themes of competition. I've met many people, especially women, who's idea of friendship is located in one-upmanship with their 'girlfriends'. Who is prettier, who can get the most attention, who is the first to get married, have children, etc. They steal each other's boyfriends and break up because they see one another as serious competition and at some point they have to find less attractive, less interesting, less male-targeted friends. A good friend of mine told me stories over coffee of girls who had broken off friendships and their reasoning was that Tex was too pretty and got too much attention. Tex is pretty, but Tex is that girl who goes out to have a good time with her friends and hang whatever boys are trying to peep her out. My observation has been that those are the girls who often get the most genuine attention. The girls who are out just having a good time with friends and not on the 'make.'
So, I am amazed, shocked by the limitations that I am beginning to see as the marked boundaries of relationships. Of course, there are those who continue to push the boundaries, resisting society's insistence on clear, normative definitions. I am talking about more than just bi-sexuality. I am talking about heterosexual soul mates, best friends like me and The Crazy Jamaican who live in each other's back pockets. We are celebrating our 20th anniversary in September and she is my soul mate. We've recognized that connection in each other since we were nine-years-old, although then we didn't know the name for it. We have no sexual interest in each other, but when we talk about getting old, it's always the two of us together after children have grown-up and husbands are gone. The two of us in a house on a hill living out the rest of our days together. She is my other half, my missing piece. I am whole when I am with her. She let me hang and hug on her. I can tell her anything. We are closer than sisters, closer than lovers. And Yo!Mello lets me play in her hair.
When I am attracted to someone (read men), it's pretty obvious. I am very flirtatious and the quality of the petting changes. I've never been good at hiding reactions and everyone can usually tell. There *is* a difference. The touches are lingering, the cuddling is less about comfort and support and more about me leaning in and letting go. When I kiss boys, tongue is usually involved. And I like boys in a way that I don't like girls. There are women whom I find incredibly attractive. I call them my girl crushes. Those girls that I might change teams for. Women who are just so beautiful or somehow attractive that I can't help but stare and marvel and think, damn, she's beautiful. But there still isn't the same attraction that I get for guys. There isn't a heart pounding, belly-flip-flop, sinking, spine tingling moment that I get with guys that I find attractive. I'll stare and want to touch but not because I want to own a piece of it, but because it's a marvelous, beautiful thing and I like to admire beautiful things. I like to touch, but not 'touch'. There is a difference and it amazes me when people are so unsure or uptight or self-conscious about their own sexuality that they can't understand and/or recognize the difference. So, I always find myself prefacing statements to girls that I don't know: "I'm not gay and I'm not trying to get on you or anything, but I just think you're beautiful." I find that I have to verbalize the difference because for some reason they don't always pick up on the absence of sexual tension. With guys, I find it palpable, but I don't feel it for girls and so, I have to make sure that they realize it as well because if it's one thing American's are good at, it's misconstruing sexual intentions. We are good at fucking it up and making it uncomfortable and shameful and cheap. And that totally sucks.
I love my girlfriends, but that doesn't mean I want to get on them. I express affection through touching and I enjoy being touched in love and friendship and with no other motivation then that it feels good and it's comforting. Maybe it's the way that I was raised. My mom always hugged me, cuddled me, rubbed my belly, no matter how old I got. It was the way that she showed affection, too. Now, when I begin to notice the glances and I hold on tighter because I refuse to let an increasingly conservative society determine for me how I should love my friends. There is a difference between romantic and platonic love and I think that people forget that. So, I hug and pinch and kiss. If you hang out with me, you WILL get manhandle. It is inevitable.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-06-29 03:22 am (UTC)From:I was always naturally cuddly with my girlfriends (small "g"). And they loved it ... in private. But in public they'd get nervous that people would think we were Teh Gay. This was back in teen years/early 20s and these girlfriends had grown up in Fundie Cult church, as had I. Appearance was everything. I wasn't so influenced by church mores, because my parents had rather unusual attitudes and because I had already decided I had absolutely no intention of *ever* having a romantic relationship in The Church, but my girlfriends were paranoid about getting in trouble (with church authorities - a real possibility) and of giving eligible males the wrong impression (thus damaging their reputations & dating prospects).
Ha - I just remembered the one time, back when I was actually working for the church, when a guy pulled me aside and told me I shouldn't pinch one of my girlfriends 'cause it "looked inappropriate." I wanted to know in what way, and he turned beet red. >;D
Now that we're all grown up and out of Fundie Cult clutches, my best friend doesn't have any qualms about just plopping down on the sofa with her legs in my lap to be stroked - or the other way around with her head in my lap to have her hair stroked. She's more relaxed in public as well, although not to that extent, since she has 2 kids and lives in a conservative area ... sometimes you *do* need to worry what other people will think ...
I tend to be very cuddly with my good girlfriends, if it's something they are comfortable with. Most people I've met are not comfortable with purely affectionate touching. As you note, either it's hands off altogether, or they assume touching is a sexual come-on. Which really ... irritating, isn't it?! *rolls eyes*