Every year I get inspired by a book or two. Inspired, as in, "If I only had one life to live..." inspired. I usually buy a whole carton and hand them out to my friends. Sometimes I know the author; sometimes I have to look them up on wikipedia and wonder what I've been missing all these years. But I know one thing: it's rare that authors hear from anyone, besides prisoner requests, about the effect their work is having. So I always write a letter, too.
I've never had the same author shatter my literary coma two years in a row. But Alison Bechdel did it. She's an old colleague of mine from the days when queers only had secret underground lairs to publish in. I thought she was just like me, one of our talented gang of rabble-rousers. She's not— she's a genius.
I contacted Alison and proposed that I could make her a tailored men's shirt, as an homage to her greatness. Then I realized I couldn't pull that off without demanding she come in for multiple fittings while I wrestled with my seamstress inadequacies. She lives in Vermont but even if she lived next door to me in California, I think she'd go crazy with my methods.
So I said, "How about flannel pajamas?"
She liked that idea. She picked out the grizzly bear print from some samples I sent her.
And then.... a YEAR went by. I guess I'm not the world's greatest fan, after all. But this September, I did it— and mailed them after the Labor Day weekend. Alison emailed me to say they arrived... on her birthday. Magic is in the air!
And they fit. And they're cozy. And she's grizz-tastic.
Lesbian Pop historian Rabdrake has posted a remarkable contribution to the rarefied world of lesbian erotic music and video: The G2G Love Song List.
All the songs are by female vocalists singing love songs to other women— "Not friendship love, but undisguised sensuality, an open expression of same-sex attraction."
Every tune links to a video featuring the likes of Patti Smith, Lisa Lopes, Janet Jackson, Ani DiFranco, Laura Nyro, Melissa Ethridge, The Butchies, Katy Perry, Joan Jett, Amy Winehouse, and Marlene Dietrich.
It's interesting to look at that group of names, isn't it? Some are outspoken dyke activists, some are "it-ain't-no-big-thing" bisexuals, while others are persistent closet cases who nevertheless make these videos which reveal their true affections.
My personal favorites are Amy's "Valerie," Marlene Dietrich's montage, and the concert clip above from Sarah Jane Morris.
I was always interested in "straight" pop songs that crossed over into the once-dynamic lesbian bar scene. It often had to do with a play on words, like "Me and Mrs. Jones."
"I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)," with Aretha Franklin wringing it out wet, has to be at the top of that list. I just had another little gasp listening to Allison Crowe's cover of the same.
Rabdrake is the researcher behind the story of "Emmie," Pop music's first lesbian love song, composed by Laura Nyro, who wrote it for her lover, Maria Desiderio.
The reason Nyro must've been so secretive about her lover wasn't because they were gay in a not-so-friendly time— but because they were 13 and 18 when they met and fell in love. That's when Nyro wrote "Emmie."
Later, she wrote "Desiree," another devotion to her partner. Both women died, still together, in middle age, of ovarian cancer, just a few years apart. It reminds me of the rose and the green briar in the lyrics of "Barb'ry Allen:"
They grew and grew to the steeple top Till they could grow no higher And there they twined in a true love's knot Red rose around green briar
Even some of my heterosexual friends are getting in on the action, because no one wants to miss the groovy free-love-and-a-license party down at City Hall.
There are some spoilsports, of course. The County Clerk of Bakersfield, (our Country-Western music epicenter!), has outlawed ALL wedding ceremonies so she wouldn't have to face the horror— the horror, I tell you!— of watching a groom and a groom kiss each other with tears in their eyes.
Or, maybe her phobia is dykes in tuxes. She says she "doesn't have the resources" to perform marriages of any kind, but behind everyone's back, she was writing a right-wing freaker group begging for solace and legal support.
I can't believe someone this ignorant is still hanging around the State bureaucracy, a gay enclave if there ever was one.
Del and Phyll are so frail, at their age, it makes you choke up to think of how they've been together since the 1950s, asking for nothing more than a little respect. They are more radical than young people a third their age!
In one California local newspaper after the next, we see the photo story behind gay marriage: it's largely an elderly revolution. These are couples who've been together for decades, coping with the health and legacy issues than any old person does, wanting their beloved to be by their side without harangue and humiliation.
I remember when Newsom first declared San Francisco a "get married!" zone; it was Valentine's Day and the whole city spontaneously broke out in red balloons and pink garlands. You couldn't walk down the streets without people smiling at you like they'd just been dusted with sugar and kissed by the Easter Bunny. It felt as if, for one day, Love Prevailed. And that was a real love, not a romance, because we were celebrating a long-overdue social justice that would not be denied.
Newsom's wedding licenses were subsequently scrapped by the state, under pressure from the homophobic evangelical lobby— and for the five zillionth time, marriage activists went back to the drawing boards... how many times do we have to say, Yes, I Do?
This time, even Arnold Schwarzenegger, our improbable governor, cannot put on the pretense that he gives a shit about the Haters. (This is a guy who gave Oui Magazine an interview in 1977, his weightlifting prime, boasting that American men were too uptight about getting their dicks sucked by other guys; that it's not such a big deal in Austria... really!)
So, marriage licenses for all, freshly minted, are finally here. It's already a fact in life in so many states and countries; soon the only hold-outs are going to look antediluvian.
However, there are good friends and lovers... who just don't wanna get married. They are all for justice under the law— and toasting the bride next door— but they don't want to be swept into the nuptial tent themselves.
One of our readers, Chris, commented on a previous post:
What should I do about my long-term lesbian relationship? My wife keeps saying she wants to get married, and I don’t, because I think marriage is bullshit. It's propagated by a misguided human delusion that we won’t die alone and that we can belong to someone—or whatever people who believe in marriage think.
Chris isn't the only one to wring her hands and hide from the bouquet toss.
I'm not married myself. I never thought twice about getting married, to a man or a woman, for the first few decades of my life. It was never part of my parents' scheme for me, nor did I feel any peer pressure in the 70s, when I was first falling in love. I came of age at a time when weddings were seen as square, anti-feminist, state-pimping bullshit.
My friends who did tie the knot, squirmed as they made their announcement, apologized profusely, and choked out explanations that their parents were putting in the screws.
I patted them on the back and said, "Hey, don't worry about me; I'm your friend no matter what!" As if they had admitted war crimes!
Marriage was seen, in my milieu, as a bourgeois millstone, likely to end in divorce, that was better left uncommented upon, for the sake of sparing everyone the humiliation.
I never went to a family wedding... how bizarre, in retrospect! My single (divorced) mom must have been more of a bohemian than I realized. She certainly rolled her eyes every time the topic came up.
The first wedding event I ever attended, I was 30, and it was an "illegal" lesbian ritual. (And yes, they split up in less than a year). I remember how corny I found the ceremony; we were supposed to sing their one-syllable names out loud, like a chant, as I sweated and stared into my lap to hide my mortification.
I especially get vexed about marital vows. I hate vows that invoke God; I hate vows that insist the betrothed renounce all others— I always take that personally, even though I'm not supposed to.
I hate the part where someone says they've never loved like this before, and they never will again. Is love really that small and exclusive?
Mostly, I rue those vain promises that are utterly impossible to keep. I feel like screaming into the chapel, "How are you going to live with yourself when you fail? What do you do when you find out this is a child's fantasy?"
The romantic delusions are what twist my gut, and leave me anxiously awaiting the other shoe to drop. The best thing to do, I've found, is politely decline all wedding invitations, and just send my best. I'm always the first person the newlyweds call when they're fighting like cats and dogs.
And yet...
I may someday get married, if it becomes financially or legally beneficial, and I can't negotiate a fairer solution. So far I've worked my way around it, through other legal declarations!
I've already blustered my way into hospitals when my lover was injured at work, saying I was "his wife," because there was no way I was going to endure a roadblock.
At those times, I worked myself into an inner hysteria, thinking about the discrimination I'd face if we were a same-sex couple.
When Chris wrote her question, it made me think, "What does her lover really want, what does she want?"
For some people, a marriage proposal, more than anything else, means, 'I Love You, Above All Others, You are My Destiny." What they want, more than anything, is that emotional dedication. They will find temporary succor in a wedding, but if they're captive to their own demons, that insecurity will never leave them.
How do you make your lover feel secure— and what part is their responsibility? You can never reassure an insatiable lover enough; and conversely, there are spouses who are such liars and cheats that they would put King Solomon on edge with their antics.
Some lovers, who are in a financially unequal relationships, want legal security. They don't want to be discounted as a SAHM or dedicated muse, if the shit hits the fan.
Then there's the unexpected illnesses, deaths, suicides, that beg for the protection of lover-positive law. Some of the most brutal cases of injustice I've witnessed were instances when one partner lost her beloved suddenly, and the long-estranged "blood family" came swooping in, and took everything away, from snapshots to the family car.
For all these reasons, I embrace an evenhanded marital law, the one decent thing a wedding provides.
Justice is direct; it's rather beautiful to behold— but the romantic bundle that often goes along with people's hitching papers is another beast entirely. It's probably worth a few heart-to-hearts to get to the bottom of it.
"What do I want this marriage? What are my worst fears— and most delicate hopes?" If you can't bare your breast about these things, it's probably a bad time to get married.
I, personally, was always attracted to the wedding dress. The party of it all. Then I realized that anyone could buy one, wear several, and march down the street in the Doo-Dah Parade.
I also envied the way that weddings make your long-lost friends come out of the woodwork. There are people in my life, miles away, who I miss terribly, and yet the only time they travel to California is when some high school pal is getting married. I could fucking give birth to a chicken and it wouldn't inspire them to budge an inch. Only weddings get their ass on the tarmac. Weddings.... and funerals— and I really hope it doesn't come to that!
Which brings us back to dying alone. I love the existential certainty of that fact— I don't want to die crowded.
But from the other side of the deathbed, I know that being a fierce advocate for my dear ones, to keep them out of pain, to speak for them when they can't, to rattle the cage when they are too weak— that's something I'll always treasure, and fight to protect. It doesn't mean "marriage," per se, it means legal respect for the diversity of our chosen families. You can keep the cake-topper; I'll take the equality.
Update: Arnold's Oui interview used to be on the Internet in its entirety, perfectly scanned. I read it during his gubernatorial run. I remember chuckling over his exasperation with North American men's homophobia, as opposed to his "easy cum, easy go" attitude that he credited to his European background. Anyway, all that remains for the Google searcher is The Smoking Gun's partial summary of the wide-ranging interview, which is the link I provided. They took down the pages they had scanned before. My guess is, the material is owned by Playboy, who owned Oui. PB probably issued an injunction. You can also find pricey copies of this issue for sale on Ebay!
There are two things I always swore I'd never post on this blog.
One of my bans is gossip about The L Word— because the writers have ripped off my work and biography without redemption.
If I had a nickel for every time someone said, "Oh, did you see the latest episode where they stole your chapter/article/life story/barely-concealed name from Blah-Blah?"... well, gee, I'd start my own cathouse. First one to fire: "Phoebe Sparkle."
Secondly, I never got LOLcats. Never laughed, could barely read them, didn't fit my own pussy obsessions.
But now, I must concede.
This above photo is from a site devoted to L-Word-inspired LOLcats, called The LoL-Word. The whole site is hilarious, even if you've never watched a single episode of the soap opera or indulged in anthropomorphic Internet joke fests.
If you're lesbian, or bitchy— or you have a soft spot for bitchy dykes— I'd say it's just your cup of cheeseburger!
Thanks to Holly for the tip!
Update: Look what Holly, my original tipster, made for me!
Suze Orman is the most famous personal finance adviser in the world— and she’s as queer as a three dollar bill. To be fair, I’m sure Suze would prefer to be characterized in Euros or gold coins.
Orman came out of the closet this winter, after years of professional fame, in a “casual chat’” with Deborah Solomon at the New York Times. It appeared as if she’d made an impulsive decision on the eve of her new book’s debut: Women and Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny.
Here’s the turning point in her interview:
Are you married?
I’m in a relationship with life. My life is just out there. I’m on the road every day. I love my life.
That’s the standard “closet” answer—the reply showbiz people are trained to repeat so they don’t go down in flames for being a bulldagger.
But Deborah pressed on, sensing the beard.
Meaning what? Do you live with anyone?
K.T. is my life partner. K.T. stands for Kathy Travis. We’re going on seven years. I have never been with a man in my whole life. I’m still a 55-year-old virgin.
She’s as rich as Cleopatra, so there’s no further point in obfuscating. Someone must have died recently in her family, who was the last stumbling block. That’s usually the celebrity sore spot. For whatever reason, Orman no longer needs to shelter someone’s tender homophobia.
Last, we got a taste of Suze’s righteousness, who can make a point that Rosie O’Donnell and Ellen DeGeneres might’ve neglected:
Would you like to get married to K.T.?
Yes. Absolutely. Both of us have millions of dollars in our name. It’s killing me that upon my death, K.T. is going to lose 50 percent of everything I have to estate taxes. Or vice versa.
Many people shrugged their shoulders at Suze’s confession. “She had short hair,” they said, “I knew it. She wore golf shorts and visors that would make a straight girl cry.”
But I had a different reaction; I was curious to look at Orman’s advice and see if there was something dyed-in-the-wool dykey about it. I believe there is.
Money and sex get confused with virtue, and virtue is a feminine trait. There is a great deal of belief among women that if they are “good” — that is to say, modest and self-deferential in their needs, be they orgasmic or financial— they’ ll be rewarded with the status of respected wife and mother.
In Suze’s new book she asks: “Why is it that women, who are so competent in all other areas of their lives, cannot find the same competence when it comes to matters of money?”
When Suze says “money,” read: “men.”
She promises to “investigate the complicated, dysfunctional relationship women have with money [i.e., men] in this groundbreaking new book.”
Yeah, tell it, sister.
She calls on women to “save themselves.”
When men get popular financial advice, there’s a complete change of language. They don’t get “saving” advice, they’re told how to “invest.” Most of them don’t have to “save” themselves from financial dependency on women.
What Orman is saying, a tiny bit more openly, in her new book, is that she knows most women’s money lives are defined by their dependence on men, be they husbands, lovers, or fathers. She is urging women, rhetorically, to cut it off.
I know the word “virtue” sounds old -fashioned— but so is the urge to “find a man,” and “have a baby” with said man. Those goals are more pressing than ever, as feminist philosophy becomes a novelty item.
In lesbian culture, there’s no currency in being sexually virtuous. No one cares if you have slept with “X” number of women before you sleep with them— not because they’re so open-minded, but because there’s no economic basis. There’s no “finding out whose baby this is.”
Lesbian sexuality is not designed to answer any notion of virtue; it doesn’t answer a patriarch’s need. This is why Suze Orman is incredulous that straight women keep getting taken to the cleaners financially— she is oblivious to the “call of virtue,” not matter how many New Age platitudes she espouses.
Traditionally-brought up women think that if they try, try, try, to take care of everyone and deny themselves fulfillment beyond retail-trivia, that they will get their BIG REWARD. You know, the "push present."
Orman would sooner push the “push present” out the window. Her advice to women is “no one is coming to rescue you, Prince Charming is deader than God, and you have got to wake the fuck up and DIY.” Her book sounds like a pep talk to women in a domestic abuse group.
Suze isn’t the only financial adviser to speak this way. But as a “life-long virgin,” she has a little leg up on the self-sufficiency tip. She doesn’t yearn for men’s romantic love, and so that particular tango will never be hers to treasure or regret! She’s a conservative investor, she doesn’t live anything resembling a bohemian lifestyle, and she scolds out advice like more of a jeweled and tanned misanthropic femme, than a man-hater. She thinks everyone is pretty clueless, and like most rich people, she considers herself entirely self-made.
But in one respect, Suze is radical: she has not been “a good girl.” She never gave a shit what men thought, because she never fell in love with one.
Don’t lesbians have quarrels over who makes the most money, don’t they break up over class differences? Or course. Same-sex couples are as big a case of romantic foolery as anyone.
But like gay couples, dykes don’t have to struggle with the gender guilts that one party “ought” to make more dough, or be more savvy, because of a “Y” chromosome.” Neither is there the assumption that one of you would be better at calming a child’s tantrum, or washing out a filthy sink. You can fight it out, in your own quirky little queer way! “Virtue” just doesn’t come into it.
If Suze is as set for life as she claims, and her family loves and supports her, I dare her to show the balls it would take to offer some sophisticated and politically savvy financial advice.
Go on, Suze, dare to offend someone other than a consumer debt-holder! Question the dominant paradigm, girlfriend! I don’t need any warm fuzzies about “balance, courage, serenity.” I need a “bad girl,” with a big, thick portfolio, who tells it like it is.
This story was originally published in QueerCents, a site devoted to "LGBT" financial advice, but which I find more fascinating than whatever "straight" advice is out there! Editor Nina Smith met me when she did a bunch of candid interviews, Ten Money Questions, with queer "celebs" about their financial life. (You have to read Dan Savage's; it's so funny). When she did mine, I told her it was more revealing than any sex interview I'd ever done! That led to us talking about Orman, and this story...
Photo: High school Yearbook entry on Ms Orman, from South Shore, Chicago, 1969
This week on my podcast I interview Victorian-age sexuality historian Professor Sharon Marcus, author of Between Women: Friendship,Desire, and Marriage in Victorian England.
Sharon's historical interest may seem quaint at first, but she was the funniest, more lucid observer of contemporary sexuality that I've had in my studio for some time.
"Women in Victorian England wore jewelry made
from each other's hair and wrote poems celebrating decades of
friendship. They pored over magazines that described the dangerous
pleasures of corporal punishment.
"A few had sexual relationships with
each other, exchanged rings and vows, willed each other property, and
lived together in long-term partnerships described as marriages.
"But these women were not seen as gender outlaws.
Their desires were fanned by consumer culture, and their friendships
and unions were accepted and even encouraged by family, society, and
church.
"Far from being sexless angels defined only by male desires,
Victorian women openly enjoyed looking at and even dominating other
women. Their friendships helped realize the ideal of companionate love
between men and women celebrated by novels, and their unions influenced
politicians and social thinkers to reform marriage law."
I ask Sharon why is today's society more prudish and bitchy about women's friendships then the high-laced collar Victorians. Susie and Sharon discuss if lesbian "marriage" was first born within the good-girl Victorian friendships.
Then, in the Try This at Home mailbag, I explore why one women's sex drive appeared to be killed by her birth control device!
Don't forget, you can send your confidential questions, feedback about the show, and requests for girly cards to susie@audible.com. (Episode 310, September 21, 2007).
0h, sodomy. . . It doesn't come as naturally as the puritans would like to fear. We stumble and fumble and watch dirty movies for tips, but there's a lot to the details that doesn't get talked about.
For example: I once had the pleasure of hosting the first hands-on lesbian fist fucking workshop in Seattle, during the inaugural Living In Leather conference.
Such an outrageous subject required a little extra preparation.
LaMar, a Seattle tattoo artist, promised me a real doctor's exam table. I took out a classified ad in the Seattle Gay News, to recruit "vaginally-able volunteers" for participants.
I got a couple of crank calls, but one jewel. A woman named Donna said that she and her lover were fisting “gourmets,” and that she would be happy to be my guinea pig.
I was nervous about meeting Donna in person. I wanted to do a brief, private rehearsal with her before the main event, but how was I to ask?
"Excuse me, but can we do this in private one time to make sure I can get in and out of your cunt?"
I put on my best manners and suggested we talk about all the details first, which proved to be invaluable. Unlike some women whose favorite fisting movement is a slow clenching and unclenching, Donna preferred circular, massage motions. She showed me where to put extra lubrication around my gloved hand. When we got closer to our trial run, I suggested she bring her lover, Carrie, for bedside reassurance. Our rehearsal went smooth as silk.
The next afternoon, sixty women crammed into an airless room for the Vaginal Fisting Workshop. The tension was so thick you could have wired your home with it. I passed out my rubber gloves,condoms and dams, with a few words on safe sex techniques. Rubber or vinyl gloves are really superior for fisting over naked hands. They grease up better and give a smoother surface going in.
I started by saying that I wanted to hear about others' experiences with all the details of fisting: Why do we like it? Does it ever hurt, and why? What are the effects of drugs, surgery, other health problems? Is there such a thing as fisting performance anxiety? Does fisting always lead to orgasm?
A couple women complained that some lovers they fisted wanted to be fucked too hard, and they were worried that they were going to hurt them.
Just as there seemed to be a consensus against rough fucks, a brave soul spoke up. "I like getting fisted hard; I like my cervix getting bumped. Sometimes I spot (menstrual blood) the next day, and I used to worry whether I was hurting myself, but I don't experience any other symptoms."
That drew a pause. This is simply something you can't ask your doctor, not only because you're embarrassed, but because the damn doctor doesn't know anything about it!
We discussed what we know about the sensitivity of the cervix. Bruising or pressure isn't necessarily harmful, but prodding or piercing the cervical opening (the os) is dangerous, and obviously not what fisting is all about.
Another woman brought up that the peril isn't necessarily for the fistee, it’s for the fister. She once had a lover orgasm while her hand was curled up inside, and the contractions broke a small bone in her hand.
Her experience prompted a lot of handy hints on how to get out of a woman's vagina in a hurry when your hand is caught in a vacuum.
Methods include: pressing gently on her lower abdomen, or using a finger on your free hand to pull a little on the vaginal opening, thereby breaking the suction.
Simply relaxing, until her muscles loosen, is the simplest method. Don't panic, or you'll have a funny time telling people why your hand is in a splint.
We moved onto orgasm. My experience with being fisted was that sometimes I felt like I was on a long dreamy ride, which produces a meditative feeling, but not the high pitch that would lead toward orgasm. It was such a powerful feeling that I wasn’t unsatisfied and even surprised to end up climaxing after all.
Other women in the workshop said this was true for them as well. The conversation turned to a discussion of orgasms. We discovered that just because you're not orgasm-oriented doesn't mean that you aren't hungry for other feelings.
There were lots of other stories: women who can't get fisted reliably and feel humiliated when they can't open up, and lovers who say that their girlfriends complain that they aren't trying hard enough to fist them, but who feel like they will injure their partner or do something stupid if they force it. (True).
It is awful when fisting becomes a “tribute” that you have to prove to someone, just as many of us have felt compelled to orgasm "in the right way, at the right time" in order to prove our prowess. Those kind of attitudes are paralyzing!
Finally one woman said, "I'm tiny and proud. I've never been fisted, but I do enjoy fucking, and if it ever happens, that's fine. I'm not losing sleep over it. I also enjoy fisting my lovers, which is why I'm here today."
It was time to slide out the examination table. Donna climbed on top, sans hospital sheet, and Carrie cosied up on her left.
I squirted the last of my lube into my gloved palm, and was so nervous that I waved my hand and splattered half of it on the audience.
I started playing with the outside of Donna's pussy, telling everyone what we had discussed the night before, and how helpful it was to have her reassurance before getting it on. Soon I had all my fingers and thumb up to my big knuckles inside her. With one quick motion I was inside of her up to my wrist.
I abruptly stopped my lecture and realized how hot the the room was: the red faces, the stillness where there had been constant chatter before, all eyes intent on watching my hand move in and out. I think if I had kept it up any longer we might have had an orgy, but more likely we'd have run out of oxygen.
"I'm going to come out now, okay? Will somebody open up that door before we all pass out?"
Donna stood up, and we bowed to each other. I started packing up my rubber utensils. It was hard to leave. Women kept coming up, telling me it was the best lesbian event they'd ever been to. It’s hard to go back to NGLTF meetings after this.
"What exactly did you like so much about it?" I asked.
The answer came from Lenore, another facilitator at the conference. "What I liked the best was having an actual lesbian perform an actual act of penetration."
It’s hard to believe now that that was startling in 1986, but she was absolutely right.
The picture above is a video box cover image Teri and Caerage, the lovers who starred in the first— and even now, most realistic— lesbian "fisting romance" video. It was called Private Pleasures and Shadows. (Don't even ask me about that groany title).
(Photo by Dawn Lewis)
I have to call it "a romance" that because they were so much in love at the time.
This was the first movie that the On Our Backs women ever made, under the name of Fatale Video, and I can still remember chewing my nails off with worry that we'd never pull it off. Now it seems so poignant to me. I can't believe that this movie is still banned in 14 states: two women making love.
Teri and Caerage were also from Seattle, and introduced me to all the great women I met in this story.
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Tee Corinne — the pioneering lesbian artist who may well have invented its contemporary defintion— just passed.
Honey Lee Cottrell, her ex-lover and and most wellknown collaborator, made the collage above in San Francisco, on Sunday afternoon, and emailed it to me. She said she wouldn't be going to work this week.
I went to check Tee's blog and lo, she had just died during the hours Honey was composing this picture. It's one of their best collaborations yet.
Honey and Tee virtually created lesbian erotic photography during their prolific and imaginative time together as lovers, lesbian historians, and sex educators. They changed the way women use a camera, and the way a woman is perceived on film.
Tee in particular knew more about lesbian artists' history, from ancient times to present, than anyone else in the world. She once sent me to the National Gallery in Washington with a note that I should buttonhole one of the curators and make them show me every Romaine Brooks painting in their collection. I did. She's the reason I have portrait of Renee Vivien's grave. I am one of her protegeés... and I feel like I only learned a thimbleful of what she had to offer.
We saw her at her home in Sunny Valley in June. Played some Canasta. She couldn't eat this giant chocolate pie that someone brought over so of course I did the gallant thing. I took her dog for a walk and got to hug and squeeze her and say everything to her, which I couldn't really do with Tee in the condition she was in.
I have not had one word from her
Frankly I wish I were dead When she left, she wept a great deal; she said to me,
"This parting must be endured, Sappho. I go unwillingly."
I said, "Go, and be happy but remember (you know well) whom you leave shackled by love
"If you forget me, think of our gifts to Aphrodite and all the loveliness that we shared
"All the violet tiaras, braided rosebuds, dill and crocus twined around your young neck
"Myrrh poured on your head and on soft mats girls with all that they most wished for beside them
"While no voices chanted choruses without ours, no woodlot bloomed in spring without song..."
"Details of Tee's memorial services will be posted soon.
"Anyone who wishes to contact Jeanne, her designated Executrix, will find her accessible at: geeknee at a1pro dot net.
"All Tee's mail will be forwarded to: P. O. Box 633, Merlin, Oregon 97532.
"Virtually all of Tee's estate will become the property of the University of Oregon, Special Collections and University Archives in the University of Oregon Libraries.
"In lieu of flowers, contributions in Tee's name should be made payable to Tee Corinne Fund, with "Tee Corinne U. of O. Libraries" in the memo line, and should be mailed to the Library Development Office, 1299 University of Oregon, Eugene OR 97403-1299."
UPDATE:
Tee is survived in her immediate family by her younger brother Billy McClellan, last located in Kaawa, HI. Neither Honey nor I have heard from him in a decade, and Tee hadn't heard from him last I checked, in June. No phone number that I know of. If anyone knows how to reach him personally, please contact me or Honey Lee.
Honey Lee and I would appreciate hearing from anyone close to Tee. I know we're not suppposed to send flowers anywhere, but I think we should send flowers to each other! You know how much Tee loved them. If you don't feel like posting anything publicly here, please do email or call us. -- sb
Barbara Grier and her lover Donna McBride are the godmothers of lesbian publishing... back when it was the opposite of chic.
Barbara is also quite the lesbian historian. She's always looking for photos of old-time dykes, especially ones that show them in affectionate or erotic portraits with their lovers. "The first thing they want to do once you're dead is to pretend you weren't sexual."
They refers to the secretive family, the staid memorial writers, the respectable colleagues, and the hushed-funeral wonks.
Barbara learned this from Tee Corinne. Tee says, when it comes to legacy, "Write it down— and make sure everybody knows you had sex.
So what are you waiting for? What would be your pithy sex obit?
Here's the first chapter,
which you can read in full at the jump:
I think my first sexual encounter with a member of the same sex happened when I was seven.
My friend Wendy and I would spend hours playing with these little plastic Fisher-Price people who came with cars and houses and villages and stuff.
We'd make up stories about them, have them go to work and cook dinner, and when they were bad we'd send them off to "The Big Ween."
"Uh-oh, Sally didn't do her homework again," Wendy would say, kicking off her panties and lying on the floor.
She'd hold terrified little plastic Sally up in the air and announce to the entire Fisher-Price community that "Sally was bad and must go to The Big Ween," then slowly lower the toy between her legs.
I'd watch mesmerized as Wendy rubbed Sally around and around, stopping only when Wendy's My First Pussy had gotten its fill.
Inevitably, moments later, my own Mr. Smith would wind up telling a lie or robbing the Fisher-Price bank and my panties would go flying across the room. "Uhhhh-ohhhhhh!"
I'm not sure if this counts as sex, since there were actually two The Big Weens, Wendy overseeing operations at hers and me at mine, but I do know that for me it wasn't all innocent play. I was a really sexual kid who started masturbating at around five years old, and who was constantly getting sent to my room for greeting company with my hand down my pants.
So I find it kind of surprising, since I was such an early enthusiast and a curious person in general, that it took me until my thirties to really get down and dirty with another woman.
I'd done my fair share of dabbling, made out with a few drunk friends, and groped the occasional boob here and there, but nothing all that intimate ever happened. It was usually the result of being wasted and figuring that if there were no cute guys around I might as well pin Sharon to the couch. And it never went beyond that until my thirties.
Maybe I was too uptight or too immature, or maybe all my friends were just uglier back then -- whatever the reason, it took me a couple decades before I found myself face to face with The Big Ween again. And much to my surprise, just like little plastic Sally, I got sucked in by it...
Don't forget, you can send your feedback and confidential questions to susie@susiebright.com. (Episode 223). If you'd like a free introduction to my show (one month/no charge) send me an email, with the subject line: Girly Card, and I'll get some free coupon cards in the mail to you.
I received word Sunday morning— from Doug Henwood, Amber Hollibaugh, Carol Queen, and Rachel Kramer Bussel— that Andrea Dworkin has died. She was 59. Her partner John Stoltenberg found her near death on Friday, and she passed away peacefully, according to his report, in the evening.
There is nothing about Dworkin's death in the news yet but I am sure we will hear a lot more details by the morning. I knew she had been ill for some time, but she was notoriously private about her health problems. I don't know how bad or incapacitating her condition was. Most of us who’ve seen her in person in the past couple years saw her move about in obvious pain and disability. It wasn’t just physical, either. After her father died seven years ago, she had what could only be described as a nervous breakdown.
Andrea Dworkin was...
I can’t do this alone.
Let’s go to Googlism, that site of randomly-selected found poetry, in which you can inject anyone’s name in the “search” box and come up with something like this:
Andrea Dworkin is hell Andrea Dworkin is a hardcore Andrea Dworkin is the author of "Scapegoat” Andrea Dworkin is what I have committed my life to now Andrea Dworkin is antisex Andrea Dworkin is a hysterical and puritanical castrator Andrea Dworkin is internationally renowned as a radical feminist activist and author who helped break the silence around violence against Andrea Dworkin is probably the loudest self Andrea Dworkin is just another Zionist Andrea Dworkin is "angry” Andrea Dworkin is known as a relentless scourge of men Andrea Dworkin is the feminist whose supple mind gave birth to the assertion that all sexual intercourse between man and woman is rape Andrea Dworkin is a former prostitute Andrea Dworkin is making sense Andrea Dworkin is one of them Andrea Dworkin is most definitely a militant feminist and beautifully Andrea Dworkin is quoted as saying Andrea Dworkin is part of the feminist camp Andrea Dworkin is a writer Andrea Dworkin is a self Andrea Dworkin is probably the best Andrea Dworkin is a very outspoken individual Andrea Dworkin is the greatest mind of all time Andrea Dworkin is one who does Andrea Dworkin is a lousy writer Andrea Dworkin is a rapist Andrea Dworkin is the Malcolm X of feminism Andrea Dworkin is a saint Andrea Dworkin is Andrea Dworkin is a great pornographer Andrea Dworkin is served a thick Andrea Dworkin is famous for her uncompromising feminism Andrea Dworkin is a maniac Andrea Dworkin is in a committed Andrea Dworkin is analyzing Pauline Reage's literary style in The Story of O Andrea Dworkin is such an "extremist” Andrea Dworkin is one glaring example and there are several more Andrea Dworkin is trying to say Andrea Dworkin is funny Andrea Dworkin is particularly vocal about the "male problem” Andrea Dworkin is trying to ban lap dancing Andrea Dworkin is a sexist pig Andrea Dworkin is one of the weirdest femi-nazis since Solanas Andrea Dworkin is typically held up as the most fanatical of the fanatics Andrea Dworkin is perhaps the sex trade's most ferocious antagonist Andrea Dworkin is? — Should I know her, or have heard of her? Andrea Dworkin is the reincarnation of the Marquis de Sade Andrea Dworkin is hardly without direct resonance Andrea Dworkin is one of the most dreadful things men do Andrea Dworkin is someone who Andrea Dworkin is hurting
You know what? I recognize my words in a couple of those lines. I was the one who said Dworkin was a great pornographer, if what that means is using explicit sex in her art to cause a tremendous sensation.
Along with Kate Millet in Sexual Politics, Andrea Dworkin used her considerable intellectual powers to analyze pornography, which was something that no one had done before. No one. The men who made porn didn’t. Porn was like a low culture joke before the feminist revolution kicked its ass. It was beneath discussion. Not so anymore!
Here’s the irony... every single woman who pioneered the sexual revolution, every erotic-feminist-bad-girl-and-proud-of-it-stiletto-shitkicker, was once a fan of Andrea Dworkin. Until 1984, we all were. She was the one who got us looking at porn with a critical eye, she made you feel like you could just stomp into the adult bookstore and seize everything for inspection and a bonfire.
The funny thing that happened on the way to the X-Rated Sex Palace was that some of us came to different conclusions than Ms. Dworkin. We saw the sexism of the porn business... but we also saw some intriguing possibilities and amazing maverick spirit. We said, “What if we made something that reflected our politics and values, but was just as sexually bold?”
Andrea did not like this one little bit. Honestly, when I started On Our Backs and Herotica , I thought all the girls were going to jump on the bandwagon. I had no idea how bad the animosity would get. I mean, I have tape recordings from colleges where I would go listen to Andrea lecture in rapt attention and turn my little cassette over to capture every word. I never dreamed that I would one day become one of the people she vilified.
I wondered if she had any close girlfriends or women she considered her intellectual peers. The people she admired most in life were her father, her brother, and partner John Stoltenberg. She was a scholar of great men, and the one she studied the most, the Marquis de Sade, was someone she could quote up one side and down the other. I'm the one who said she was his feminist reincarnation. She rewrote his Juliette when she wrote her novel Ice and Fire. So much for man-hating.
It was Andrea’s take-no-prisoners attitude toward patriarchy that I always liked the best. Bourgeois feminists were so BORING. They wanted to keep their maiden name and have it listed in the white pages; they wanted to get a nice corner office in the skyscraper. When I was a teenager in the 70s I couldn't relate to those concerns. It was Dworkin's heyday.
Andrea presented herself as a street fighter intellectual, a bohemian freedom fighter, and someone who wanted to get to the bottom of things. That quote about Malcolm X is apt. Malcolm pointed out “The problem is WHITE PEOPLE.” Dworkin said, “The problem is MEN.” And for all the holes that can be poked in that cloth, there is something about that grain that is absolutely true, when you are the short end of the bolt.
I loved that she dared attack the very notion of intercourse. It was the pie aimed right in the crotch of Mr. Big Stuff. It was an impossible theory, but it wasn’t absurd. There is something about literally being fucked that colors your world, pretty or ugly, and it was about time someone said so.
I know it’s strange that I have such a tragic affection for her, when she apparently only had loathing for my kind. I’ve had women come at me with knives who felt they had to do me in, in Dworkin’s name. Her passion and activism was classic Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. She was a dangerous lady, with no class analysis, no psychological insight-- a scary combination. Her loaded warped pistol was neatly picked up by right wing creeps who took all the femme bullets out of it and never looked back..
Every time you hear some preacher/politician talk about “violence against women” or how something is “degrading to women” tell them to to send a royalty check to Andrea and ask them what they’ve done lately to empower female sexual authority. I never understood why she didn’t attack them the way she attacked feminist pornographers.
I could feel the great loss in the messages I read this morning, from the old guard of feminist activists. Her death is going to be a horrible reminder to many that women’s place in society today is a cruel rebuttal to many of our dreams of women’s liberation. The media image of women today is pathetic; it’s Barbie on Steroids. “I Am Bimbo, Hear Me Roar! Tee-hee!”
I like the comparison to Valerie Solanas that came up in the Googlism list. The brilliance of a woman who has "HAD IT" is a rock'n'roll beauty to behold:
“Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex.”
Maybe it’s just My-My-My Generation, but those words still make the hair on my arms stand on end.
I’m sorry Andrea Dworkin started a sexual revolution that she ended up repudiating. She never got to see people like me, Carol, and the rest of us little protégées who took her inspiration and flew to a new dimension. She got stuck, and then she got sick, and when you’re famous for one thing, no one wants to see you change unless you reject it all, like a pathetic sinner seeking redemption. She was too stubborn and too old-fashioned for that. Andrea Dworkin never would have admitted that she was a SuperStar. She was the animator of the ultimate porno horror loop, where the Final Girl never gets a chance to slay the monster, she only dies, dies, dies, with the cries of the angry mourners to remember her.
UPDATE:
I've published a PDF book of all the stories/essays I ever wrote on Dworkin.
I call it "Inspired by Andrea: Essays on Lust, Aggression, Porn, & The Female Gaze That I Might Not Have Written If Not for Her.
Click on link for more info— and thanks to all of you who've written me about this essay; I really appreciate your thoughts.
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