Subject: [email-masked]
From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 1997 01:19:40 +0000

ROBERTS' RULES 

                                                   by 
                                          Shelly Roberts

                              LESBIAN SEX? UNHEARD OF.

David, who is now 70, spending these days on a Carolina island,
sipping coconut milk drinks, checked in after a few years of absence.
And he reminded me of something I meant to share. 

I worked for David in the New York ad trade, when he was a mere 62.

David was heading toward me one morning, when I realized something was
different.  Not wanting to make that stupid mistake when confronted
with this physiognomous anomaly (which should cover your word-a-day
exercises for this afternoon, Girls and Boys) of saying, "New
haircut?" when someone just had a nose job, I studied his face.

"Mustache!  You shaved your mustache!"

"Yep. When I was eighteen," the sexagenarian said. "I looked in the
mirror at my baby face, and said, `A mustache would make me look
older.' This morning, as I was looking in the mirror again, and  I
realized it worked!"

Now this IS related to Lesbian Sex, Kiddies.  Be patient.

I did a radio show last week, and amongst the incoming questions was
one I now expect.  No, not the "abomination-unto-God" one, the
two-lesbians one.  From a middle-voiced middle-aged, middle-mannered
middle woman -  though I've heard it from all manner.  

"I saw two lesbians the other day." She started, about to answer my
silent query about how she could tell. ".And they couldn't keep their
hands off each other. Why is it that lesbians have to be so sexual in
public?"  

This time I didn't duck the subject.  I just dodged.  "Oh, wouldn't
you love to have a relationship just like that again with your
husband? <sigh>"  It deflected her into misty reveries of her
courtship, and the bullet missed my ear by inches.

See, I'm not dumb about these things.  I got the memo.  You know, the
one from Lesbian And Gay Central, with the flashing neon "POLITICALLY
CORRECT ALERT!" bannered across the top.  

"Attention! Attention!:

"Lesbian Sexuality is very scary to non-gays.  It smacks of Barbara
Stanwick-after-your-wife.  They only know us by our sexuality. They
only know us by their pornography usually written by their men. And
faked pictures in -boy magazines.

"From this time forward, let everyone committing acts of speaking in
public refrain from this vile, stereotypical subject matter.  It is
the official policy of this body, and theretofore binding and
irrevocable, THAT THE IMAGE OF LESBIAN AMERICA SHALL BE OF WHOLESOME,
WHOLE-HEARTED, ASEXUAL GIRL-NEXT-DOOR.  Genitalia-deleted flesh
Barbi's. Dyke Doris Days. Little sisters. Daughters.  For acceptance,
it is paramount, REPEAT urgent, REPEAT critical, REPEAT absolutely
necessary that all sexual references be eliminated from our speakers
bureau vocabulary.

"We trust you will follow this dictum to the precise letter to
accomplish our world wide agenda, or else the entire community will
trash you with in an inch of your stomach lining, excommunicate you
from the cooler social occasions, and generally make your life heck on
wheels. Got it?

"Because we said so.

"            --Your Ever Vigilant Homosexual Oversight Committee."

So like a good doo-be, I bobbed and weaved and changed the subject
whenever it came up.  I wasn't the only one who got the memo,
apparently.  So did hundreds of thousands of middle lesbians who never
get on the radio.  And thus our front cover mainstream magazine
portraits showed us, not as sexual predators, but mild mannered
girl-scouts in whose mouth butter, among other things, wouldn't melt.

But wait a minute.  Ever been with a group of lesbians over 33 trying
to discuss sex?  It's a real short conversation.  Regardless of what
they may do in bed, sex became a taboo subject.  And, with discovery
of our common catch-phrase Lesbian Bed Death, it became a taboo
subject there too.  After, of course the first few, can't take your
hands-off-each-other months, or if you're really lucky, years.

In order to accommodate the necessary acceptable wideworld new imagery
for lesbians, we all, okay, many of us, have internalized, not the
homophobic message, but the asexual one.  With profound unison cries
of "We're NOT just about our sexuality!"  we went forth and
befriended.

So the only time that we even dare its whisper in public is in those
extraordinary moments when, even on subways or in cafes, it is
physically impossible not to touch.  When there's so much
no-one-else-in-the-entire-world-but-us, who has time to scroll through
the PC file? 

Which tells me why so many straights only see us when we are touching
each other and their embarrassment.

I'd read the memo, and as David said earlier, looked in the mirror,
and discovered it worked.

Being asexual friends is just fine. Many lesbians choose it. But that
is a choice. Not a default. And nearly as I can tell, the textbook
definition of lesbian, at core, has a great deal to do with sex.  I
say it's time to put it back into our lives and vocabulary. Being a
lesbian, as we all know is hard work, and comes with high price tags.
So being a sexless lesbian seems to me to be a contradiction in terms.

Otherwise, we might just as well have all joined the PTA.

               ________________________
(C) 1997. Shelly Roberts. All rights reserved.
May be commercially reprinted only in its entirety with written
permission.

Shelly Roberts is an internationally syndicated columnist, and the
author of the newest best-selling Roberts' Rules of Lesbian Living.
(Spinsters Ink.)