From: "Shelly Roberts" Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 10:15:27 +0000 Subject: All Ears __________________ ROBERTS' RULES by Shelly Roberts HUH? SAY WHAT? Oh, come on. Geez, you didn't really expect me to let this one go by, did you? It's just too good for this little ol' lesbian frontporch philosopher to pass up. And it fully explains to me all of those growing up years hearing Dear Mom holler, "Whaz the matter w' you, are YOU (with sincerest apologies to all of our wonderful brothers and sisters who are hearing impaired or "deaf," which I hope is still the politically correct term, "deaf" having gone through about half a dozen pc iterations only to end up right back exactly where it started. Thank you.) DEAF!?" For those of you who have recently been doing time in a gulag, what I am talking about is the newest (and probably the only) scientific study about lesbians. (Hey, at least we got one of our own. It's a start.) It's the ear thing. It seems, and I won't bother to be swayed or influenced by too many actual facts here when impressions are so much easier to operate on, that, according to a study recently published out of the University of Texas, lesbians have a "click" response much closer to straight men than to heterosexual women. Lesbians and non-gay men aren't as sensitive to certain sound decibels. They are supposing that lesbians might be subjected to exposure to a high level of "male" hormones during the prenatal androgyne wash, and therefore lesbian ears are "masculinized." Their words, not mine. I, on the hand, much prefer to think that perhaps men might be subject to the same "wash" as WE are, and therefore, men's ears have been "lesbianized." Guess it's all in how you hear it. The testers found out that lesbians and non-lesbians hear a particular clicking sound differently. Well we do know that lesbians respond to cliques differently than straight women, but I don't think that's what this study actually meant. And we don't know whether the study was conducted on a whole lot more Thelma's than Louises, butch/femme, yin/yang controversies still abounding mightily among lesbians, but probably invisible to the naked researchers ear. So there's no way of knowing which kind of lesbians were tested. The qualifiers were simply satisfied if your galvanic skin response was higher to girls than boys. Maybe they didn't know that tofu lesbians are different than vanilla ones, or that we even bother to subdivide. So hear we are. Now we know that most non-gay men are insensitive to some audio cues. I certainly remember from all those years with Whatzizname that there are definitely things that men can't hear. Like: The word "No." "Could you puleeeze stop and ask for directions?" "The lawn needs mowing." "It's your turn to get up and feed the baby." "The opera is on PBS right now." "Do you think we could we stop the car for a bathroom break this century?" "On your way home could you stop and pick up some milk/bread/thorazine/my folks from the airport?" "S/he's YOUR child. YOU take care of it." Speaking as a lesbian there may be a bright side to this finding. As I think about it, there are a number of generic things that, as a lesbian, I'd just as soon never hear again. Like: "We love you ANYWAY, dear." "They can't help it, they're born that way." "She couldn't get a man." "You'd look ever so much prettier in a dress/with a little makeup/in heels/wearing a girdle/with a boyfriend." "Don't tell your mother/father/grandparents/brothers/sisters/Aunt Gladys who put you in her will. It'll kill her/him/them/your plans to buy a condo in Aspen." "Who told you you could be gay?" "When did you decide to be a lesbian?" "You never did like to play with dolls." "You're a lot like yourmother's/father's side of the family." "You always did pay way too much attention to your dolls." "Gee, you don't LOOK like a lesbian." "Genetic? Um_we never told you this, but you were adopted." And as an occasionally in-relationship lesbian (which, in most cases, would be redundant) I now understand perfectly why certain critical conversations with significant others have gone unattended. Like: "We have to talk." "Remember how you said it was ok for me to drive YOUR car. Well the insurance_" "Would you make sure to mail the mortgage payment." "Really, honestly, we are just FRIENDS." "Could you take out thegarbage." "I'd like you to talk to Dr. DeMileo with me at my next session." "Hey, Cutie, what're you doing all the way over on that side of the bed?" "On your way home could you stop and pick up some low fat, lactose free milk/seven-grain wheat,chemical, stabilizer-free bread/prozac/my ex from the airport?" "S/he's YOUR cat. YOU take care of it." She just couldn't hear me. Musta been a lesbian, doncha think? The researchers have said that they can draw no definite conclusions until the experiments and their results are replicated by others. Until then, I guess we'll all just have to play it by ear. Huh? What? Sorry, I couldn't quite hear you. You disagree? Must be a lesbian, doncha think? ________________________ (C) 1998. Shelly Roberts. All rights reserved. A one-time simultaneous print right is hereby granted to subscribing newspapers; all other rights, including electronic or digital reproduction are reserved. Must be reprinted only in its entirety. Shelly Roberts is an internationally syndicated columnist, journalist and author of the next set of Roberts' Rules: Lesbian Dating. (June '98 Spinsters Ink.)