Lez Keep It Real

Since it’s Halloween, I decided to post something fun for today. I’m not that into horror flicks myself because I don’t like the feeling of being scared. Who wants to walk out of a movie theater feeling an extreme amount of anxiety, peering around every corner, and jumping at every little noise. Not me. I’d rather see a feel-good flick that makes me feel as though I’m flying high after the move ends, a feeling that I can ride throughout the rest of the day. I’d take that over a scary move any day.

But, in honor of Halloween and because After Ellen beat me to it, I thought I’d do a run down of who I think are the hottest women in horror - gay or straight. So here they are, my favorite “scream queens,” in no particular order.

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I think not.

For all of those Bible waving fools who profess that HIV and AIDS is a gay disease that originated through gay sex, I’ve got some startling news for you. In case you weren’t already aware, that little theory is not only absurd, it has now been scientifically proven to be wrong.

Don’t believe me?

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It seems that the best way to get adolescents to pull up their pants instead of wearing them around their knees these days is to threaten their sexuality.

I’m sure you’ve all heard about the campaign to rid this country of saggy pants. (sigh, aren’t their more important things to focus on???) I’ll confess that when I see a youngin’ walking around with his pants hanging just above his knees, I roll my eyes. Not because it offends me, but because that style is sooo 1998.

Kidding. But seriously, isn’t that fashion statement as played out as the flipped-up collar or the Ashton Kutcher trucker hats? Not only does it look absolutely ridiculous, it looks horribly uncomfortable as well. I’m all for a shift in the tides of baggy pants, but I wouldn’t threaten someone’s sexuality in order to do it.

According an article on NPR, “a new campaign by the city of Dallas, TX targets the hip-hop style of wearing your pants low enough that your boxers are showin - and part of your posterior, too.” The campaign even has a signature song called, “Pull Your Pants Up.” The song links saggy pants to being gay with its use of what could be considered, homophobic lyrics. An accompanying billboard has also been erected (horrible pun, my bad!) saying that it is just plain rude to be, “walking around showin’ your behind to other dudes.”

Shame on the campaign organizers for this one. Since when is it a good idea to shame adolescents in order to get a point across? How about the fact that you are spreading homophobia? “Pull your pants up or people will think you’re gay?” Amazing concept, because really,  what youth would want to be perceived as being gay, especially those who wear their pants low, listen to hardcore rap and build their whole reputation on being hard. In their minds, being gay means being soft. So, these campaign geniuses may think they are brilliant, flipping the so-called script on the whole baggy pants issue. What these morons don’t realize is that they are simply enforcing a stereotype that is detrimental to gay men - that all gay men are weaklings, that being gay is wrong, and that gay men lack any masculinity.

I work in the advertising industry, and I would never use racism, homophobic rhetoric or sexism to get my point across in a “clever” campaign.

But, hey that’s just me.

Don’t forget about the Lez Keep it Real Contest!

pull your pants up, saggin’, baggy pants, homophobic lyrics

Today’s Come Out & Play post spotlights Out of Sync, the memoir of Lance Bass.

I’ve already talked about Lance before, but hey - I’m an N’Sync fan so I’ll throw a little support his way. Though I don’t plan on actually buying his book, I might read it should it somehow happen to fall in my lap. I’m sure growing up gay in a pop band isn’t the easiest thing to do, so it will be interesting to see what Lance has to say about that. As for the other stuff he talks about in the book, such as flying to space - I’m not really interested in that.

Since the book “came out,” Lance has been doing a whirlwind of press. I saw him on the front page of Yahoo a few days ago. Talk about publicity. Whomever is publicist is should get a raise.

As I was browsing YouTube for video coming out stories to post, I came across Lance’s 20/20 interview. It’s actually pretty good. Though it doesn’t show the whole interview, the clip offers a glimpse into what it was like for Lance being the token “gay boy” of N’Sync. Which makes me wonder … was one of the Backstreet Boys gay too?

Enjoy!

For those of you who live under a rock, Lance came out last year. He’s now playing the role of “Corny Collins” in the Broadway production of Hairspray.

I haven’t heard or read any reviews about his performance as yet, so if you have one let me know. In my opinion - yes, Lance can sing, but no, he cannot act. He should not act, ever.

And, I still maintain that Bass’ book should have been called, “Fish Out of Water.” It makes much more sense to me!

Tune in every Friday for the Come Out & Play series, featuring coming out stories of celebrities, every day people, personal reflections, advice, tid bits and everything else concerning the complicated world of coming out!

Got an interesting coming out story to tell? Contact me and I will feature it in an upcoming post of Come Out & Play.

lance bass, out of sync, coming out, come out and play, backstreet boys

This week’s Notable Lesbian is:
Sarah Orne Jewett
September 3, 1849 – June 24, 1909

Sarah Jewett was an American novelist and short story writer whose works were set in or near South Berwick, Maine, a declining New England seaport town near the Maine border with New Hampshire. n later life, Jewett often visited Boston, where she was acquainted with many of the most influential literary figures of her day; but she always returned to South Berwick, the “Deephaven” of her stories. Jewett published her first important story in the Atlantic Monthly at age 19, and her reputation grew throughout the 1870s and ’80s. Her most characteristic works include the novella The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896); A Country Doctor (1884), a novel about a New England girl who rejects marriage to become a doctor; and The White Heron (1886), a collection of short stories. Some of Jewett’s poetry was collected in Verses (1916), and she also wrote three children’s books.

Interesting tid bit:
As treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, a condition that developed in early childhood, Jewett was sent on frequent walks and through them also developed a love of nature. Jewett established a close friendship with writer Annie Fields and her husband, publisher James T. Fields, editor of the Atlantic Monthly. After the death of James Fields in 1881, Jewett and Annie Fields lived together for the rest of Jewett’s life (Fields died in 1915) in what was then termed a “Boston marriage.” Modern scholars have speculated that the two were lovers.

(Funny that they termed it “Boston marriage” back then, seeing as how now we lesbians can only get married in Massachusetts!)

The Jewett family home in South Berwick, built in the late eighteenth century, is preserved as a National Historic Landmark.

Don’t forget about the Lez Keep it Real Contest!

More Notable Lesbians

If you have a suggestion for a Notable Lesbian, e-maill me at lyndsey.darcangelo@451press.net or use the contact form above and I’ll highlight her in an upcoming post.

notable lesbians, Sarah Orne Jewett, South Berwick, the atlantic monthly, Annie Fields

Closure. Clo-sure. It’s a simple word really.

Whenever I hear it I think of that episode of Friends where Rachel is trying to get over Ross (this is before they get together) and she goes out on a date with some poor unsuspecting fool where she gets drunk, calls Ross and leaves him a phone message that says, “I’m over you. And that is what they call, closure.” Of course, she wasn’t really “over” him. She was still very much “under” him.

That episode along with the recent episode of “Exes and Ohs” made me think, do we really ever have “closure?” Is it even attainable?

For those of you who don’t know, Exes and Ohs is a new show that airs on Logo on Monday nights. It’s not bad, and has the potential to grow. The main character of the show, played by Michelle Paradise, is best friends with her ex. We’re only two episodes in and you can already see the paradigm here. They are the typical lesbian exes, still clinging on to the past though they both think they have closure. The reality is that they don’t. There’s still something going on there that neither one of them wants to address because they don’t want to actually admit the fact that the closure they thought they had achieved was merely a front. A farce. An illusion of sorts.

You may be wondering why I am going on about this … about “closure.” The truth is that I sorted through the top news stories of the day and couldn’t find anything that plucked my interest enough to write about. You see, I am distracted. My mind isn’t on political news, light and fluffy entertainment stories, tongue and cheek commentary or the latest GLBT gossip. My mind is on my ex.

It’s not about wanting to be back together with her. Unlike Rachel from Friends and Jen from Exes and Ohs, my closure has to do with the loss of friendship, not a relationship.

Normally, I don’t get too personal on this blog. I try to keep my business … my business. But today I feel the need to bare my soul a little bit. I feel the need to get some things out. I feel the need for closure.

My ex told me yesterday that in order for her to move on from the past, she needed to just restrict our communication to e-mails and phone calls. And I thought, if we have to “restrict” our friendship we might as well let it go altogether. And so I made the decision to walk away.

Let me explain. You see, my ex is a person whom I should have just been friends with in the first place. Had that happened, I believe we’d still be just as good of friends today. But that isn’t the way it went. We tried to date and because of that, we can’t be friends. You see, once my ex and I realized that it just wasn’t going to work, we became the best of friends. She was the closest person in my life. She knew everything about me, inside and out. We tried to maintain that closeness, even when I started dating someone new. And it just didn’t work. Since then we’ve drifted further and further apart. Now there is nothing between us but space, time and air.

I think that I have been clinging to our friendship for awhile now, hoping it would somehow rebound and become sustainable. But I think I was fooling myself. I’ve learned that there are some things you just have to let go of, even when it hurts. So I’ve let go of her. And I know it is the right thing to do. How do I know? I don’t know really … it just feels right. Was there closure? No, not really. Will there ever be?

Honestly, I don’t know.

Don’t forget about the Lez Keep it Real Contest!

closure, rachel, friends, exes and ohs, michelle paradise, logo

I came across this article this morning. While it’s not thought-provoking by any means, it’s one of those fun articles that’s amusing to read. I figure, hey it’s Tuesday. Why throw something heavy on the table at the beginning of the week? Let’s keep it light and fairy, oops, I mean light and airy.

According to the LA Times, these are the best gay pals on television …
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Hear ye’, Hear ye’ … it’s contest time at Lez Keep it Real! This is the first contest to be held on this blog (aside from the network wide contests that 451 hosts from time to time) because, well … I haven’t had anything really cool to give away.

Guess what? I do now!

Lyndsey, what could this wonderful, amazing, unbelievably special prize possibly be?

Why it’s …

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Today’s Come Out & Play post spotlights Telling your fraternity

When I think of fraternities, I think of a collection of preppy, cargo-short wearing boys with polo shirts who drink far too much and bond over endless games of bear pong and video games. This, of course, is a stereotype. But it is, for the most part, what I saw frequently on my former college campus.

I went to a small school in the south in which the campus was five minutes long as it was wide. Our main source of entertainment were the frats and sororities. There’s a street dubbed “fraternity row” in fact, where you can stumble from one house to the other on any given Friday or Saturday night. In my four years at Randolph-Macon College, I never met one fraternity brother who was gay. I never met anyone who was gay for that matter, at least anyone who would be brave enough to admit it out loud (including myself).

The small, conservative methodist campus was not the place for us to come out. I wonder though, what if there were gay members of the fraternities? Statically, there had to be. I know that, given the community and atmosphere of where I went to school, I couldn’t have come out during my college years. And I highly doubt any of the fraternity brothers could have either. But times have changed. And it is because of the following coming out story that I think things might be a little different now. Maybe even on a southern campus like Randolph-Macon.
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This week’s Notable Lesbian is:
Jane Vance Rule
March 28, 1931 -

Jane Rule a Canadian writer of lesbian-themed novels and non-fiction. Born in Plainfield, New Jersey, Rule studied at Mills College in California. She graduated in 1952, and moved to Canada four years later. Teacher, author, and out lesbian, Rule is best known as a fiction writer. Her awards include the Canadian Authors’ Association Award for Best Novel (1978), the Benson and Hedges Award for Best Short Stories (1978), the Literary Award of the Gay Academic Union (1978), and the Fund for Human Dignity’s Award of Merit (1983). She served on the executive of the Writers’ Union of Canada, and has been an outspoken advocate of both free speech and gay rights, including in the various controversies surrounding the gay magazine The Body Politic. Rule was inducted into the Order of British Columbia in 1998.
(Information provided by GLBTQ.com)

Interesting tid bit:
Her first book, Desert of the Heart (1964), was filmed by Donna Deitch and released as Desert Hearts in 1985. Desert of the Heart traces, in alternating chapters, the lives of two women, widely separated by age and background, as they overcome their initial fear and prejudice and risk living together. In all her writing, Rule says, she has tried “to speak the truth as I saw it,” to present lesbians and homosexuals as “not heroic or saintly but real.”

Jane Rule’s Bibliography:

• Desert of the Heart (1964)
• This Is Not For You (1970)
• Against the Season (1971)
• Lesbian Images (1975)
• Theme for Diverse Instruments (1975)
• The Young in One Another’s Arms (1977)
• Contract With the World (1980)
• Outlander (1981)
• Inland Passage and Other Stories (1982)
• A Hot-Eyed Moderate (1985)
• Memory Board (1987)
• After the Fire (1989)

Writing is far too hard work to say what someone else wants me to. Serving it as a craft, using it as a way of growing in my own understanding, seems to me to be a beautiful way to live. And if that product is shareable with other people, so much the better. ~ Jane Rule

More Notable Lesbians

If you have a suggestion for a Notable Lesbian, e-maill me at lyndsey.darcangelo@451press.net or use the contact form above and I’ll highlight her in an upcoming post.

jane rule, desert hearts, desert of the hearts, the body politic

Lame title?

Yeah, I know. Just trying to be creative. Anyway, the title says it all. Ellen’s dog is gone. And she made a big stink about it on the Ellen Degeneres show yesterday. It caused such a stir in fact that the pet adoption agency which took the dog back is now receiving death and arson threats as well as numerous calls for a boycott.

OK. So. We all know Ellen’s primary audience, right? Who are these people making death threats? The stay at home mom? The gay couple with two Chihuahuas dressed in matching argyle sweaters? Oh wait, I got it. It’s the 70-year-old, busy knitting a pair of booties for her grandchild while watching Ellen plead for the return of her puppy, who was so upset that she bought a couple of cases of kerosene and placed a call from an undisclosed phone booth around the corner of said target. Seriously, this is crazy!

I admit that I got a little teary-eyed from watching Ellen beg for the release of her former dog. It was a heartfelt plea. You could tell that she felt horrible about what happened. She hadn’t read the “fine print” of the contract. And, in all honesty, who does? Unless it’s a house or a car, usually I just sign my name and go on my merry way. So I can understand where Ellen is coming from. And, yes I felt bad. I wanted the agency to just give up the pup. But in no way, shape or form did I feel the urge to make a death threat or call up the pet agency in a heated rage. Who knew Ellen’s audience had that much hutzpa?

It sounded as though the people who Ellen had given the dog to were taking good care of it, so what’s the big deal? Isn’t a good, loving home better than anything? I think the pet agency merely wants to make a point by saying they won’t be bullied around by anybody, even a celebrity. But what’s more important? Pride or a good home for a dog in need?

People’s priorities seemed so messed up lately. Britney would rather party than clean up her act to get her kids back. The Uganda Cleric wants to rid his country of gay people. And a wacked out dentist claims that touching a patient’s breast uninvited can helped her TMJ.

What happened to human decency?

For those of you who missed Ellen’s weepy plea, here’s the clip:

ellen degeneres, ellen’s plea, the ellen degeneres show, pet adoption agency

Being gay isn’t the easiest thing in the world. It’s confusing and tormenting, yet at the same time it’s both beautiful and wonderful. It’s a mixture of things really, a blender filled with endless thoughts and emotions all thrown together to form one, whole individual. That’s the best way I can describe it.

As hard as being gay is sometimes, or was since it really hasn’t been hard for me lately, I know that it wasn’t as close or as hard I guess, to being transgender.

I’ve always been enamored with the transgender aspect. For a time being, I thought I wanted to be a boy. I remember even pretending that I was a boy to other kids I met in the neighborhood who didn’t know any better. I, and don’t ever repeat this, even stood up in front of the toilet to try and pee like a boy! I don’t know why, all I know is that I wanted to be one. It could be because I had two brothers and no sisters, so that’s all I knew. Or it could be the fact that all of my friends were boys because the neighborhood I grew up in lacked other girls for me to play with. Whatever it was, I eventually grew out of it.

My attraction to girls never wained, but as I grew older I began to appreciate my body. There was nothing inside of me that yearned to be the opposite sex, other than the simple fact that I liked to wears boy’s clothing more than the frilly girl’s clothing. There was no longing to have a different anatomy either, I was perfectly content with my breasts and vagina. The penis frightened me actually. What would I want with that thing?

Growing up and finally becoming comfortable in my own skin, I realized that I was a lesbian. But the wonderment and intrigue into transgender issues always captivated me.

I thought, imagine being trapped in the wrong body? Imagine having to deal with that concept. What if I hadn’t grown “out of” wanting to be a boy? What would I have done? How would I have handled it?

The fact is that I have more respect for trangender people that I do for most. They are brave, they are beautiful and yes, they have it harder than I could ever imagine. So why do they keep getting the short end of the stick?
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It has often been argued that there is no existence of homosexuality in the animal kingdom. And because of this, many religious proponents like to say that homosexuality isn’t natural, that God didn’t intend for humans to be that way.

They say, “Do you see animals doing that? No! It’s not natural. It’s not normal. It’s blah blah blah.”

Well … now I say, “On the contrary, my friend!” ( I didn’t know how to spell the French version … say la vie!)

Celebrities aren’t the only ones coming out of the closet!
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Today’s Come Out & Play post spotlights National Coming Out Day

National Coming Out Day is an international event which gives gay, lesbian and bisexual people the opportunity to “come out” to others about their sexuality. It also provides a means of increasing the visibility of gay people.

The first National Coming Out Day was held on October 11, 1988. This date was chosen for the annual event in commemoration of the 1987 March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. It also marks the anniversary of the first visit of the AIDS Memorial Quilt to Washington, DC.

Many communities and college campuses sponsor programs such as dances, film festivals, workshops, literature booths, and rallies to mark the day.

Yesterday was the “official” National Coming Out Day, but since Friday’s are reserved for Come Out & Play, I thought I do a little reminiscing today instead.

The first time I was made aware of National Coming Out Day was in 2002, when I was working at Wheelock College in Boston, MA. I had a HUGE crush on one of the students who went there. And by huge, I mean borderline obsessive. Don’t cringe! She was only two years younger than me, it’s not like I was robbing the cradle or anything. I had just graduated from college the year before, and she happened to be a senior at Wheelock that year.

It was hard not to mingle with the students and become friends with them, especially since we were so close in age. In fact, one of the girls I became friends with who was a student at the time I worked there is now dating my brother. They’ve been together for almost six years now!

Back to the story. The girl I was crushing on, simply put, was gorgeous. But I had no clue if she was gay or not. On looks alone, she could have passed for any straight girl. And my gaydar was malfunctioning. It was about as effective as a snowball in 100 degree heat. For weeks I agonized over it, weighing all the possible scenarios in my head. I was confused because she flirted with me often and yet she had an off and on again boyfriend. Then one cool, crisp day in October, I walked into the building where she worked as a student to drop off some papers and, low and behold, she was wearing a pink triangle on her shirt! I thought, yes! She’s fair game! I decided to ask her why she was wearing it, just to be sure.

It was then that she placed a pink triangle sticker on my shirt and informed me that it was National Coming Out Day. Everyone should support it. Everyone, I thought? Meaning, straight people too? Yes, she confirmed, everyone.

Great. I was back at square one, keeping my feelings for her safely in the closet.

That was my introduction to National Coming Out Day. Since then, I’ve learned more about the history behind the day and have grown to appreciate it more. As for the girl, well it turns out that she was, in fact, a lesbian masquerading as a straight girl. But she was already seeing someone by the time I figured it out. Needless to say, every time I see a pink triangle I think of her and wonder how she is doing. National Coming Out Day will always make me smile, and not because I came out that day. But because one of my first major crushes was attempting to come out herself, in the best way she knew how.

These celebrities are happy being out & proud.

Tune in every Friday for the Come Out & Play series, featuring coming out stories of celebrities, every day people, personal reflections, advice, tid bits and everything else concerning the complicated world of coming out!

Got an interesting coming out story to tell? Contact me and I will feature it in an upcoming post of Come Out & Play.

wheelock college, national coming out day, gaydar, pink triangle

First, let me say “HAPPY COMING OUT DAY!” Tomorrow, I will write a special Come Out & Play post to celebrate today’s day. On to the task at hand …

This week’s Notable Lesbian is:
Felice Rahel Schragenheim
March 9, 1922 - December 31, 1944

Felice Schragenheim was a Jewish resistance fighter during WWII. She is known for her tragic love story with Lilly Wust and death during a march from Gross-Rosen concentration camp in Poland to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. Her relationship with Wust is a story for the ages, as Wust was married to a German soldier and the mother of four children. Wust fell in love with Schragenheim’s strength and charisma. They exchanged many poems with one another, expressing their deep affection. In one of the poems, the nicknames they chose to call one another emerged as Aimee & Jaguar. Lilly Wust lived in Berlin till the day of her death on March 31, 2006.

Interesting tid bit:
The story of the relationship between Schragenheim and Wust is portrayed in the 1999 film Aimée & Jaguar, and in a book of the same name by Erica Fischer. The tagline of the film, “Love Transcends Death,” underscores how the book and film serve as sentimental memorials to Felice Schragenheim. However, the life of Lilly Wust is a paradigm of sorts for contemporary Germany.

Read a Q&A with the real Lilly Wust.

More Notable Lesbians

If you have a suggestion for a Notable Lesbian, e-maill me at lyndsey.darcangelo@451press.net or use the contact form above and I’ll highlight her in an upcoming post.

Felice Schragenheim, Lilly Wust, Aimee & Jaguar, Erica Fisher, Love Transcends Death, Notable Lesbians, National Coming Out Day, Bergen-Belsen concentration camp