From: mara@panix.com (Mara Chibnik)
Subject: Re: Castro Street (Re: Two threads: women posting and "cures" and its spinoffs)
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 17:11:44 GMT
Organization: (getting there)



TMCCART3@ua1vm.ua.edu writes:
  >>As I see it, the problem that has come clear after all my badgering about
  >>female invisibility on soc.motss is that (some of) the men here see things
  >>in terms of two simple equations:
  >>Visibility/attention = leering
  >>Lesbian/women's issues = how women manage to have sex without dicks

dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer) writes:
 >And I think you're out of line here.

What do you mean by out of line, Steve?  I don't really agree with
Tracey either.  But-- having read her article on the entertainment
offered at the (mixed) gay bar she frequents-- I do have a certain
amount of sympathy with her sense of oppression.

 >>I'm not imagining this. One of my dear brothers on soc.motss, once he
 >>got up the nerve to ask a question, could come up with nothing more
 >>insightful than "What do lesbians do in sex clubs?" Perhaps I'm being
 >>too hard on him, but I hear questions like that enough from *straight*
 >>guys. I expect better here.

Now this raises a rather delicate issue.  I suspect I'm barging in
where angels fear to tread, but I *am* interested in several aspects
of this.  First, I'd love to have some reaction from other lesbians
to Greg's question.  I didn't react the way Tracey did, and
conversations I've had suggest that it might be something that
straight women won't feel the same way about it.  Email is fine.

After all, straight women don't get quite the same annoying
attention from (straight) men about this sort of thing.  That is,
a guy who gets off on wondering what we're like in bed is (more or
less) fantasizing about a sport in which we participate with some
enthusiasm.  We might not enjoy the idea of any particular guy as a
partner, but, in general, we _want_ men to consider us acceptable
sexual partners.  Some men, anyhow.

I think that if you've been through enough of this unwanted and
unwelcome treatment from men, and if you're already feeling a little
marginalized in what's supposed to be common "gay space," it's not
beyond comprehension that you'd be a bit jumpy.
 
 >Listen, Greg Parkinson doesn't have to get his nerve up to ask anyone
 >a question.  You think he's getting his rocks off asking you that?
 >Fuck you too.  Why don't _you_ get a clue, sister, and realize where
 >_you're_ saying this?

Steve, Greg was uncharacteristically hesitant in asking the question. 
I think Tracey misread his tone if not his question, and I'm sorry that 
he hit Tracey's nerve that way.  But I also don't think that your
reaction is going to encourage women to post on the grounds that
they're welcome here.  

 >What's your point?  It's insulting to women to ask them about the
 >newly popular lesbian sex clubs?  That REAL lesbians are somehow above
 >this?  Where's Tsilke when we need her?
Good question.  

  >>The point is that to many men "gay" means "gay male." They seem to
  >>neither realize nor care that there are lesbians out there fighting
  >>the same kind of fights. Okay, the AIDS crisis has not hit the
  >>lesbian community to any- where near the degree it hit gay men, but
  >>lesbians are right there in the trenches with PWAs, demonstrating,
  >>nursing male friends, crying and mourning. But I digress.
 >You sure do.  It was a terribly original thought 5 years ago, though.

If it was new five years ago and it's still pervasive, maybe it's
time to figure out why it's not changing.  Unless, of course, it has
changed?  This may be a regional thing.  Someone (gay, male) just
commented to me recently that he was appalled that, where he is,
guys who have described themselves as "bending over backwards" (this
is not to be confused with "assuming the posture") to encourage
lesbians to get into leadership positions are now lamenting their
success, claiming that women are keeping the men out.

Is this an issue other places?  I don't know.

I keep thinking of what Jess always says:  A path is made by walking
on it.  I have a feeling that there are things that Tracey would
like to be reading about, but no sense of what they are.


Mara [who realizes that she's blown her cover again, but figures
it's in a good cause]

-- 

  Mara Chibnik
  mara@panix.com                Life is too important to be taken seriously.