I’ve just found a hilarious article - Who are the real lesbians? - about a guy who lives on the Greek Island Lesbos (home to the lesbian poet Sappho) who filed a lawsuit on 10 April against the Greek Gay and Lesbian Union with an aim to remove the word “lesbian” from the group’s name.

“It’s not an aggressive act against gay women,” Mr Lambrou said. “Let them visit Lesbos and get married and whatever they like. We just want them to remove the word lesbian from their title.”

In the world of Mr enlightened Lambrou you can only be a Lesbian with an upper-case L if you are “descended from the inhabitants of Lesbos.” If you are not a descendant then it’s lower-case l all the way.

I think the millions of Lesbians (Lesbian with a capital L, how wicked of me!) across the globe may have something to say about Mr Lambrou’s rather out-dated ideas. (And surely it also has ramifications for our much beloved The L Word? l Word just doesn’t work as well does it?!)

It’s taken me years to even semi-embrace the word “lesbian” as a term I use to describe myself - and I still find it doesn’t fit all that comfortably (see rant about when sexual identity can get in the way). But hearing that a silly narrow-minded man in Greece wants to take it away has suddenly made me feel rather protective of it.

I wonder if there is a capital-L Lesbian petition I could sign….

I’m always intrigued as to how people end up at my blog, but “Lesbian Socks” - one of today’s search terms has me baffled. Firstly I reckon whoever typed in “lesbian socks” ended up on my site because of the combined power of my Lena Headey rocks my socks post and general posts about lesbian lifestyle. What I do not understand is what that certain person was hoping to find with the search “lesbian socks.” What are lesbian socks? To find out more I did some searching myself, and this is what I found.

1. A link to a list of books on how to knit socks within the Gay & Lesbian category on Amazon (do Gay and Lesbian folk require specific sock patterns?!)

2. A definition of a tube sock lesbian on Urban Dictionary. Quote: A tube sock lesbian is an unatractive lesbian that is very butch. Often seen wearing colored stripped tube socks, walks their wallet on a chain and often has side burns. (Can anyone tell me if this is true?)

3. A video of two socks fashioned into female faces making out to a soundtrack of giggly teenage girls.

None of which really satisfied my quest for clarity. I had hoped that lesbian socks were the focus of a new kind of unusual fetish, similar to feet fetish (as experienced first hand by Miss Curly McDimple) but more hygienic….hmmmm. If you can help me solve this puzzle I’d be grateful for your help! E x

Lena Headey has to be the most attractive woman I have never had the pleasure of meeting! Not only does she look fantastic in tank tops or dresses and heels, Lena loves playing fiesty female characters (aka Sarah Connor Chronicles), has no reservations when it comes to playing a lesbian (Imagine Me And You, Bands of Gold), is funny and has a voice that sends the most delicious tingles through my fruity little body.

It is thanks to all the similarly crushed out women on YouTube that I have been able indulge this Lena Headey penchant of mine - think I’ve watched all the 30+ videos, but the interviews are my favs. In this one Lena Headey and Piper Perabo are being quizzed by a creepy guy, which doesn’t dampen the chemistry between the two of them. Oh and watch out for Lena’s response when he asks if they think there was enough sex in “Imagine Me & You.”

These paintings of beautiful women by Misti Pavlov are stunning. I love the realism of the female form pressed up against the abstraction of flowers or pattern. I was surfing Google Images and I came across them on Robin’s InkCharmed blog - so thank you Robin for helping me find these beautiful pictures by Misti Pavlov!

Apparently the style is called “Romantic abstractism” I took a look at his biography and Pavlov was a bit of a child prodigy…his talent was spotted at age 7.

This is a quote from Misti Pavlov (Quote from interview extract on Weatherburn.com)

“I like to use my peripheral vision and catch emotions, curves, glances or moods you never see if you look at a woman and she knows you are looking at her,” says Pavlov. “And, when I catch ‘it’ then I am burning with desire to put it on the canvas. I never paint a real woman. I always paint a dream, a mirage that expresses how I felt at the time.”

I feel inspired! Must go off and paint.. if only there was a beautiful woman with me for inspiration!

x

You take me to a breathless place where thought cannot exist
Only feeling.
Your skin against
My skin.
And I am drowned by the roar of your being.

Each cell pronounces your name.
We move without words, limbs dancing to the tango
Played between our legs,
Our hearts.

Life gasps from you in hot dewy breaths.
I writhe wonderfully under
The arc of your body,
Your voluptuous breasts.

You are not mine
I am not yours.
For then,
We do not even belong to ourselves.

© Eshne Knight

These are just a few of my favourite sapphic poems. I first came across the Sophie Jewett ones in an anthology at college and was delighted - they were the first lesbian themed poems I had ever read and I kept reading them over and over again, indulging what felt like a guilty secret.

Jen’s poetry is gloriously sensuous, and she seems to be writing new poems all the time. “There is Something About A Woman” is only one of many beautiful poems. You can find more on her Awakenings blog.

there is something about a woman

(Jen on Awakenings)

something about the way
my hand slides
along the smooth curve between
her ribs and her hips
and settles along her waist
and curves around to the small of
her back
to pull her closer

something about the way
our lips meet
and pull away
and electricity pulses
and our eyes connect
to share a million secrets
and hands become entangled in hair
and bodies fit against one another
like pieces of a puzzle… (more)

………………………..

I Speak Your Name

The year is slow to alter or forget;
June’s glow and autumn’s tenderness are met.
Across the months by this swift sunlight spanned,
I speak your name.

Because I loved your golden hair, God set
His sea between our eyes, I may not fret,
For, sure and strong, to meet my soul’s demand,
Comes your soul’s truth, more near than hand in hand;
And low to God, who listens, Margaret,
I speak your name.

(MS 1892, 1910)

………….

Entre Nous

I talk with you of foolish things and wise,
Of persons, places, books, desires and aims,
Yet all our words a silence underlies,
An earnest, vivid thought that neither names.

Ah! what to us were foolish talk or wise?
Were persons, places, books, desires or aims,
Without the deeper sense that underlies,
The sweet encircling thought that neither names?

(MS 1882, 1910)

It’s weeks like this that make me want to throw out the whole idea of identity. Who cares about sexual orientation or gender or ethnicity or all of those other tags we put on ourselves and other people. When it comes down to it, love in its purest form it about one person loving another person. All the other things are accessories or labels we use to make ourselves easier to categorise, but they can get completely in the way!

I’ve been with my girlie for a few years now. We’ve had loads of ups and tons of downs. Right now just one of the issues bubbling in the background has to do with identity. We haven’t pushed it out into the open - it’s just on the peripheries itching at my feet.

After much internal tussling I have come to accept and be happy with identifying either as bi-sexual or gay. I’m not a big fan of labels, it’s just sometimes it can make life easier to stick on a label and join the club. My girlfriend has found it tough right from the beginning to even accept she is anything other than straight. Sometimes I find it hilarious. Other times it drives me nuts.

As our lives become more open and honest we’re starting to socialise with more lesbian couples. It’s deliberate on my part as I feel more normal being around other lovers of ladies. However it seems to make her uncomfortable. One minute she’s fine and the next she is shirking away from overly gay social occasions. She hates it when I out myself to friends. I try talking around the situations, how she feels, trying to get her to open up. As yet I’ve had limited success - it’s like a brick wall goes up in her mind when I knock on the door and ask her to let some lesbian identity in.

When it’s just the two of us together we only see ourselves through our own eyes - naked of tags. As soon as we step into the public arena it can feel like other eyes are mentally moving us into one box, compartmentalising our identities. It happens to everyone, all the time. And there is no way of stopping that happening. But there is a way to stop yourself caring.

There, I’ve had my rant Oh I do feel better.

Any thoughts about sexual identity etc gratefully received…

E x

I came across an article by Stella Duffy over the weekend called Standing In The Shadows: Invisible Lesbians. Stella Duffy calls for lesbians everywhere to come out and be counted, but I’m in two minds about whether this is something I could do - and unsure about the process.

Stella Duffy urges that “It’s up to all of us to step up, come out and start showing ourselves. Time’s up for the incredible invisible women.”

I’m out to my close friends, and what started being just a few people at work has snow-balled into what feels like the whole company. Lesbian rumours spread quicker than wild fire! Luckily my work life is completely separate to my home life so the Chinese whisper of my sexuality did not reach my family. I was able to tell them myself when I was prepared. So I am out. But I do not openly talk about my girlfriend at work, or advertise my sexuality, so in other ways I suppose I am still in?

I agree with Stella Duffy that as a minority, gay women need to be visible in order to fight for equality, or stand up against discrimination. However, I think for a lot of people coming out can be incredibly complicated and a scary experience. The imagination is a powerful thing, and although I have not yet had to deal with a really bad reaction, it took a huge amount of courage to think I can do this and move things forward in just my personal spheres.

There must be lots of women like me who are out in some parts of their world, and hidden in others. In what parts of the world would Duffy like us to make ourselves visible? Should I be out protesting calling for equal rights, or is not enough that I am challenging every colleague, friend and family member that I out myself to? It would have been useful if Duffy could have been clearer about exactly the shape of this mass “outing.”

As Duffy points out, I too am hugely indebted to the women and men of all sexual orientations, who won for us the freedoms and rights in the West that we frequently take for granted. But does every challenge need to be public to be important?

Other stuff about Stella Duffy I found along the way:

• Stella Duffy WriteWords interview
• The Only Way Is Out - article by Stella Duffy

What makes us want to fictionalise gay characters? Why is it so important that lesbian women are given space to be real people and not just two-dimensional personalities that are defined by their sexual preference?

To me it’s really important that people I relate to in real life are represented in the films I watch and the books that I read. I want to feel like I’m not the only one. Other people are struggling with the same kind of decisions that I am. Do I say I’m gay and therefore condemn myself to a relationship where children are not a given? Do I out myself at work and risk people only seeing my sexuality, rather than the person that I am as a whole? These are just some of the questions I ask myself, and I find comfort knowing there are other women wrestling with the same kinds of conflicts.

I don’t know if I’m unusual but I do not have a large gay circle. I’ve been out to my core group of friends for about five years and I have one good lesbian friend. All my other friends are straight. I went to a Catholic school where being gay was a sin, my university was a very main-stream place, and it wasn’t until I went traveling in my early twenties that I managed to meet some gay women - outside of my limiting social circles. Since that time I’ve struggled to broaden out my friendships.

I don’t want to collect gay friends simply because they are gay. I want to form a connection with people that goes beyond and yet includes their sexuality. And that can be hard, especially when you’re living in surburbia.

Writing, films, tv or whatever the medium may be that translates a life into a story that resonates with my own is endlessly satisfying. Maybe it is a symptom of my isolation. I’m looking for something I cannot have in real life. I want to submerge myself in a life I’d love to lead, live vicariously without having to deal with the fall out. Fiction allows that. It enables a leap from the mundane into the dream world.

Sometimes I think we need fiction as a way of imaging how lives could be before anyone finds the courage to live that actual life. The fiction is a bit like a prototype or a test that you play around with in your mind before making it into something real. So before you commit yourself to a life with a woman you sketch out that life in your mind’s eye. Or if you’re feeling weak you picture yourself as a heroic warrior, and suddenly that’s it, you become the thing you imagine. But it’s the imagination part that has to come first.

I’ll leave you with a quote that inspires me endlessly, though I still seek to live it.“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!” GoetheDo you feel the same way I do? I’d love to hear from you.
x

Help! I’ve just lost another hour of my life to YouTube. How does that happen? All I planned to do was look up a clip from ER and I got completely sucked in to reliving the whole drama between Dr Weaver/Kerry and Kim (Laura Innes and Elizabeth Mitchell). Do you know it? If not take a look at the video clip below.

I wanted to track down a few scenes of the romance because it was whilst watching the relationship unfold on my TV I thought, Sh*t I think I might be gay. I say first time, because it took quite a few more moments like that before I fully embraced my love of women. (So I can’t honestly say that Elizabeth Mitchell turned me to the dark side… as much as I wish I could.)

What got me thinking about Kerry and Kim in the first place was a post on the Awakenings blog of The Recovering Straight Girls Twelve Steps to Becoming a Lesbian. I agree with almost every point on the list, although there is one very important one missing. Introducing point number thirteen..

13. We have searched the internet far and wide for lesbian films, lesbian tv shows, books with gay women and poems about sapphic love. And once we have watched all the bad ones, (wondered why Lost and Delirious is so melodramatic, wished there was more sex in Imagine Me & You), read the okay ones, cringed at the awful ones, and fully saturated ourselves with YouTube clips we finally admit to ourselves that we might like to go out into the world and try some sapphic love for real.

Do you agree? Should number 13 make it on to the list?

In case you’re interested here are some other defining media moments, in no particular order:

• Pausing the video when Sharon Stone uncrosses her legs in Basic Instinct.
• Being disappointed when Keira Knightly wasn’t gay in Bend it Like Beckham.
• Loving Maura Tierney in a leather jacket.
• Feeling more than intrigued when Anna Friel kissed her best friend in Brookside.

I want to compile a list of defining TV moments so if you feel like sharing, please add yours by commenting on this post.

Cheers,
x