Inside the Current Issue

To Be or Not To Be a Lesbian

Anonymous

Being a lesbian is very tempting. Ask any straight woman (and I mean in particular women who have done the dating thing in New York for more than one year), and you will quickly find a secretly harbored desire to have been born a lesbian. This might seem to be an overly generalized statement, but it is true. Straight women in the New York dating game in will tell you horror stories that happened to them or their friends. Have you heard about the guy who stood his friend up, and then called four days later to ask if her drop-dead gorgeous 22-year-old friend who he saw getting arrested on TV during the RNC convention is OK? (This is not an urban legend.) If you haven't, then you surely heard about the girl who slept with a guy who left 20 bucks on the dresser in the morning before he left? Or how about the guy who, after sleeping with my other friend, sent a message to the department email list that he is looking for an apartment with his girlfriend?

Stories are abundant, and if you are single, approaching 30, or already over the hill, you must have heard them, experienced horrors of your own, and at least once asked the question - are there any good men left out there for us to date? The answer, it seems, is a resounding "No."

This is when the lesbian dilemma presents itself. If you are still single, 30 or older, have faced the realization that there are no good men to date, are open to new experiences, and live in New York, there is a good chance you at least once have considered entering into a lesbian relationship. In fact, most chances are that you threw your doubts to the wind and jumped into the lesbian waters, head first.

The beginning was a dream. You got laid, and your sex partner called you the next day. Not only that, but you already had plans for the weekend! Two weeks later, you considered getting rid of your therapist. Who needs a therapist when the person you are dating is your lover, your best friend, your mother, and your therapist rolled together? When you introduce her to your friends, and they all love her. They encourage you and are happy for you. Finally, you are in a relationship! You start talking at work about queer bars and queer cinema, and plan your holiday vacation. "Who needs men?" you ask yourself. "Why didn't I discover that earlier?"

But alas: your newly discovered paradise is fleeting. You start to wonder where your free time is the time you had so valued on those care free days when you were dating men who only had time for you once a week (if you were "lucky"). You find yourself in the midst of a night-long marathon on the state of the relationship, and your feelings toward her as they reflect on your childhood experience. You start missing being alone, with thoughts and feelings that are only yours. You miss having no responsibility to share, unless you absolutely choose to. You remember with agony those happy days when you could say, "What are you doing tonight?" and that would be code words for "I want to get laid," without feeling that you need to spell out every thought and feeling in the most blatant way possible. Oh, where are those days that a blowjob lasted five minutes and you could go to sleep? Now the foreplay is two hours, and you are always exhausted at work.

Lesbianism is great, but unfortunately, you have to be a lesbian to enjoy its ubiquitous advantages. If you are straight, you are likely to get bored and resentful - and quickly. Not only is it not fair, in particular to your girlfriend who is truly invested in the relationship, but if you have a heart, you are going to come out bruised as well. You might think that experimenting is harmless. But have you ever seen mice in the lab? They experiment on them. These mice, when they die, it's not an experiment any more. They really fuckin' die. When you get your heart broken to pieces, are you experimenting on how to get hurt in a lesbian relationship, or are you really hurt?

The conclusion is inconclusive. Being a woman and single and a graduate student in New York is hard enough. Lesbian relationships are as comforting as it can get. There is no way I can say that the advice should be to stay away. That would be the opposite of being human. Nor can I say that there are no healthy, empowering, fulfilling lesbian relationships. That goes without saying. But if you have read this far and you are still smiling ... shave your legs, you are back in the game!

The author is a GC student.