Dykes Come Out #2

Bonjour, fags!

I've been doing some deep shut up deep for me thinking lately about all sorts of crap, so I was working on a blog post about it.

It was getting a little long.

I read the whole post over just now and realized:  it's boring.

And fuck boring!  Fuck introspective thinking! 

Birds are chirping.
Foals are trying out their wobbly new knees.
Baby lambies are being born.

It is Spring and I want to be happy.

I bet you do, too.

So, in the spirit of delighting ourselves, let's look at something we've never seen before.

Something really amazing:

A happy Coming Out story.

*WOW!*

It's sunny out! It's warm!

We have to have a happy coming out story!

Who's ready for Dykes Come Out #2???

This story comes from D., a clever girl who has the story I know you wish you had.

(As usual, it's edited, with permission, for space/grammar/pictures/and whatever else I felt like doing to it.)

Thanks for Coming Out, D.!

#2

D. says.....

It was 2002, and I was at the tender age of 14.

My crush was a freckly tomboy. 

She played soccer and let me cut her hair into that little pre-dyke chin-length haircut we all had (you know the one) with the scissors from her pocket knife.

She played trumpet and rubbed my shoulders and I thought I would DIE just laying next to her at sleepovers.

We came out to each other as 'bisexual', and eventually admitted that we were into each other.

via hipsterdykes

She hemmed and hawed about dating me because we were, um, in 8th grade and lived in Texas.

To make her jealous I said I was going to date another boy, who I had no interest in, but even at that age I knew it would work.

The next day, in front of our friends, she got on one knee with a fucking pink plastic rose she stole from her mom's fake flower garden and asked me if I would 'go out with her.'

I squealed, we hugged, and by the end of the day, everyone knew.
No one cared, and when my parents figured it out, they were happy for me.

The epilogue is that, as my first girlfriend, we had a lovely time necking in treehouses and shit and are still great friends to this day.

THE END.

Jesus god, I can't believe this story. 

They should make D.'s Coming Out story into a children's book. 

We'll call it Rainbows and Kitties and Bluebirds:  It's Ok To Be Gay. 

We'll get Madonna to ghost-write it. 
Moms will go crazy trying to get signed copies.

What a perfect story, D.! 
Ask your parents if I can come over for dinner, mmkay?

Ingrained in the Membrane

Everybody’s good at something.

Some people can read music. (What are you, some kind of fucking genius?  You’re scaring me.  You can read dots. )

Some people can talk to you and really listen.  Really listen, as if you’re the most interesting and important person in the room.

Some people know, intuitively, which flavors will mingle nicely together in a stir-fry.

Some people can make whimsical handbags out of license plates and sell them in upscale, “quirky” women’s boutiques for more than $70. 

Everybody’s got a talent!

Me too.

I can wake up instantly.
Like, instantly.

As in, "I was in deep REM sleep at 3 a.m. and having a sex dream about Tina Fey and Queen Latifah in prison but now there’s a fire alarm in my hotel and I am suddenly outside, fully dressed, with all my stuff, including my toothbrush, nightstand book, and fucking travel candle and NO idea how it happened.”

In less than 2 minutes.

It’s like being in the military.

On days off, I can easily sleep ‘till one or two o’clock and still bitch about having to meet someone for a late brunch.

But if I set an alarm…

I’m out of bed like a gunshot. I sit straight up, gasp, and explode out of bed.  It’s terrifying. You should have seen this shit the other weekend, when I was in Hawaii during the tsunami warning.  The hotel PA system would blast sirens and tell everyone to “remain calm,” while CNN shrieked about a “mammoth wave capable of mass destruction.”  My hotel was right on the beach. 

This extraordinary talent probably stems, like all things worthy, from being a Mormon.

All Mormon children, aged 14-18, attend an early morning, before-school seminary class.  
Monday thru Friday.
For all four years of high school.

This is to indoctrinate you using sleep deprivation, further lowering your resistance to Mormon culture, scripture, and lessons as you get closer to college-going/decision-making age.
I am not bitter.

My seminary class began promptly at 6 a.m.

What’s that?
Doesn’t sound so early, eh?

What if you factor in being a self-conscious teenage girl with acne, braces, and Very Complicated Bangs?

What if you only have two Abercrombie sweaters and both of them are in the wash? 

What then, huh?

You’re looking at stress-hives and a 4:15 a.m. wake-up call.
For four solid years.

Eventually you’re wide-awake at 3:57 in the morning on a Wednesday, eyes on the clock, just daring that fucker to ring.

Anyway!

Can you train yourself to be gay?

Don't send me hate mail - I'm just throwing the question out there.

I was thinking about a woman who wrote to me here at effingdykes@gmail.com to tell me her Coming Out story.

Her letter was extremely short.  She said she was a lesbian because her best friend would make her look at nudie magazines whenever her parents weren’t home, which was a lot, apparently.
She says it “trained” her to be gay.

Cool.

Not the best friend’s behavior, obviously, but the idea that you could train yourself to be gay, just through repetitive exposure to naked ladies.

I must try this repetitive-exposure thing and see if I can train myself to enjoy BDSM. Mostly I just find myself tied up, giggling like a 13-year-old girl reading Tiger Beat.   Omigod, are you going to flog me?

Not only do I find my letter-writer's logic shaky at best, but I also think that kind of thinking is dangerous to queers. 

First of all, our society sells us everything using mostly-naked female bodies.  Using our friend's argument - wouldn't all women be lesbians by now?  We've been repeatedly exposed to naked women all our lives. 

I mean, have you looked in a Cosmo magazine lately?

And second of all: 

Hasn’t the Christian right been working this angle for years? The whole “Homosexuality-is-natural-but-you-can-train-yourself-not-to-act-on-your-impulses-and-lead-a-pure-life-with-Jesus'-help” thing?

You know, Train Yourself To Be Straight!

Obviously this doesn't work.  Look at that faggot Ted Haggard.

I can prove it doesn't work. 

Just like that. 

BOoM!  Problem solved.

...'Cause I seem to have been exposed, repetitively, to heterosexuals all my life.

I guess some lessons just don’t take.

My parting questions are these: 

*What (if any) outside factors influenced our gayness?
 

*How much of our lives is habit?

*How much did we take away from the training of our childhood? Is there something so ingrained that it's unchangeable? 

                                       and finally,

 

*Why, every now and again, do I still wake up at 4:15 a.m., heart pounding, even though Seminary was a decade ago?

Dykes Come Out #1

Mornin', queers!

I'm in glamorous Springfield, Missouri, where the party just. don't. stop.

The presenter I'm travelling with this week is a Speech-Language Pathologist. 

She's also an extreme Republican who likes to polish apples on her belly in the car.

I can't stand her.

However, she is teaching a seminar entitled: 

Practical Therapy Techniques for Persistent Articulation Errors:  Frontal Lisp, Lateral Lisp, and Distorted "R".

Basically, she trains other SLPs on how to work with the lisping young fags. 
Paging David Sedaris.

Anyway!

Remember when I asked for your Coming Out stories?
Well, I got lots and lots of letters.  Y'all is prolific.

This is fantastic.  

Now, any time I feel like a lazy asshole, somebody else can do the talking!

So, it's time for the first installment of Dykes Come Out.

This story comes from Yasmina, an intrepid reader who's ready to talk to y'all about Being Outed. 
 (It's edited, with permission, for space/grammar/pictures/and whatever else I felt like doing to it.)

Thanks for Coming Out, Yasmina!

#1

Yasmina says.....

I always knew I was gay.  Since I was 5, I'd play house with my girlfriends and make them be the "mommy."

I'd be the dad and do DAD THINGS to Mommy.

But I never wanted my parents to know, so I just never told ANYONE and acted as straight as possible...


When I was 16, we moved to a new neighborhood and I had to make new friends.  Instead of it sucking, I found lots of friends.

It was great.  

After a few months, all my awesome friends decided it was cool to be bisexual.  So I came out to them and told them I was gay.  I even dated one of them, and OMG I loved her so much.  I loved everything about her, but she was NOT gay (nor was she even bi.) 

She just thought it was cool for guys to think she was into chicks.  All the guys thought it was soo hot.

I didn't even care - I just loved the shit outta her.


My parents never thought for a second I was gay.  They just thought my girlfriend and I were the best of friends. 


Later on, I finally realized this girl was straight and left her for an awesome butch dyke.

My parents still never suspected...until one day, in a store, my butch dyke girlfriend said,  "Let's go look at that cake magazine and pick out our dream wedding cake," while my mom was standing there. 
Awwwww shheeeeeiiitttttt.

 
So that's how I came out to my parents.
 
They said they were ok with it.  But I was never allowed alone in the house with a girl after that for the next 2 years.  

And sleep-overs from then on?

Nu-uh, not a chance.

THE END
 
Let's give Yasmina a hand!

 
That had to have been an awkward ride home from the store.
 

 
Until next time, my pretties!
Keep those Coming Out stories coming!