It’s here: The Dinah.

The Dinah is, for the those unitiated, can best be defined as “Lesbian Spring Break.” It’s tons and tons of drunken lesbians in bathing suits at various pool parties and various dance parties that all feature various special celebrity guests. Some of this year’s big names? Samantha Ronson, Ke$ha, Kelly Rowland, plus tons of lesbian comedians, actors and lots of allies. It’s been featured on The L Word. And the lesbian blogosphere has been buzzing about it for weeks now. And as the Dinah actually begins this week, everyone seems to be super excited. Except for me. Because I’m pretty sure I would find the Dinah to be the most terrifying thing ever.

The whole issue of being out at work is something that everyone has experienced, and that everyone has an opinion on. Most people, it seems, tend to feel like coming out is the most important thing a person can do, so unless it’s in a situation where they would be put into immediate danger, they tend to do it. I am not one of those people.

Okay, so I started a new job this week. And let me tell you, it’s exhausting. So, to honor the fact that I’m both tired, super excited and generally distracted, here’s a trip down memory lane to tide you over before an all-new In The Ladies’ Room next week.

If there is one stereotype of lesbians I’ve always hated, it’s the vegetarian one. I am very, very proudly not a vegetarian. I was a vegetarian all through high school (though primarily used as a dieting technique, not really a stance on animal rights) but quickly went back to my meat eating ways after my first rugby match in college. Also when I realized that if I wanted to eat in my college’s dining hall and didn’t want to eat tofu, it was going to be time to start eating meat again. After depriving myself for four years, I realized that meat was glorious. I made a few attempts to stop eating meat after that, but I would just quite literally forget that I was a vegetarian.

When I was a freshman in college, one of my friends on my hall made me an Ani DiFranco mix CD. I guess this was because I was the lesbian who had never listened to Ani; but for whatever reason, she decided it was imperative that I listen to her, and listen to her right then. I tried my best to get into the CD, but could never get past (or through, really) the fifth track. The only songs I could enjoy were “Little Plastic Castle” and the silliness of it, and “Gravel,” which is, let’s face it, is kind of a pretty great I-love-you-even-though-I-shouldn’t-song. Needless to say, I was never an Ani fan. When it comes to things I’m generally not a fan of, it’s folk music that involves feelings.

I know. Gay Face? What is Gay Face?
Gay Face is a very real thing. It is when someone just has a gay looking face.

During the Superbowl build up, there was one thing I noticed this year, which is that, apparently, the Super Bowl is not for girls.

A few weeks ago, in a great piece about femininity/masculinity, Jean mentioned that an interest in cutesy handbags is one of those clear delineators of feminity, which is something I find to be true. Like shoes, handbags are the territory of the hyper-feminine, image-concious woman. And, as the general stereotype would go, this doesn’t include lesbians.
It’s a stereotype that I think fits, for the most part. While your fashion lesbians may waltz around with frilly purses, from my unscientific observations, most lesbians go for utility over OMG! CUTE BAG ALERT! when selecting their bag of choice.

And while I’ve never been someone that really falls into these stereotypes, when it comes to the anti-purse bandwagon, I’m totally there.

A few weeks ago, Scholastic announced it was bringing back one of the most amazing children’s series ever: The Babysitters’ Club. The BSC books were completely ridiculous, but also amazing, and were my primary interest from the ages of 6-11. I’m not kidding: I had every book (except the mysteries, those were too scary), I had dolls, I had computer games and I had movies. It was borderline creepy, and my obsession with these girls probably should have been what made my mother realize I was a giant lesbian, because even at the age of 10 I realized I kind of wanted to make out with Dawn Schaefer a little bit.

Magazines seem to be pretty great at creating content that manages to make ridiculously broad (and oftentimes offensive) generalizations about lesbians. This week’s offensive-generalizations-special comes from Details magazine, which brings us not one, but two questionable articles about lesbians. The first, “The Lure of Dating an Ex-Lesbian” explores what happens when men date women that identify or have identified as lesbian or bisexual. The tone of the lede makes the overall tone and maturity level of the article pretty obvious: “So-called hasbians are going for straight guys just like you!”