The New Gay » bisexual

Television: Will Starz Unleash Torchwood’s Hot Gay Potential?

Topher Burns — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 16:00:49 +0000

I’m assuming very few of us (myself included) were avid followers of the BBC show Torchwood during its three-year run in the UK that ended in 2009. This is a shame, I now realize, because that shit was HOT:

The dashing, devil-my-care main character is Jack Harkness, an immortal bisexual con-man from the future who was spun off from the Dr. Who series. Yes, that’s right, I just used the words “immortal,” “bisexual,” “con-man,” and “from the future” to describe the main character of a wildly popular television show. Perhaps Armageddon is much closer than anyone thought.

When Starz announced that it would be broadcasting an American spin-off called Torchwood: Miracle Day, my little ears perked up when I heard they were keeping Jack Harkness and that he’d be played by the same very handsome John Barrowman. Barrowman himself is gay, has been with his partner since 1993, and is an outspoken proponent for LGBT civil rights.

John Barrowman (left) giving the fans what they want. Courtesy flickr.com/photos/donabelandewen

All this begs the question: will Starz be delivering the gay goods with Miracle Day? From the previews they seem to be focusing a lot more on the action instead of the romance, which may be the right way to market sexual subversion to American audiences (sure, he may kiss a dude in this episode but did you see how many helicopters he hit with a bazooka?). Then again, if they do in fact plan to maintain Jack Harkness’s free-wheeling pansexualism in the Starz version, NOT making a big deal out of it might backfire. Either situation begs the question – is America ready for a non-hetero action hero?

We just got streaming Netflix at my apartment recently, so it’s been hard for me to justify watching anything that doesn’t feature Tina Fey and/or aggressive queer-baiting, but if your tastes are slightly more developed than mine, Torchwood: Miracle Day seems like it’s worth at least a few episodes’ chance. The premise is that people stop dying on earth, and at first that seems awesome but then it proves to be terrible. And if you have as lascivious tastes as I do, the show might still be worth a peek. According to the scant sources currently keeping an eye on the crucial question of American Torchwood gayness, we shall not be disappointed.

If Starz’s track record with homoeroticism is anything to judge this on, I think we’ll all be in for a treat.

Torchwood: Miracle Day premiers on Starz this Friday, July 8^th at 10pm et/pt.

Personal Narratives: Émile Bonnet: Tales of A Teenage Crossdresser And His Mistress

Guest Contributor — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 20:00:52 +0000

Crossposted with permission from Mommy Fiercest. View the original post here.

Just a A French Teenage Crossdresser & His Mistress, c. Mommy Fiercest

I had decided that I would fall in love with Émile Bonnet before I’d ever even met him. He was my junior high school boyfriend’s foreign exchange student. He was 19 and French. I loved Émile because he was smart and worldly and he did what I wanted him to do.

When he arrived we stayed up late sitting out on the picnic bench in my boyfriend’s family’s backyard. The breeze cooled our sweaty skin and carryed with it the pungent aroma of the tomato cannery and the garlic fields that surrounded my tiny village. Émile and I laughed and flirted as the yard sizzled with the summer sounds of frogs and crickets and the air smelled wonderful like spaghetti. Émile showed me photos of his college hazing, regaling me with tales of being made to run around Paris on a scavenger hunt covered in raw eggs and carmel sauce in only his underpants. In one such photo Émile was standing atop a formica table before a blackboard in a lecture hall. He wore a poorly fitting french school girls uniform that one of his classmates had brought with her from home. He sang into a child’s toy microphone, head thrown back, chest thrust forward. He looked positively radiant and not in the least humiliated. I had already begun dressing my boyfriend in my goth girl drag and my approval and subsequent titillation were all the incentive Émile needed to become my cross-dressing femme entertainment.

One summer afternoon I bleached his outdated Beatles bowl haircut and dyed it bright pink. He rinsed the dye out in my shower and he stained his entire face (and my bathtub) Manic Panic fushia. I sent him home on the skate board he borrowed from my boyfriend. I had no desire to make out with his tomato face.

He was a good kisser but his breath often smelled of anchovies, which he ate almost daily. I knew of no other teenagers who ate anchovies or hot mustard that stung your nose and made your eyes well up with tears when you swallowed.

We maintained a love letter romance for about a year before one of us eventually lost interest. But I will always remember him in photos. Émile as a naughty schoolgirl. Émile as a slutty goth girl in my driveway blowing kisses from beneath the shade of my Ren-Fair head dress. Émile the pink haired teenager in a red pleated skirt and silver thigh high stockings.

In America, in Gilroy, Émile was fearless.

Theatre: Pride: SpeakeasyDC’s “Don’t Ask, Do Tell”

Kira — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 13:00:10 +0000

c. speakeasydc.com

Last night, I attended my first D.C. Pride event and I am completely sold. Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company presented SpeakeasyDC’s production of “Don’t Ask, Do Tell: stories about coming out, coming clean, or just plain coming.” SpeakeasyDC puts on a great show: bluntly honest, hysterical, and heartfelt. This production not only exceeded expectations, but it brought something else to the evening as well: non-judgmental Pride.

MC and Co-Director, John Kevin Boggs, made it clear from the start that this show was about Pride. He stated the stories were all as unique, diverse, and complex as the storytellers sharing with the audience. And the show certainly proved that: as each speaker took the stage, it was clear that each person was proud to take a stand to unabashedly share his or her personal experience.

As the audience applauded each person off stage, I though to myself, “man, I feel bad for the next one who has to follow that act”—but each individual took the stage with confidence and excelled. I began to see a pattern in the stories: each storyteller willingly stood alone on stage to share an anecdote of there life, expressing who they truly were and have become, and each moment was welcomed in a safe environment. Everyone had managed to get through whatever events, good or bad, life had handed them, coming out on the other end, not unscathed, but a different, individual, and unique person.

The stories shared were unique, ranging from explicit sex scenes, to hilarious anecdotes, to sharing real emotional trauma. Without giving too much away, stories ranged from: overcoming a language barrier for a sexual encounter; coming out as the first transgender college athlete on national television; a personal journey from an advocacy position as a “straight spokesperson for gay families” to embracing being a lesbian; and a story of dancing shamelessly at high school senior prom with the person you love, despite the family effort to “fight the gay.”

At intermission, when I had a chance to sit back and absorb the atmosphere, I realized not only the performers were welcome and accepting, but the audience was completely open and happy as well. (And, yes, at the risk of being cliché, Lady Gaga was playing over the loudspeakers at this point.) And as I attempted to decipher the sentiment behind this overwhelming vibe I was feeling, I realized that it was completely non-judgmental. Despite the judgment that was occurring within each story, at that moment, I felt the entire theatre offering a safe space of understanding to each instance of discrimination described. A judgment-free space is an uncommon experience, as I constantly sense judgment coming from all sides in a city like Washington, D.C. For the two and half hours of the show, I felt none of that—only empowerment and inspiration transcending from the stories to the audience.

In her story, Natalie Illum put the evening into perspective, describing a realization she had: that being queer isn’t always about who you love but about being comfortable in your own skin and helping other people to be comfortable with who you are. She recounted a slogan she had used campaigning for an event: “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re fabulous, so don’t fuck with us.”

Gender Identity: An Open Letter to Witterick and Stocker

Guest Contributor — Tue, 31 May 2011 20:00:04 +0000

Submission by Gella Solomon, TNG contributor. Gella Solomon was from Brooklyn, New York before it was cool. She frequently reminds people of this fact, as Brooklynites often do. Gella’s identities include queer, feminist, middle child, and student of Judaism. She is currently learning at The Drisha Institute, a pluralistic women’s Yeshiva in Manhattan.

Dear Ms. Witterick and Mr. Stocker,

I hope this letter finds you and your family well.

I realize that my sending this letter will in a sense run counter to my own wishes that your actions should be of little or no importance to the world at large, but after engaging in numerous fraught conversations on the topic of gender, gender-role coercion, and so forth in the wake of the publicity your family has recently received, I felt that perhaps a supportive letter might not go amiss.

Let me introduce myself a bit so that you will have some background as to why these issues are so important to me that I feel compelled to argue about them into the wee hours of the morning and ultimately to write you this letter: I am a 29-year-old bisexual woman studying to be a rabbi in New York City. This is not a simple or easy position in which to find oneself. I am currently taking some time away from my rabbinical program to study in a pluralistic women’s Yeshiva, this being the first time in my life that I have been in a single-sex learning environment. I am also in recovery from an eating disorder.

The primary reason I needed to take time away from my rabbinical program to study in a small Yeshiva has to do, in large part, with my eating disorder. I entered a program of recovery during my first year in rabbinical school, and the combination proved too much for me to handle emotionally. Part of what is so difficult in recovery, is becoming increasingly cognizant of the negative messages about our bodies with which we, especially women, are bombarded every day. Not only in the media, but in our normal everyday interactions, our bodies are constantly scrutinized. Even that which escapes our conscious notice gets integrated into our sense of self and self-esteem. Even those statements which are meant to be complimentary, such as observations regarding weight loss, keep the emphasis on a woman’s value being dependent on her body-shape, comparing that shape to an unrealistic ideal, fueling her dissatisfaction with herself.

Upon entering the women’s Yeshiva, I came to a shocking realization about myself. I found myself in a classroom of women for the first time and realized that I immediately felt myself judging them, and assuming they were judging me. There were no men in the classroom with whom to feel camaraderie. I realized that my whole life I have looked down on women in a classroom setting by default. It was not until I had the dual gender dynamic removed from my environment that I realized just how much of the negative messaging I had internalized, and projected, while rejecting in myself as much of that negativity as possible not by feeling positively about myself as a woman, but by identifying with men.

It all started to come together: the negative messaging, the body-image issues, my inability to relate to either boys or girls in a healthy way even from childhood. I began to notice things I’d never noticed before. I began to see the little insidious ways assumptions about gender and our reactions to them do damage to us as a society and individually. I began to see the extent of the damage that had been done to me. I grew up in a home that was fairly liberal and in which, I thought, feminism was assumed to be the norm.

We belonged to an egalitarian synagogue, my sister and I attended a math and science school, my father made a point of supporting his female coworkers in an industry not particularly known for being woman-friendly, I had a grandmother with a Ph.D., and yet I had still fallen prey to the misogyny inherent in our societal gender paradigm. I had integrated the idea that that which was feminine was inferior, and that to be equal to men I had to eschew all things feminine and become as much like a man as I could. At the same time, I also learned that being too masculine made me somehow wrong, that I was supposed to be feminine and accept all the inferiority that came along with it in exchange for being, ironically, placed on a pedestal for admiration and fetishization by men. I could not reconcile myself to giving up playing Frisbee with the guys, but also felt ashamed when I saw that off the field they paid more attention to the girls who didn’t learn to play for fear of breaking a nail.

Every moment of every day I was being not asked, but ordered to choose: was I going to act the way a girl should act and give up being treated like I have a mind or physical capabilities, or was I going to act like a boy and accept the consequences, the never quite fitting in, never really being one of the guys, and yet also forfeiting any of the benefits of the girls club, be it “positive” male attention or female camaraderie. Further, regardless of what I chose, I was always, always, going to be vulnerable to overt misogyny, because regardless of what I did or acted like or dressed like, I was a woman and women are vulnerable.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because through these processes, I have become someone who sees. I see the hidden unconscious meanings inherent in coercive gendering. I see the nuances of our language that indicate an underlying assumption of female inferiority. I see the ways in which women are duped into accepting a second-class position in society in exchange for the pedestal, and are complicit in the punishing of other women for not falling in line. I see the ways in which girls and women are told subtly and not so subtly that their bodies are disgusting even as they are fetishized, and the ways in which boys and men are told that real men are animals with little control over their impulses, that masculinity means always wanting to rape, and to hit, and just barely holding back. So I see the gender paradigm of our society as something that must be undermined.

What upsets me about the reaction to your approach to Storm’s socialization as an infant being not gender-dependent, is the fact that it is so upsetting to so many people. What upsets me is that it highlights just how hung up we are on gender and coercive gender-role enforcement. It upsets me that anybody has the gall to insist that it is so vitally important that you let everyone know Storm’s sex so that they can properly indoctrinate Storm in proper gendering. What upsets me even more is that even those who understand the problems with our society’s gender hangups and the gender paradigm we have in place, even they insist that, because “everyone else” thinks it is important, that you, we, must all fall into line for fear of attack. The cowardice is mind-bogglingly upsetting to me as a sexual minority, as a feminist, as a Jew.

Choosing not to share Storm’s sex should not have to be an act of courage, nor of defiance. It should not be news. I should not know about it, I should not know about you, I should not be writing this letter. It’s like Joss Whedon constantly being asked why he creates all these strong female characters in his television shows, to which he eloquently and appropriately replies “Because you are still asking me that question.”

What bothers me the most though, perhaps, is the suggestions I have heard from many, that you should have your parental rights taken away. Accusations are made that you are perpetrating child-abuse by not falling in step with the prescriptive gendering that causes so much harm to so many of us. Meanwhile, there are actual perpetrators of child abuse in these people’s own communities, which never reach anyone’s attention. Setting aside the obvious and horrendous, the stories that do make the news, every day children and teenagers are subjected to gaslighting, emotional and physical abuse carried out by seemingly normal, nice, middle-class, well-educated people, and no one knows or cares. Even if they do it turns out, more often than not there is nothing to be done because the system is likely to be worse than the problem.

Far too often, this abuse in fact has everything to do with our society’s accepted gender dynamics, gendered assumptions, gendered messaging. That your family, your obviously loving, nurturing, supportive, beautiful family has become the target of such accusations makes me sick inside, and makes me sad for the world in which we live.

I believe that Storm the person will benefit from not being inundated with gendered assumptions and presumptions during infancy and early childhood. I believe that what you are doing is merely good parenting for Storm and for your two other children, Jazz and Kio. It shouldn’t be an act of courage. It shouldn’t be heroic. It shouldn’t warrant any attention whatsoever, but something happened when my eyes were opened and I began to see. I became one of those noisy radical feminists whom I’d always regarded as noble but somewhat ridiculous. I realized just how steep is the hill we have to climb, because a year and a half ago I wouldn’t have taken myself seriously either had I heard myself spouting about the patriarchy as I do now. Consequently, I have no choice but to see every move that undermines that system as heroic.

That you are doing so on such a basic and fundamental level as starting from the very beginning with your children, unfortunately, is courageous. So though I wish it were completely unnecessary, I do feel the need to thank you. Thank you for seeing. Thank you for having the integrity to act on what you see.

Sexuality: Is It Easier To Be Bisexual?

Guest Contributor — Thu, 12 May 2011 13:00:13 +0000

: Janice is the butch one
Image and caption courtesy of GayCaptions

“Well, you’re only half gay, so it’s probably easier for you.” “Actually, you’re at an advantage: it doubles your chances!” “A beautiful girl like you playing both sides of the field? I can’t feel sorry for you.” “Of course, it’s fine for women to be bisexual. In fact, it increases your appeal.”

All of these are sentiments I’ve heard more times than I can count. They are difficult for the same reasons that the classic line, “You know, Jesus was Jewish!” is difficult. After hearing it so many times, it gets exhausting to explain exactly why this revelation does not carry the implications that the speaker thinks it does. Exhausting because every single time it is necessary to start again with certain fundamentals that in my world are as elemental as the air I breathe. So I am writing this in the hopes that I may cut down on some of the repetition in my life by having a ready-made primer to my experience as a bisexual woman, and why it is not “easy.”

First off, I want to say that I am not looking for pity. I don’t need you to feel sorry for me, nor am I trying to out-suffer you. Hardship is not a competition and persecution is not a zero-sum game. There is much more I could write on this subject, but that is perhaps for another piece. Further, I need to include the disclaimer that I can speak only from my own experience and the experiences that have been shared with me. Everyone’s sexuality is their own and I cannot claim to speak for others or to represent the entirety of self-identified bisexuals. That said, let us continue.

There is a well-known Israeli film called “Walk on Water” in which one of the main characters is telling another that the man he has been charged with befriending is gay. “Hu homo homo?” [He’s gay gay?] “(Sarcastically) Lo, hu chetzi-homo!” [No, he’s half-gay!] With my Hebrew-speaking friends I will sometimes jokingly refer to myself thus, Ani chetzi-homo [I’m half-gay], because of the cultural reference… and because it rolls off the tongue amusingly. It is in fact, however, not true. Bisexuality is different from homosexuality in a number of respects, and in some of those respects, homosexuality has far more in common with heterosexuality than does bisexuality, or pansexuality as some prefer.

Someone who is heterosexual purportedly is incapable of attraction to the same sex or gender, and someone who is homosexual purportedly is similarly incapable of attraction to the/an other sex or gender. The similarity is that for both of these groups, there exist relatively easily defined categories of attraction and non-attraction. For a bisexual person, the criteria of attraction are not so simply whittled down. Just as for mono-sexuals (people attracted only to one sex or gender) there is reportedly no choice involved in which sex or gender toward which they gravitate, so too for non-mono-sexuals or stereo-sexuals, as one friend joked. [I say “reportedly” in recognition of the fact that I am not in a position to speak for someone else’s experience of their sexuality. I can only report on the experience described to me by people I know, and the people I know who describe themselves as exclusively homo or heterosexual cannot choose to which sex or gender they will be attracted.]

We don’t just decide that today I will be attracted to men, tomorrow I will be attracted to women, next week I will be attracted to genderqueers. Every person is their own category, and whether we find them attractive or not has to do with many factors. Gender will play a role insofar as it is a part of the makeup of someone’s personality, not as an automatic exclusion.

There are a number of reasons that this does not “double the ‘playing field,’” as has been suggested. For one thing, the potential for attraction to more than one sex or gender does not necessarily mean that a person is going to be attracted to twice the number of people as a person who is attracted to only one sex. Sexual and emotional attraction are complex phenomena, and are dependent on many factors. Someone for whom gender is not an automatic excluding factor may have any number of other factors at play which limit the scope of their attraction. Another issue is that my potential to be attracted to someone does not increase the likelihood that they will be attracted to or comfortable with me as a potential partner.

Which brings me to another point: namely, the suggestion that as a woman my bisexuality increases my appeal. This is patently untrue. Sure, it may conjure for some the common trope of the pornographic fantasy held by some men of the bisexual woman who will have sex with him while making out with another woman for his entertainment and arousal. Okay, but that is a fantasy. Again, I can only speak for myself, but personally, I am unlikely to be substantively attracted to a person who would be inclined to hold such a fantasy. Such a sexual experience might be fulfilling for some and I am by no means condemning or denigrating those people, but to assume that a person being bisexual means that they want to have sex with multiple partners, either simultaneously or concurrently is naive and insulting.

People who are bisexual are not necessarily any more likely to be inclined toward polyamory than any heterosexual or homosexual person. Again, bisexuality describes a state of being wherein gender does not necessarily exclude someone as a potential partner. It does not mean that I need a man and a woman in order for my sexual and emotional needs to be fulfilled. What I need is a partner. A person whom I find attractive in all respects, who I can trust, who will give me love and support and receive love and support from me. I need a person who shares my values and wants the same things from a partnered life that I want. If I want a partner, that is what they need to be: a partner. In that respect, I am unremarkable. My bisexuality has little to do with my desired lifestyle once settled (God willing) in a partnership.

If anything, I have found that being bisexual is a detriment to my finding potential partners. Bisexuality scares people, straight and gay alike. Some don’t believe that bisexuality really exists, and that therefore anyone who claims to be bisexual is in fact confused, and will turn out in the end to be heterosexual or homosexual. No one wants to be caught as the partner of a person who has realized that their orientation is incompatible with that partnership. In other words, the gays are worried I’ll wind up straight and the straights are worried I’ll wind up gay. Further, precisely because of the preconception that if someone is truly bisexual they need to have sex with people of multiple genders/sexes, there is always the suspicion that a bisexual person is incapable of monogamy. It isn’t always easy to find people who are comfortable with the idea of a bisexual partner, gay or straight.

Finally, the most insulting charge, that bisexuality is selfish. You may as well say that my having blue eyes is selfish. My bisexuality means that I have certain attractions, just as homosexuality or heterosexuality does. To deny either my attraction to men or to women is to be in the closet, and it baffles me when people, homosexual folks especially, tell me to go back in there. I have to choose, you say? Tell me… did you choose? The fact is, I do choose. When I am with a partner, I choose to be faithful to that partner, to be present with and for them, to be the person who I am with them. I choose in the same respect that you do.

As for Jesus being Jewish? Correct. Jesus was Jewish; Me too. Jesus wasn’t Christian; Me neither. Shrug

Religion: My Struggle to be Jewish and Queer

Guest Contributor — Mon, 02 May 2011 13:00:52 +0000

Submission by Gella Solomon, TNG contributor.

Gella Solomon was from Brooklyn, New York before it was cool. She frequently reminds people of this fact, as Brooklynites often do. Gella’s identities include queer, feminist, middle child, and student of Judaism. She is currently learning at The Drisha Institute, a pluralistic women’s Yeshiva in Manhattan.

I am a Jewish queer woman. Or maybe I am a queer Jewish woman. Or a woman who is Jewish and queer. Labels and definitions are always difficult when applied to holistic human beings, and become even more problematic when they seem to be pitted against one another within the same person. I’ve been observant and engaged in my Jewish identity since early childhood. My Judaism has always been one of the most essential elements of whom I understand myself to be. I was a public school kid, but attended Hebrew school from kindergarten through my senior year of high school. I was Jewish. I am Jewish. And then I realized I was bisexual.

I became certain of my attraction to women during the first semester of my freshman year of college, during which I was studying in Burgos, Spain. I was 18, approximately one year after I’d become certain of my attraction to men.

Fundamentally, this shouldn’t have posed too much of a problem or conflict for me. I came from a liberal family and a liberal community, and I knew I was lucky in this respect. I wasn’t going to face anything close to the sorts of discrimination or bigotry about which I’d heard so many horror stories.

There was one snag though. I’d realized when I was 15 that I wanted to be a rabbi. More than this, I felt very sure that I was supposed to be a rabbi. It’s difficult to explain, but my life seemed to keep pointing me in the direction of the rabbinate. It was as though God would not let me go on this one. When I graduated from college, four years later, The Jewish Theological Seminary’s Rabbinical School, the flagship institution of my movement of Judaism, the place where I’d attended Hebrew school since my Bat Mitzvah, the institution where I’d met the teacher who started me on this path, was still not admitting openly non-heterosexual students. So I got a job, and I waited.

I worked a retail job in Chelsea, while I waited for God to provide a path for me. During this time, I made many queer friends, most of them a few years older than I was. They “adopted” me, and made it their mission to get this shy girl out of her shell and into the queer world. What that meant in Chelsea was going to clubs and bars after work, drinking, dancing, making out with strangers. It was fun in its way. Of course, it was exciting and felt good to have women’s hands on me, to feel desired and desirable, to freely feel and express my attraction and let go of some inhibitions. Something, though, always felt a little wrong about it. It just wasn’t me. This was not who I was. Not that I wasn’t queer, far from it. This was the time during which I felt the most certain about and validated in my queerness. But in this world, as it was shown to me, what I encountered on those nights —drinking and dancing and feeling and kissing — was only other people’s bodies, their sexuality. I wasn’t encountering people’s souls.

The fact is that I was at heart a religious person, and the experience of being shown the queer world in this light told me that the two identities were fundamentally incompatible — not because religion condemned my queerness (though of course at least on the books it did, preventing me from pursuing my intended path, which weighed on me), but because the concerns of the two worlds seemed ultimately to be very different. More than that, my religiosity was viewed with suspicion and a degree of condemnation in queer circles —understandable given what has been, and continues to be, done and said to queers in the name of religion. Still, it was hurtful to have my religion, as I had come to understand and embrace and love it, dismissed as archaic or barbaric in what I was now being told was “my community.”

Eventually I left my job in Chelsea and went to Israel to study at The Conservative Yeshiva for two years. During this time I did a lot of thinking about my religion and how I understood my relationship to Jewish law. JTS Rabbinical School, meanwhile, had changed its policy to allow openly gay, lesbian, and bisexual people to be admitted and ordained. The actual religious law on the books still did not, and does not, allow for true bisexuality to be lived freely and honestly, but I applied nevertheless, and was accepted.

I did not by any means go back into the closet at this point, but I sort of put my queerness on the shelf. I didn’t hide it, but I didn’t really engage it unless it came up explicitly. I decided that if my bashert, my intended, turned out to be a woman, I would not fight it, but as far as actively looking, I was looking for a male partner. My queerness was a part of me that would never go away, I knew, but my Judaism was so much more important, so much more relevant, so much richer an experience and identity for me, that I let the one take over my being and let the other slide.

For a number of reasons, I had a very difficult year emotionally in Rabbinical school. After a bout with debilitating depression and an eating disorder, which left me emotionally raw and ragged at the end of the spring semester, the school and I needed to take a break from one another, to put it diplomatically. I enrolled in a pluralistic women’s Yeshiva, determined to devote this year to truly figuring myself out, to focus on my emotional and spiritual wellbeing rather than continuing to push myself to gain the approval of others. Early on in the year, I was invited by a queer Jewish friend of mine whom I’d met in Jerusalem, to attend a queer Shabbaton at the JCC in New York organized by Nehirim, the GLBT Jewish culture and spirituality organization. Despite some misgivings, I decided to attend.

In short, it changed my life. For the first time I felt able to be truly and fully myself. I had never realized how much was missing from my life holding back from talking about the experience of being queer, and relating to other queer-identified people. I had feared that the weekend would be all about folks trying to hook up with one another … more of what I’d experienced in Chelsea. What I experienced instead was a kind of community that was entirely new to me. We prayed together, ate together, sang together, learned Torah together, and all in a queer paradigm. I saw queer Jewish families, I saw religious queer Jews having religious queer lives, holding the same priorities I did while not compromising who they are, without putting any part of them on the shelf. I talked and learned with queer rabbis and I finally felt like my readings of scripture, which are of course informed by my experience of the world through queer eyes, had some legitimate basis. There is no Torah like queer Torah. It was so delicious.

We had a dance party in the Beit Midrash after Shabbat was over. We danced together in dimmed lighting to pulsing music among holy books. Lesbians danced with bisexual men, who danced with gay men, who danced with trans women, who danced with queer folks. All together we let go and celebrated each other on the dance floor, sometimes in pairs, often in circles, turning to one another, smiling, laughing, enjoying each other’s company, some romantically, others in friendship, as family. All of us in that room were dancing with the divine spark we’d all found in one another over the weekend. When we danced together that night, we danced with God.

We come to understand and integrate the disparate elements of our identities from many directions. I have met many queer Jews who came to embrace Judaism and Jewish identity by encountering it for the first time through the lens of their queerness.

I know many, too, whose understanding of their queer identity is always filtered through the prism of their Judaism, and who learn from their Judaism to embrace their queer selves. No human being can be neatly defined and categorized, and no one should have to feel that they must choose one identity box to the exclusion of others, which are just as integral to our beings. However, we come together with ourselves, there is perhaps no sweeter reconciliation than finally learning to embrace two sides of our identities which have been placed in opposition, when all along they should have been complimentary, intertwined, perhaps inextricable.

TNG TV: Couples Torn Apart by the Government: 4/24

Guest Contributor — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 14:00:08 +0000

Crossposted with permission from Matt Baume.

With a new look, new name, and two great interviews — the first with Josh Vandiver, whose husband is facing deportation in just a few days, and the second with Marriage Equality New York’s Cathy Marino-Thomas.

TNG TV: Black Lips’ Jared Swilley Discusses His Gay Pastor Father

Zack Rosen — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 20:35:37 +0000

Last year, after he let slip an F Bomb at a fellow rocker, The Black Lips‘ Jared Swilley cleared the air with me and sealed it with a kiss. This year, he gave us some of his time to discuss his dad Jared Swilley, an Atlanta megachurch pastor who came out to his congregation. Not because he was caught on tape, not because of any scandal, but because he wanted to make the world a more tolerant place by being honest. Jim is a hero to me for that — watch him come out and see if you feel differently — and Jared is also pretty damn awesome for being so open on the subject. The worlds of religion, sexuality and indie rock rarely collide in a positive way, so its nice to see it happen here.

TNG TV: Hot Queer Song Alert – Nicole Reynolds, “Like The Ocean.”

Zack Rosen — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 14:30:14 +0000

Far from a dirty word, “lesbian folk music” is a term that has the power to pique my interest and make me run to check out the woman holding the title. While the stalwarts like Amy Ray and Jill Sobule are still around doing great work, a new generation has emerged to carry the torch. To the likes of Chris Pureka and An Horse comes Nicole Reynolds. The Pittsburgh native (and former attendant of local Goucher College) has a tiny, heartwrenching voice that is the perfect medium for some big ideas.

She busted out her powerful track “Like an Ocean” at the DC-are Iota Club for us back in January. It’s has a great message about persecution and self-reliance that should make sense for anyone who was told that they grew up wrong. Check it out! Lyrics are below, because they’re that good.

When I was a girl, they told me the world
was made by a man my father ran
ran ran ran he ran

I was only four I was lying by the door
my mother she rocked me back and forth
we cried and cried I remember that night

then i went to school and I swallowed all the rules
I was nervous and ashamed nobody knew my name
they said I wasn’t normal my mother said the same
they didn’t teach me much, they told me I should pray
I prayed i prayed i prayed

When I was a girl they told me in this world
there’s black and there’s white you’re wrong or you’re right
I didn’t feel well and I didn’t fit in
I was twelve years old and I felt like sin

When I was a girl they told me in this world
some things fit and some things dont
a man and a woman a man and a woman
that’s what he wrote this we know

The priest looked at me with his big blue eyes
told me my love was the devil in disguise
my mother wouldn’t look at me her eyes were black
I remember that night I didn’t come back
I ran ran ran I ran

When I was 16 i heard a woman’s voice
she said truth is subjective we’ve all got a choice
believe what you feel and question what they say
everyone’s really just guessing anyway
I thought that you should know this

I read mother jones her words rattled in my bones
I learned about revolution, I don’t throw stones
I think what I think and I say what I see
I cut my own hair and I am who I be
and I love who I love who I love like the ocean
I love who I love who I love like the ocean
I love who I love who I love like the ocean

Learning To Drive Stick: Hearts on the Sidewalk

Guest Contributor — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 18:00:07 +0000

Submission by Student Driver, TNG columnist

Follow Student Driver, a life-long lesbian-identified woman as she dabbles in the world of heterosexuality, in our new syndicated ladysex column “Learning To Drive Stick.” Check her out every Tuesday at 2 p.m.!

Tiger.

That is what I was called yesterday. The text came through midday, nonchalant, while I was in the midst of my workday. The text made no mention of last Tuesday night.

Last Tuesday was supposed to be our big sit-down, Type Geek and I. We were going to talk about my feelings for him, my hopes for us, what it was all about. In the end, we had what turned into an amazing evening, perhaps one of the best dates we had ever had, some of the best sex, only it wasn’t a date. Or was it?

I decided that I wouldn’t contact him, that he needed to make the move towards me. Think of me and reach out. So I kept myself busy, with work, with food, and when that didn’t help, I shopped for gardening supplies. Midday Monday I received a text saying, “Hey, Tiger.” Small talk.

He was having a great Monday at work and his niece had her baby over the weekend. He told me that he is now avoiding the family compound because of his innate dislike for amorphous creatures known as babies. Until they become people, he doesn’t know how to deal with them, so he avoids them. Other than that, no comments about what happened: about how his,”No!” became a maybe, became asking me to dinner and to stay the night, and then to be intimate with him. I believe he might be one of those men who substitute action for a dialogue. Cautiously optimistic, I am allowing him a safe, clean slate upon which to act. I am still talking to other men, but I am remaining open to possibilities.

As I walked home last night, I noticed marks on the sidewalk, gum perhaps. One of them stood out and I began thinking about some of the things my friends and readers have said regarding the Type Geek situation. Rationalizing is a bad thing, excusing human behavior is a bad thing, and allowing others to be as complicated and flawed as we are is a bad thing.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean to disregard my friends’ concerns. I appreciate their support. However, I have been considering lately that perhaps the reason why many relationships fail is that we spend too much time in the ego and emotion of the love, rather than in the reality of what it is: Two flawed and imperfect people navigating messy existences in a complicated world, trying to find connection and understanding in order to feel a little less lonely.

So I allow that people may not always react as we would, or as we would like, when under stress, when in unknown situations, when terrified of the greyness of possibilities. I consider whether I would like someone to offer me the same. I am a great person, and I come with baggage. Type Geek is a great person and he comes with baggage. Is it possible that we may be able to combine some of our luggage, in order to lighten our collective loads? Is it possible that we won’t? Could I be wrong? Definitely. Is it also possible that this might be a great love story, one of perseverance, trust, faith and unconditional love? That is also a possibility, albeit perhaps a smaller one from the view on the sidelines.

I don’t ask anyone to understand why. I just ask that you consider what you would do if you met someone who stopped your breath. How you would react if you woke up one morning knowing that this man or woman was the one you wanted to be old with. I don’t fall in love easily. I do, however, regret deeply. I don’t want to regret Type Geek. I’d rather have heartache, experience, and footprints on my soul and in the end be able to say I tried. I love myself enough to allow myself the possibility that Type Geek could be the greatest love of my life, and that I deserve to experience that fully, even if it isn’t easy, even if it hurts sometimes, because hearing him call me Sugar, or kiss me on the forehead as I lay with my head on his chest in bed, his scent in my lungs, those moments are the moments we will remember when we die, not the missed calls, or sudden business trips.

This may turn painful — as love often does — but there might be another ending to this story. I won’t know until I get there.

TNG TV: Jill Sobule Helps Zack Rosen Kiss A Boy and Sing About It

Zack Rosen — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 13:00:26 +0000

Jill Sobule has been kissing girls since before Katy Perry was even allowed to use cherry chapstick. So it was exciting enough that her ongoing tour has brought her through Arlington’s Iota Club, and even cooler when she agreed to meet me at its owner’s house the next day for a little impromptu duet/rewrite of her decidedly non-seminal classic “I Kissed a Girl.” And though its embarrassing to sing so poorly in front of Jill and punk elder statesmanJohn Doe, I can still say that this was a great way to spend a Saturday.

I first remember hearing “I Kissed a Girl” when I was 10 and already knowing that things were gonna be hard for me because I was gay. Having a song like that out there was a great way of normalizing who I was and making me excited about it. And now that I’ve kissed several boys myself I’m glad to know it never gets any less exciting.

Thanks, Jill!

Television Man: Queer Cartoons, pt. 1: “Archer” Gets Gayer and Gayer

Zack Rosen — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 16:00:04 +0000

Lana (left) totally boned Pam.

Television Man is Zack’s new Wednesday TV column. Please be kind to it.

*Caution: Possible spoilers.

This is the first in a multi-part series examining queer characters on animated TV shows.

I don’t know what it is about animation that allows its writers to take greater risks with their characters’ sexual identities. It might the “anything goes” fantasy elements intrinsic in even the most straitlaced of cartoons that give such a pass, or just the fact that a drawing can’t express concerns about being typecast. Whatever it is, some of the best and most daring queer TV characters around are now appearing in cartoons.

I would say that FX’s Archer, a show about middling New York spy agency ISIS and its self-centered super-spy Sterling Archer, resides somewhere between the categories of “cult hit” and “bonafide super smash.” Set in an ambiguous decade where cell phones and virtual reality girlfriends exist alongside Mad Men furnishings, 80′s computers and the omnipresent threat of Soviet retaliation, Archer‘s genius is that the spy antics take a backseat to some genuinely bizarre character portrayals.

Much like Arrested Development, with whom Archer shares a comedic sensibility and the voice talents of Jessica “Lucille 1″ Walters, Jeffrey “George Sr.” Tambor and Judy “Kitty” Greer, no one on the show is a particularly good person. Archer’s ex-girlfriend/co-spy Lana is as close as they have to a moral center, and even she is not above pursuing alternate employment, spiting Archer for sport or giving a pity fuck to sad-sack HR woman Pam.

Lana is not characterized as queer and she is not judged or given a coming out moment when she beds Pam. It’s a reflection on her minute core of decency that she would throw Pam the proverbial bone, and on Archer‘s open-minded attitude that no one has made a single snide comment on Pam’s bisexuality. She pursues women openly while still professing attraction to men. The recent episode “Movie Star” centered mostly on Pam’s attempts to win the heart of a gorgeous actress and her the way her coworkers assist her. Pam gets hornier than Brett Ashley at a bull fight when confronted with attractive members of either gender, and no one bats an eye.

They do, however, give her constant shit for being fat or disgusting. Pam’s endless mistreatment reminds me too much of the Meg from Family Guy/Jerry from Parks and Recreation trope of the punching bag character — which has its roots in Tambor’s portrayal of Hank Kinglsey on The Larry Sanders Show — but that’s a topic for another article. I think having a sexually-realized bi character on a major TV show outweighs the jokes about her loving meat or masturbating on the toilet.

Similarly, intelligence analyst Ray Gillette is ostensibly just a flamboyant pre-Stonewall queen whose depth of character gets revealed over the course of the show. He gets hit with some barbs from the always-insensitive title character, but is also one of ISIS’ only competent operatives. The show deepens his back story throughout the ongoing second season, revealing that he is an Olympic athlete and was formerly married to a lesbian he met at an ex-gay seminar.

Archer‘s most consistently put upon character though ends up with the most depth. To call Sterling’s butler/manservant Woodhouse “put upon” would be like calling Charlie Sheen “lovably eccentric.” He spent the majority of the first season as a target for Sterling’s insensitivity, constantly cleaning up after his hookers and getting his possessions thrown off the balcony for minor domestic infractions. Recently ,though, he got a doozy of a back story.

In “The Double Deuce” it is revealed that Woodhouse was not always a withered old punching bag in a suit. He served in WWI under a handsome officer named Reggie. Gay innuendo abounds in this flashback, but it turns out to be warranted. Woodhouse and Reggie had a deep, if possibly unconsummated, romantic connection. When the latter is taken hostage behind enemy lines Woodhouse undertakes a secret mission to get him back. It seems to succeed until German snipers spot the pair lighting a cigarette and take Reggie out. Woodhouse goes berserk, single-handedly scalping 50 Krauts in retaliation, and is kicked out of the army.

His mournful, post-Reggie peregrinations take him to Tangiers, where he meets Sterling’s pregnant mother and finds a new purpose in caring for her and later her son. Woodhouse’s story is rare on this show in that it’s played without an ounce of snark. It becomes apparent that Woodhouse puts up with so much of his charge’s douchebaggery because his father-figure role in Sterling’s life fills the hole left by Reggie’s death.

Archer’s few moments of sweetness are always tied to parent/child relationships. His relationship with his boozehound mother is the show’s emotional anchor. Even that, though, only shines sincerely in brief, fleeting moments. The dignity and real love that Archer affords to Woodhouse, in my opinion, makes one of the best gay characters on TV right now. His smack addiction and predilection for knocking out Sterling to pacify him make him an Archer character. Somewhere between the two lies a memorable gay character on a great gay show.

Ideas: Call for Bisexual Writers

Guest Contributor — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 20:00:09 +0000

Photo by Abraham Pisarek; Wikimedia Commons

As a group that is often overlooked or discounted in the queer community, we want to hear what you have to say.

Join the TNG conversation today by sending your articles to submit@thenewgay.net.

TNG has always been a forum for people to raise their own voices, speak their own unique viewpoints, to ensure that the entire queer spectrum is represented. We can’t reach that goal without you.

So if you have something to say, send it over!

Learning To Drive Stick: Playing Games at Midnight

Guest Contributor — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 19:00:48 +0000

Submission by Student Driver.

Starting to date again after falling in love with someone and then breaking up, well it just sucks. I am trying to get out there, meet people, flirt, find some inkling of excitement in the prospect of new people and experiences, at a time when all I want is to curl up into the warm soft space of Type Geek’s shoulder, chest, or belly and fall asleep. Big dramatic sigh.

Now I went out with the Daddy WireFramer whose self-esteem issues had me completely turned off. I had sex with my Internet Skype guy. I have been chatting with a few others on-line. It’s an interesting array of men, but all have a similar thread: an appreciation for food. There is the Pac NW/NYC Foodie, the Real Estate Foodie, the Media Tech Getaway guy, and the Doggie Dad who just seems sweet. He’s older than I usually go for, but I’m not expecting to fall in love here. I am trying to give my heart some room so that it can heal itself. This includes distracting myself in moments when I am finding myself reminiscing woefully. Last night I did this by playing a game with two different men, the foodies. The game was a little, “Would you either (blank) or (blank)?”

The men would ask me two questions and I would need to answer one, then I would ask two questions and they would answer one. The questions ran from mild to naughty, from topical to highly inquisitive. Did it drive me closer to any of them? Not really. It did however bring me closer to sleep, closer to a sheer exhaustion that had me feeling less restless, less consumed by the loss I feel without Type Geek. I miss his voice, his touch, his laugh. I know, he hasn’t been that for a very long time, yet I miss him and those moments regardless.

So at 3:33 am, I find myself gamed out and ready for sleep. Two miles from Type Geek but worlds apart. I miss him and trying to date only makes me more aware of what I have lost. The games with the other men, they are just that, meaningless games. Maybe someday the games will become more serious and I will find a worthy opponent, even if he isn’t that 5’8″ bald workaholic with an adorable tush and a palate worth creating culinary masterpieces for whom I fell in love with in 2010.

Action: Dare to Be a Woman

Maureen McCarty — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 22:00:11 +0000

Last Saturday the Mautner Project celebrated its 21^st Dare to Be gala at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Woodley Park in Washington, D.C.

Revelers sashayed about the oppulent hotel wrapped in rainbow-colored feather boas, gesturing with Martina-tinis— the gala’s complimentary hot pink cocktail named for the Chair’s Award recipient, Martina Navratilova— in hand. Lime green and hot pink covered anything that didn’t move.

I imagine this is what the Washington Blade had in mind when it nominated the Dare to Be gala as the best place to meet women in Washington, D.C.; that, and the overwhelming number of lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals at a single event.

The program started with a silent auction, then dinner, speeches and awards, and plenty of boozing and grooving to the sounds of Viki Dee and DJ Jame’ Foks.

But it is not Mautner’s epic ability to throw a good fundraiser that brings the ladies in throngs.

The project works to educates lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals about their health and trains health-care providers about their lesbian patients, providing tools and insights on how to achieve better health outcomes for lesbians, according to their website.

Viki Dee performed a fantastic cover of Lady Gaga's Born This Way

Mautner Project’s 8-person staff, along with its 65 volunteers, has worked to improve the health of women of the LBT community for over 20 years. This includes phone support, support groups for LBT women with women and their partners, smoking cessation groups, and community health workshops.

Certainly from the thousands of dollars raised and the sold out admission, it is a mission people will happily reach into their pocketbook for, and should.

However success cannot be measured solely by the quantity of women and allies under one roof, which— as someone who spends the majority of my time with gay men— was a shocking surprise.

At Dare to Be I encountered strong and intelligent women at every turn. The celebratory mood made it easy to find someone interesting to share conversation with and maybe even a bump and grind about the dance floor.

Mautner’s ability to join together women who begin the night as strangers but end the night as friends, confidantes, and advocates is where its true success lies.

The Dare to Be gala still remains the best opportunity to reinvigorate your passion for the LGBT community and renew your appreciation for the strong women in your life.

So Washingtonians, if you missed the event, take solace in the fact that these women presumably do something with the other 364 nights of their year. And don’t miss it next year.

For more on the Mautner Project, check out the website at http://www.mautnerproject.org/.

From Lesbos With Love: There’s a “B” in LGBT

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 17:00:26 +0000

When I kissed a girl for the first time, I thought I was bi. I had always dated men but when I kissed her, I knew I wasn’t kissing her in the way sorority girls do. I was into it. So I came to the logical conclusion that I was bisexual. It wasn’t until a year later after dating both men and women that I realized I was actually gay, and both bi and straight were phases.

I have often heard that bi is just a gay waiting-room. When I came out as gay, I felt badly for contributing to that stereotype – because in many cases it is simply not true. People really are bisexual – in every sense of the word. It is a real sexuality and I think as a community we need to be more supportive of that.

Sure, there are plenty of cases where someone is bi for a while and then realizes they are either gay or straight, and that’s okay. It happens. Sometimes it’s a casualty of self-discovery. We need to acknowledge and be sensitive to that without then assuming that bisexuality is a phase for everyone. Let’s be a little more open-minded.

There are also instances where a person will have sexual relations with a person of the same-sex but only date (or plan to marry) someone of the opposite sex. I think this makes us uncomfortable because to us it implies shame. It also allows that person to “pass” for straight. They have all the benefits of heterosexual privilege while eating their cake too. We think it’s unfair; that they’re taking advantage of the system or something. Perhaps they are, but it’s really not for us to decide who anyone dates or sleeps with – at least I thought that’s what we’re trying to convince other people of.

I have heard that some people are uncomfortable with dating a bisexual individual because they’re worried that person will miss the other gender. It’s hard enough to compete with one gender, but when dating someone who’s bi, you have twice the competition. She might leave you for a man, and if she does it’s not something you can argue with – not a need you can meet. While I recognize some people might feel this way, and they’re entitled to their fears – I’ll even admit I’ve been worried about it at times – it is, when you think about it, pretty irrational. When you date anyone, of any sexuality, there’s always the possibility for cheating. She can leave you, at any time. That’s scary, but it doesn’t change with bisexuals. If she leaves you, she leaves you – does it really matter who it’s with or for? It still sucks. The issue here is whether or not you trust the person you are dating. If you do, it doesn’t matter how big the pool is or how many genders she could be attracted to, she’s committed to you and just as she trusts you to be faithful, you have to trust her. If you can’t handle it, date someone else. It’s not fair to assume that just because someone is bi she is a cheater or a flake. We have to stop marginalizing each other.

Whether a person is confused, who they sleep with versus date, or what they like in general, does not negate the fact that there are people who identify as bisexual, period. Sexuality is a spectrum after all, and some people fall in the middle.

I have a few friends who are bi. They date men and they date women – not at the same time (though if they did, that would be their and their partners’ prerogatives). They are attracted to both genders and date for love. I say more power to them – challenge the gender binary, swim in your bigger pond, find who you’re looking for. I don’t think these people are manipulating or taking advantage of the “system.” They’re simply being who they are and we need to understand, accept and embrace it.

It frustrates me when people discount bisexuality off-hand as something that is either a phase or a show; especially when that someone is within the queer community. We have so much hate, ignorance, discomfort and negative energy constantly thrown our way, we should be protecting our sisters (and brothers) and educating the outside world rather than isolating the bi contingent.

If we are truly fighting for sexual tolerance and freedom, we should not and cannot dismiss bisexuality.

Theatre: Logic, Luck, & Love Brings Camaraderie

Kira — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 14:00:52 +0000

Image from speakeasydc.com

I am one of those people that does not like Valentine’s Day. One of those people who dread the holiday and the inevitable questions it brings. However, this Valentine’s day I embraced the jaded and happily single girl that I am, sucked it up and went out to a show.

Logic, Luck, and Love: A Valentine’s Day Special was shown at Atlas Performing Arts Center by SpeakeasyDC on February 14. This show featured a stage, four folding chairs, four storytellers, and an audience that provided an amazing laugh track. The four storytellers seemingly came from the diverse background: a straight, divorced, now single woman who had not given up on herself or hope, a lesbian finding love in unsuspecting places, a gay man with the constant thought that there has to be something better out there for him, and a straight man jaded from his past of limited love. Local DC residents, Jennifer Moore, Molly Kelly, John Kevin Boggs, and Dustin Fisher, each have their own story to share, pulling in local DC mention, pop-culture references, and each individual tale blends together with a navigable flare. Moreover, the stories shared are not only told to the audience, but are felt by the audience.

The beauty and tragedy of listening to stories about love is that it is unexplainable and yet everyone understands it, and has probably lived it as well. While the audience listened to each tale, I’m sure, knowing the odds of seeing a show on H St., there were most likely an equal divide between straight men and women, gay men and women and probably a bunch of people somewhere in between.

It didn’t matter which storyteller happened to be sharing because we understood where they were coming from. Everyone has that less-than-perfect kiss, but we convince ourselves otherwise. Everyone awkwardly hits on the prettiest person in the bar and settles for the second… or third. Everyone has been ditched for someone else and made the wrong choice without knowing it until it was over. I know we have all created our own logic to disprove fate and explain why we always seemed to pull the short stick.

image from speakeasydc.com

The very best thing about this Valentine’s Day show for me was the raw truth behind it. Each storyteller put him or herself up on that stage and shared their lives with an audience of strangers. They shared their funniest moments of their love lives. They shared the little antidotes and details. They shared their disappointments. The stories were not extraordinarily different or extreme in any way, but they were unique. The storytellers took ownership and let them out in an eloquent and relatable approach.

So what began as my excuse of not NOT celebrating Valentine’s Day night, actually turned into a noteworthy and memorable experience.

If SpeakeasyDC’s next show is anything like this one, I highly recommend attending.

Sexuality: To Bi or Not to Bi, Is that Even a Question?

Guest Contributor — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 17:00:27 +0000

Olivia Wilde's character on House is arguably the only fully developed, outspoken female bisexual on prime-time

For recent years, the media had been a constant source of frustration for me. Not only does it completely fail in setting many positive female images or role models for today’s youth, but its queer representation has been more than savory. Sure, we now have figures like Kurt on Glee and “the gay couple” on Modern Family, but positive and well-developed queer characters remain difficult to find on mainstream television. This search only becomes more difficult as one searches for bisexual people. As someone who readily identifies as bisexual, this is a frustrating stand-still.

Off the top of my head, I cannot think of a single bisexual male on television (although I think True Blood may have one — I could never get into that show). As for female characters, they exist but as complicated entities. I say entities, because their sexuality as an identified bisexual is never developed fully. They are either “just experimenting” and on their proper way back to a handsome male protagonist, or they are just testing the waters for coming out of the closet. Santana and Brittney on Glee clearly possess complex sexual identities, but these are never fully expressed. Juxtaposed to all the attention Kurt receives, their sexuality almost seems like a tease for male viewers. A passing moment that will never be mentioned again. The only fully developed, outspoken female bisexual on prime-time television I ever came across was Olivia Wilde’s character on House. After she dates a male coworker, she adeptly handles the situation and chides his paranoia. Although she dates men, the option to date a woman is never fully discounted. She is comfortable with her identity and dating a man does not change who she is.

With the sexualized image of females in the mainstream media and their use of bisexuality to “turn on” male viewers, it often makes one wonder if there are any true bisexuals in the world. The gay community often rejects such people, doubtful of their credulity. Straight people also tend to discount such an identity, believing they are simply hiding their true “gayness.” This perception is often reinforced by the media with ambiguously bisexual females and absent bisexual males. It is this environment that makes being bi so challenging on a day by day basis. Granted, it is easier for women to take on this identity. But for how long? How long will the attraction to both sexes last before I or many of the other identified bisexuals finally “pick a side.” Is that even an option?

For those on the way to accepting homosexuality and helping those around them accept it, the label of “bi” may be a great stepping-stone. But for the many others who do not want to pick and choose, where are they to turn? Bisexuality as a temporary label and as an identification holds a certain aura of complexity around it that differentiates itself from other labels in the queer community. In what promises to be a decade of more acceptance for the gay community, let us hope that the media will follow on this track and stop stereotyping the bi community. That’s just tacky, girl.

Sexuality: The Horror of the Hyphen

Guest Contributor — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 21:00:17 +0000

Submission by Rebecca Gingrich-Jones, TNG contributor

A hyphenated name confounds many

Really. This just happened to me the last time I was at the bank.

Teller: Thank you, Mrs. Jones.

Me: (pleasantly) It’s actually Gingrich-Jones.

Teller: Your last name’s not Jones?

Me: (more slowly) No, it’s Gingrich-Jones. That’s why there’s a hyphen.

Teller: (after an awkward pause) Ohhhh, you’re a hyphie.

Me: (look of WTF) Excuse me, dumbass?

Okay, the last part was in my head… And you know, maybe he took the right approach by shredding the essence of my identity, retaining only the half of my name that petrified him the least. If he’d tried to pronounce the entire name, he probably would have mumbled what I’ve come to dread: something akin to a five-year old attempting to read How the Grinch Stole Christmas with a mouth full of marshmallows: “Ms. Gringrieishnch…..Shones?” Part of me wants to help these poor addled brains that collapse into mush when encountering my name on my credit card or driver’s license. I just want to scoop them up in my arms and whisper soothingly, “It’s okay, I know you’ve heard the name ‘Gingrich’ before. And ‘Jones’ ain’t that hard either.”

What made me give up that comfort of a simple yet elegant last name people could pronounce flawlessly every single time with absolutely no effort? Well, I fell in love, of course. But even before embracing my bi-identity and falling for a woman, I knew I would never toss Jones into the graveyard of patriarchal tradition without a fight. But I’m not sure it’s easier having married a woman – we don’t have naming traditions to guide us, or to rebel against. So, each being in love with our own names – my fiancée already having built her career with hers – but wanting to show our commitment to our new family, we compromised. We embraced the hyphen.

Oh, the hyphen. That cute little line, suspended between letters, joining two words for life. That innocent mark of punctuation that provokes tremors of terror in the minds of the most literate-looking people.

For example, the alphabetically-challenged employee at the library, who actually told me, “You have two last names, so it’s going to take longer to find the book on hold for you on our shelves.” Or the Republican grocery check-out person who called me “Ms. Gingrich” and asked excitedly if I’m related to the former Speaker, who really should run for President! And then there was the five minute badgering I took from the little old TSA lady last week, who tried to convince me that my last name was Jones. As if I wasn’t the expert on this particular matter.

But dealing with actual people has not been nearly as soul-crushing as my encounters with computers. To Gmail and Twitter I say: Really? You each have the computing-power to rule the world: you are lying about your inability to accommodate hyphens in usernames. And Southwest Airlines – online, on the phone, in a letter written to me by one of your monkeys – do not tell me your “systems” cannot recognize that “invalid character.” That invalid character just happens to make possible the words “twenty-first century,” a century in which your systems clearly do not dwell.

All of this trouble in the mere sixteen months that I’ve been married makes me understand why women are actually becoming less likely in this century to keep their own names or to hyphenate. (Don’t even try to find data on men – why would they ever consider changing their names?) But I won’t give in. I will keep fighting hyphen abuse, wherever I encounter it. I will remind these people that a hyphen is not out to do them bodily harm; it just joins words, nothing more, nothing less. And when people get scared, I will tell them to remember what their kindergarten reading teacher taught them: SOUND-IT-OUT. Gingrich-Jones. You can do it.

Sexuality: The Debate Over Bisexuality

Guest Contributor — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 18:00:15 +0000

Submission by Sasha, TNG contributor

I’ve just recently started sleeping with a guy. I mean, I’ve had all sorts of sex with men before – just not in any regular or significant manner. I’ve had crushes on guys, I’ve fallen in love with some. And then I came out as bisexual. Took a couple years. So then my old high school friends didn’t believe me, and a gay guyfriend of mine told me that bisexuality doesn’t exist. So I said: fine then, I’m a lesbian. And they still didn’t believe me (because I “like guys too much.”)

Having watched the entirety of Queers as Folk as part of my coming out process (the American version, all five seasons, all on YouTube,) and explored the subject of “queer” further, that is what I self-identified as. But to the world, for the longest time, it was easier to just say that I’m gay and to joke around about what a big dyke I was. Those were dark times, my friends, but let’s move on closer to the point.

Fast forward: I read some popularized feminist and queer lit; met hot, hot folk that identified as genderqueer; relationship’d with drag kings and transgender men; embraced fantasies of being a gay man… and so much more. I’m quite certain many of you can relate, and I’d love to reminisce with you further in private.

Gender has gone from being a non-existent concept, in my mind, to something very, very queer. That is: non-binary, threatening to the system, and with lots of room to not conform (to anything.)

Yay! Except that now the term “bisexual” is problematic. Not for all the tired, old, still-existing reasons of stigma, stereotyping, and rejection from ‘straight’ and ‘gay’ communities. Certainly, “bisexual” has a long way to go before it gets reclaimed on a macro scale. But how does it apply, at all? Two separate sexes do not exist as people are born with a wide variety of internal and external genitalia, hormone ratios, and other “sex-identifying characteristics.” And gender is also most definitely not a binary – not in my reality.

So am I bisexual? I have no idea: I’m still figuring it out. As bisexual networks emerge out of invisibility in my city, it’s becoming easier to identify with that to find community, understanding, and acceptance. It’s becoming an easy term to use. Which is lovely, except for the queer part of me nudging at the fact that the word is not quite descriptive of my sexuality and world views. Maybe bisexual can be an umbrella term for all sorts of queer sexualities that are attracted to a wide range of genders and sexes. That’s what I tell myself, anyway, when I take bisexuality on as an identity. Is it? Why don’t you tell me?

I know that many of you might be thinking to direct me to some pansexual communities for support. I’ve heard “pansexual” used in positive ways and have met people that identify as such, and yet I am not drawn to the identity in the same way I was with the term “lesbian” (i.e. wow! I want to be that!) I’ve even shrugged off labeling my sexuality, but people still ask, and community is vital to my health. So explain I must. (Or not?)

The perfect solution? Let’s look again at the word “heterosexual.” Really, “hetero” means containing different aspects or being other than something. For example, a heterogeneous mixture is one that contains many different identifiable components (a homogeneous mixture is indiscernible and becomes all as one.) So if I was heterosexual, wouldn’t that mean that I am attracted to many different sexes? That’s way less boring that just being attracted to one sex, or only the exact same sex that I am – homosexual.

Somehow, I just don’t think the idea would catch on. Too long of a descriptor/explanation, maybe.

As for this article and my identity, who knows – are they bisexual enough for ya?

Search for the Sustainable Source: The Case For Eating Meat

Kira — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 14:00:00 +0000

Vegetarian readers beware the following post may turn your tummy.

I am not a vegetarian. I tried it once, right after I discovered the kitchen counter covered in raw meat from an animal my father had recently slaughtered. I took one look at the mounds of red flesh and went running back the safety and cleanliness of my bedroom. I didn’t eat meat for six months. It was a trip to France that converted me back to carnivorous ways. Really, who can pass up pate and tartar in Paris?

I always find a vegetarian’s motives curious. There are countless reasons: Environmental, economic, moral, cultural, health, society, habit, to even the simple reason of “I don’t really like meat.” Strangely though, no one asks meat eaters why they choose not to be vegetarian. There are arguments for both sides of the issue and the same arguments to eliminate meat from your diet can be used to support keeping animal products as a part of it.

The typical arguments in favor of vegetarianism often begin with the moral issue of eating animals. They then expand to the treatment of animals, especially when it comes to the industrial farming practices and mass production of animals. This leads to the environmental issue: contamination and pollution caused by this mass production and farm upkeep. Most animals are fed grain in today’s farming industry; this is not energy efficient, as it takes not only the energy to produce the grain but also for the care of the animal. Beyond energy, it does not make economically sense as money is spent and lost along the way.

While these arguments hold true with much of the meat sold in supermarkets today, I choose not to group all meat in this industrial category. Eating meat, in my mind, is not inherently bad. Traditionally, I see it as a natural thing (cue for swelling music: Circle of Life). The idea that an animal, let’s take a cow, would eat the plants that we as humans cannot eat, converts that to energy we can consume, it leads the economical, environmental, energy, and logical sense. I certainly am aware it is difficult to eat meat of this quality, as it is extremely difficult to trace our food. So I am left less meat, rather than no meat.

Many people ask me if I am a vegetarian. Because I rarely eat meat and because I have the whole “food thing going on”, people assume it. I enjoy meat, and I respect the arguments of vegetarianism, and I agree with most of the arguments. I simply see them a different way. Rather that attribute it to the umbrella of “meat eating is bad,” I prefer to see it as the “modern meat industry is bad.”

Search for the Sustainable Source: Perhaps Walmart is Not the Devil

Kira — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 15:00:12 +0000

Photo by kira

I come from Small Town, New England, and therefore it is in my blood to hate all sports teams from New York (First and foremost the Yankees), Massachusetts drivers (mass-holes), and of course Walmart (the face of the big box stores) for putting the local mom-and-pop shops out of business. [According to my roommate, this is because I am a huge yuppie]

Reading the news this week, I couldn’t help but to feel some of that anger ebbing away. Michelle Obama announced her endorsement of the Walmart corporation. This followed the company’s declaration to sell and promote healthy food not only in their own brand products, but in their suppliers as well. Along with targeting schools, this endorsement is a part of the First Lady’s “Let’s Move” campaign to combat childhood obesity and diseases like early-on-set diabetes. Walmart introduced its initiative to offer more fruit and vegetable option and reduce the levels sodium and sugar in their processed foods. Some venders are calling for nutrition labels on the front of packaging.

This news brought me back to my first viewing of Food, Inc, specifically the scene that illustrated Walmart’s sale of Stonyfield Yogurt products. I naturally love Stonyfield Yogurt, a company based out of my native New Hampshire. Like many I was a bit shocked to hear they were, as we say, selling out to corporate America.

However, if it is that good, why shouldn’t it be readily available to all? Must it maintain the local sales to keep up with the local feel? Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, another once-small manufacturer hailing from Vermont, didn’t seem to think so either. Rather than lose their hometown appeal, they “sold out” to the benefit of their sales and popularity. So the question remains: What is so wrong about bringing good healthy food mainstream, even if it is through (gasp) Walmart?

On the negative side, Walmart has and continues to conduct their business with questionable morals. Whether we are talking about the small-business take-over, or the lack of equal opportunities, benefits and fair wages for their un-unionized employees, there is something to be said about Walmart’s size and affordability. Walmart is everywhere. While yuppies like myself refuse to shop at such monstrosities, the rest of America doesn’t seem to mind. And to make a fair point, they have good reason. Because of the size of the giant, it has the capability to offer products at a lower price, granting a greater access for all. So if Walmart can offer healthier food to more people, especially those who struggle to find that mythical affordable food, it is hard to argue that this is a negative change.

***

For more on this topic check out:

Neuman, William. “Food Makers Devise Own Label Plan.” The New York Times.

Smith, Aaron. “Wal-mart promises to sell healthy food.” CNN.

Wilgoren, Debbi and Ylan Q Mui. “With praise from Michelle Obama, Wal-mart announces healthy food campaign.” The Washington Post.

Search for the Sustainable Source: Home Cooked Meals & What They Can Do For You

Kira — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 17:00:27 +0000

Warm tea for the homecoming?

There is something great about coming home to a warm place and a great meal waiting for you.

No matter how bad my day happened to be —and this one starting with the inability of D.C. to clean up the icy roads — it can still take a turn for the better with a great homecoming.

When I walked into my apartment building last night, with spicy aromas wafting through the hallways to greet me, I crossed my fingers that those delicious smells were coming from my apartment. Sure enough, my roommate was in the kitchen stirring a pot of soup that made my mouth water. Luckily, my roommate is a great sharer — which brings us back to the importance of sharing.

Coming home to a cooked meal is perfectly timeless. I remember my grandmother telling me that the best way for a wife to win points with her husband is to cook up a small pan of onions right before he gets home. It fills the house with delicious savory smells and creates the illusion that someone has been working in the kitchen all day. While this may be a sexist, antiquated 1950s housewife trick, it does make sense.

In fact my dad used this trick to tempt my sister and me out of the solitude of our bedrooms and sullen moods. I remember being somewhat disappointed, however, when I would sneak into the kitchen, looking for a hint of what was for dinner, only to find a measly pan of onions. Regardless, it achieved the initial desired response of startling the senses, awakening the taste buds, and boosting the mood.

I suppose it just goes to show that those small things can brighten the day and can be as simple as frying an ordinary vegetable to achieve an extraordinary response, coming home to a glass of wine waiting for you, or just knowing that someone put in the effort for you to dine in style. While I realize that some of us don’t have time to whip up something up to greet our friends — and I often include myself in that category — taking the extra step once in a while is only the small effort of turning on a burner and washing one extra pan. The effort will not go unnoticed.

P.S. I’m now eating the delicious soup my roommate made and as I exclaim over the paired spices with the perfectly cooked potato, my day has officially taken a turn for the better.

TNG TV: Is The Blow a Lindsay Lohan Expert?

Zack Rosen — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 17:55:07 +0000

I’ll try to control myself here, but I have strong feelings about The Blow. Khaela Maricich‘s one-woman blend of indie-pop and performance art is an out, queer artistic force who has written the best queer love song of all time, seamlessly worked narratives about sexual identity and storytelling into her always-compelling live shows and proves that “intelligent dance music” is so not an oxymoron.

The first time I interviewed Maricich was an unmitigated disaster. I was still working for The Blade and had to sneak in the interview during my work day without getting fired. I first brought my phone and laptop first to a nearby coffee shop (too loud) a newspaper box on the corner of 14th and U (quite stupid on my part) and finally to an empty office adjecent to the paper’s Editor-In-Chief. (I take risks.) We had a decent conversation about the Indigo Girls and the finer points of her live show, but what a difference three years makes.

This time around I was rewarded with an artist who had admittedly calmed down following a bad breakup and proved herself to be the rarest of all creatures: The creator of music both buoyant and mournfully evocative with an amazingly pleasant disposition and rare willingness to initiate a discussion on identity politics with the queer press.

The Blow’s November show at the Black Cat was done as part of a small tour to workshop material for a currently-unfinished new album. Her shows always mix in a fair amount of monologuing, and throughout the course of this one it became clear that all her new songs were about a lesbian starlet (though adamantly “not” Lindsay Lohan) who became a cypher for the nature of sexuality and celebrity in the year 2010.

I hope to the flying spaghetti monster that the album comes out sooner rather than later, but in the meantime check out this interview, watch the below videos and keep your fingers crossed that another tour happens soon.

Search for the (Sustainable) Source: Consumer Responsibility

Kira — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 14:00:52 +0000

And what will become of me? (hint: $$)

Disclaimer: I am well aware this article perhaps will come off wide-eyed and optimistic, but we have to start somewhere. Please leave your jaded view at the door and proceed lightly.

I have been told more than once in the past month that I shouldn’t shop at certain stores, or spend my money at some restaurants because of that corporation’s funding. First it was when Target Corporation, financially backed an outwardly anti-gay politician. Now Chick-fil-A is sponsoring an event to take place in February. This event, The Art of Marriage Conference, hosted by the Pennsylvania Family Institute is followed by the tag line “getting to the heart of God’s design.” You can imagine that God’s design, according to this group—and apparently Chick-fil-A—is limited to heterosexual love only.

So where do these corporations come off spending all their money on these politically sensitive issues? And where does that leave us, as the consumers?

Everyone has their agenda, and the owners of these large multinational corporations are no exception to this rule, they simply have more power (money) to push their agenda further than the average person who ultimately gives them their money. Corporate donations are nothing new and as politics follows the money, the corporations gain that monetary power on the political or social scene.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, (I suppose it depends what side you are on and where the money is going) they can spend their money wherever they want. This IS America. And like any 5 year old will tell you, “It’s a free country.” (Oh, hang on a minute: I guess “Gods design” in this case, means we can only love someone of the opposite sex…okay, great, just checking… Thanks Chick-fil-A for the memo) But, as I was saying, if you have money, it’s a free (er) country, and we can spend the money where we choose.

Ah, now we are getting somewhere. We too, as consumers, can spend the money where we choose! That means if we don’t agree with where that money will eventually end up, then we should not spend our money there. If we don’t agree with the principles or values or what have you, then that company doesn’t need to get a dime from our pockets.

That leads us to the hard part. How do we know if we agree or not with the company? How do we know where the funding ends up? Well, Research! (There’s a great thing called the Internet…) I should also note that, yes, I am aware that some arms reach further than others and own brands that are not the obvious. (Did you know that Chipotle, the local, fresh, “healthy”, burrito joint was owned by McDonalds, the greasy, fattening, fast food, giant chain of the world?) But, on the bright side, as I stated before this IS America, and guess what? We have LOTS of options.

Some freedoms we can still hold onto, if only by our fingertips, we can choose to not shop at Target. We can choose to go to the local chicken joint a bit further down the road, rather than the convenient Chick-fil-A if we don’t agree with the preaching Pennsylvania group. Or in fact, we could forget chicken altogether and go for a veggie burger. My point is, using the information we know, as consumers we can have the last say (or first input, depending on how you look at it) in these matters. We can decide if we want to financially support the end cause of these multi-nationals. Please keep that in mind. We lose our position to complain if we continue to support. We maintain the ability to choose. Choose wisely.