Thursday October 4, 1979
Thursday October 4, 1979
Weekender
Pega 7
f
f
ink about iit,"says
estant background.
about the genitals.
armg. I just don t
ky as to look down
ere a penis in that
blic, echoed her
fom God' she says.
10 percent of the
heaven and laugh."
pul-searching both
their consciences.
ke that step and
y see as the sin of
't end when the
land Elizabeth, who
references in high
p doing something
and forced her to
lating even more
ut her conscience"
rade, I knew I was
, but I wasn't and I
bout it." Mary says
hce in 10th grade.
felt guilty. It never
her.
here we knew we
hat we did, but it
ver, usually think
is a big deal. Many
hild "turned" gay
nd reluctance to
: sexuality often
rd for gays" to tell
K their feelings.
Mary and Susan
ir families know;
bt.
hneth'mg I think
'Patty, 24, says. "I
it to sound like a
It's something' I
pre, not confess. I
own and discuss it
them understand
?nts are real open
n the one hand, I
it easy to talk to
it it, but I know
disown me."
bid her parents
ley live in Chapel
she didn t want
jd out through the
pm found some
ad and cried all
l .
ry says, i tnea to
the next day and
as a positive thing
lut she just turned
religious thing,
id he'd already
ut and that it was
J ' yj, 1 I M
I
- r . -
Societal mores and legal sanctions cause
lesbians to be less open in order to avoid
ridicule, job discrimination and accusation
women, in fact,
one relative who
ir homosexuality
before they did. "I wish she would have let me in on
it," Patty quipped. "It would have saved me a lot of
time and trouble figuring it out myself."
All four women agreed they want to share with
their families the joy and release they have found in
their lifestyle. "Sex is not the most important or
defining thing in a lesbian relationship," Elizabeth
says. "It's the caring, loving and trust that really
matter."
'A lot of people don't tell you how
good a female friendship can be,
even if you're straight
The women want meaning in their love lives,
depth they never found with men. They want
meaningful lesbian relationships, though not
necessarily permanent ones.
"In this community, one-night stands are virtually
nonexistent for women," Susan says. "There is a
strong sense of community around here, a strong
emphasis on getting to know a person before sexual
activity."
Bars do provide one of the main meeting places
for lesbians, Susan says, but "the orientation of the
relationship varies with the bar and how sexual the
bar is. Being at a gay bar does not mean it's a pickup
situation."
Most lesbians feel uncomfortable in a gay pickup
bar, just as most straight women feel uncomfortable
in a singles bar "meat market." "Women, lesbians
and straight, are brought up headed toward a
monogamous relationship. There's an emphasis on
wanting to get to know a person before you're
vulnerable," Susan says.
So in the Chapel Hill area, lesbians meet through
friends or organizations, turning to the bar scene
only occasionally.
"It's not so much the sexual response as the
emotional interaction that's important," says Susan,
a lanky, reserved woman of 28.
Lesbians are more open about both sides of a
relationship than straight women, she says. "There's
a difference in body image. Lesbians are more
knowledgeable, less fearful, more in tune with their
body responses."
Lesbians reach orgasm more often than straight
women, experts report. "A lot of times, heterosexual
women are there to please others, not themselves,"
Susan says. "Lesbians have more communication
and openness about what their needs are."
Most lesbians have, in fact, had intercourse with
men, Susan says. "I was heterosexually active for 12
years," she says. "Some relationships were positive;
some were not. In general, with women, there is a
greater intimacy level. Women can read each other
better."
Patty lived with a man for several years before she
came out in 1977. "I knew I loved him, and I still do,
but there was this emotional area missing. I found I
was able to extend support of female friends into a
loving relationship with a sexual aspect to fill that
missing area." .
Mary, an outgoing brunette with freckles, also had
boyfriends during high school and college. "I had
one my freshman year here, and he still doesn't
know I'm gay.
"I had some real positive heterosexual
relationships. It's not that I don't like men. Sex with
men was vaguely pleasurable, but nothing like it was
with women.
"In a heterosexual relationship, I had a
communication block. I just felt like I had to please
someone else. I couldn't get my needs. I was
dissatisfied, and I didn't know why.
"Sometimes when I was with a man, I'd get real
quiet, and a lot of times it was because I'd wonder
why I was doing it when I knew it wasn't right for
me.
- Equality in a relationship, where both parties'
needs can be expressed, is one of the mostsatisfying
aspects of a lesbian relationship, the women say.
"There's always been a general put-down of
femininity in our society," Elizabeth says. "Female
sexuality is denied across the board. Male sexuality is
encouraged across the board. Women's sexuality has
been defined in terms of men, but in a lesbian
relationship, women are free to be themselves.
"There should be no sex roles, no 'man' and
'woman.' When people ask about lesbians, 'Who's
what?' that doesn't make sense."
"Before, our only relationship model was
dominant-submissive," Patty says. "But now it's
possible to have equal relationships, both
heterosexual and homosexual."
Lesbians value male-female equality, many to the
point of ardent feminism, fighting for the rights of
women as equal, sexual beings.
Women have been kept ignorant of their own
sexual needs and potential, Susan says. "Many
middle-aged women who came out when they were
older didn't even know what lesbianism was. They
didn't think they fit the stereotype of a bull dyke.
They didn't identify their positive feelings with the
evil lesbianism they had been taught about."
Even younger women like Patty didn't know how
to explore their feelings. "In college I wasn't very
aware of myself," she says. "If some of my needs
were being metI was content. I didn't know what I
was missing."
At HSICS, Susan and other counselors offer
information as a starting point for self-exploration.
"People come here not so much with problems as
needing a support group. Maybe they need external
validation that their feelings toward their sorority
sister or someone isn't weird or bizarre. They need to
talk to someone nonjudgmental.
"A lot of times people will come in here and
realize it's not their problem, but society's."
The women agree that it's society that has the
problem, not them. "Like when I do an outreach
program in a class and a bunch of fraternity boys in
the back start heckling,"
Elizabeth explains. "To me
that says a person isn't secure
enough in some part of their
sexuality. They reject what is
threatening to them." I
UNL undergrads are
: l:Li.. i f
mireuiuiy Trigmenea or
9f ft j i t . r w . f
gays, viary says. A lot ot
them have lots of growing up
to do. They haven't been
exposed to very much.
"A lot of times people
make jokes 'cause they don't
know how else to talk about
stuff."
Some gays try to eradicate
the ignorance by educating
straights individually or
through organizations such
as CGA and HSICS.
And jokes and insensitivity aren't the worst of it. In
North Carolina, homosexuality is a crime against
nature, a felony. Landlords often don't like gays, and
neither do employers. In the public and private
sector and even in the liberal academic community,
gays are often dismissed or passed over for
promotion.
The four women know the struggles they face.
Elizabeth has already begun to be more discrete
about her sexual preference in anticipation of her
return to graduate school next year. ('Elizabeth' is
not her real name but one she often uses in gay
activities.)
She would also like to adopt a child someday but
won't be surprised if adoption agencies consider her
an unfit parent. She already has considered
alternatives: Her partner may be artifically
inseminated, or the two may move to a commune
type living arrangement where children are raised
collectively. (Elizabeth would not bear a child herself
because she believes the world is overpopulated.)
' just don't believe that God could
be so picky as to look down and say:
"Wait a minute. Is there a penis in
that bed?
Patty, too, realizes the challenge in maintaining
her dignity as a homosexual while not endangering
her future as either a community college teacher or
an auto mechanic. "It gets harder and harder as you
get older. You invest a lot in a career, and you just
don't throw it away for a little political victory.
"What happens with gay rights in the next 10 years
will be pretty important to how open people will be
able to be."
The key to gay rights, the women agree, is getting
straights to realize that gays are people, too, not
unknown misfits to De snunned. "The whole
problem is fear and ignorance," Patty says. "People
feel if someone's gay, they're different, and that's
just ridiculous."
Mchee Mecke is features editor for The Daily Tar
Heel.
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"But it gets tiring to try to
keep educating people, to
always be an activist,"
Elizabeth says. "It's
acceptable now to look down
on gays. People who are
otherwise thinking, sensitive
human beings lose that with
homosexuality.
"It's very dehumanizing.
They think of gays only in
terms of sex. They reduce
people by jokes and
stereotypes to only one
dimension sexual. It's hard
to know how to deal with
such incredible insensitivity."
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