Complexities of the Lesbian Life: Role-Playing

[Apology: because of my preoccupation with privacy, and general all-round paranoia --which, I have to say, seems to be gently waning-- these remarks are going to sound a bit hollow, simply because I cannot put in any illustrations from my personal life and experience.]

When two women fall in love, and try to put a common life together, the question of role-playing comes in.  I'm not using the word "playing" in a frivolous sense: this is not a game, and it is not theatre.  It is the totality of the body-language that one human being has to adopt when in the presence of another human being, and when the two people are in the presence of others: in public, or among friends.

Some people are quite comfortable acting as though they are a new type of human being, and as though the usual --ostensibly clichetic-- behavioral conventions do not apply to them.  "This is me," they seem to say, "take me as I am, or fuck the hell off."

Well, that's fine, but if I were to have to be in public with a woman, I would not care to act that way.  Not, I have to make clear, that I can't carry it off.  But it would be inconsiderate, and I would have to act a lot more harshly with my partner just to override my natural desire to express a certain amount of emotion, and affection (discreetly), and even protectiveness, and that indefinable "couple-ness" that is almost the entire point of going out together.  (It isn't the entire point, but is a substantial part of the pleasure of doing it.  After a while, you simply have to stop acting like newlyweds, but it seems awful to have to give it up altogether.)

At this point in the development of our Western Society, or even our global society, the behavior of couples consisting of two women --let's call them women couples-- is still partly borrowed from the behavior of mixed couples.  But, we have to realize, the possible models range from extremely old-time chivalrous behavior on the part of the man, and ultra-feminine behavior on the part of the woman (which could be moderated to merely being 'ladylike'), to very 'modern' behavior, where the couple behaves almost as if both of them were ignoring the gender of both of them.  Both extremes are uncomfortable, the former more than the latter.

I have always felt an outsider to the butch/femme model of lesbian behavior.  I don't want to trivialize it, though you must forgive me for regarding it as being driven by the needs of women who style themselves as butch.  I must find out more, but it seems to me a combination of not being attracted to men, or actually being repulsed by them, being attracted to women, and wanting to be attractive to them without taking on a feminine persona, and general frustration.  Going solely on the basis of the haircut (which is probably asking for trouble), I'm only aware of four women out there who might qualify as butch : Rachel Maddows, Ellen De Generes, Pink, and Miley Cyrus.  All of them seem feminine to me, and very attractive indeed, and, generally speaking, all of them seem considerate and essentially decorous in their behavior (not decorous to a fault, which practically nobody in the public eye is), and perhaps Miley Cyrus is the least "well-behaved", and she seems to be the one least likely to actually be a lesbian, though she might take up the lesbian lifestyle just to generate publicity!

I recently read a piece about Butch Chivalry, and it got me thinking.  Wait: let me go read it again ... Ok.  We need new words for these things, because the word chivalry (and perhaps the reason that it is so convenient and useful) is used with several meanings:
* The extra-protective way people (traditionally men, and now, certain women) perform certain routine services for women, such as drawing chairs, opening doors, lending them cloaks or coats when the weather turns unexpectedly cold.
* The obligation for men to treat women differently than they treat each other.
* The cheerful politeness and considerate behavior that anyone has towards anyone else, especially those who are weaker --or in a weaker position-- than yourself, kindness beyond the call of duty.
The article I was reading was all about gender-specific chivalry versus a more personal code of behavior, especially towards someone to whom the writer was attracted.  I don't think that chivalry-with-a-purpose really falls under the same heading as chivalry towards all who are weaker than yourself.  Being chivalrous to an object of your affection is still called Chivalry, but in a different category.

So we're talking about a couple of different things.  Firstly, there is the general decent, considerate and kind behavior --holding doors open, allowing someone else to speak first, etc-- which was associated with "gentlemanly behavior" in the past.  Today, I think it should be the norm, unless someone is feeling definitely ungentlemanly and cranky.  Even women are expected to be gentlemen today, and we had better get over the use of the word.

Then there is the special way you treat your companion, the way you hold her eyes, the way you lean your head towards her, that certain indefinable something that brands you as a couple: the things you do in addition to "gentlemanly behavior",  each to the other; I think I would prefer that behavior to be quite symmetric between the two people.  Any role-playing that goes beyond that, any artificial asymmetry that might be adopted to move the body-language of a lesbian couple closer to that of a mixed couple, seems unnecessary and artificial, and, well, silly.

Kay

Miranda Kerr: A woman with a lot of charm!

I'm not quite sure how I got on this kick about Miranda Kerr, the beautiful Australian model (who apparently now lives in the US), but I watched her on a talk show on YouTube, and I was totally taken.  She simpers and she giggles, but she comes across as totally real!

Just in case you don't know whom I'm talking about, here's a photo.  It looks very much as though she's sitting on a bicycle, but it's hard to tell, but the angle looks very bicycle-like.  I love those crazy dimples she has, and she looks wonderful with lipstick, which is rare for a woman.  I mean, most girls look a little less than their best unless the lip color has been applied by a professional.  With Miranda, she has such a wide smile that it's just as well that lip color works for her.  (As soon as I find a photo I like of her with makeup on, I'll post it.)  And she has pretty eyes, and beautiful manners.

She has separated from her husband, Orlando Bloom, but the interview I saw was still pre-separation.  The news said that she was continuing to speak kindly about her husband, which is something I appreciate.  I really dislike ungracious people, and if I'm ever ungracious, I hope someone will remind me of that fact.  And Miranda plays the piano, which is all right in my book!

I have to say that I like to hang around with guys more than with girls.  I like the way that guys --at least, the guys I like, not romantically, but just as buddies-- act, once you've straightened it out with them that we're not flirting, and turned their attention towards other girls.  It's only the exceptional woman who can leave aside being a full-time woman to be a full-time human being.  Miranda Kerr comes across as most definitely in the world of being a woman.  She's an insider to all the makeup, and the feminine walk, and all that goes with being a traditional attractive woman, but she seems to have gotten it down so well, that when she talks, she isn't busy being a woman, you know?  People who're busy being women make me nervous, and make me want to escape!  (If you're one of these, let's hope that, if we meet, we have something super interesting to talk about, in which case I get distracted, and I don't obsess about all this sort of stuff.)

I saw Miranda interviewing a musician on YouTube (can't remember his name), and she was utterly relaxed, but not so much that she was being careless about her guest.  I would love seeing Miranda interview a woman.  I have to look for one, but right now I'm finishing up the end-of-term business with my classes, and I really shouldn't be taking time off to have fun with my Blog.  But Miranda sure is cute.

Kay

A new book at Smashwords

I decided to upload another episode from Helen today.  It is an early episode, in a period where Helen had dropped out of school, and had been living with a reclusive former nurse, in the Canadian wilderness.  (There is not a lot of actual wilderness in Canada, but I assumed there was more in Canada than in the US!)

The story is that Helen decides to be an assistant at a ballet camp in France.  There is more sex in this story than in any of the episodes I have uploaded thus far, and I'm not sure how it will be received.  But I love the characters in it, and Helen is really sweet and affectionate in it, and for anyone who likes a sappy story, this is a good one.

I think the cover is beautiful, and I hope everyone agrees.

Kay.

"Alexandra" is now for sale

My complete book Alexandra was available for purchase on Smashwords on January 28th.

No matter how many times I go through this book, there are always mistakes and grammatical errors I keep finding, and it makes me furious!  But I'm proud of the book; I think it stands up to other books in the genre, even if it doesn't have a brilliant plot.  I love the characters dearly, even though it seems to grind to an unsatisfactory halt, with everyone only moderately satisfied with their lot.  But this is the way the world is; it seems stupid to me to write a story that ends with everybody deliriously delighted with the outcome!

In all my stories, I end up falling in love with all the principal characters, and Alexandra is no exception.  The adults, the teenagers, the kids, are all delightful, and the few people there are who aren't wonderful, are at least understandable, and have understandable motives.  I would certainly like to make the beginning stronger, but this book was written so early in my writing experience that changing anything really hurts.  This is why I'm publishing it privately, and not letting a commercial publisher massacre it!

While I'm not desperate for everyone to buy it, I can't bring myself to give it away free; it is some 300,000 words of effort, so you're getting about 500 words per penny.  If you don't think that's worth it, read the first 40% for free, and let me know how you hate it!!!

Regards,

Kay

Christine

It seems as though I write a book a day!  By now you must know that I have been writing for about fifteen years, and I just have a lot of half-written manuscripts which I'm publishing as the opportunity arises.

This one: Christine's Amazing Musical Christmas (for lack of a more creative title) was written a few years ago —at Christmas time, obviously— when I was fascinated with the Bach Christmas Oratorio.  I had just sent out for, and received in the mail, a second version of the Oratorio, this time by John Eliot Gardiner and the English Baroque Soloists, and was thoroughly enjoying it.  I'm pretty sure I have little or no German ancestry, but the Oratorio puts me in a very pleasant German frame of mind, and I wanted to write a story around it.

This one is rated G: absolutely nothing adult about it; in fact, I strongly suspect that the audience for it would be teenagers interested in music, and possibly adults who know teenagers interested in music.  There are strong feelings, both romantic and Platonic between the characters, and in a follow-up book I want to resolve most of them satisfactorily.  I think one of the difficult things one has to deal with, growing up, is that it is possible to have very strong feelings for more than one person, but our society frowns on establishing more than one of them legally.  It does appear that for a large majority of people, especially those who want to have children, that it makes sense to establish a single relationship —heterosexual or homosexual, it does not matter— around which to build the family.  But I strongly believe that, while this is the simplest familial structure, it is not necessarily the only structure that can work.  We have to bear in mind that any new structures we invent must also make sense for the society in which this non-traditional family will live.  Kids will make friends in school, you want to have people over to play cards, whatever; friends will have to deal with whatever relationship underlies the family unit.  People, I feel, should be able to fall in love with more than one person at a time, and codify that love in some relationship.

The reason I bring this up is that the main character, Christine, loves four different people in this story, and I hate to have to make her decide on only one of those as the main relationship.  For the first time, I think I have managed to create a heterosexual relationship that I'm rooting for, but I think Christine's feelings for the three women in the story need to be taken seriously.  But, in any case, there is absolutely no sex in this piece of writing, and no intimacy beyond a kiss.

Kay

Helen vs. Handel's Messiah

Christmas is a special time for me.  My family has always enjoyed the days around Christmas, especially as my mother loved Christmas music.  Perhaps because of this, or for whatever reason, there are usually interesting episodes surrounding Christmas in almost every story.

My very first story, Helen, begins when Helen is about sixteen, and I stopped writing it when she was about 39, and was a partial amnesiac and Cancer survivor.  There were, in principle, some 23 Christmases I could have written about for Helen.  The first three are lost; they are trapped inside my first computer, which  went on the fritz around 2005.  About the 13th one was when Helen had run away with the two adopted girls, Gena and Alison, met Penny and her daughter Erin, and fled with them to California, where they remained hidden under false names for a year.  The 14th Christmas marks the point where Helen was mightily pregnant with James, and is given refuge at Ferguson School in Minnesota.  James is born in April, and after some adventures, Helen comes to Westfield to teach.

The 15th Christmas is spent at Westfield.  The next two were spent at Woodford, in England (16, 17), the next four in Philadelphia (18, 19, 20, 21).

The episode described in Helen vs. Handel's Messiah takes place after Helen has come to live in Philadelphia for one complete year.  I was writing at a furious rate, and pages and pages practically wrote themselves.  (I know writers often say this about one particular piece of writing or another, but having lived it, I know it really does happen.)  I was angry about something or another---probably about the hostility towards alternate lifestyles some years ago, and how certain conservative elements had a brief period of successfully vilifying gays and lesbians, and trying to 'heal' them by adopting various psychological tactics akin to deprogramming.

I've had difficulties representing Helen as a decent person.  Because she is a fictitious character, it would be easy to write her storyline as being that of a woman with no flaws in her character.  What happens is that I put her in perfectly ordinary situations, quite similar to situations that I have observed myself, and in my mind, I see Helen reacting to them just as I would, quite honestly, but more boldly.  Sometimes I create romantic opportunities for her simply because I'm bored, and then as the situation develops, it does look as if Helen is a lot more promiscuous than an ordinary person should be.  So she oscillates between being ultra-moral and responsible and decent, and a sybaritic slave to her hormones, because my life oscillates, and whatever I can't safely do, I sometimes make Helen do, and she ends up being just a little short of a hopeless slut.  This is why I burdened her with such a number of children, wanting to make her slow down!  But whatever makes her less than perfect has very little to do with her sexual preference. I honestly believe that, if a woman finds herself falling in love with other women, that does not make her a monster.  But certainly, trying to seduce a weaker individual, one who does not have the strength to withstand her emotional attack does make a woman (or a man, for that matter) a monster.  Taking advantage of those who are weak is always despicable.

Once I made Helen meet Maryssa, I tried very hard to make her more restrained.  This episode is the beginning of Helen's fight to feed her artistic soul, as it were, and free it from the manacles imposed by conservative elements.  The production company that stands by her, Galaxy Studios, gets most of her creative energy, but a small fictitious community college is also a channel for her talents as a teacher.  And this Christmas encounter with a TV program based on Handel's Messiah, of all things, is what makes her determination to put herself in artistic hibernation finally snap!  I'm not a religious person, but the pivotal moment is an aria in the Messiah about death and resurrection, which is a strange topic, but a lovely aria.

I hope very much that anyone who reads this will at least read the first quarter or so of the short story Helen vs. Handel's Messiah, because it is one of my favorite episodes, and expresses strong feelings about being the kind of artist Helen is.

K. B.

I'm in Love!!

Just kidding!

You probably don't know, but ... I don't get out much!  I don't have TV, and I don't listen to the radio.  I mean, I do have a radio, but I only listen to it when I happen to know that a certain program is on.

So, the main point is: I don't know what's going on out there, for the most part.  Imagine my astonishment when I discovered the existence of this incredibly attractive woman!  The woman I'm talking about is Hope Solo, someone about whom everybody else on the planet is evidently very knowledgeable!  I'm going to post a picture of her for the sake of anyone who is just as much out of touch as I am, but I have it on good authority that, ever since the Olympics of, I believe, 2000, she has been the star of the US Olympic soccer team.  And, in my eyes, she is stunningly beautiful.  And, most importantly, this girl is almost exactly how I imagined Alexandra, down to the grey eyes, the streaky hair (though I imagined a girl a lot more blonde), and the beautiful, athletic body, (though, again, I imagined a girl somewhat less stripped, initially, though I imagined that she would lose a lot of fat on the voyage back from Belgravia).  And the smile is just how I imagined that Alexandra would smile!

There is just no way that I can use photographs of Hope Solo as part of my cover, and seeing her spoils everything for me, because I could never be satisfied with a model that looks any different than Hope Solo!  The only alternative I have is to actually draw a cover myself, by hand, loosely modeled on Hope Solo.

K. B.