An Eye for the Ladies -- Sexing the Political: A journal of Third Wave Feminists on Sexuality

an eye for the ladies

Lesbian Boundaries:an oxymoronic concept if ever there was one. It wasn’t too much to grasp back home in New Zealand; with only 3.5 million folks, it stands to reason that one would know just about every queer girl in the nation. No one ever really dated. The community was too small for that; embarking on a relationship consisted of no more than a shift of perception; all of a sudden that girl you’ve known since the Indigo Girls secured themselves to your cd collection is looking finer than usual.

In New Zealand, everyone knows everybody’s ex-girlfriend - one way or another. Most of the girls I knew lived in sprawling houses filled to the rafters with lesbians, pets and kids; and there were no queer girl venues aside from the monthly Dyke Dance. I lived with 7 lesbians, 2 dogs, a cat, and a kid. While – miraculously (Don’t screw the crew!) - none of us actually slept together, I remember my girlfriend at the time proudly reporting that she had slept in every room in the house - each with a different girl. And while none still lived in the house, not one of those ex’s were more than spitting distance away. Needless to say, a girl gets used to treading carefully.

When I decided to move to the United States, my head was swimming with fantasies of anonymity. Friendships run deep, but there were too many cooks in the kitchen, and no one waiting at the table, if you know what I mean - it was time to leave home.

So, boundaries. I figured I’d get to New York, get settled, try some of this dating business, after all, as my great aunt is fond of saying, "ya gotta try before ya buy." I land in Park Slope, happily known to some as Dyke Slope, and figure I have it made. Everywhere I look, there are gay girls, and they’re all strangers. I get a job at the local ladies bar, and before you can say, "she’s not my sister," I’m blissfully dating.

Alas, all too soon, I’m utilizing the stock "I don’t date the customers" line, as I discover that a lousy date equals even lousier tips. I also realize that by some cruel twist of no-boundaries-law, this neighborhood is just as small as the one I fled. How can this be? I live in Brooklyn, the population of which is the same as that of my dear homeland. It’s taken me almost three years of living here to realize I’ve been thwarted. Not that my mission in life is to date maniacally - quite the contrary, it is a recreation one craves a little distance from every so often.

All around me, I see ex-girlfriends and friends dating one another with fervor. The gene pool is shrinking day by dykely day. A quick inventory shows that nearly all the girls I’ve dated live on the same stretch of street. A simple brunch plan can be as treacherous as a Sapphic snake-pit; who was seen taking the walk of shame at 7am on a Sunday morning; there’s that ex-girlfriend’s ex-girlfriend with another ex-girlfriend and the first ex-girlfriend’s ex-roommate (breathe).

I recently entered a local bar, only to see one ex-ladyfriend, two of her ex’s (in addition to me), another ex with her current lover, and yet another past paramour coupled with a new prospect. I swear on my newly found chastity, they were lined up along the bar - seven girls all in a row, and not a boundary in sight. Closure? Forget about it. How are you supposed to achieve that when we all walk the same smutty circles?

Please don’t assume I’m the slovenly trollop of Brooklyn. You don’t have to date prolifically to achieve this sense of spacelessness. Just one date, and you too can experience a true absence of boundaries; it’s almost Zen. Except that it can get pretty stressful, and sometimes a girl needs a little psychic space.

Therapy was an option. I decided to buy some impartiality to help get things in perspective. We talked about finding an intuition for establishing boundaries, the gene of which I was born without. We processed how difficult it is for those of us who have women as both our lovers and our friends to achieve a healthy distance, maintaining friendly, yet safe boundaries. Sounds good, right? Until a travesty of therapy occurred. I won’t charge you for this insight: a good boundary is not when your therapist calls you by your ex-girlfriend’s name.

I now know that leaving town won’t help. It won’t stop this dastardly lesbionic condition from manifesting again and again. It’s not the town that creates this chronic circumstance, it doesn’t matter about the population size, or the country, no ma’am. The problem lies within. Where there are queer girls, boundaries there ain’t.

My new solution to creating and maintaining healthy boundaries? The Jewish Convent in my back yard. All denominations welcome. No girls allowed.

An Eye For The Ladies will be a regular close-up look at the ongoing madnesses of being a queer girl in New York City. How do we, a pack of smart, above-average looking lesbian ladies manage to get through the day with our humor and psyches intact? The daily gay life of (some) girls in the city - that elusive lesbian clan - warrants meticulous research. To this effect, I pledge to delve into the murky waters and disclose the secrets of gay-girl dating strategies, what happens when we celebrate/embrace our stereotypes,what it means to own every Naiad novel ever published, and other baffling matters specific to the Sapphic sisterhood. Oh, and the characters and events portrayed are only sometimes fictitious inventions of the author's imagination.