House of Ill Repute
Monday, January 29th, 2007Hello.
So, I took a big writing hiatus, but now I’m back. If you want to read what I ended up completing for BC, feel free to ask me for it. I’m preparing to shop it around to publishers, and since I did not return to the jazzy jam that is Brook Farm Academy, I am now am just hanging out finishing up at BC, looking for substitute teaching positions, and supporting the dear, sweet lesbians of the undergraduate, and working on a gender-neutral coming-out space on campus. Taking a few more required courses, gazing into the enormous depths’ of my colleagues’ diamond rings, the usual for the Ives. Since everything is boring this semester, I’m pretty big into writing letters and/or drawing portraits of classmates/professors. let me know if you want one.
Anyway, my mother called me a shack-up hussy today and tried to refer me to Dr. Laura Schlesinger for relationship advice. Like an obedient daughter, I consider the questions that Dr Laura considers Top Priority .
Why hasn’t he called?
Do you really want to be with someone who is not giving you back what you’re giving?
Are you a volunteer hostage?
How do I teach a man to respect me?
What is true Intimacy?
What is sexual addiction?
Should you hang in there or leave?
What is the difference between Sexual Passion and Mature Love?
Who is really responsible for birth control?
Mom, you’re right. I don’t know whose responsible for birth control!
I’ts hard for me to play dumb with my mother, but also hard to convey to her in a few short outtakes that more pertinent concerns of mine would be more like does fisting on the first date requires gloves? or How do I negotiate pronoun usage in heteronormative environments while grappling with the the tension of myself as a teacher-authority with (in)visible privilege? or Would Justin Timberlake ever go on a date with me?
My mother is very, very funny so initially I thought she was kidding about Dr Laura. And I’m not quite sure if she is or not. I think she is kidding in the way that people are when they are trying to passively indicate to you their hoped-for outcome.
As the conversation continued, though, I don’t think that she was kidding. When she called me a shack-up hussy, it became clear to me that my mother either doesn’t know that Dr Laura beleives homosexuality to be a "biological error," or she also doesn’t understand the politics of relationships in a modern context. I think there are equal parts discomfort with gay stuff and confusion over gender stuff. I think that she is confused as to who is "the man" in my relationships, and thus doesn’t know who to blame for things like "running a house of ill repute," or "looking like a slut."
So, the other day I was really hung up on somebody complaining about "all the T-boys at the Midway," but then I turn around and have my mom telling me that I am never going to find true love and respect if I don’t start acting like a responsible woman and my response was, "Oh, I think it’s cold for my cellphone to work anymore chhhhh, mom I can’t her you chhhhhhhhh I have to go." I clicked my phone shut and jammed it in my pocket. I can’t have this conversation anymore, even though I know that eventually I am going to have to. If I move back to the Bay Area, I will be within a day’s driving distance of them, and there will be summertime beach trips and evenings spent eating Thai and drinking Pinot on a patio while she tries to engage me (as she has been my entire adult life) in "girl talk," and I think that i will finally, at the tender age of 30, for me to tell my mom, to really just shut the fuck up with her gender binary.
BUT FIRST, I think that I am going to call Dr Laura with the "relationship issue" that my mother thinks that I am having (and for the record, I am having no problem). Because my mother seems to love Dr Laura, and Dr Laura thinks that sexual deviancy is abominable, I want to see what Dr. Laura will say if I call her up and tell her that my mom told me to call her and ask her opinion. I am trying to frame the question in a way that gets me past the screenerse, but also isn’t boring old regular gay rhetoric that is yawningly similar to the GLAAD StopDrLaura campaign.
I’ll let you all know before I call Dr Laura. Now, go do the right thing!
