Weird-ass late-night blogging

Now here’s a thought, a philosophical question if you will. Female beauty, how one feels about it, how one relates to it, to what extent one resents it’s ever present prominence in all of our lives…
How does one’s sexual orientation affect that? How one feels about those things? How one reacts to other women who are considered beautiful?

For those of you who are thinking “Cassandra, what are you babbling about, and why? What have you been smoking?” let me explain where this is coming from. I’ve been having a little e-mail chat with a friend, and we happened to be talking about women getting jealous of other women who are dating men the first set of women lust after. Jealous in the insane, wanting to claw eyes out, potentially bunny-boiling sense.

Neither of us seem to get it, and that got me thinking. Is this a bi thing? See, if I see a man I have the hots for with a beautiful woman my usual reaction isn’t to think “I hate her! She’s a bitch!” so much as it is to think “Damn she’s pretty. I can see why he went for her. I wonder if she likes girls?”. I usually end up enjoying looking at both of them for a while. When single I usually end up creating a fun little fantasy threesome in my head. I sit around with male friends and point out women I find beautiful, and if they say “why yes, she really is beautiful” that doesn’t make me feel bad about myself at all. I just don’t look at it as a me or her, only one queen in a hive kind of thing. There’s plenty of honey to go around.

Am I a bizarre freak of nature who for some odd reason just isn’t that competitive with other women in terms of looks, or is it because I like looking at beautiful women just as much as I like looking at beautiful men? That I see beautiful women as potential lovers rather than as rivals? Or did my mother just fail to implant me with the hatred and distrust of other women chip, radical free-thinking weirdo that she was?

And then I started thinking about radfems and political lesbianism and all that stuff. And something struck me as odd.

I went to a few radfem gatherings back in the day. You know what always seemed weird to me? How little hugging there was. Any other time I’ve been in a group of women who all know each other there’s been cuddling all over the place. I cuddle my female friends constantly. Even women I’m friendly with on a fairly superficial level get hugged hello and goodbye. I do this with my male friends too, but I realize that I may be a little unusual in that regard. What can I say, I’m cuddly. Anyway, it always seemed odd to me how little hugging there was in radfem groups, in fact how cold the interpersonal energy was in general. For all the talk about loving women and sisterhood I wasn’t feeling much affection there, which is part of the reason I stopped going.

It’s even odder when you realize that most of those women identify as lesbians. Put a room full of lesbians together and I’d expect hugging, even flirting, lots of happy physical interaction, but nothing. Nada. What’s that about? Why the coldness?

And then I think – political lesbian. What does that really mean? In most cases it means a woman who is heterosexual in orientation who has chosen not to fuck men for political reasons. Actually fucking women is not required, as Sheila Jeffries has been kind enough to point out. ATTRACTION to other women is not required. In fact, in an odd way it almost seems to be discouraged. Every time I hear the term “safe space” I can’t help but notice that “safe” seems to mean “non-sexual”, and if we’re talking about a group of lesbians isn’t that a little odd? That we would want it to be non-sexual? Why would we want that? Why is that a desirable goal?

I guess if you’re not actually attracted to other women it’s a desirable goal. If being a political lesbian is about retreat from men, who in many cases the women who thus identify have been hurt by and don’t trust, then it makes perfect sense.

But what about the actual lesbians? The ones who are attracted to other women? Where do they fit in? If they were to get flirty in that space, would that make it no longer safe? Isn’t that really weird and stifling, if they feel that they have to muffle their sexuality in order not to make the basically straight women who have chosen to self-define as lesbians uncomfortable?

And then I started thinking about the radfem dislike and condemnation of beauty rituals in all their various forms. It sort of makes sense, really, if you keep the idea “political lesbian” in mind…if one isn’t actually attracted to other women then why would one want them to be beautiful, or to make oneself beautiful in order to attract those other women? I’m not even talking about men here, I’m talking about the way women who actually are attracted to women relate to each other. How much of the “beauty practices suck” stuff is coming from actual lesbians and how much is coming from political lesbians? And if it’s coming from political lesbians…well, why should anyone else listen? That’s such a small, narrowly defined group of people and their entire ideology is founded on a rejection of sexuality, why should anyone else really care what they think about it?

And then I’m back to where I started. I love looking at beautiful women. I enjoy having them look back at me. To whatever extent I indulge in beauty practices, it’s as much to appeal to other women as it is to appeal to men. Not only that, it’s to appeal to MYSELF. If I can look at another woman and find her beautiful, why can’t I look at myself the same way? And is that maybe why, although I certainly have tendencies to beat myself up about the slightest weight deviation, in general I cut myself more slack than most women seem to? Because I look at myself the same way I look at other women, with an eye that seeks to find beauty rather than to find fault? Or is it a cultural thing to do with growing up in the Middle East, where women are in general far more inclined to praise other women’s beauty than to look for flaws?

How does everyone else feel about this? I know there are a few people hanging around here who’re not entirely straight…does any of this make sense to you? What about the women who are straight…does this sound totally nuts?

I’m curious more than anything. Indulge me. How do YOU feel about all this? How does it affect your politics? And how you relate to other women?


Also, some big heavy questions in the post below that are not entirely unrelated to the stuff here. I’m on a roll! A radfems are pissing me off roll. So what else is new?