Hidden in the open

Fighting a non-battle
By Inday Espina-Varona, Indigo Corewomyn

TALK about invisible.

They called me many things at the old workplace. To The Manila Times colleagues, I was Attila the Hun, Mother Theresa, raving radical and kick-ass babe, and generally an irreverent bundle of sexuality, the gal guaranteed to let fly a wisecrack in response to males’ lurid world views.

When storms broke, whether these involved editorial independence, production snafus or labor disputes, I was flag bearer and the problem-solver.

But when I decided to announce my decision to love women – even before actually taking the plunge – everyone took it as a joke, another stunt in a long parade of stunts, or a temporary indulgence in theatrics. Nobody blinked. And it wasn’t just because The Times was a gay-friendly paper, both in print and in practice.

“Sure babe, tell us about it,” said the publisher.

“Yeah, and I’m the Queen of Sheba,” quipped the editor in chief. This was the guy who, a decade back when I had a crush on him and sought out a date, blurted out, “isn’t she tomboy?" Now he thinks I’m Eve. Not bad, not bad at all. To be Eve AND tomboy.

The gals, who’d been tickled pink to be the subjects of a few racy columns, asked whether I’d run out of men to flirt with.

“Sayang naman,” (Shame!) said Monette, an equal-opportunity harasser if there ever was one.

“Ma’am!” she wailed. “Your boobs will fall off!”

That was good for a few rounds of chortling. But when everyone had regained breath, the questions and comments came, fast and furious.

“You are NOT gay!”

“Why, with all those men?!” (In reference to steady companions and suitors.)

“You’re not a victim of sexual abuse, are you?”

It would have been easier to take had there been the ready excuse of being an incest survivor, a former rape victim, or a battered wife. I was none of these despite a few tumultuous relationships. Even Manny, resident gay rights crusader, thought I was pulling his leg.

It was surreal. Weren’t lesbian books and websites full of harrowing coming-out tales, of the guilt, the shame and fear that dogged those who had to live in the closet?

I was, perhaps unconsciously, looking for a brawl. When nobody charged, I felt unmoored, a bit sheepish at not being able to share in the experiences of other women.

About the only one who believed immediately was a fellow female editor.

“Sheeeyeet!” she screamed, after being told I’d found a woman lover. “I’d always wanted to do that!” (Fuck women, I suppose. Hastened to tell her I hadn’t and probably would not for some time.)

When she finished moaning about lost opportunities, out came the question: “Why?”

And there, I guess, was my problem.

I had no one-liners, no sob stories to give. To most folk, becoming queer is lumped under the generic “exceptional circumstances.”

You are either a) born queer; or b) are unfortunate to have physical looks that negate chances of heterosexual affairs; or c) need the moolah or protection of a dyke; or d) been badly treated by men; or e) have just not found a “satisfying” lover; or f) are just a castrating bitch who hates men.

I, on the other hand, had been boy-crazy as a kid. I sported tits and ass (and flaunted these when the mood struck), had an acceptably attractive mug, wore earrings and lipstick and powder, and had the fluttery hand gestures of a southern gal. I was an independent career woman, prancing up the ladder in a macho profession. I had never been slapped, much less punched, save for a lone fracas in grade four. I’d had so-so heterosexual sex, and good sex, and mind-blowing sex. And I liked men. I liked them very much. Still do.

Therefore, I gave people no peg to hang their sympathies (and secret condescension) on.

For more than a year, I’d been begging Doc Inna for an explanation. Why didn’t people believe me? I had no desire to be lesbianland’s poster girl but the good-natured shrugs were rapidly beginning to look like fear of reality.

And then yesterday, voila! I finally picked up a book loaned by a good friend. “The Girls Next Door,” by Lindsy van Gelber and Pamela Robin Brandt answered the question. While this brilliantly funny report is all-American, it does provide some good insights on why lesbians remain invisible even when they choose to step out into the light.

Here are some passages from the introductory chapter, “Icesticks and Lipsticks:”

“It seemed to be permissible to discuss lesbianism only when something was terribly wrong.”

“Our intimate lives were apparently too icky and weird for public consumption… unless we were homicidal maniacs.”

“Women, straight or gay, are rarely presumed to be with each other out of choice; they’re saving money as roomies, traveling together for safety’s sake, out on the town ‘alone’ because they don’t have dates.”

“Lesbians were bored babes sporting black lace garter belts (ugh, too itchy), not to mention fingernails that would make any genuine lesbian wince and cross here legs.” (Hmmm, my nails’ length do reflect my status, lol.)

A male friend said I was just be waiting for (the umpteenth) Mr. Right to drop by. In the meantime, he quipped, “have a nice time.”

Oho! Here’s what The Girls Next Door say about what other people say: “Lesbian sexuality is a twice-the-fun warm-up act, unthreatening precisely because there is no penis; indeed, it’s understood that what’s going on is ‘foreplay.’ The girls with the garters are waiting for a penis to arrive on the scene…”

The funny thing was, it wasn’t sex I was after. Had that been the main point, I could have just flashed breasts and gams at the first available butch on Adriatico or Nakpil or Orosa, without coming out, complete name and all, on various websites.

As old posts put it, I was “searching,” had mulled over the issue for years in typical cautious Virgo mode, analyzing things to hell and back, before deciding to commit. Sex, when it came, complete with psychic summersaults, was a bonus, icing on the cake.

So, why was I searching? Why was a woman who liked men, an unabashed man’s woman who sighed at the ranting during feminist gatherings, spending hours plotting how to become a lesbian? Why did I even want to become one?

I was no doormat, had been lucky enough to have men exceptionally skilled at the household chores I shunned. They were sexy men, who didn’t shy at expressing love and adoration and everything romance novel readers seek. They weren’t rich, of course, but that didn’t matter to an activist, even a fast-approaching-middle-age-ex-activist.

But yes, somewhere along the way, things changed. There were no sudden flashes of lighting, no screams of eureka at any feminist consciousness-raising seminar. There was just this slow burn that crept through the mind for years, in the middle of war, in the middle of scrounging for funds to raise two children while the men went to battle, whether with guns or the demons in their minds, in the middle of covering women issues – meaning all issues.

I had always gone for tough men, pussycats inside the home really; for non-orthodox males who didn’t mind that their gal slinked around the corridors of power (or so their denizens thought). Then, after bowing out from the war zone, I decided to shift to “gentle” men who wouldn’t come within 10 meters of a gun.

One after another, these relationships came apart. Not anybody’s fault; these were all nice, honorable men whom I still respect. But towards the end of the last serious heterosexual relationship, even as I was eyeing this and that prospect, I had gelled my search to a one-liner. When male colleagues despaired at my “finicky” tastes and begged for my “order” so they could go out and get one, I had it down pat.

“Someone to watch over me.”

And there it was. I was a woman who had spent practically her entire adult life playing nursemaid and trouble-shooter and good, dependable buddy to a constellation of admiring but perpetually needy males.

I was looking – for another woman. And I’ve never looked back.

A caveat. It hasn’t been a bed of roses since. As van Gelber notes after her first disastrous affair with a woman (hysterically in the closet): “All of a sudden, I had to come face to face with the possibility that the problem was me, and the kind of people I fell in love with.”

So I’m still searching and still processing me. But everyday, the belief grows stronger. It will be a woman. And, yes, she ain’t gonna be in no closet.

 (*The writer means no disrespect for those who live in the closet. She is merely acknowledging her needs and terms, fully realizing we all have to march at our own pace.)

© IEV 2003

About The Author
Inday has moved from The Manila Times to become managing editor (and footloose reporter) of the Philippine Graphic.  She still writes the column, Southpaw, for The Manila Times every Monday and Tuesday and throws them a special report now and then. You can send rants and raves to scarred_cat@hotmail.com