4. How about a simple one – all lesbians own a pair of BOXER SHORTS! I know it is a cliché because the last woman I had over for the night asked if she could just have a pair of boxers to slip into to sleep. I am not and never will be lesbian cliché. I DO NOT OWN a pair of boxer shorts. The fifteen-minute conversation we had about the fact that I had to be one of the few lesbians that didn’t have a pair of boxer shorts makes it on the list.
We all are aware of Rush Limbaugh and his particular right-wing rhetoric that somehow through drug addiction and indictment for doctor shopping his popularity still reaches a minimum of 13.5 million listeners weekly. Just to give you a peek at how scary that number really is, Oprah reaches only twice as many viewers in the US each week. I say only not to discount Oprah as 26 million people is an amazing number for a daytime talk show to reach but Rush Limbaugh reaches half as many? Really? I’m terrified by that statistic. I would think he would reach 10% of her stats, but no where near half.
My roommate wasn’t home and usually my mom and I could talk about anything, especially if my feelings were involved so I called her at 9 PM and told her. Well, I wasn’t going to be feeling any better after this call. She didn’t say anything at first. The first thing that came out of her mouth is such a gay cliche´, “Do you need to see a psychiatrist?” I couldn’t believe it. I answered “No, thanks Mom, I’ll talk to you later.”
The first party we went to Kathy tried to get me in a bathroom alone at ever turn to make out or worse, and I was not well for it. My worlds we separate in my mind. She could come but I did not want to take any chance on someone seeing a touch or a glance that would reveal our secret. We talked. She reluctantly agreed but things did not get any better. She seemed to be bolder and bolder as if she now wanted people to know about us.
We ended with me figuring out that was exactly what I was. Gay.
Even so, I was not ready for the world to know and the woman I had picked to lead me through the murky waters of homosexuality had a true reputation for being bisexual that she was proud not to discredit. She assured me she would keep us a secret and going back to school after that last bit of summer, kissing and talking, learning about myself and my feelings, it had been a different world than what I was walking back into a school.
