Community "Pride"?

Since posting about my experience with the Pink Sofa I have had some interesting conversations about the nature of the gay community. While people have been outraged on my behalf by the way I have been treated by the Sofa administration, and supportive of my quest to get some answers, there have also been a large number of people who have said they are not particularly surprised.

Like in any small community, particularly one made up of people who for years have been marginalised or targets of abuse and bullying because of who they are, fairness and fair-mindedness are not a given, sadly.  While adversity and/or similarities can draw people together, they can also cause division - one personality clash can drive a whole group apart; one personal vendetta can be incredibly divisive. 

I've experienced similar things in the vegan community.  (Yes, I'm a stereotype - a short-haired vegan feminist lesbian!)  When I first went vegan I lived in the UK, and not knowing any other vegans I joined an online forum.  An innocent aside one day about running the Relay for Life, in memory of my granddad who had recently died from cancer, brought the wrath of the vegangelists down upon me. How could I call myself a vegan and yet support a charity that gave money to evil, animal-testing laboratories? Now, whether that point was right or wrong (and veganism has many shades of grey (not like that!) despite what its more extreme proponents might tell you), surely a vegan forum is the place a new vegan should be able to expect support, friendship and guidance, rather than vitriol and finger-pointing?

The dark side of the Pink Sofa

Pink Sofa is a lesbian networking site which is partly an online dating service, but also much more.  One of the features is called "Chit Chat", which is like a mini Facebook where members post statuses or comments that others can then reply to in thread form. The site is international but Chit Chat seems to be primarily used by Australians, New Zealanders and Brits, with a sprinkling of Americans for good measure.  The site is registered in and operated from South Australia.

Let me start by saying I love Pink Sofa. When I was in the depths of my despondency in 2013, figuring out who the hell I was, Pink Sofa was my refuge.  It helped me realise that yes, I was gay, and no, that wasn't a crime, and yes, lots of other women with husbands and child/ren have been and were going through the same things I was going through.  I made some amazing and supportive new friends, some of whom I also met in "real life", and I felt like I had found a safe haven to help me through my "journey" (god it's hard to write about this stuff without sounding like a lame cliché!)

So when they terminated my membership and refused me any further access to the site, it was a huge and devastating shock.

If you've read my post about the Chip Bag Incident from my childhood, you'll know that one of the things that just kills me is being unjustly accused of wrongdoing. So the fact that Pink Sofa has terminated my membership for some supposed breach of its terms and conditions or code of ethics but wont tell me which one or how I breached it makes me a very ugly combination of furious and miserable.  I have cried more than I care to admit.  I have spent long walks on the beach with the dog planning how I could march into the Pink Sofa office and refuse to leave until I get an apology and my membership reinstated.  I have lost sleep. And I'm not going to stop pursing justice.

Let me take you back a few steps...

Loquacity

This is a piece I wrote for a creative writing paper, but I thought it would work quite well on here.

I have an addiction. A semi-secret delight. Hello everyone, my name is R and I’m a logophile.

I have always loved words, and although most of the time I agree that simple is better, there’s nothing I like more than the mouth-filling sweetness of a multi-syllabic expression that captures precisely what I want to say.

I realise now that my early experiments were not always efficacious, but at the time I couldn’t understand why my mother chuckled quietly at her birthday card addressed “to my beloved mother”, or why my standard four teacher tactfully suggested that four adjectives per noun was a little excessive. By high school though, my verbiage was becoming more accomplished, and I recall the evil delight of making an annoying boy in my class blush by asking him, loudly, whether he masticated.

Queer semantics

I'm a bit of a logophile (ok, a lot of a logophile) and collecting words is one of my hobbies. (I have a thing about that I will post another time).

Several times in my life I have been introduced to brand new vocabularies, notably (for example) during my own medical dramas, and during my daughter's cancer journey.  When I first began dabbling in the online lesbian world (I'm talking about support communities, forums and blogs, not porn, just to be clear!) I discovered a whole new lexicon, with which I'm still coming to terms.

Personally, I now refer to myself as gay.  Old school gay women seem to prefer lesbian, but there's something weird about that word for me.  I will describe myself as a lesbian (and I'm still not sure whether I'm supposed to say "lesbian" or "a lesbian") but it feels uncomfortable, whereas "gay" feels more natural.  I wonder if part of that is that I object to unnecessary gender-specific nouns like 'actress' and 'fireman', and can't see the need for two different words to describe a gay man versus a gay woman.  There is of course the whole spectrum of other gender identities and sexualities - bisexual, asexual, pansexual etc, but I'm not going to venture into that territory just now.

When I first joined Pink Sofa and was setting up my profile, there were a number of options I could tick to define myself, including femme, butch, lipstick, sporty dyke, leather, and androgynous.  Thankfully there was also a 'just me' box, and feeling rather overwhelmed, I ticked that and moved on.

Finding my happy

If you've read my last post, you'll know that 2013 was a pretty big year for me.  In November I came out as gay, and separated from my husband of nine years (although we still currently live in the same house), and then met a wonderful woman, who has completely changed my world.

But the questions I get a lot are - did you know before that you were gay?  Was it a surprise?  How did you figure it out?

These are not easy questions to answer.  I've been seeing a counsellor regularly over the last year, and she has helped me to think about who I am and what I want from life.  In terms of my sexuality, I would say I started trying to define it at around 14.  I have a diary from then (I was never a good ongoing diary-writer, but I had regular bursts of enthusiasm), and in one entry I wrote, in highly sophisticated code "I think I might be a naibsel".  I'll give you a few minutes to crack that...

The big news

In my last post I mentioned some changes in my life.  I've been catching a few people up with the changes in my life in recent weeks, and the conversation goes something like this:

Me: "So, I've separated from my husband..."

Person: "Oh, I'm sorry." (sad sympathetic face)

Me: "No, it's ok actually.  We're staying friends.  It's just that... I'm gay."

Person: "Oh. Right! Well, um, congratulations?" (confused, not sure how to react face)

Me: "And I've met someone.  She's lovely.  I'm really happy."

Person: "Oh! Wow! Great!" (surprised happy face)

It's amazing how the word "Oh" can express so many different emotions.  It's funny how people talk about "coming out" like it's a one time thing.  It would be quite useful if it were - one big announcement so that everyone knows and you don't have to keep having the same conversation over and over again.  A surprising number of people have not been particularly surprised actually.  A gay guy I met at a conference, who was one of the first people I told, said he thought I was gay when he met me.  It was my eyes apparently.  I have lesbian eyes.  Who knew?

Kicking back into gear

I've been thinking about but not actually blogging for almost a year now. I have been thinking about my thesis but not actually doing anything on my thesis for more than six months, since I finished my lit theory paper.

So what have I been doing?  (Aside from working, and being a mother, and commuting, and all the other day to day things?)  I've been doing a lot of soul searching I suppose, for want of a better term. 2013 was a bit of a dark year for me, for a large portion of the year anyway.  I've turned some corners, made some changes and a whole bunch of other generic cliches.

I guess what I'm saying is hi! I'm back!  I know you didn't miss me because no-one reads this blog yet! Hopefully that will change.

I'll use the next few posts to catch you all (ha!) up on my life over the last few months...