My vagina monologue

Today is lesbian health day and so I feel the urge to share a little true vignette of my past and put an issue on the table...cervical smear tests. The jury was out medically as to whether I was eligible/ at risk and required a smear test as conventional penetrative sex was just not my thing. Penetrative sex is often seen as the predisposing risk factor for cervical cancer and is the golden question to determine eligibility or need in doctors surgeries.

Despite being sexually active (some may say sexually hyper-active but hey.. its all relative).... I have never been what the heteronormative milieu would class as sexually active: I just don't and never have slept with penis-bearers. Dildo bearers are indeed another matter. Furthermore although my exes resemble a United Colours of Benetton advert when it comes to ethnic diversity (read very diverse here), they all have one thing in common - fingers and hands and potentially scratchy nails. Plus we are all at risk from the HPV- Human Papilloma Virus as we can't be entirely sure of the sexual history of each of our partners and their partners...don't want to scare anyone but remember the L Word chart... well imagine HPV or STD risk written in brackets after each name).

My point, and I do have one (I keep it in my bedside drawer for the voyeueristic who like such details) is that, I was still at risk of injuring my cervix in sex, albeit slightly. Any flaw in the healing of this can predispose to cells multiplying more than they should and ...in short.... cervical cancer. Moreover, lesbians are often under-represented in medical surveys and I fail to be convinced that only penetrative sex leaves one at risk of cervical cancer, I think the issue gets confused with an intact hymen frankly.

However, I must admit I found myself very backwards at coming forwards in getting a smear test, sexually active questions had always been likned to pregnancy risk and unless there is about to be another virgin birth, this just didn't apply to me. I know plenty of other lesbians who are worried about this too. Finally in my late twenties I found a GP (doctor) who was sympathetic and here and decided to give her my smear test cherry.... All was fine and I urge other women to get themselves checked just to be safe.

Here are my tips:

1. Ask for a female doctor, choose one you feel comfortable with.

2, Explain if you really aren't into people being "into" you, should you feel she is receptive enough for frank dialogue, and that you are nervous about the procedure.

3, Ask for a double appointment (this works in the UK) so there is less time pressure and things are more relaxed.

4, Remember if you change your mind and say stop then stop is what they must do (indeed a doctor continuing without consent is classed as Aggaravated Bodily Harm) remember it is your body and you are in control,

5. Perhaps don't follow my example and feel the need to break the ice when they're lubing up the speculum and say "What no chocolates or candlelight?"

(Glad my GP had a good sense of humour)

And, well, lie back and think of ... wine and chocolates.

Strap-ons...with knobs on

In true Sapphic fashion, spouse and I were browsing in a large electrical DIY store lately. We were deliberating over men's watches (the type with so many knobs dials you never quite figure out their purpose). As any self-respecting lesbian will know, there's a lot to weigh up when choosing any kind of strap-on.

Lover (well, spouse) has always hated shopping, after prolonged periods she begins looking physically ill. Her shopping aversion becomes psychosomatisised and we are forced to squeeze past queues (lines) in an emergency exit. (They never have a not-bought-anything-but-not-stolen-anything-either official exit do they?) Anyhow, lover, well spouse, was looking distinctly peaky so I was trying to do my usual weighing-up at high speed (as a Libran, no decision can be entered into without an exhaustive evaluation of pros and cons- I take the Sherlock Holmes approach1 as a life philosophy rather than fictional detective strategy.)

To cut to the chase, something that now feels too late to do, but never mind I'll edit an earlier paragraph as a footnote and no-one will ever know...
Likely timepieces are draped in our hand, I am deliberating over price-quality proportionality issues and worrying they might break (a slang term for which is "go down" in the UK from where I hail) and venture...

"Well...it might go down2 on you."

Lover (quick as a flash):
"Well if it does that too I'm definitely getting it."

1
Sherlock Holmes/ Arthur Conan Doyle approach
Once you have exhausted the impossible, then all that remains is the probable. (Incidentally, this is how I consoled myself over a string of incompatible mating choices over a period in the '90s... a case of one's soulmate being the only other fish in the sea who is preoccupied with a piece of fluorescent seaweed or some other flotsam and jetsam of fate. One a similar note, when I first met Lover, well Spouse, it was love at first sight and one of the impulses I fought against was simply walking over and saying "You're late", I had after all been waiting my whole life in love with the promise of her while the only fish-in-the-sea-for-me was admiring seaweed somewhere else.)

2
Go down:
- Oral sex (munnsex in Norwegian, which always makes me smile, the term I meant although the Freudian slip is a valid one ;)
- To break (colloq.), according to the principles of Sod's law, and always as a result of Hobson's choice.

Footnote:
Pedantry:
Buying Oxford Concise English Dictionary followed by an irresistible urge to labour every point (sotospeak)

The EX-odus

Girlfriends, I have often reflected, are like buses: you wait ages for the right one, then three come at once (if you excuse the imagery). The same can be said of exes.

I shall set the scene:
My love and I have been going out for three days, in time-honoured lesbian tradition we have moved in and are living together, and she is collecting me from work for the first time ever. My love is irresistibly sexy in bike leathers (yep she had a motorbike), I am wearing a tailored men's suit and my distinctive long black Matrix coat (this touch of éclan proves to be my undoing). Eager to make a good impression I bound onto the street dead on time having vaulted down three flights of stairs.

The road is a relatively short one before leaving the city centre- five minutes on foot max. No sooner have we set off then we encounter my ex who bounds over to chat. We part on good terms (again) and continue on our way, while I ponder the likelihood of such a chance meeting as said ex is out of her usual territory, my thoughts are interrupted by yet another ex, whom I virtually collide with. She too says hi, is introduced to my love and continues on her way. “Small world” I say to my love as we continue, who agrees that life can indeed be coincidental. That is until ten feet later when she alerts me to a tall dark woman waving manically from the other side of the street: another ex (this one usually famed for her retiring reticence has suddenly become Judy-bl**dy-Garland on a float parade. I grimace hysterically back and do the I’m busy salute wave without slowing my pace.)

I begin to calculate the probabilities of this occurring by chance, I never hitherto considered myself a grape on the proverbial vine, could this be an ambush of sorts? I decide a drink is in order for both of us- always good for paranoia. This is not bright on my part, we sneak up the requisite side alley, enter gay bar, there seated in bar as the ONLY person in the room is another ex- yet another (this one normally lives in a different city). I spin us on the spot, steer my love out by the arm and we retreat. “Another ex?” she jokes, I flash a smile nervously, by now I am calculating the best route out to get us out undetected, Mission Impossible style.

“News travels faster than on Grease with the drive in and Rizzo’s pregnancy…" I offer up erratically.
"...Not that anyone’s pregnant,” I clarify redundantly. Cool has deserted me and I am beginning to babble, anything to drown out my love’s inner dialogue, she is visibly moving her fingers one at a time. My mobile rings, I seize it, grateful for a momentary distraction, up pops a former lover’s name. Call divert, city divert selected.

We reach the perimeter of the pedestrianised city centre at high velocity- I am avoiding the tree-lined pedestrianised avenue in favour of roadside pavement. I am striding as I never have before, and already breathing a sigh of relief, “Fancy seeing ALL of them like that!” I say, hoping I hadn’t overdone the otherwise subtle stress on "all". I am interrupted by a little dinging sound, as a cyclist veers in, “Hey!” chimes my cheery gardener ex, “Fancy seeing you here. What are the odds?” I warily survey my love- she has run out of fingers on the one hand, “You’d be surprised.”

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Putting Out at Work

Coming out of the closet is often more like leaving a room than entering one. This philosophical bent is itself an aspect of my bent philosophy.

Although I am a rainbow-flag-waving, ring-wearing married-to-a-woman lesbian, I am oft afflicted by invisibility, though sadly not invincibility. As ever, I digress, my last employer was selectively deaf for talk of "my partner", she missed frequent references to the woman I live and even woke up with, the latter was to differentiate from sister or housemate (although in the literal sense this last term was apt as we do mate in a house.) Said boss was selectively blind even to my waistcoats and trousers (my "fashion sense" was even complimented). This woman put the D in the world's longest river (Nile)...think about it.

In desperation once when I wished to get home to my lover at a reasonable hour before my dinner was in the metaphorical dog, I said, "I have to go, there is a stew waiting for me..." before I could get any further my boss said, "Oh is that his name, your partner?"

Exasperated, it was time to make my sexuality explicit sotospeak, I then clarified that it was a woman who awaited my return and who had indeed cooked dinner for me. So, a woman who had cooked me dinner and who I was going home to, I lived with a woman, I was going to eat with her- the 2 of us.
"Oh," said my boss confused, "And what about Stu your partner, where's he tonight then?"

Lesbian Mecca- its all about the balls

My other-half and I spent much of yesterday trawling around Ikea. It was time to return to the lesbian Mecca.
My lover has now recovered from the mirth that ensued when, early on in our relationship, on one of my first visits to Norway, after spying the store: I exclaimed "Hey, you've got Ikea in Scandinavia too!". Several years better acquainted, a momentary aberration has now been chalked up to my ability for large parts of life to pass me by; I have officially become an oxymoron (I tenaciously keep the oxy prefix) and been dubbed "the most stoopid clever person" she knows.

Anyhow, I digress, Ikea. (I've been fishing for a clever acronym but these things can't be forced.) Ikea trips are fascinating in a relationship dynamic sense- in terms of the shared goals being literally made concrete: if you find you are getting in each other's way in the mock-up 35 km square flat, then the sea-scape is becoming Turner-esque. If you're all Billy and she's all Gertha, it won't work. If you cannot walk past any partly-shielded beds without suggestive raised eyebrows and check out your partners arse when they are checking out the lower shelves, then all is healthy (clean bill of health here, sayeth I). Ikea in Norway has playfully docked its minimalistic cap to the potency of Ikea and its bed ads are quite raunchy here. I believe ending up with the couple in a store in fact (maybe their ad prewired my instore voyeuristic flirting).

A conceptual mutation accelerated ideological evolution and someware (deliberate misspelling, believe its called onomatopeia- which is ironically very hard to spell) house-became home, home became lifestyle- which is broad enough to include alternative lifestyles. In fact, the staff are so used to lesbian couples, that as you skip into view- joined at the hand- their expressions assume that seen-it-all-sheen. Norwegians are expert at this. Nonchalance (ie. non-plussedness) is practised nowhere better then here in Norway, and ironically phenomenally lacking in La France (where at Sarkozy's right hand stands hyperbole, actually is it possible there could be anything to the right in the spatial spectrum of Monsieur Sarkozy?)

Anyhow, being awash in cool classic design aroused my Libran aesthetic sensitivity, while the homeliness had my beautiful Cancer-crab-partner salivating with desire, cooing "just imagine..." and then leaving me to fill in the blanks, each time we entered a pseudo-kitchen/living room. Such was the seductive nature of the store that we followed the arrows as commanded and even enjoyed a romantic meal in their canteen/restaurant. Scandinavian meatballs, to be precise, and to be authentic, next time order "Kjøtboller være så snill"/meatballs be so kind/ kyutboller var sho snill, only don't say all three they'll think you're crazy. It was there that I caved, and the lifestyle became too irresistible: around the same time that whatever they put in the meatballs worked its magic on me. If there is a lesbian equivalent of catnip- its in the Ikea meatballs. Food-for-thought, literally.

Post-balls, I found myself fantasizing about us having little baby lesbians, and wondering where the trolley-loads of babies were from and which cryptic aisle code I needed to write down and then lose en route to the warehouse (my usual procedure) to buy me some Ikea sperm. Even our shopping list/wish list became faintly like a life-goals visualisation exercise embodied in furniture and soft-furnishings. "Become tantric sex master/mistress" leads one to the candle section (making babies should be fun after all, can't allow procreation to replace hedonism). Becoming a self-dubbed chef rather than a cook would be a natural progression in a well spaced kitchen. While the home offices impart a work ethic with Protestant zeal (in the sociological sense). Achieving my ideal balanced (Libran) life was simply a matter of interior design. My partner's unfulfilled Cancerian yearnings for domestic bliss were no longer out of reach due to a clashing nomadic tendencies, she had an epiphany, and it was suddenly all a question of interior design and hitherto due to a lack of that Ikea magic. (We both had balls.)

Regarding the balls with lesbian catnip (note the feline affinity for us Sapphists), I feel I should qualify this statement. I am not given to tossing around such wild accusations, I shall endeavour to domesticate them somewhat or at least atone for my rashness.
Proof 1. Post-meatball acquisitions went through the store roof, we couldn't keep ourselves from picking up and fondling whatever we passed (although the cute female Unicef rep was exempt, just).
Proof 2. A strange sense of euphoria accompanied the smallest design features, bandying around words like genius (for peg-design and the trivialities of life: now morphed into beautiful, often overlooked details.
Proof 3. I am now sat in a bamboo forest (it can't be right-wing monetarist consumerism if its Feng-shui, can it?) where all the furnishings have their own names. What with that and my just-the-right-side-of-delusional dependency on "age-defying" cocoa butter, and an impulse-buy of a cuddly panda bear, and this little pad of ours smells and looks like a sort of Amazonian wilderness, a minimalist one of course.

For those enslaved to the Ikea philosophy, preachers in the guise of after-sales support service are always just a phonecall/ e-mail away. A year ago, I couldn't assemble our new flat-pack love nest, I rang up and said, I've just bought the bla-bla bed (I think that was the name) and "the voice of heard-it-all before" interjected with "the slats are laid out convex-wise", then sensing an extra-silent pause that could only be due to intellect deficiency on my part, as I raced to remember physics lessons of yore, gave me the stupid person suffix in words free from multiple syllables or abstract concepts: "like a bridge", then sensing she should clarify further, "not like a boat, like a bridge". By the time my partner entered the room I was putting the finishing touches to my FIY job (F***-It-up Yourself), and murmuring in knowledgeable tones, "Oh-yes, it was convex", even daring to offer up a "thought so". Hoping the murky grey-lie would somehow obscure my earlier lack of problem solving ability beyond my repeated exclamations of, "Pictograms, why pictogram instructions?", topped off with the ego-balming and faintly arrogant sign of things to come: "I speak five bl**dy languages and not one of them is hieroglyphics".

What concerns me is the bed episode is a scene faintly reminiscent of one with an ex (could we be shaped by our exes?) Said ex once buffeted me away from a flat-pack bookshelf I was happily tinkering with and inexplicably shrieked at me, "My father's a carpenter!" whilst pouncing on the screwdriver and dominating the project. No further explanation or apology to atone for such odd behaviour was ever offered up. Indeed, my current partner (and soulmate, just to negate the temporary nature of "current") had an ex who did exactly the same thing (we checked rapidly, not the same one): they had a Jesus complex maybe.

I've wandered off the arrows again, although the theme of delusions of grandeur and born-again experiences remains the same (walk the "non-straight" line through my hot-waffle and you too shall reach enlightenment in a few steps). If I sound a little dazed, I blame it on the balls, I'm just not used to them. Thankfully, the evangelical power of the Ikea rhetoric and food-drugging is waning now, and a towel peg looks like, well, a towel peg. As Freud said, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar", sometimes balls are just balls.

Dip me in chocolate and put me in the sales

There are two types of lesbian- shopping ones, like me, and non-shopping ones and we tend to pair up with the opposite- apropos the laws of attraction and then sheer practical feasibility.

My other half has to be virtually abducted and taken to changing rooms against her will. January sales for her are akin perhaps to unblocking a sink- practical and good once done maybe, but unpleasant. For me, an empty changing room and a pile of affordable bargains is like winning one of Willy Wonka's Golden tickets and then discovering that Angelina Jolie likes to bathe naked in the chocolate river.

I literally salivate, with the conditioning of a Pavlovian dog at the sight of those red tickets. Nurture rather than nature, by extrapolation, would be the origins of my desire for marked down goods and my faulty logic, whereby I save when I spend. My subconscious is multilingual: as well as Sale, it responds to Salg and Solde (sale means dirty in French, maybe my partner has a point, but then salé means salty and therefore sexy: Ms Jolie swims back into view). I know I'm mixing my nature and my nurture here, but oestrogen and adrenalin is a heady mix.

Now here's the gender-bending crux of it: for me, finding a reduced T-shirt, dragging it to the changing room, with all the frenzied stripping that ensues and carrying it home has a faint Neanderthal resonance somehow: I want to parade around with my trophy yelping "mine all mine". This is a primeval throwback and explains the wild look some women can get at the end of a season. After all, what is shopping if not hunter-gathering?

Lesbian tongue in cheek

I spent the day unsuccessfully flailing in a variety of tasks. I am a terrible multitasker: I think when I was programmed as gay in the womb, multitasking sort of fell off one of my X chromosomes, along with the ability to walk in heels. I find it somehow disconcerting to feel as if I am walking downhill when I am in fact doing otherwise. (Perhaps there is a deeper metaphysical fear within this.)

Of course, while eschewing many gender roles, I cling to some of the female prerogatives conferred at birth by my extra X nevertheless. These include the "it is a woman's prerogative to change her mind" clause, along with the "I may cry over spilt milk and gorge myself on chocolate on the first day of my period" clause, and the "when something is half price I therefore save that amount instead of spending it" logic. In fact, as a Libran, indecision is a quality I take something approaching defiant pride in. Also, being in a gay relationship means by extrapolation that I am going out with another womb-bearer, who knows when comfort and cocoa is craved.

All of these typecast stereotypes can serve one well, if used sufficiently sparingly. The other proviso being that unwelcome stereotypes are not thrust upon one; should that be the case I would not be myself and instead be a mere approximation of a "representative" group of people, and really- mathematically speaking- who wants to be average now?

Pink perspective: left-leaning lesbian

As a liberal, left-leaning lesbian I see the world through glasses that have a definite pink hue to them. By this, do not infer that I am a Polyanna-like eternal optimist, far from it. A Libranesque reality-defying balancing act of cynicism and realism colours my vew of the world. That, and of course my innate tendency to see things with a gay slant at times: a bent perspective if you will.

In these anti-ethnocentric times, for me to be reduced to mere functions of my demography is, well, downright belittling in the literal sense of the world. But then, need that make it any less true? My argument is that the counterpart to this, the prevalent heterosexist view needs redressing somewhat.

Meaningful cultural references that resonate for me are those that have a sapphic spin to them. I spend a great deal of time seeking gay (specifically lesbian) culture- film, music, TV shows and soforth. When Alanis Morisette sang the lines, "meeting the man of my dreams, and then meeting his beautiful wife" in the aptly titled Ironic, I smiled a wry smile while a straight friend argued that my homocentric perspective led me to misinterpret the lyrics. (The famously bisexual singer has since confirmed the deliberate ambiguity of the line, releasing yours truly from the hook). Could this imply that it is my straighter brethren who cannot shift their stance to admit other possibilities- so acustomed are they to everything being hetero, or simply that people of course will see the world form where they are standing first, and other perspectives second.

So for now, I'll keep my pink-specs right where they are. This is no doubt due to my inherent inability to appreciate the opposite of the species in "that" way, and frank love of same-sex sex and love. While still no natural optimist, I wouldn't change my position for all the world.