The Battle for Fun: Queers and Straights

I recently posted this photo to the 'this is oz' website, an Australian initiative which basically involves people posting an anti-homophobia message in the form of a photo of themselves with a handwritten sign. The posts vary from playful, to political, to passionate pleas for equality, to more abstract statements.

I have received mixed responses to my "Queers have more fun...you're just jealous", from the positive to the confused, culminating last night in a straight woman saying something along the lines of "but I'm straight and I have fun"...or some such. Could she make a "Straights have more fun" sign, she asked.

No. No she could not.

There needs to be a class compulsory for all school students which explains privilege and power. Which explains why it is ok for a black person to say nigger, why there aren't straight bars or a straight mardi gras (because 364 days of the year ARE straight mardi gras) and why my statement about queers having more fun is not a flippant allusion to the idea that drag queens are like totes so funny right now and like being a lez is totally awesome cos it's just like falling in love with your bestest friend.

I chose my "Queers have more fun...' statement because I am sick to death of asking for acceptance, for equality, for tolerance (my MOST hated word). Because I am sick of gay rights meaning having exactly the same rights as straight people when I don't actually like the parameters of straight society and would rather redefine relationships and families for myself.

I chose it because I am proud to live in a society where, as a queer woman, I can have any fun at all! Where I am not gaoled, forced into straight marriage, beaten, silenced or killed. Because I could be raised by two amazing women and because I can live in a community of brilliant, out contemporaries who I adore.

I chose it because, in fact, I do see my queer community as capable of providing more of the kind of fun I want to have than my straight friends' communities do. I often wonder where I would find a community if it weren't for my sexuality. I see a lot of heterosexual friends (note I see a difference between heterosexual and straight) rally around politics or sports, past times or areas of study. But I choose to find the fun among queer politics, sports, past times and areas of study.

Being queer has given me a sense of history and culture. In a country where a lot is tossed around about a lack of history (white history anyway) and a lack of coherent, unifying culture, I feel I am part of an international shared history and language of queer. Though my community is extremely varied I feel a sense of nationhood and ownership and safety. We have citizens to be proud of and revere; writers and artists and activists and musicians and philosophers. And for me personally, I found that history and sense of unity in the family home where my wonderful mothers gave me a sense of my personal and global history - the events leading to the possibility of my mere existence! I had an A-Grade upbringing by queers.

It's fun to socialise and analyse with people that want to understand and better the world around them. Of course there are gays who do not strive for change and heterosexuals who work tirelessly for a better world. But when I think of my own queer community I see a higher than average willingness to support minority views and respect a marginalised group's right to agency. The other day a friend of mine who uses a wheelchair complained of perceived discrimination in a first aid course. Our coworkers initial reaction was to defend the tutor's intentions and try to explain his error, instead of saying to her - that's fucked that you felt persecuted. From a privileged position, it is easy to forget that when someone feels attacked they don't want the first response of their friends to be a justification of their attacker - they want support and then balanced analysis. I was really bothered by this interaction as I don't like to see a friend silenced, and on a personal level it reminded me of the myriad times I've been told I am overreacting to homophobia or seeing sexism because I want to (that evil Feminist agenda makes me oversensitive, remember?)

From the moment of self-realisation or 'outing' queers are explaining and justifying their sexual practices and relationships to the world. The number of overly personal questions that get asked is amazing. The positive of this (the fun part if you will) is that my queer friends are wonderfully analytical and productively critical about their relationships. We search for new ways to love each other and fuck each other and strive to find a model that makes us happy. We don't always get it right but I am proud and privileged to relate to people that care about how they love me and how I treat them and want to experiment with human interaction.

I'm going to say it: fucking queer women is fun. Now I can't make comparisons as my experience with men is limited, but I just can't imagine men being as...skilled... :-) Oh look, any straight friends reading this are going to have a tantrum now... One straight recently joked that lesbians shouldn't be allowed to use strap-ons - "you've made your choice" she quipped. Now the delivery was hilarious, but there's an underlying jealousy there no? Because we get to have it all... Am I due for another straight tantrum now? I don't care! The women I have loved have been bright, engaged, caring, supportive, adventurous, willing, playful, skilled, beautiful and yes - Fun. So I couldn't let this blog go by without acknowledgment of the joyous sex part of sexuality.

Maybe I think you're jealous because you have to stifle any urges you have for the same sex to fit in with your societal position. Whereas I can have a sexuality that is fluid and will not suffer the wrath of my friends if I deviate from their expectations of my gender and desire. Maybe you are jealous because I have sports teams I can join just for my kind and I have parties and events designed to appeal to my sexuality and desires. Or because some of my people are so clever they developed a whole queer theory. Are you jealous because I can define the rights I am fighting for and have a framework for analysing this very confusing world? Or because there are websites devoted to people posting messages of support for ME.

If you aren't jealous, you should be!
...

DISCLAIMER: I don't think the people I have referred to here read my blog, but if you do and you find it problematic that I have used your comments in this way, please let me know. I do not wish to offend you, but I do think it's worth me bringing up stuff I find problematic. If I am even talking to you, I obviously like you so hold you to a higher standard than the general population. And I'd be willing to chat and clarify. xxx

...

'the f word', or 'the longest blog in the world'

It's funny how things come in waves. I won't hear about something for months then all in a week, it's the hot topic; spurred on by a news item or social happening, suddenly wherever I go we're all speaking with the same focus.

Since the NRL incident, women and sexual assault have been bashing their way through opinion pieces and coffee tables. But I have noticed a relative silence on the matter among my social circles (in person rather than online), as if we have assumed we hold the same position, we are the same brand of Feminist, we know where we stand. That little tidbit of sensation has all but exited the mainstream now, but it and the subsequent furor have rekindled my thoughts around Women and Feminism.

Things comes in waves and yesterday I could not avoid Feminism and its waves. At work, through my searches of disability blogs I came across an online battle between "radical feminist" (for want of another term) bloggers and sex worker bloggers. The contention was over bags made by and for sex workers at an Australian convention that said "Sheila is not my sister." Outraged, the women who say "prostituted" rather than "worker" had made a "Sheila is my sister" logo for their blogs and had then waxed lyrical over the "attacks" made by these "privileged, non-representative" sex workers against their "hero" Sheila Jeffreys.

Now I don't want to blog on about Sheila because what struck me in these comment wars was not about her views, but about the bloggers' inability to hear each other and their references to the alleged waves of feminism that have flowed in and over society in the past century or so.

Apparently, feminism has had three waves and apparently these waves hold values that are mutually exclusive.

You can be a second-wave anti-porn anti-prostitution warrior OR you can be a third-wave pole-dancing ignorant "mind-dazed" (an actual quote!) slacker.

You can be a rigid, out-dated, radical anti-sex Sheila wannabe OR you can be an enlightened, sex-positive, queer-friendly, sex-work activist.

You can't like porn and be a feminist.
You can't have an opinion on sex work unless you are a sex worker.
If you believe in sex worker rights you are supporting the patriarchy.
If you are anti-porn you are anti-sex.
If you engage in BDSM you are a victim.
If you are a sex worker you have a history of sexual abuse.

I couldn't believe the barrage of simplistic conclusions that absolutely disallowed complexity of thought or varying views or debate. And! When one person's comments were deemed too challenging to the view of the original blog, they started to be blocked!

I commented here and there, tried to point out that perhaps there was a middle ground. Perhaps Sheila-ites should listen to the sex workers they were supposedly saving. Perhaps there was a place for some porn, especially when it is female-made, queer or demonstrates safe sex practices...

Now, I am aware that I am demonstrating a bias towards the sex-positive, sex-worker rights side of this debate and I make no apology, nor do I wish to hide this. As a rule, I adhere with a lot of what this "wave" of feminism has to say.

The problem here is that then I am labelled third-wave, not allowed to use the word "radical" to describe myself and, according to some, am aligned with the "I can wear a short skirt if I want to" camp. Incidentally, I can and do wear a short skirt most weekends, but I digress.

Back to Tuesday:
I left the blogs and headed out for a beverage or two (non-alcoholic: see health plan).

I came across a group of friends sitting, primarily silently while two wonderful women waxed lyrical on what was wrong with the world. With the system. With the patriarchy. With the fact that even in Newtown - our supposed "pocket" - one of them could be assaulted in a park, then asked by the cops afterwards "Is that what you were wearing?"

These women are (perhaps including but not limited to) queer, sex-positive, kinky, radical, angry, intelligent, witty, bright and engaged. They have become my community in the past few years and represent a diverse range of views. And they debate!

When the conversation steered to a t-shirt worn by a man one of them knew, someone spoke up in opposition to the party line that had been drawn in the past minutes. The offending garment had said "Dead Girls Can't Say No." (It says something about my dark sense of humour that I stated that if a girl was wearing that I would think it sassy, confrontational and ironic...) One reaction was that the shirt was woman-hatred, plain and simple. Another advocated that necrophilia was the problem and that the shirt would be just as bad if it said "Dead people..." When will it stop being about women's rights and start being about people's rights?

GAME ON.

Never tell a Feminist that Feminism isn't needed anymore unless you want to see her face go purple. I won't transcribe the rest of the debate, but it was fiery and I imagine continued on after I skipped off to go see a movie (Synechdoche, New York, which incidentally I have a lot to say about - largely on the role played by women!)

But these Tuesday adventures made me sad. It made me sad that my angriest, most clever and passionate Feminist friends are debating these issues with each other but not always being heard in the wider community. Feminists are battling against each other online, but not face to face where a little more compassion may be allowed for and where comments can't be "blocked" with the click of a button. I was sad because I am tired of fighting and fighting and fighting and would rather leave the office than speak out when co-workers gather round a computer to violently denounce pictures of women at an award show as "fat," "ugly," "a tranny," "a grandma" and so on... (but that's another story)

I am not part of a wave. I see Feminism as a continuum with space for the views of everyone (yes, even Sheila Jeffreys though I think much of her work ridiculous). I don't want to fight with other women about Feminism, but I am not going to be silent when people say she was asking for it or think that, in a world where women are overwhelmingly more likely to be the victims of violence, we haven't got a struggle anymore.

It was quite a Tuesday all round, and I haven't even told you about the meat tray I sat beside for an hour.

...

lazy me letting someone else blog about gay marriage

i was going to write down my opinions on gay marriage, but this person did it for me:

http://shesacarnivore.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/gay-marriage-not-as-cool-as-you-think-it-is/

...

reflections on the west

I ran into some guys from uni the other day, most of whom I don't like. One of the charmers saw fit to sit with my friends and I for a time, feigning friendliness. He said nothing particularly offensive (unusual) but his presence bugged me. And so did his comment that I "have not changed."

In the 3 and a half years since I left uni I feel I have changed a great deal. This is, in part due to growing up, but when I think back on who I was then and place her next to who I am now I notice marked differences - and at times it is hard not to feel angry about who I let myself be before.

I allowed myself to feel ashamed of my politics and to think that my rage was unjustified. I apologised for my "radicalism" and I let my sexuality be exoticised by straight men and, bi-curious women who confused me.

I let my brain get lazy, and shunned my academic side and allowed people to ignore my skills and criticise the fact that I did not have physical talents, without standing up and saying "but this is what I DO have."

I let myself be mistreated by a lover, and I at times mistreated her. I let myself live in a place where there was little choice in lovers and we believed this was the best we deserved.

I tried to prove I was some form of normal, instead of being proud of the fact that I was not.

I believed that I was ugly and bought into a beauty ideal that does not belong to my community. I developed a language of body shame that I am still trying to un-learn.

I would never change my choice to study in Bathurst. There is a list of what I learned as long as the list of what I gave up. I needed to leave my cushioned inner-west environment to SEE what the rest of Australia can be like. I needed to see that open-mindedness and care come in many forms and that judging someone based on their background or religion or education is just as bigotted as homophobia or sexism or racism. I saw the beauty of rural Australia, its history, nature and people. I learned that I could be left in the wilderness for a few nights and survive. I learnt teamwork and discovered I could write but also that I like driving trucks and drilling holes in stuff - and that these practical skills were just as valuable as the academic ones I proved I had at high school.

I learnt a lot. But I will never go back to a community in which I am the minority, in which I am ridiculed and in which I must compromise my values.

I have changed. I am not hiding or apologising anymore.

...

Why the Courthouse Hotel is the Mardi Gras of Pubs

It's an age old problem that when something is good, people find out that it's good and it inevitably becomes crap. A victim of its own success. This process can take the form of gentrification / wankification (think Paddington or The Bank Hotel) or, in the case of Mardi Gras and the Courthouse, it's simply a takeover by the hoardes.

The courthouse used to be a cosy, beer gardened place where one could find a table and chat with mates. Now, to find a table, you have to a) wait b) share or c) seek out the eastern suburbs bus-ins, sit a little too close to them and talk graphically about sex, making them feel uncomfortable / oddly arroused til they leave.

Bar queues take FOREVER and I have many a time had to contend with sleazy menfolk wishing me happy birthday and winking sleepily. Check the hair do and baggy jeans matey - do the math!

Speaking of hair dos, there is a poshifying straightifying element going on as the clientele moves from vinnies to vintage - a problem facing much of the Newtown area.

I like space, comfort and like-minded friendly folk. I don't like waiting around and I don't like sleaze.

Crowds, waiting and straight-sleaze also sum up my Mardi Gras experience this year. My friends and I saw more homophobia that night than we do in an average month of Newtown ghettodom. The mammoth parade is overpoliced, over-sponsored, and no longer a particularly pleasant experience for participants with gawking crowds full of tourists who sneer when you seek out a cheer.

Mardi Gras is like a family tradition for me and I have supported it longer than many. But next year, I think I'll have a subdued Mardi Gras in Newtown. Maybe with the hoardes lining Oxford St, I'll head to the Courty for a quiet beer.

Queer?

A friend of mine from Norway, Frederik, posted these quote from Whipping Girl by Julia Serano and I found it interesting...thoughts? comments?

"It [the queer/transcommunity] is a subgroup of the LGBTIQ community that is composed mostly of folks in their twenties and thirties who are more likely to refer to themselves as "dykes", "queers" and/or "trans" than "lesbian" or "gay". While diverse in many ways, this subpopulation tends to predominately inhabit urban and academic settings, and is skewed toward those who are white and/or from middle-class backgrounds. In many ways, the queer/trans community is best described as a sort of marriage of the transgender movement's call to "shatter the gender binary" and the lesbian community's pro sex, pro kink backlash to 1980s-era Andrea Dworkinism."

....

"[I call this trend subversivism] Subversivism is the practice of extolling certain gender and sexual expressions and identities simply because they are unconventional or noncomforming. In the parlance of subversivism, these atypical genders and sexualities are "good" because they "transgress" or "subvert" oppressive binary gender norms. The justification for the practice of subversivism has evolved out of a particular reading (although some would call it misreading) of the work of various influential queer theorists over the last decade and a half

To briefly summarize this popularized account: All forms of sexism arise from the gender binary system. Since the binary gender system is everywhere - in our thoughts, language, tradition, behaviors etc - the only way we can overturn it is to actively undermine the system from within. Thus, in order to challenge sexism, people must "perform" their genders in ways that bend, break and blur all imaginary distinctions that exist between male and female, heterosexual and homosexual, and so on, presumably leading to a system wide binary meltdown. According to the principles of subversivism, drag is inheretly "subversive", as it reveals that our society's binary notions of maleness and femaleness are not natural, but rather actively "constructed" and "performed" by all of us. Another way that one can be "transgressively gendered" is by identifying as genderqueer or genderfluid - i.e., refusing to identify fully as either woman or man"

....

"On the surface, subversivism gives the appearance of accommodating a seemingly infinite array of genders and sexualities, but this is not quite the case. Subversivism does have very specific boundaries; it has an "other". By glorifying identities and expressions that appear to subvert or blur gender binaries, subversivism automatically creates a reciprocal category of people whose gender and sexual identities are by default inherently conservative, even "hegemonic", because they are seen as reinforcing or naturalizing the binary gender system. Not surprisingly, this often-unspoken category of bad, conservative genders predominately made up of feminine women and masculine men who are attracted to the "opposite" sex.

....

"One routinely sees this "dark side" of subversivism rear its head in the queer/trans community, where it is not uncommon to hear individuals critique or call into question other queers or trans folks because their gender presentation, behaviors, or sexual preferences are not deemed "subversive" enough. Indeed, if one fails to sufficiently distinguish oneself from heterosexual feminine women and masculine men, one runs the risk of being accused of "reinforcing the gender binary", an indictment that is tantamount to being called a sexist. One of the most common targets of such critiques are transsexuals, and particularly those who are heterosexual and gender-normative post-transition. Indeed, because such transsexuals (in the eyes of others) transition from a seemingly "transgressive" queer identity to a "conservative" straight one, subversivists may even claim that they have transitioned in other to purposefully "assimilate" themselves into straight culture. While these days, such accusations are often couched in the rhetoric of current queer theory, they rely on many of the same mistaken assumptions that plagued the work of cissexist feminists like Janice Raymind and sociologists like Thomas Kando decades ago."

Good Times, Cheese & Swissbians*

* Please note that not all the lovely Swiss citizens I hung out with were lesbians, it's just that swisstrosexuals doesn't have the same ring to it.

I arrived in Bern after an epic journey (well epic if compared to getting the train from newtown to central...not epic compared to, say, the odyssey.) I caught two overnight trains in a row, mainly because I wanted to get to Switzerland quickly, but also I think just to see if I could. One sets oneself funny tasks when travelling alone. And one starts to refer to oneself as one so as to give the impression that everyone behaves exactly as one does. Yes.

So I caught first an overnight train to Vienna from Romania and had the good fortune to be sitting in a carriage with two large, suit-wearing Romanian men who saw fit to have lively debates all through the night and ate very smelly sandwiches in the morning. One of them was very well-endowed. I know this because he was sitting opposite me, with legs very wide apart so that said endowment was very much on display through aforementioned suit.

I spent a day in Vienna (see photo album: one day in vienna) and then had a very stressful time trying to find Stian who was in a hotel on the longest street in the world, a street I powerwalked up and down searching for the hotel. When I found it I was informed that were three hotels with this name and that my friends were not in this one. By this point I needed to go catch my train.

I was not pleased to discover that this time I was accompanied by two laptop endowed young men who also chatted, despite having aforementioned laptops to entertain them. I had also been seated in a carriage with people who were not, unlike me, going all the way to Zurich. This meant that every few hours I had to return my seat to the upright position and shuffle around so they could get off the train and be replaced by other people also only going short distances so not requiring peace and quiet.

You can imagine my joy when I arrived (unshowered for quite some time now) at Susan's charming flat in Bern, to be greeted by offers of laundry facilities (one adores laundry facilities) and tea. I love staying with lesbians; they always have such a wide variety of herbal teas.

That day I went to the Einstein museum and fell asleep during the little film. I may need to write a Note entitled Stupid Things I have Done when Ridiculously Tired.

But when I met up with Susan and Amanda after my ill-fated sight seeing in Bern (I was also very distressed by a caged bear) they were lovely and took me for nice coffee and then there was the supermarket which I always enjoy and a nice dinner with them and Susan's remarkably well-behaved son, Noam, who I later sang songs to before he went to bed. He liked the songs but was a little annoyed that they weren't in German.

And so began my preference for just hanging out with Swiss people rather than seeing their rather famous sites.

Oh, I tried, I really did but I kept getting set back. Fog on the mountains, rain in the valley, missed trains and later on the beginnings of a cold which led to the entire photo album of flowers in Montreux - I was a little delirious. Not to mention the fact that they turn off Geneva's world-famous fountain at night. Well I think they do because after a fulfilling day of museumage and a UN tour, I bought a felafel and strolled down to get my token photo and it was nowhere to be found. I looked for some time and felt like I may be crazy as I had seen it from a distance earlier in the day...

But enough complaining, I did see some very pretty stuff. The day I went to Gruyere with Cosette was wonderful. Perfect weather, charming old town with the same name as the EXCELLENT cheese it produces and a HILARIOUS audio guide in the Gruyere Museum (which gave you 3 pieces of cheese as a ticket! Anna - I think it is the museum for you!!! Well actually it is the country for you but this is a blog not an email so I will tell you about it later.) There was a quaint restaurant with flowers on the balcony, where we had a large fondue followed by ridiculously over-the-top sundae*... Birds were singing and the sky was blue, children were laughing, people were getting married and even that couldn't kill my mood. And then my camera ran out of battery before I could make a record of it all. VERY UPSETTING.

* I don't know why neither Cosette nor I remembered that you should NEVER eat ice cream after fondue. Eating cold things straightaway can harden the cheese in your stomach into a 'cheese ball' that you can't digest. Now, we weren't whisked to hospital for cheese ball removal but we did feel mighty ill for quite some time after. Worth it though I think.

Where was I? Ah yes, providing no information about Switzerland for my eagre readers, just nattering on about nice people you don't know. It is just that I am getting to the point in my trip where I may just have seen enough churches, old cities, castles and museums about WWII.

And so it was that the highlights in Switzerland included exquisite homemade fondue, long chats, silly dancing and music tips with Susan and Amanda, hot chocolate with Cosette and Charlotte when the other young things were partying and drinking beer, and also dinner on my last night when both Charlotte and I were sick and so I made soup.

And I read a lot. And was entertained by getting trains between French and German sections of the country and hearing them change the order of announcements from French then German to German then French.

The moral of the story is that Switzerland is fabulous, its people are charmng and one day I must go back...when it is not Autumn. Pretty much any season but Autumn would do the trick.

Love Maeve

p.s. random fact: Apparently all Swiss residences have to have a bunker in case of attack.

p.p.s. random fact 2: They have some crazy political system with 7 rotating presidents who do a year each or something. It was very hard for me to understand.

p.p.p.s. Bern, Switzerland's capital only has like 120,000 people. Wonderfully small! And lots of them ride bikes. And the public transport is STILL better than Sydney's.

'An Other Tourist' or 'The Problem with Straight People'

The other day Kamilla and I were spat at for kissing in the streets of Dubrovnik. Now, I myself have great disdain for overt public displays of affection, but the violent hate on this man's face told me that it was our gender and not any perceived cutesy romanticism that led him to part with his saliva.

Prior to our arrival, we had both read the Lonely Planet warning that homosexuality was legal, but not generally welcome in Croatia. Our couch host in Zagreb had spoken of being firmly in the closet and we had discussed difficulties and differences...but we mostly found amusing similarities in our stories (lesbian webs, asymmetrical hairdos and such.)

After the incident in Dubrovnik, Kamilla and I did not conclude that Croatia was a homophobe. Sadly, we acknowledged that what we had experienced could be suffered in any country of the world. But this overt rage at my sexuality reminded me of a complaint I've been meaning to Note for some time.

As I travel, I inevitably meet more new people than I would at home. Thus I find myself coming out several times a week, sometimes several times a day. This is not out of some desire to share of myself with these new ˝friends.˝No, it is out of necessity during any conversation that moves beyond the basic - that is, if I do not want to lie by changing gender pronouns on lovers, exes or indeed parents.

It is so tedious.

I have a rainbow flag stitched on to my bag as a reminder to myself that I must not allow laziness or frustration to tempt me back into the proverbial closet. This is of course a luxury of travel in Europe, knowing that the most I will probably suffer is some old man's spit. But my insistence leads to the same conversations time and time again...

Answering those generic questions that people pose as if they are original...or indeed risqué. I am tired of my own voice, producing these old gay-clichés like greeting cards for the people of the world. I never refuse, out of some childhood belief that I can educate in some way. But Pride does not diminish the boredom of repetition.

I try to stay with queer couch hosts when I can to avoid the inevitable Heterosexual Assumption and allow conversation to get to the good stuff. But then, in Berlin of all places, I found myself justifying my need of a queer community to one such host. She didn't ˝need˝ gay friends because all her other friends ˝accepted˝ her as ˝normal˝ and liked her just the way she was, Bridget Jones style (my bad pop culture reference, not hers.) I yearned for Laura to be standing next to me scoffing ˝gay˝under her breath...sigh... I explained, in as many different ways as I could, but she kept bringing it back to prejudice and discrimination, which apparently she has never suffered from.

But it is not the discrimination and the spitters that really bother me. It is the assuming (which I've heard from time to time makes an ass out of u and me...hehe...sorry...) The assumption of heterosexuality. When I meet other lesbians I have a joyous physical reaction, not of arousal but of relief - relief that they will understand that ˝I met a girl in Norway˝ does not mean that I only met one female in 3 weeks of travel, but that I met one significantly interesting female in Norway. (Incidentally there are many significantly interesting women in this fair nation, but one only has so much time...and this is beside the point...)

It is the assumption that bothers me.

So, if you have read this I set you the following challenge -

For one day, assume that everyone you meet is a homo. This is not an original proposition. In fact, I think a certain school teacher was crucified recently for suggesting a similar exercise with his students. But do it, nonetheless. If you meet someone and they mention a partner of the opposite sex, or indeed parents of opposing sexes, ask them the following questions:

1. Wow, you're straight? (insert reference to another straight person you know. Maybe suggest that they should be friends.)
2. When did you know?
3. Do you think you inherited it? (find a way to use the phrase Nature vs. Nurture in a manner that suggests you came up with it yourself.)
4. Why do all of you dress like that? (insert description that suggests all straight women are fat and lack fashion taste or that all straight men spend their life savings on clothes items)
5. Why do you feel the need to separate yourselves from normal people? Like, do you really need your own parade? Your own bars? (scoff scoff)
6. How do you fuck? (you only need to have known a person for an hour or two for this intrusion to be deemed appropriate.)


I know I have straight friends who are sick of this rant, even gay friends who are sick of this rant. Hell, I am sick of this rant. But I shall rant on.

Don't even get me started on coming out as a Vegetarian...

yes, yes, it's the gay tour of europe

hi. so my captions on the last three albums of photos were factual rather than witty so i am writing a blog as penance. with sub-headings. this won't be amusing either in all likelihood due to exhuastion after a late one at the pub with liz. sorry.

Stockholm

I was in Stockholm for a week. It is a beautiful city. Actually it reminded me of Sydney a lot as it's on an archipelago so lots water. Lots water = architecture which employs glass and balconies a lot, plenty of parks and green, bridges, ferries and the ability to really do summer (an ability which many European countries, e.g. London, lack).

So when I was moseying by the water, admiring the rooftops (great lines) and the people* I was very happy.

* It is true. Swedish people are better looking. I didn't want to believe the stereotype but they are, in general, taller, higher cheekboned, tanneder, better dressed and generally more likely to look like a supermodel than the rest of the world. It's just a fact. Factual information. Don't say I don't inform ya.

I took in some sites:
- Parliament House (Sweden also has an interesting political system like Norway)
- Fjaderholma (Feather Islands): Note that while Stockholm may look like Sydney, options for swimming leave a little to be desired. I waded with pain into the rocky, slimy water at the edge of the islands, floated for a bit, then went back to my towel and read. The point of going to 'bathe' in Sweden is clearly to look good in a bikini and work on your terracotta tan (while young Swedes may be super hot, older Swedes tend to have that beautiful brand of handbag leather skin and a whitish patch under their chin that the sun has burnt quite so effectively.)
- The Architecture Museum and the Dance Museum (see below for my love of obscure museums)
- Gamla Stan, the old town. Very pretty.

I stayed at a bad youth hostel without a proper kitchen, leading to some amusing cooking debacles but mostly it was all ok. I also did gay stuff, which brings me to...

Europride 08

This was a reasonably generic Pride event with events, seminars, concerts and a parade. That said, it was fun, a good opportunity to make friends and I saw some great stuff (excuse bullet points, I am too tired for narrative structure):
- A seminar on making it as a queer artist by trans RnB singer, Joshua Clipp.
- The book launch for Femmes of Power: Exploding Queer Feminities. I met Del La Grace Volcano (networked actually) and asked a question. Go me. I now wish I had gotten a bunch of signed copies but my luggage is SERIOUSLY overweight so I did not.
- some excellent drag kings
- VERY amusing ABBA cover band and eurovision night
- a bunch of burlesque (inferior to gurlesque)
- Sadly I missed the seminar on how to give good head as it was full. Sorry to any future sexual partners.

I made some friends at the couchsurfing picnic which improved my week as I had people to mosey through Pride Park with and sit in gutters eating pizza. I also heard stories from fellow travellers about pride in Croatia and Israel and felt very lucky to live in Australia.

I also went to a dance party called Queer All Stars. Sobre. and Alone. And I loved it. The freedom to dance RIDICULOUSLY was awesome. Not to mention the wandering through the crowd watching the frivolity like a creepy voyeur. I did meet up with some people by the end of the night though and after random beers in their backyard I wandered home as the sun rose over pretty pretty Stockholm and I thought, life is good.

Obscure Museums

I do not like rushing from museum to museum in order to 'do' a foreign city. I like to pick one or two and really spend a few hours in them. And I do not like 'Nationa Museums.' I like odd museums devoted to one thing. I have been to:

- Vigelund Sculpture Museum (Oslo, Norway)
- Viking Museum (Borg, Norway)
- Leprosy Museum (Bergen, Norway)
- Art Deco Museum (Alesund, Norway)
- Architecture Museum (Stockholm, Sweden)
- Dance Museum (Stockholm, Sweden)
- and today, the Surgery Museum (Edinburgh, Scotland)

I shall be a trivia expert, I shall, I shall!

I am waiting in heady anticipation for the obscure museum of obscure museums...in Iceland...they have...according to my guidebook...

A Museum of the Phallus! (with hundreds of specimens from whale to guinea pig, stuffed and preserved for my viewing pleasure. oh. my. god. it. is. too. funny. Apparently they do not have a human specimen, but they have some donors lined up.)

Anyway, I shall leave you on that note as I head off to meet Liz for dinner. Am in Edinburgh now, if my vaguely racist status updates hadn't informed you. I am loving the festival, and will wirte about it soon. Also enjoying doing a restaurant tour of the town with Liz as her only break from work is during dinner time (how convenient...) After weeks of ryvita crackers with peanut butter and tomato, apples and water, this is sweet sweet luxury. Liz's floor, where I am sleeping, is NOT sweet sweet luxury. Rather it is like a sadistic lover, bringing me pain but making me happy as it's free and comes complete with great Liz companionship. Life's good.

Over and out.
Maeve

show us ya fjord

I found this quote in Orlando by Virginia Woolf and it seemed like a good place to start...

´Green in nature is one thing, green in literature another. Nature and letters seem to have a natural antipathy; bring them together and they tear each other to pieces. The shade of green Orlando now saw spoilt his rhyme and split his metre. Moreover, nature has tricks of her own. Once look out a window at bees among flowers, at a yawning dog, at the sun setting, once think ´how many more suns shall I see set´etc., etc. (the thought is too well known to be worth writing about) and one drops the pen, takes one´s cloak, strides out of the room, and catches one´s foot on a painted chest as one does so. For Orlando was a trifle clumsy.´

I sympathise with author and character. Except my painted chest is an oversized suitcase on wheels and I do not have a cloak (if only). I am not going to describe how beautiful Norway is. Look at the photos. Or come here yourself. Though if you do come to Norway, heed the following:

1. Norway is super expensive. Coffee & cake $15. A room in a youth hostel at least $40. Average museum ticket $20. Finding out we´ve all been pronouncing fjord incorrectly...priceless.

2. Norway expects you to be fit and healthy. They like steep and high things. And they have a thing for massive outdoor museums. To go from one exhibit to another at your average Norwegian museum, expect to walk at least 2 km. Seriously.

2.a If not outdoor, museums (such as the Nobel Peace Centre) are likely to have extensive computer based exhibits that take forever to navigate and are so shiny and over produced that they are difficult to get much information out of. I say back to basics people, back to basics! That said, the basics of the stuffed polar bears and seals in the Ålesund museum kind of distressed me...but I digress -

3. Norway breeds pretty people. Prepare to feel short and round. I also recommend commencing daily massage of your cheek bones to make them higher. And find some way to grow skin like honey.

and now for a little narrative rambling...

I arrived in Oslo very early in the morning on July 7th. It was cold and raining and I was alone. I walked to my youth hostel on top of a hill (the first of many tall Norwegian items to scale) and felt a little lost and confused. You see, I have discovered that when I am alone my emotions work to far greater extremes (yes, yes, I am MORE moody). One moment - such as when I was sailing on a fjord in beautiful sunshine - I feel free and wonderful, an independant traveller taking on the world. The next moment, something goes wrong and I am useless, hopeless, disorganised. Lost... Devastated... And then, ooh! Something pretty! Isn´t life grand!

A high point was my arrival in Bergen, after a beautiful journey from Oslo. Alone, I was not ashamed when tears came to my eyes over the beauty of the town. I found out later that it rains 70% of the time in Bergen, but I missed this rain. I had picturesque sunsets, moseys across the pier and the frisson of walking through forest at midnight feeling alive and even like someone who may enjoy exercise just a little bit.

This luck and good fortune continued when I failed to catch a bus and instead climbed aboard the Hurtigruten (a word I am yet to master the pronounciation of). You can get a cheap ticket ship if you don´t book a sleeping cabin so this is what I did. I sat in a jacuzzi as we sailed out of Bergen, swam laps the next morning at 7 before disembarking at Ålesund. I should mention that this was one moment when it was truly wonderful to be a solo traveller. I felt like a stowaway, surrounded by middle aged German tourists, wandering through the deserted ship at 1am searching for a corner to sleep in. It was eerie and amusing and I imagined I was in a certain X Files episode set on an abandoned cruise ship...I imagine about 2 people who read this will actually know what I am talking about here...

But, my travels seem intent on forcing me to use the cliche of a rollercoaster because no sooner had I trumphantly disembarked in the art deco town of Ålesund* than my luck began to drain...

*Ålesund is built entirely in the art deco style because it burnt down in 1904. I know a lot about the places I have visited, about the leprosy hospital in Bergen, the sculpture park in Oslo, the 11th century church in Trondheim etc etc...but I figure if you want to know facts and history you can look at wikipedia. or come to norway. so i am writing about me.

where was i...oh yes...a turn for the worse. So I lost my watch in Oslo and funnily enough one is not able to charge one´s phone when one is sleeping in the cafeteria of a cruise ship. So I set off from Ålesund to go to my couch surfing host´s farm in Slyngstad, without phone, watch, or her address. Kamilla was to meet me at 10pm. My bus dropped me off at a small bus stop beside a road, about an hour from the nearest town (or so it seemed) at 9pm. I sat. I read. I thought gleefully that this was all a big adventure.

Then it began to rain.

I became convinced that more than an hour had passed, that Kamilla wasn´t coming, that I was in the wrong place, that I would have to sleep in the Norwegian countryside. I truly started looking for the cosiest patch of scrub...

...and that´s when I started talking to myself. After 15 minutes or so of this I decided to hitch back to Ålesund. But before I could succeed a voice said "Excuse me but you are walking in the wrong direction." Kamilla came and saved me from certain death by reindeer attack and so off I went to quite possibly the most luxurious couch surfing experience anyone has ever had.

I think I shall start a business pimping Kamilla as a tour guide. I am sure her parents won´t mind a few more house guests...
"Small cottage on farm next to fjord with own bedroom (with ensuite.) Personal host well versed in every aspect of her country´s language, culture and history. Willing to give lessons. In the schoolhouse built in 1895 that is on her parents´property. Complete with antique globe."

NERD PARADISE.

Seriously though, I had such a good time. We picked blueberries from the side of the path (Kamilla says this is very common and unexciting but I don´t care). And we went hiking 3/4 of the way up a small mountain. (see note above, Norway hearts steep things). We watched Norwegian films and ate Norwegian food (though this was limited to a sort of porridge and chocolate because of my vegetarianism).

and then we went to a week long queer youth festival.
and it was awesome.

I am now in Lofoten, islands above the arctic circle famous for fishing, hiking and bicycling. So not really my ideal travel destination. But it is truly beautiful here and I´ve stayed in a lovely youth hostel that is in an old fisherman´s hut, dockside in Stamsund.

...and when I am alone walking along a beachside path near the foot of a mountain or rowing a small row boat or driving my rental toyota camry across yet another fjord...I just quietly practice counting to 15 in Norwegian.

I do prefer company, and look forward very much to seeing Liz in Edinburgh (after next week in Stockholm.) No doubt I´ll feel miserable again soon for I am catching an overnight train and I tend to end up in noisy carriages filled with couples chattering and babies crying and what sounds like broken hinges on the wheels. But I´ve heard Stockholm is very pretty so I´ll soon be gaily bounding through the streets taking too many photos and feeling on top of the world.

Love Maeve xxx

London: it was the best of times, it was the worst of times

The Best of Times

1. Dolly Parton. I thought about leading up to this...putting things chronologically...then promptly changed my mind. I got to see Dolly live from a corporate box thanks to the brilliance of Nat. Well...thanks to her housemate who had the tickets. She offered them to Nat and when I started hyperventialting and listing obscure Dollysongs she asked if I could come too. Anyway I heart Dolly. I want to BE Dolly... sigh...a stadium filled with 14000 people in pink cowboy hats singing and dancing in time to 9 to 5...I can die happy.

2. Pride. The parade anyway...me, kieron et al had a blast and...most importantly ended up marching with Ian McKellen* (see photo evidence). The parade is so crazy. Not like super organised mardi gras who have super awesome SMs that volunteer and where headsets. Oh no. We were able to just join in a group. And there were no baracades on the half the route. It was all DIY madness. I like Mardi Gras better. Sure ending in Trafalga Square is pretty spectacular, but I'll take participants I know and cheap fireworks any day.

* Ian McKellen wears natty linen jackets and cream converse that are perfectly clean. I think dirt just bounces off him and runs towards lesser male actors like Tom Cruise. I'd say Tom would have dirty converse. Ian is clean clean clean.

3. Visiting my Nan. (secretly I think of her as Nanny Bingo still but I think Nan sounds more adult.) I went over for lunch (quiche, jacket potatoes, apples & custard...essex soul food) and it was lovely. She has so many stories, all delivered with immaculate comic timing as required. 'When I met Fred I was so impressed because he brought me roses...then the next week carnations...then I found out he was working in a morgue!' It was fascinating to hear my mother's childhood stories told by her mother. And I really did hoot with laughter more times than I can count. By the way, if you ever need protection, my Nan fended off two armed intruders a few weeks ago. She was in the paper. 'Plucky 80 yr old pensioner fights off home invaders.' AND, she gave me £30 from her bingo winnings!

4. Sitting Reading reading sitting. In parks, in cafes, in bed, on the tube, on the bus, on the nightbus, in the bath. Have finished The Vintner's Luck and I Capture the Castle.

5. Kieron, the gay Irishman I met on the bus on the way home from a mediochre London Pride. We made fun of an American tourist and he has a cousin called Maeve and a cousin called Grainne and he looked very very much like Ian and that made me very very happy.

6. Going to meet Nicole and having her suggest we drink beers she smuggled from a work do in a park nearby...you can take the girl out of Bathurst...

The Worst of Times
NB: by worst I mean not quite as good. I am on holidays. The standards are lifted.

1. Dying my hosts bathtub and towels pink with hairdye. When they really have been lovely hosts. Sorry Carol. Sorry Kathy.

2. Opera in the Park (please understand that the actual opera in the park with the actual picnic and the actual friends was absolutely wonderful. I speak only of the lead up...) So I turned up good and on time for Don Carlos on Thursday, picnic in hand. Then it rained on me. And I mean bucketed on me. Where were Liz, Carol & Sadie? Not there. Not even a little bit there. Fortunately the BP poncho man was. So I stood under a tree in a thunderstorm (stupid) wearing my fetching poncho. For half an hour. Would've been fine if the stupid smarmy wench on the screen hadn't said in her plummy accent 'well here I am in covent garden, but we are streaming live to canary wharf...where I think it might be raining...' And if she had pronounced singer with a hard g one more time while telling us that our view really was better than the view from inside the warm theatre...I tells ya... But salvation arrived in the form of a take-charge Liz Hayllar who found us blow up cushions and extra ponchos for sitting on. Sadie came with a feast and...just like all the other insane poms...we sat in the rain and watched 4 hours of opera. good times.

3. I promised MollyPenny i would not mention going out with them after pride. So I won't tell you that they never arrived like they said they would at 3pm at the women's stage in soho (napping they said they were...) or that drinks in Soho became drinks at Elephant & Castle while I was at Dolly. Or that when I arrived at Elephant & Castle they had decided to get out of the queue for Gay Shame and catch a bus to Vauxhall. We won't mention the £14 'official' women's afterparty in Vauxhall populated by what looked like:
a) straight women
b) teenagers
c) pensioners
d) us
No need to let you know that some of the rooms were half empty or that during the 'show' the women kept their clothes on. What's that about? I definitely mustn't tell you that we got ourselves just a little bit lost in Vauxhall and that if it weren't for Penny we all may still be wandering around London...or floating in the Thames. Oh and I promised not to mention that Penny sometimes doesn't recognise Molly. I will say that it was great to see them and that their friends were lovely and that Penny is an excellent dancer (I respect the posing in time with me more than words can say) and that I enjoy Molly's ruffles and hope they have a super time at the gay ball in gay Paris because I adore them both immensely.

4. Thinking all week that I had booked a 10.30am flight to Oslo. Realising that, no no, I had booked a 7.20am flight. I will be leaving at 3am to get there. I will be tired. I am not happy. Though on the other hand...

...Norway here I come!