bigtips

Which lesbian icons will survive our assimilation?

by M.T. "the Big Tipper” Martone

Recently I was asked whether or not I thought certain lesbian cultural icons would survive the increased assimilation the queer community at large is experiencing. Wanna hear what I thought?

Lesbian hair

The Reno. The '88 Sinead. The expatriate bobbe-severe. The accessorial tail. What do you think when you see these 'dos? You think, "She likes to make it with the ladies." And, when you're somewhere that you suspect other lady-makers may frequent, say, Whole Foods or your Catholic all-girls high school reunion, you really appreciate it when they make their presence abundantly obvious. After all, you may only be in town overnight.

But as lesbian culture veers closer to the mainstream-as we're more likely to be out at work, and clothed at camp-can tonsorial absorption be far behind? Will sporting a

"Rosie" or a "Hillary" be so commonplace that we will once again suffer the Maine Homemaker Dilemma of the 1970s? (Stern woman sporting a "Stein"? If her grocery bag

me has been the one on organic kale.

I hate kale. So, under the guise of observance of a sacred lesbian tradition, I get to be holier than thou and kale-free in one fell swoop. I don't wear buttons now, so my "No Scale? No Kale!" pin is in a little box with my pink triangles, but to this day I will not consider buying kale.

Organic growers still pay workers (who are often lesbians) less to harvest kale than any other leaf crop, despite years of organized negotiation by pickers and the boycott. Besides, I know women who've worked as

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packers, and know for a fact that they lick the leaves and spit in random boxes.

Will the kale boycott survive? I don't think so. As coming out becomes less traumatic, and less about utter difference, the need for the support and approval of lesbian community elders will wane. Mandatory lefty indoctrination will no longer be a near universal rite de passage. The dinner party for your boss and her hus-

band is the perfect opportunity to try that recipe for kale friseé. You'll wash it before you cook it.

is full of "Lobsterman's Jock Itch Relief," Self-righteousness

she's probably not a lesbian.)

No. It is certain that lesbian hair will weather the firestorm of assimilation like our friend the glossy cockroach. Why? Your hair, and occasional lack thereof, is the barometer of your very chick diggin' soul.

Sometimes your hair knows you're a lesbian before you do. More to the point, your hair can perform the hypnotic ritual of homosexual magnetism, even when you're too drunk to tell the difference between Lobsterman's Jock Itch Relief and GyneLotrimin.

We need the hair. It's our ID, our ear tag, our computerized chip surgically embedded in the tender flesh of our neck. And while it is recommended that one's first lesbian haircut be performed by a drunken friend (mat knife optional), in extreme cases you can just go anywhere and get a bad haircut.

Yeah, they're stereotypical looks. But if they help cut 20 minutes off the chase, I say, use those 20 minutes in the drug store shopping for the stiffest hair gel you can find.

Kale boycott

In Northampton, Massachusetts, seven years before the National Enquirer would brand it "Lesbianville USA," it seemed feasible to me and my cohort of homo tadpoles that there might just be a monolithic Lesbian Culture, and that we would be pretty darned good lesbians if we learned all of the right things to do, and not to do.

One of the quickest ways to be a Very Good Lesbian was to observe all the right boycotts. Boycott inculcation has been a big part of many a young lesbian's core acculturation. If you have the gall to eat our friends from the sea, they better not have been hanging with dolphins right before they caught the net to tuna heaven. I'm still not buying grapes, GE light bulbs, or Nestle's chocolate bars, just in case. Personally, the easiest one for

If it weren't for the darned "loving my girlfriend" thing, the rampant self-righteousness in the lesbian community may very well have driven me to one of those boy-girl mixed marriages by now.

The ridiculous thing is that this unbearable groupthink is a perversion (and not the good kind) of a pretty reasonable thought process.

"I'm a lesbian. It follows that I should look more deeply at other differences, be more self-aware of how I see and treat other people, and consequently, treat everyone with equal respect and kindness.”

This is probably the simplest way to live a good life. Couple this philosophy with a sense of responsibility to yourself and others, and you're pretty much good to go.

Unfortunately, some women never feel the need to crack out of the inevitable self-indulgence that follows finding their queer selves. The fact that they are oppressed as lesbians has given them not an understanding of folks' similarities, but a bully pulpit. And self-righteousness mutates from annoying to culturally toxic when it reaches critical mass, and is used to control, punish, and censor people who don't fall in with the party line.

Will Critical Mass Lesbian SelfRighteousnessR survive the great assimilation? No. It requires outsider status to feed the anger and jealousy and paranoia that breed it. Denying a woman the enlightened companionship of a particular circle will no longer mean exclusion from the only place she can be her true self. Now she can go do that at Shoney's. Of course there will always be individual self-righteous lesbians. And they will receive fewer invitations to Tupperware parties.

Burning questions? Contact me at the Chronicle, attention Big Tips, P.O. Box 5426, Cleveland 44101, or fax to 216-631-1052, or e-mail to martone@drizzle.com.

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