Male Lesbians and Other Cunts

Mark Pritchard

I've been working on a non-pornographic story about hunting polar bears in the Arctic -- yep, that's right -- and I sent a draft to my friend Darla in Alaska. 

Darla is worth a whole column all by herself, or maybe a book. She's a dyke who is an Alaskan native and knows everything about the outdoors, including hunting with rifles, which is why I sent the story to her for her technical advice. When she lived in San Francisco she organized the Street Patrol to protect people against gay bashing; then she promptly joined the Peace Corps and spent two years on a Pacific flyspeck as the chief architect for a nation with a total population of 8000.

Because Darla is between girlfriends, I thought she would like to read another one of the pieces I've been working on, a porn novel called "Lesbian Camp Girls." (This is the book that Marilyn says will never be published because it is "SO FILTHY" -- caps hers). [More because everyone is underage! -- Ed.] Darla is familiar with my sex writing and I knew she wouldn't have any trouble with the basic premise of the book. The premise is that a lot of teenage girls go at it. Unsophisticated, but done with relish.

I called Darla about the Polar Bear story last night and we spent some time talking about the weather at the Arctic Circle in October and the technical specifications of the .357 H&H Magnum hunting rifle. Then:

DARLA: Oh, and thanks for sending that porn story. When I got home I was with my friend so-and-so and opened my mail and said, "Oh, here's Mark's story he was going to send me about hunting polar bears, and here's his pornography, Lesbian Camp Girls!" And she said, "Lesbian Camp Girls, what's a man doing writing about lesbians?" And I told her, "Oh, you just have to have a good imagination. Like, you could write a story about going to the moon without ever getting in a rocket."

ME: Yeah. It's like that.

But it's a good question: What business do I have, a bisexual man, writing about women's sexuality or using the first person in a story about lesbians? Because it's not just like pretending to be an astronaut or a fireman or even a Japanese guy hunting polar bears. Being a man and writing about lesbians, even taking on the persona of a lesbian and writing from the first person, is an action loaded with layers of political and sexual meaning.

From time to time I read Off Our Backs, the feminist newspaper. There you get the real stuff -- radical feminism, completely un-watered-down. The folks who write and publish it are completely radical and they offer no apologies whatsoever -- these are the kind of folks that brought the concept of correctness to American sexual politics. There's not much irony or humor in the publication (though they do run "Dykes to Watch Out For"); you get the feeling they feel the situation is so serious that there's not much time for jokes.

For me -- and I know this sounds patronizing, but I don't mean to be -- reading OOB is a little like going back to my favorite beer joint in the town where I went to college. Walk in the door and I'm instantly back in the days when things were more black and white, when it was more important to have the right idea than to have my own idea. Back then, when I was learning feminism, one of the dictums was that only the members of an oppressed group have the right to define themselves. And I still believe that to be correct, theoretically.

Who has the right to describe you?

In other words, only lesbians have the right to write about lesbian sex. Only they know what it's really about, and anybody else who writes about it runs the danger of exploiting it and continuing the oppression of the group. So I know the rule and I know I'm breaking it when I write about women having sex. For me to do so -- and I'll continue breaking the rule by imagining what the folks at OOB might think about it -- means I'm willing to perpetuate the oppression and exploitation of dykes with regard to their sexuality.

Admitting this, there's not a lot I can do to ameliorate my exploitation. I can write well; that's usually the saving grace of any work, no matter how objectionable the attitudes it portrays. We watch the films "Triumph of the Will" and "Birth of a Nation" even though they celebrate the Nazis and the Klan, we read the works of Louis-Ferdinand Celine and V.S. Naipaul despite the racism that tinges their prose, because each of these works is a triumph of style and lyricism over content. As a writer I aspire to the same lyrical power.

There's also something in me -- perhaps in many men -- that deeply desires to have a female body instead of a male one. It probably has something to do with my desire for women and their bodies, a desire to get so far inside that I actually become them. This doesn't mean I despise my male body, any more than a wish to be born in another time means I hate my present life. It's more like a curiosity and a desire so deep it approaches identification with the desired one.

Male lesbians?

But let me make one thing clear. I'm not one of those guys who characterize themselves as a "male lesbian." I've always thought it was a really stupid thing to say, even though I understand why some guys think it's cool. Their thinking goes like this:

"I'm a young white man in a subculture (like a college town or some other liberal enclave) where being a heterosexual man has a temporarily limited currency. In my circle, the males get blamed for sexism and violence and the rape of the earth. To disarm all my angry female acquaintances, and make them realize I'm not one of those bad men they're always slagging, I'll do something to demonstrate my affinity with them. Because otherwise I'll never get laid.

"Let's see, how can I convince the women that I'm not one of the bad men? Well, I'm white and I can't do much to change that. It might be okay if I was gay, because gay people are oppressed, and if I was gay I could line up on that side and be out of the line of fire when they're slagging men. But unfortunately I am not gay; in fact, I'm really turned on by all those strong, angry women, especially the dykes. They're so darned cute! If only I was a dyke, then not only wouldn't they be mad at me, but they'd go to bed with me. That's it! I'll be a dyke. I'll proclaim my support for them by calling myself a 'male lesbian' so they'll realize I'm not so bad. In fact, they might even recognize that my support makes me truly one of them, and then they'd fuck me."

Pathetic, yes. But that's the way the thinking goes. I know, because I used to be one of these idiots in college. I thought dykes were impossibly cool, while practically all men were detestable. I wanted to do anything to get the dykes to see me as harmless and in fact not so bad and in fact possibly even worthy of a mercy fuck. Because (the thinking goes) some of those cute dykes are actually bisexual so if I can portray myself as an okay man, who knows what might happen.

Face it: if you're a wannabe and you just think dykes are really cool, and you want to hang around with them, then there's only one thing that will allow you to do it. You have to suck cock and french-kiss other men.

What does that have to do with identifying with and supporting women, you ask. Well, nothing, but it's the only thing that will convince a dyke that you're really willing to give up your patriarchal male dominance. Get on your knees and open up. It's the only way.

As if they cared, that is. The fact is, dykes don't give a shit about whether we live or die, boys. They never even think about us -- that's one of the whole points of being a dyke. The fact that you hear them slagging men all the time doesn't mean they think about men one way or the other. They just do it when men are around so we'll go away.

Not even in the house

For the whole political point of being a lesbian and having no truck with men means that men are not there. We don't get to come in the bedroom and watch. We don't get to listen to, much less participate in, the conversation. We are not even in the house. Lesbian politics means only women have the right to talk about lesbians having sex or doing anything, for that matter.

So where do I get off -- no, let me rephrase that -- what gives me the right to write about lesbians having sex?

Nothing. By writing about women having sex with each other, I'm stealing the right of lesbians to define their own experience. I'm colonizing the lesbian bed. I'm just as bad as Bob Guccione and all the soft-focus pornographers making money off exploiting images of women's sex -- false images at that. Except that my stuff isn't quite as soft-focus and I'm not making any money, but that doesn't matter. Morally, I'm just as bad.

Q. Oh, cut out that moral crap about whether or not you're guilty.

A. No, it's important for people to realize I'm not just another one of those dumb men exploiting images of women's sex.

Q. What are you then, a smart male exploiter? Someone who's aware they're exploiting? What difference does it make? What is this distinction you're making between yourself and Bob Guccione, you should be so lucky?

A. Well if the readers know I'm in on the joke, if they know I'm aware of my culpability, then they might feel I'm not so bad.

Q. You mean --?

A. Yes. I'm still trying to convince people that I'm one of those okay men.

But what's so fucking fascinating?

All questions of morals aside, there's another question that needs to be answered. Why are men so fascinated and turned on by fantasies of women in bed together? (And let's not differentiate, for the moment, between Penthouse-type lesbians and the ones in the pages of the most out-there grrls-only dyke porn zine because guys read and get off on those too, of course.)

Partly prurient curiosity. Partly that desire I mentioned before, the desire for the female that is so deep you see yourself in the picture, not with a prick but with a pussy. But there's also something else. Whether or not they buy into the dictum that men are in charge of the world -- plenty of men don't really see that men rule most realms, even though for some reason the ones that don't see it seem to be the ones that complain about having their balls busted -- men resent being shut out of any group, even a group that by definition they can't be a part of.

Perhaps the uncoolest thing to be, in certain circles, is to be a straight white Anglo-Saxon male. You're not as ethnic as blacks, Asians or Jews; you don't have solidarity in oppression like women and queers; except for a few precious years, you're not young and cute. The fact that you have a million privileges (most of which you don't even recognize) doesn't make you happy; you wish you could change your skin to make yourself cooler, more in touch with the unknowable, more desirable. The lesbian bed is just one more place you're shut out of. And if you're someone with a high sex drive (again, includes most men), the prospect of two women doing it is just -- so -- sexy!

For those men who absolutely cannot bring themselves to suck a cock, there is no escape. You just have to settle for ruling the world and let the rest of us be cool. But for those of you who have fantasized -- even a little -- about what it's like to have something in your mouth, I suggest you go down to the nearest peep show, get some unlubricated condoms, and open wide.

It won't get you into bed with two girls at once. But at least you'll have a dirty little secret like the rest of us. And that makes you at least a little bit cool.