#lwll

[habibialkaysani]

i get that that post about “white wlw” is well-intentioned and I agree with the sentiment but I wish op would phrase things differently so we’re not taking from black women who have coined the term specifically for them.

[taliesing-blog]

Things You Should Know About Me #1: I'm A Lesbro

Today I introduce a new topic here at Just Taliesin: “Things You Should Know About Me”. In these columns I'll cover bits about my personality that it might be good to know if you're going to read this blog with any regularity. You don't HAVE to read these columns if you don't want to (which, I suppose, is the case with this entire @#$%! blog), but if you don't you'll probably be faced with a reference (or entire article) that makes you go “wtf?!?” at some point or another.

Today's inaugural column deals with the subject of lesbians. No, I'm NOT one of those guys who claims to be a “lesbian trapped in a man's body”. Those kinds of guys (I hesitate to call them “men”) are only one half-notch higher than someone who wears a hat that says “Bikini Inspector” on the “Pathetic Creep-O-Meter”. Besides, I can't be a male lesbian: I don't own NEARLY enough flannel.

What I AM is something known as a “lesbro”. No, it's NOT a gay toy company... while some call lesbros the male equivalent of a “fag-hag” (where “fag-hag” is defined as a woman who's main social circle is made up mainly of gay men), lesbros themselves fall under a much wider range of social interaction with “ladies who love ladies” (LWLL). Basically, a lesbro is a man, most often a straight man, who has (and finds it very easy to have) close friendships with gay/lesbian/queer/bi women (the aforementioned LWLL). We're men who find it quite easy to believe that not every woman wants to sleep with us, and are mature enough to know that this is a GOOD thing! (I'm one of those people who equates sexual relationships with intense emotions/love, and I've had enough close female friends to know that with many of them, I would NOT want to endure some of their ideas of “exciting relationships!”)

I had my highest concentration of lesbian/LWLL friends in my early 20's. Then, school and careers took many of them away from my orbit. Being young and adventurous, we didn't always write the way we thought we would, and the few I've been able to track down on the internet have become, all these years later, faces on a computer screen... what passes for an extended circle of friends in the 21st century.

That's where most of my lesbian friends reside at the present time... online. I'm more connected to them these days than I have been in years, and I've made some great new friends in the past year who are gloriously, unashamedly, LWLL. It's not that I'm averse to having real-life lesbian friends, but I've never been one to go “trolling for local gays”, and I live in a conservative area of a state who's residents thought that it would be a SWELL idea to write anti-gay bigotry into our state constitution. I'm hoping that, once my movie career takes off, that I'll expand my circle of friends to include some go-and-hang-out-type lesbians, but I'm no gay groupie... I'll wait for the real friendships to form locally.

However, if you're in Northeast Ohio and would love to have a funny, sarcastic, and/or Pagan lesbro, drop me a line. I can't promise you we'll be BFFs, but I'm always open to meeting new people.

So, I'm a lesbro... don't be surprised to see me cover topics that include lesbian films, music, TV shows, and LGBTQ equality issues. These are my friends, and I love to see media that reflects my friends. I also consider LGBTQ equality issues to be THE first big civil rights issue for the 21st century, and even though I'm straight, I think that “liberty and justice” really should be for ALL.

I've even started a Facebook group for people like me. It's called: Straight But Not Narrow. Come on over and join us... and let any other straight, open-minded people you know in on the group as well. The forces of tolerance and openness need all of the numbers we can get!

Now you'll have to excuse me... I'm going to go and listen to Tegan and Sara while I catch up on my After Ellen discussion threads. The kids are in bed and this is MY time, dammit...