The Lesbo Left

One of my fondest memories of a strip club is unrelated to the strippers. In fact it didn't take place inside the club at all. I was waiting for the valet in a less than kind mood after one of those civilized fights with my fave girl - the kind of fight where halfhearted comments are greeted with not so interested replies while our glances strayed across the room taking care to rest on anything but each other. Next to me on the curb were a couple of short heavy set girls who were also waiting for their car. They too had been patronesses of the club and they clearly had had a much better time than myself. They started the conversation, wanting to know if I had enjoyed myself and asking who was my choice for the evening's best entertainer. They were jolly and crew cut. Their explosive laughs cut through the night. We went out for a drink and entertained ourselves for hours evaluating the dancers for appearance and personality. They had each spent a week's pay on lap dances and VIP. Sex was not an issue during our party although in my drunken state I would probably have agreed had they asked. When morning came I went home to bed and never saw them again. The point is these girls were lesbians, real lesbians, and were for a few hours the best friends a guy could ask for. They are living proof that the cliché of the biological lesbian as an embittered unsmiling man-hating virago is decidedly untrue. There are, of course, individuals out there who fit that description, but their personality quirks have, I surmise, been turned into a generalized type by an unholy alliance of largely goddist homophobes and a certain misandrist elite who claim the title to speak for all lesbians. I further suspect that a great number if not most of the biological lesbians in the world are far from the generalized type. They don't hate men. In fact they quite like them. They are mostly happy when not abused and genuinely comfortable in their skins. Like male homosexuals they just prefer sex with their own gender. Not even necessarily companionship - sex. My two strip club buddies did not vilify strip clubs; they patronized them. They did not stigmatize porn; they saw it as an opportunity to see as many gorgeous women as possible. Wherever you are Nancy and Jodie, I hope you're enjoying life!

Even more telling upon reflection is the fact that nearly all of my models and in fact most of the women I know, including my closest friends, regularly have sex with other women either as part of their profession or because they just enjoy it. (The fact makes me jealous because they have a choice of twice as many partners as I do.) However, not a single one of them is a man hating virago and only the rare exception would classify herself as a lesbian. Most are either married or have boyfriends, usually several, or both. If pressed they would probably respond that sex is with an individual not with a gender and while there are obvious differences between sex with a man and sex with a woman, all that means is they have extra ways of enjoying themselves. Even Bree who does consider herself a lesbian maintains primary relations with men.

It is because of my conclusions in the preceding paragraphs that I use the term "lesbo left" not entirely cheerfully, but rather with a heavy heart and a weakness for alliteration. The phrase, I admit, is what Tom Paine would call one of those "sallies of imagination, which are fairly and advantageously indulged against an enemy, but ungenerous when against a friend." By "lesbo left" I do not mean biological or psychological lesbians, those women who prefer sex with women to the exclusion of men. Obviously I don't mean the stunningly beautiful bisexual women in my social circle and professional life. The operative signifier in the term "lesbo left" is not "lesbo" but "left." I refer to that noisome group of failed revolutionaries who take out their dashed hopes for a worldwide Maoist revolution on men and what they call the sexist, classist, racist, paternalistic power structure that gave us such abominations as indoor plumbing and allopathic medicine. Let me set aside for now that crowd to gnaw their entrails in postmodernist despair. I'll deal with them elsewhere. The point here is to present my apologies to true lesbians like Nancy and Jodie as well as to my other female friends for using a term that invites misunderstanding. To be utterly clear the lesbo left includes heterosexuals and men as well as women, and I am convinced that most lesbians have at worst a bemused condescension toward men. My calculated insult is of a piece with my use of the phrase "academic faggot." Just as an academic faggot is not a homosexual (or not defined as one), so a lesbo leftie is not a lesbian (or not defined as one). Come to think of it I could use the term "feminazi" which was banned from priest ridden cable teeevee by - of course - the lesbo left. For the sake of linguadiversity I shall use both: A feminazi is a member of the lesbo left.