A
bit later I recall getting so excited in the showers in middle school gym
class, watching my classmates gliding slippery soap suds across their wet,
glistening skin. It was then that I knew at last who and what I was. I also
knew that any form of homosexual behaviour was a serious social taboo.
I spent many nights as a teenager in the dark, exploring my blossoming body
and dreaming of the day when the delicious sensations my hands were producing
would be brought forth by another, by a woman.
Fortunately I didn't have to wait too long. One of my schoolmates, we'll
call her Lisa as that was her name, became my first lover, and I hers. At
age fifteen, the desire to be kissed, caressed and carried to the throws
of ecstasy came to fruition. I fell madly and passionately in love.
Sometime later, perhaps seventeen, she and I were making love in my bedroom
in my parents home. When my mother innocently walked in to find us locked
in a lover's embrace there was a short pause then, "So you won't be
wanting dinner then?" was her stunned reply to what was "laid
out" before her. I told you there were some humourous bits.
I spent a painful, yet bonding evening with my mother that night attempting
to explain what to her, at the time, was incomprehensible. I assured her
that she did nothing wrong and that this "lifestyle" makes me
happy. I told her not to worry, which was ridiculous of course, but in my
youthful exuberance and lust, I saw no looming dark clouds, only the shimmering
silver-lining.
By the age of twenty-one I had ceased to call myself a bisexual and became
what I'd always known deep inside I was, a woman's woman. I'd had many male
lovers, all of whom were generally quite nice and most were at least passable
in bed, some really great. The thing of it was that they could only ever
touch my body, never my soul.
Throughout my adult life I have seen much discrimination and sorrow of others
for whom the coming out process was anything but fanciful and amusing. This
is, in part, why I have been so active in feminist and lesbian/gay rights
movements all of these years.
Lest I leave you with the notion that I have never suffered as a result
of my sexuality, I should note that while I have had little discrimination
and recrimination from friends, family and society at large, I have known
deep anguish emotionally at the hands of a few careless lovers. For me,
coming out as a romantic in a decidedly unromantic world has been much more
of a challenge. Again, another story.
Whether effortless or full of strife, to come out to the world, to declare
oneself, is essential to the development of one's soul. Though many suffer
the proverbial slings and arrows by doing so, it is those who do not, those
who hide in the shadows cast by their own deception, it is they who suffer
far more in the end. It is for those that my heart bleeds. |
