| Ruthie Sets the Record Straight . . . Sort of
MTV’s Real World Walks on the Wild Side
By Gretchen Lee
Photographs by Debra St. John
Even in television’s Real World, the cameras don’t lie. Or do they?
This summer, 71 million homes nationwide will sit glued to the set each week to see what Ruthie, a native Hawaiian, bisexual Rutgers University student and the wildest girl ever to inhabit an overdecorated summer home-turned-pressure-cooker Real World set, will do next.
In the very first episode, we watch as Ruthie, a spirited woman with an irresistible smile, goes with her housemates to a bar, has drinks all around, and then passes out on the bathroom floor with alcohol poisoning. She wakes up in the hospital after having her stomach pumped, and later wonders aloud, to the surprise of her worried housemates, “Did someone put something in my drink?”
In another episode, after another night of drinking, she impulsively kisses her (straight girl) housemate Kaia in the back of a minivan, and then claims the next day not to remember the incident at all. Ruthie’s eyes widen as she says on-camera, “Maybe I had too much to drink. . . . My girlfriend isn’t going to like this very much.” (She and the girlfriend have since split.)
Making School Safe for Queer Kids
Teenager Alana Flores endured four years of harassment in high school while administrators looked the other way. Now she’ll have her day in court. Learn more about the young woman at the center of a landmark case – Flores vs. Morgan Hill.
By Roxanne Clair
Alana Flores, then in the tenth grade, didn’t think of herself as a celebrity when someone left a picture of a bound, gagged, naked woman in her high-school locker. Scribbled across the picture was the ominous threat, “Die, dyke!”
After three years of such treatment, Flores, an honor-roll student and dance scholarship recipient, was ready to fight back in a big way. In April 1998, she launched a landmark lawsuit against Live Oak High School and the Morgan Hill School District, accusing administrators of failing to protect her from constant harassment.
Hawaii on a Bikini String Budget
10 Ways to Meet Girls and See the Sights
By Dana Williams
Photographs by Siddiqi Ray
With its rugged cliffs, warm sandy beaches and spectacular surf, you won’t have to spend a lot of money to have fun in the Honolulu area. Some of Oahu’s best attracts are free, and you don’t need to be on a guided tour to visit them – just a few tips from a local to show you the way.
Making Love – and Chocolate
Dare We Ask – What Could Possibly Be Better?
By Pam Huwig
Soft and smooth, devilishly sweet and, at its best, messy. Chocolate is a universal pleasure – what could be better?
Award-winning screenwriter Peggy Thompson explores that question with the film Better Than Chocolate. “Love and humor cross all boundaries – as much as some try, it can’t be escaped when it grabs you,” she says.
A sexy romp, this romantic comedy is a testament to the fact that love is the best sugar rush of all. Set in Thompson’s hometown, Vancouver, B.C., the film follows recent college dropout Maggie (Karyn Dwyer) in her search for freedom and self-truth. While juggling her jobs at a local girl bar and a lesbian bookstore, Maggie gets a call from her frantic mother, Lilia (Wendy Crewson). Having recently left her philandering husband, Lilia says she needs to move into Maggie’s loft – immediately.
Against the Odds
HIV-positive, South African lesbian activist Prudence Mabele shares lessons learned in a hostile world – with lesbian activist and friend Palesa Bev Ditsie.
By Palesa Bev Ditsie
Prudence Mabele, born in Benoni, South Africa, is an HIV-positive lesbian activist and tireless figure in the struggle for people living with HIV and AIDS in South Africa.
Prudence, a lifelong lesbian, believes she contracted HIV in 1993 during a heterosexual affair pressured by her family and friends. She was, at that time, a student at Technikon, a technical university in Cape Town, South Africa. In the aftermath of her diagnosis, she consulted a hospital therapist, who then disclosed her HIV status to the university staff.
A big battle ensued as professors feared, irrationally, that she could somehow infect staff and students. She was first advised to switch classes from analytical chemistry to engineering. Later, she was expelled entirely from the university, and her scholarship was withdrawn, due to her HIV status.
According To
Why I Do Lesbian History
By Lillian Faderman
I decided that I was a lesbian in 1956, when I was 16 years old. I’d had crushes on females since the age of 11, when I fell in love with the piercing blue eyes and high bosom of a neighbor lady who taught ballet – but I’d also had crushes on boys. That came to an end when a friend took me to the Open Door.
He was gay, and he wanted to share with me the public gay life he’d just discovered. The Open Door was a gay and lesbian bar in a dilapidated part of central Los Angeles – a “dangerous” area – where the streets were populated by winos and hookers. As minors, Eddie and I could only get into a bar with phony Ids, and I was nervous all night that we would get in trouble. Yet, I took one look around the Open Door and I had an epiphany.
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