Written by:
Kristin Egener
Photographer:
Laimah Osman
I have decided that there are some things about being a dyke that I just don't get. Jude took me to a coffee shop today (instead of letting me be content with my usual freeze-dried stuff, which she calls "swill"), and there were tons of girls there with pierced noses, pierced cheeks, shaved heads or heads recovering from recent shavings, etc.
How did I miss this place? Anyway, they were all blatantly drooling over Jude, who admittedly is very cute — she looks like a pirate boy — but they completely ignored me. I felt like the only barrier between a bunch of sharks and a fresh meat snack.
After half an hour of feeling slightly more attractive than chopped liver, I pulled Jude out of there. When we (finally!) got out on the sidewalk, I told her, "They were all staring at you." She was like, "They were not," but I could tell she knew they had been. She was preening. I grumbled. "Why don't they like me, too?" I whined. "Did I have latte foam on my lip or something? Coffee breath?"
She just laughed. "Maybe it's because you don't really look queer."
I was deeply offended. "What do you mean, I don't look queer? How am I supposed to look? I thought lesbians were supposed to have some sort of highly honed gaydar, anyway."
"Well, honey, you're sort of femme. It's harder to tell with the femme-y types."
"What, so I have to masculinize myself in order to be a lesbian? I thought that was part of the point of being queer, that you didn't have to fall within gender stereotypes in order to be accepted! But it seems like I have to exchange one set of labels for another!"
At this point, Jude broke into my tirade and told me I was starting to capitalize every third word and that I needed to just calm down. Which, of course, set me off again.
But, honestly, I don't understand. If I had a natural desire to wear boys' clothes and short hair, I could see why that would seem liberating. But I happen to like my hair long, and I don't want to pierce myself and get my nose ring caught on stuff, and I happen to like wearing skirts (short, though!). My fashion sense is pretty good, somewhere between punk and Goth; I mean, I wear a fair amount of dark makeup but I don't go for the spiky stuff, and most of my clothes are funky things I find in vintage stores.
Apparently I don't fall neatly enough into a category for lesbians to see me, though, which sucks, because if queer people aren't going to see me as queer, then how can I be queer? It's weird how much I need a group all of a sudden. It's like that old joke about the falling tree, except in my case it's "if Regina is alone in the middle of a forest, is she still a dyke?"
Smooches,
~Regina
Regina Babydyke's Cyber Diary is a Curvemag.com Web exclusive.You won't find it anywhere but here. We'll be posting new episodes in the coming weeks, so check back soon for more!
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