Queer is normal – Payal Dhar’s Eternal World

“Well, irrespective of what anyone says,” said Noah, “Stephen’s family consists of Jan. All right? Stephen and Jan.”
[13 year old] Maya digested that. “Stephen and Jan?” she repeated. “Are you sure? They’re always fighting”.
“Absolutely sure. They’ve been together for twenty-five years or so
[…]
“I mean”, said Maya thoughtfully, “like, are you sure? That’s a funny kind of family.”
Noah shrugged. “There are all sorts of families. Parents and children, husband and wife, brothers and sisters, friends. All sorts.”
“Oh”, said Maya. “I thought you had to be related.”
“You do. You relate through love and responsibility, and a commitment to take care of each other.”
Maya nodded reflectively. “Stephen and Jan” she said. “That’s good. I like them both”.

Now, you may not be one of those people who like to read fantasy fiction. But I am. I read a particular kind of fantasy fiction – mostly written by women and preferably with leading female characters. The kind that has witches and wizards and dragons and enchanted things and different worlds. Nothing gory or bloody. Basically, books that my friends’ children would read.

I read them mostly because I lurve these alternate worlds of magic and colour; it is a kind of utopia for me. But I am also interested in how fantasy fiction is written. And while I read, I keep an eye out for characters that are not resoundingly straight. Recently, I re-read A Shadow in Eternity, The Key of Chaos and The Timeless Land – a set of books written by Payal Dhar – and was again struck by how simply and sweetly she has introduced a gay relationship and a non-homophobic world to her young readers. It is ingenious because there is no sudden and didactic introduction of homosexuality into the story and no admonitions to refrain from stereotypes or name-calling.

Instead, what you find is a gradual unraveling of how Jan shares life and home with Stephen, Maya’s Healing teacher and Noah’s friend. We, along with Maya, see the two men cooking, sharing household responsibilities, arguing about life, and caring about each other and the people around them. It is the only family shown up close – other than Maya’s own – and the most ‘normal’. And Maya gradually (and sometime after the conversation quoted above) understands and is told about the relationship between Stephen and Jan.

Gay characters are not unknown in this genre of writing, though queer female characters are rare. Ursula K Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) and Trudi Canavan’s The Black Magician Trilogy are two other instances that come to mind. Maya is an inhabitant of both our world and the Eternal World and there is much interaction between the two worlds. This is different to Le Guin’s and Canavan’s alternate worlds which are very different to our world in geography, climate, customs, etc. The similarity and interaction between our world and the Eternal World normalizes different romantic relationships to the Maya and the reader. The acceptance accorded to queer relationships is highlighted by the questions that Maya asks because of her own realization that it is not possible ‘back home’, which is a successful literary device in this instance. Jan and Stephen stand out for me because they don’t stand out in the story.

Two worlds, three women

1.
When I was younger I was married for around six or seven years. I remember this as being one of the happiest times of my life, for three reasons. One was because the man concerned was an unusual one -talented, confident and quite comfortable with himself -a rare characteristic as far as Sri Lankan men go. The second thing was that for the first time in my life upto then, I was comfortable with myself. And finally the fact that for the first time in my life upto then, other people were comfortable with me.
Life as a queer woman in Sri Lanka, I find is a completely different experience. I am very used to feeling like the weird person in the room since childhood, since that is how I have always been. But being queer in Sri Lanka is a whole different level of weird. So many doors are closed to you, so many things you don’t say to so many people, (often the ones you’re closest to), and so many, many, many things you just don’t DO.
There are places one avoids, conversations one edits, dreams that one abandons, all because you know that for so many people, knowing exactly what and who you are would be just too much to handle. These are the two worlds that many of us inhabit – straight and queer. And still for its difficulties and trials, I know where I belong.

2.
I had girl friends before and after I had boyfriends. Boy friends were uncomplicated. So uncomplicated that I managed two at a time. I was doubly spoilt, taken out to nice restaurants, shown off and generally proudly paraded to friends and family.
With girl friends it’s always been hidden. Never met the parents, never taken home, never invited to dinner with family and rarely taken out.
Yet if you ask me now why I choose secrecy over acceptance I would say “to be myself”. With women I am me, not pretending to be someone I am not, just to please him or his family or just to save face. With women I can be that dark and dirty secret that lives in a closet – but that closet is my own and dark and dirty can be exciting!

3.
In school, for a long time, I was one of a handful of girls in the class who didn’t have a boyfriend. I would either be surrounded by discussions of how some adolescent male looked, touched, gave letters or arranged a secret meeting on the way to tuition classes with my classmates. Or I would have to listen to prim and snooty comments of ‘we’ were much better than ‘those girls’ who had boyfriends. I didn’t want to be in either group. Then in my early twenties, I had an intensely boring and terribly depressing relationship with a man for too long.
Life was much easier, though. It didn’t even occur to me that there would be a time when I would look wide-eyed at how joyfully people around me would greet news of upcoming weddings. Or that I wouldn’t be able to hold hands in a restaurant with the person I love. Or edit certain parts of my life when talking about myself. Or that half the family – the half that had tedious marriages and lackluster lifestyles – would be talking about me in horrified tones. When you are straight, you take these things for granted. I only had one complaint.
Men just didn’t work for me. Nothing to do with lesbian tendencies in denial. The men I was with blamed it on a home with ‘too much’ independence and an education that was ‘too feminist’. With women, my world fits together nicely.

The Real L word

5 reasons why the reality TV show, the Real L word, gets on my nerves!

One – are there any women of colour in LA? Any blacks and browns? I don’t know since I have never been there but maybe someone can tell me how come not one of them were “real” L word people?

Two – what is this obsession with mothers? I mean, I know we all love our mothers, biological or not, but what’s the acute obsessiveness with them also being your best friend? I am not sure if that’s healthy! I mean, my mum is my mum and my best friend is my best friend – I don’t confuse the two!

Three – The Real L word couple planning a wedding and getting married were like “oh my god!” They woke up in the morning and got on to their identical matching macs and started planning the wedding? Every day?! Jesus. What on earth will they talk about and do once the wedding is over? There surely is more to their relationship than that! Well if there was, we sure didn’t see it. Oh and don’t forget the chandelier!

Four – does anybody have, like, a “real” job? I mean, yes, fashion and TV production are jobs but does any one work in more regular industries? Or regular hours? Or hours at all? Is anyone a teacher, a nurse, a social worker or something a little more regular than producers of LA fashion week! (“My biggest and largest production ever”, we were reminded over and over again!)  I mean the world is in recession and people are starving everywhere not to mention the hundreds of natural disasters that occur every year, and you are worried about what to wear? Jeez, just be glad you have clothes!

Five – what is the obsession with small rat-like dogs and where are the lesbian cats? Lesbians have cats, don’t they? But obviously not in LA! And who the f*** will let a dog lick the inside of your palette! Dogs don’t use toilet paper remember!

But yes I watched it all – just so I could rant on this blog. Hope the second season is better!

Dear Sarah

I hope you don’t mind me calling you by your first name, even though we have never met. You see, the thing is, I feel like I know you – although I don’t. I only know your writing. And your writing is not YOU but I am having a hard time separating the two right now. But that is only because I am upset.

As your avid reader, I feel like I own a bit of your writing. After all, I have read every single one of your books as well as your inclusion in Granta’s ‘Best of Young British Novelists 2003’. I have also watched all the movie adaptations of your books. I even voted for you and cheered for you when you were shortlisted for the Booker in 2006 for The Night Watch and I am still devastated that you didn’t win.

So you can imagine what I am feeling right now, having just read The Little Stranger, your latest novel.  Like all your other books, I did enjoy this as well. But I just can’t understand why you have deleted lesbians from the book! It is your only book without any lesbian characters or references. And you know better than anyone that there is a dearth of good fiction out there with strong lesbian characters and I was so proud of your work. You made me proud to be who I am. And now you have deleted us! Aren’t there enough authors out there who write about British class issues and gothic novels and scary stories? And since I am not even British or Victorian, those elements of your books are often incidental to me. But not the characters – they are what connect me to you. And you have severed that connection now.  What do you expect me to do? And more importantly, how do you intend to repair our relationship?

I came out for this?

Am still laughing, having just finished reading I came out for this by Lisa Gitlin. The book is about this older woman –who comes out as a lesbian at 47. She is madly in love with someone called Terri. But Terri is too busy delighting in temporary multiple relationships, and having been ‘through” the author,  has fast moved on. The book  traces the author’s ups and downs as she moves cities to be close to the one she loves and obsesses about. And all this, while not realizing that true love is right under her nose in the form of someone else. In many ways, it’s a coming out story where someone 47 feels like she is an adolescent and just can’t see the obvious.

The book is written as a diary, (where she writes awkward, embarrassing mishaps that are never meant for others to read) spread over the period of one year. It is easy to read, fast paced and full of humor. It left me with a feeling of “I’ve been there, I’ve done that”.

However the one failing of the book was, in my opinion, the lack of exploration of the other characters. I wish the author had delved into the characters a little bit more, to give the reader a better understanding of how she met the one she loves so much and the nature of their relationship before it became this one-sided obsession. I was also curious to better understand what her mother thought of her! But the book is written in the first person, so you don’t get to know anyone very well except the author!

Nevertheless, a fun light read for any lesbian starved of good lesbian fiction.

Feeling Queerly this New Year?

Never do I feel more resentful about heterosexual privileges than on Significant Days. Birthdays, New Year’s Eve, Aluth Avurudu are all designed to make me feel conflicted and low. It is family time and I love spending time with my family. But what enrages me is how difficult this time would be if I want to spend it with a partner – of the same-sex.

All around me, straight cousins and friends spend Significant Days with their spouses or with family, or both. If they don’t turn up at the family event on this Day, they are not asked why. If they do turn up, they are not expected to leave their spouses behind. If you are a straight married female, or even engaged, these are Days when you say ‘I am spending it with him’ and Society smiles fondly.

For those of us in this country who love women, such a scenario is a luxury. Unless you don’t have much to do with your family anymore (all too common in our community) or your family has accepted you just the way you are (I am happy for you. Really.) the day seems far away when we can choose to spend a birthday or Christmas with the woman we love without having to find excuses or feel guilty.

Happy New Year everyone, and here’s hoping you can spend the next New Year queerly!

Vasopressin shots for ALL lesbians, please!

I am a little put out. I was reading up on this Casanova gene: the VASOPRESSIN RECEPTOR GENE. Yep. You don’t know what that is? These Casanova dykes are hiding it. That’s why you never heard of it. Here’s what it is: a vasopressin receptor is a cell surface receptor which binds vasopressin, which is a peptide hormone that controls the reabsorption of molecules in the tubules of the kidneys by affecting the tissue’s permeability and affects the central nervous system in such a way that it initiates and sustains activity supporting pair-bonds between sexual partners. Righti-ho.

Translated, it means the vasowhatever is a gene which makes you either stay faithful or fuck around. Men may be influenced by it and voles definitely have it (sounds absolutely perfect, that vole-male connection). Lady voles, on the other hand, have Oxytocin (fondly called OT by scientists) that make them prone to such things as staying with their first love and looking after everyone (i.e. men and babies).

But we need research to be absolutely sure that we humans have it too. So some committed scientists have patiently got hold of a number of Swiss men, unravelled their DNA, asked them and their wives/girlfriends questions like “How often do you kiss your mate?” and “Have you discussed a divorce or separation with a close friend?” and voilà! Link found between the vasowhatever and human stable long-term relationships (as in over 5 years). That’s us baby, humans.

My non-lizzy sisters. Now you know. You thought it was some woman’s short skirt and the famed 64 seduction techniques, but you don’t have to blame it on your fellow women anymore. Neither do you have to castigate yourself for his straying. Some of these poor things have the short end of the gene and it makes them absolutely need to have sex with someone nice that they see. (If you are already with one of them, don’t worry, I think an antidote is being developed).

And this is when it started smelling fishy. For my lesbean self, that is.

Lizzy sisters. Some honesty is in order here. That dyke you said can’t stay with someone for more than a year? And that really hot woman who just had to hit the dance floor to pull a girl (in a straight nightclub, for fuck’s sake!)? What about the lizzy friend you caught making eyes at your girl? Obviously there is a place I can get these vasowhatever shots in our community. Put ‘em on the table, girls! Not fair.

First love…

1.

I had two first loves. The first first love happened when I was 13. The second was when I was 25. The second first love had more of a life impact on me, so I will make that one the subject of my contribution to this post….

I was 25 and she was a year older than me. It was the first lesbian experience for both of us, so it was all very intense and consuming. We were good friends before we became lovers. We were both straight at that time and we both had boy friends. None of our friends knew and neither did our parents. (However her mother found out towards the end of our relationship.) We were together for two years before we broke up. During our relationship we read sad lesbian stories and books where the gay or lesbian character would often die at the end. Our favourite was ‘Lihaf – the Quilt’ – a short story by Ismat Chugtai. We both loved the sea and spent a great deal of our leisure time in the water…

It took us an age to break up…and even when we stopped being lovers, we continued to see each other as friends. Trying to keep up a pretence of friendship when you still desire someone is not a good idea. It was very difficult and I don’t recommend it to anyone.

(Next time it has to be a clean break and no seeing the ex for a good while I told myself!)

Are we still friends? Yes we are. Not the best of friends but friends nonetheless.

Sometimes when I see her I am reminded of our old relationship, but we never talk about it or discus it. I think an old flame is easily rekindled, especially the first. But we have never gone back. Some things are best left alone.

2.

As above, I have two first loves. Or I should, because I came to loving women later in life. But I spent the last few days trying to remember which boy or man I first fell in love with, and I can’t! I suppose falling in love with a boy is not really a life changing experience.

When I first met the woman I fell in love with I had no idea I would fall in love with her. If someone had told me at the time that I would fall in love with a woman half a dozen years later, I would have laughed. Some things become significant only after events have unfolded. Memories are strained through a sieve then. The sand is allowed to fall through and checked for specks of gold. The shiny stuff is kept separately.

What is chronological time when you measure feelings? At the time I used to think that we went our separate ways too soon, but maybe it was just right, that time. When the beautiful die young they are forever beautiful. Pardon my macabre sense of humor. But because there were beautiful things in it, we could remain friends. The shiny flecks could be sifted for gold and it didn’t have to be all thrown away. Why would you want to send away someone who knows you far better than most people around you, listens to the stupidest things you’ve done without judging you and gives you a hug when things are really bad? Such friends are fine gold, and I keep them close.

3.

I remember the first time I saw her.

It was such a long time ago, or so it seems to me now. Maybe that depends on the event too…and on the person. The distance and space it all acquires as time passes and you move on from your self. From the way you were then, the thoughts that passed through your head and the feelings that moved your heart and hands. The way you remember things sifting, shifting and maybe taking on qualities they never had at the time.

I couldn’t swear to any of it. What I am now is so different in every way, it could have all been a dream. There are doors in my head though, that were not there before, and I have to open a great number of them, one leading to the other like Russian dolls, deeper and deeper, into the very heart of myself, till I reach that place where I look at what I saw once and then lost and I feel the first tear burn my skin like fire.

But the pain that I imagined infinite then, has passed of course and I remember all of those events as a learning experience only, as a time in my life when I was transformed, and that is enough. I do not ask any more of it, of her, of myself now. It has been such a relief to forget, to cease wondering, to enjoy every moment of every day without waiting for the day I look up, look around and see her there again.

But when it was happening it was a continuing story in my mind, with all the passion and fire of any script, any song, any poem, any tale told to any child or lover. For it is mine, you see. It is part of my story and I am it.

Lesbian or straight, here are your permutations

I sat down once and listed the different kinds of relationships I see around me and was surprised at the size of this list. My surprise is probably because we are brought up with blinkers on to look at the first and last models here (preferably leading from first to last with no digressions in between).

relationship with person one is in love with = generally the stuff that films are made out of and expected to lead to a monogamous long term relationship.

casual relationship = this is when someone tells you “oh we are seeing each other but we are not serious about it”.

casual sex with one person without emotional attachment = you meet this person only for sex – no hanging out – which makes it different from the above.

friends with benefits = primarily friends and not in a romantic relationship with each other, but sex and other ‘benefits’ can be thrown in, i.e. shoulder to cry on, etc.

open relationship with a set number of other partners = other than your primary partner, you have decided who to see and where and there are limitations on this.

open relationship without limitations on partners or encounters = the primary partner is the only constant.

relationship with person you love but not in love with = you may not be in love with this person but there is much deep affection and sexual chemistry.

more than one relationship without consent of all parties = aka ‘having an affaire’. The primary partner either doesn’t know or doesn’t approve.

more than one relationship with consent of all parties = both primary partner and other partner/s know of each other. aka polyamorous relationships.

emotional intensity without relationship = intense emotional attachment but sex is not part of it.

committed monogamous relationship = the two of you and only the two of you and never the twain shall part.

Time passed is time past

The river

the river

said Heraclitus.

you think

it is the same

you think you know

how time passed

but

this river is not

the river you knelt in.

time passed is time past,

this water

is not that water,

the cool green water

your feet rippled in

that water is far away

and you will never know

the brown leaves

silvery fish shadows

twisting in the foam.

you will only know memories

dredged up

fished out

grabbed

through the sieve.

time passed is time past.