Julianna Margulies and Kyra Sedgwick play a lesbian couple in "What's Cooking?"
I’ve come to consider these three movies a trilogy. If I break out one during the Thanksgiving weekend, I have to watch all three.
These aren’t inter-related movies, except that they share a Thanksgiving theme. Two of them have strong gay/lesbian subplots. All of them have funny, joyous moments. All of them are tender, too.
Pick these up to round out your holiday experience:
When 10-year-old Laure moves to a town where no one knows her, she introduces herself as “Michael” and spends the summer exploring what it’s like to be male.
The beautiful coming-of-age film Tomboy follows this 10-year-old girl who — for reasons that aren’t quite clear — resolves to make the other kids believe she’s a boy.
As played by Zoe Heran, she completely looks the part: Soft-featured, perhaps, but lean and flat-chested, with a boyish physicality and a Shaun Cassidy mop of light-brown hair that always looks freshly mussed.
Her peers may sense something a little different about “Michael,” but he’s a deft striker on the soccer field. He’s taller and stronger than the other boys, who haven’t hit their growth spurt, and he can spit for distance. No one questions that the new kid is a boy. Read the rest on NPR.org.
Posted in Culture
Recently, when I packed to move, I found a copy of Katherine Forrest’s first novel, Curious Wine, on my bookshelf. Published in 1983, the novel about two women sharing a room in a Tahoe cabin is still considered the classic lesbian romance. It was given to me by my first girlfriend, who said it reminded her of my own coming out story. She, in turn, had received it from another lesbian.
Before the days of the internet, the lesbian community could only find literature that reflected their culture in women’s bookstores. You were lucky if your community had one. Or, you were gifted books passed hand-to-hand through friends. Continue reading
I didn’t think I’d find anything to top the weird Vagina Bubbles from Hell clip I posted more than a year ago. But now, there are Vagina Flames from Hell. Yes, this is part of a real Japanese erotic horror film, The Big Tits Dragon: Hot Spring Zombies Vs. Strippers. I think Vagina Flames will beat Vagina Bubbles in a possessed crotch roshambo match. Warning: no part of this is safe for work (or lunch, either).
So sweet and funny… this by The Blake Wright who I think of as the Dan Savage of cartooning:
This is sexy, fun, and mesmerizing. Rick Genest, the tattooed model known as “Rico the Zombie” (aka “Zombie Boy”) becomes a pitch man for concealer.
Posted in Style
Deadline is reporting that HBO has made a deal to develop the Oscar-nominated movie The Kids Are All Right into an hour-long series. (Deadline calls the movie a comedy. Was it supposed to be funny?)
Lisa Cholodenko, who co-wrote and directed the movie, will write the pilot script.
From a lesbian standpoint, I think the movie was a mess. This new show promises to do for lesbian credibility what The Jeffersons did for black people 25 years ago.
It’s rumored the show will continue the adventures of the five main characters. They were the same-sex partners (played in the film by Annette Bening and Julianne Moore), their son and daughter (played by Josh Hutcherson and Mia Wasikowska) and their sperm donor bio-dad, who surfaces and tears the family apart (played by Mark Ruffalo in the film).
On-going lesbian drama, lesbian family drama, and the random man… sounds a lot like The L Word with wrinkles and an estrogen patch.
Posted in Culture
Speaking of Ellen, she and wife, Portia de Rossi DeGeneres, have one heck of a hers-and-hers shoe closet featured in this month’s Architectural Digest.
It’s rumored that the house is currently for sale, but the marriage is fine.
See if you can guess which side of the closet belongs to whom.
Tired of over-blown commercials for over-blown scents, Ellen DeGeneres and Keith Urban made their own send-up:
Suzy Hotrod, Gotham Girls Roller Derby
For the third year, ESPN magazine has published The Body Issue, a peek under the workout clothes of top athletes.
Captioned “Bodies We Want,” the spread glorifies athletes in the original uniform of the Olympics.
Both male and female athletes are photographed, and while some of the shots are cheese-cakey, others show a real appreciation for the curves and angles of athletic bodies. (Click through to ESPN and you can zoom in, if that pleases you.)
Alicia Sacramone, elite gymnast & Olympic medalist
Julie Chu, Olympian, coach, and ice hockey forward
Posted in Body
Sweet Baby Jesus, I’ve agreed to read some of my writing in public tomorrow night, as part of San Francisco’s Writers With Drinks series.
I’d be thrilled if even one of you came by to say hello.
I’m flattered to have been included amongst a group of writers who actually have a clue what they’re doing. This means you’re guaranteed to hear some good stuff.
When: Saturday, Oct. 8, 2011, 7:30 to 9:30 PM, doors open at 6:30 PM
Who: Rebecca Solnit, Jillian Lauren, Cameryn Moore, Geek Porn Girl and
Tomas Moniz!
Where: The Make Out Room, 3225 22nd. St. between Mission and
Valencia, San Francisco
How much: $5 to $10 sliding scale, all proceeds benefit Seven Teepees.
About the readers/performers:
Rebecca Solnit’s books include Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas, A
California Bestiary, A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary
Communities that Arise in Disaster, A Field Guide to Getting Lost and
Wanderlust: A History of Walking. She’s received a Guggenheim
Fellowship, a Lannan literary fellowship, two NEA Fellowships for
Literature, and a 2004 Wired Rave Award.
Tomas Moniz is the co-editor of Rad Dad, a zine about parenting, and a
new anthology, Rad Dad: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Fatherhood.
Jillian Lauren is the author of the novel Pretty, as well as the
memoir Some Girls: My Life in a Harem. Her writing has appeared in The
Paris Review, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Flaunt Magazine, Opium
Magazine, Society, Pale House: A Collective and in the anthologies My
First Time: A Collection of First Punk Show Stories and Tarnished:
True Tales of Innocence Lost.
Cameryn Moore is the creator of the award-winning one-woman shows
Phone Whore and slut (r)evolution.
And, of course, me.
About Writers With Drinks:
Writers With Drinks has won “Best Literary Night” from the SF Bay
Guardian readers’ poll six years in a row and was named “Best Literary
Drinking” by the SF Weekly. The spoken word “variety show” mixes
genres to raise money for local worthy causes. The award-winning show
includes poetry, stand-up comedy, science fiction, fantasy, romance,
mystery, literary fiction, erotica, memoir, zines and blogs in a
freewheeling format.
Posted in News Items
This has been kicking around the internets for the past few days, but I thought I would share it with you. (I also thought I should get around to posting something. Sorry for the hiatus, but life got in the way.)
Alex and Emma are Hollywood pretty, but they’re not girl-on-girl guy-pleasing babes. With this one, K-Y may have nailed (metaphorically) its target audience because yes, Vagina, lesbians do use lube.
K-Y Intense is a new addition to the company’s lube line, promising increasing clitoral sensitivity and accompanying toe-curling orgasms. I haven’t tried it, but I’m a big fan of the K-Y Warming line. I like the lube-massage oil combo liquid and the Warming jelly for what we’ll call “higher friction” activities.
There’s a $5 off coupon for Intense here. If you try it, report back (and be sure to include all the juicy details).
Posted in Body
The hottest super-heroes from Comic-Con 2011: Superma’am and Batma’am, part of the Gender Bent Justice League.
Shannon Cottrell of LA Weekly nabbed this picture of Kit Quinn as Superma'am and Tallest Silver as Batma'am. (Why does the bat costume always get me steamed up?)
Alice Dreger is a professor of clinical medical humanities and bioethics at the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University in Chicago, and a guest advisor to Savage Love. She writes a number of blogs, which you can read here. This essay, about a child’s view of gay marriage rights, recently appeared on the Psychology Today blog.
Last week, my son and I were trundling up the hill from the Washington Metro station to our hotel when he spoke a line that has been ringing in my ears ever since.
We had just passed two women, one carrying a baby in her arms, the other pushing a three year old in a stroller. We had been eavesdropping as we passed, and so we had heard the two of them talking about schedules for later that day. I subconsciously read these two women as either two friends or as a woman with her nanny. But my son, who had just turned eleven, read them differently. As soon as we cleared them, he said to me, “They might be lesbians. They’re legal here.”
See Dr. Dreger’s brilliant TED Talk, “Democracy After Anatomy“.
Posted in LGBT
AmericaBlog.com has the perfect t-shirts to poke the President. Click on the photo.
It’s been pretty clear these past few weeks that the man who stood on “Hope” and had the blue states chanting “Yes We Can” is still using semantics to drive his campaign.
Staring into the face of a re-election campaign, President Obama is once again using a catch phrase, only this time he’s “evolving”.
(Now, I’m a science-y dyke, Mr. President, and I know that “evolution” doesn’t always mean a change for the better. You’re buying time, the way a pestered parent does by saying “let me think about it”.)
I expected better from a man who was born at a time when anti-miscegenation laws would have prevented his own interracial parents from marrying in parts of the United States.
I expected him to know that “granting rights” and “recognizing equality” are not the same thing.
Over this past Pride weekend, the New York Times editorial staff took President Obama to task on his wishy-washy stance on same-sex marriage:
Fundamental equality, however, is hardly the equivalent of a liquor law that can vary on opposite sides of a state line. Why is Mr. Obama so reluctant to say the words that could lend strength to a national effort now backed by a majority of Americans?
You should read the whole editorial.
There are two themes on my blog recently: Evolution and vaginas.—
Geek Porn Girl (@GeekPornGirl) June 28, 2011
One can't happen without the other. (Which doesn't mean I'm calling the President a pussy.)—
Geek Porn Girl (@GeekPornGirl) June 28, 2011
Or does it?—
Geek Porn Girl (@GeekPornGirl) June 28, 2011
A logical response to the Miss USA contestant video, “Should Evolution Be Taught in Schools?”
Thanks to MacKenzie Fegan for this creation.
(I didn’t mean “creation” as in “creationism,” just “creation” in the general sense of “creation”.)
Posted in Humor
I survived a femme crisis this weekend with a little help from my friends.
My love and I live a distance apart. Think counties, not states. We’re close enough to see each other several days a week, but far enough apart that we can’t run home to pick something up on a whim.
So Friday I showed up at her place toting all my usual stuff: My computer (duh!), my weekend bag, and a bag of shoes and boots.
What I forgot were my clothes, which I had very carefully hung near the door. I was facing down a busy Pride weekend with only the things I had stuffed in my bag – lovely red lingerie, a vintage black slip, stockings and garters, a tank top, and a cardigan – or had on my back. I had no dress, no skirt, no fetching tops.
To make matters worse, I had stopped for a hair appointment on my way to the Bay Area, and I was dressed in the most daytime basic – a t-shirt, ripped vintage Levis, red ballet flats, and my black leather motorcycle jacket.
When I arrived at my sweetheart’s, we had less than two hours to jump on BART and sign in for our volunteer shifts at a certain women’s party at a certain private location. Yikes.
Since my t-shirt was black and white striped, my girlfriend joked that we could add a beanie and red scarf and I could be Waldo for Pride weekend. Funny and not funny.
I finally cobbled together an outfit that was a little tougher than my usual evening wear, and definitely not what I had planned for our weekend kick-off – fishnet stockings under my torn jeans, my red bra under one of my butch sweetheart’s white ribbed under-tanks, and my jacket. (I was so happy I had a fresh haircut and pedicure and had not forgotten my makeup. These things go a long way toward making me feel pulled together every day.)
I was feeling awkward and I know exactly why. Lately, I’ve been suffering from a little femme invisibility. My professional life has necessitated growing my hair out a few inches. In my daily life, I feel like I just don’t look as queer. Plus, I’ve somehow become une lesbienne d’un certain age* (which sounds SO much nicer than “middle-aged dyke”). Because of these factors, I look forward to queer events, where I feel much more attractive than I do in the world at large.
(Side note: I’m probably not alone in this. I suspect there are lots of queer women who, like me, felt uncomfortable, unattractive, and misplaced until they came out and found their place in the community of women.)
I wanted to look pretty and witty and gay, damn it.
But really, this isn’t an essay about my fashion travails. It’s about compliments and how thoughtful people can really make your day.
During my volunteer shift at the party, I was sitting at my station on a stool by the door, greeting people as they came in. A woman took a moment as she passed by to tell me that she thought my outfit was “perfect”. She said (something like), “you’ve hit just the right balance of sexiness there”. Awww. I felt better already.
But later that night, a young woman** rocked my weekend. My sweetheart and I were sitting on a couch, getting ready to face the cold winds on the way to BART. She approached us and said to me, “I just wanted to tell you that I think you’re really beautiful.” She delivered this in a way that was completely un-ironic. I said “thank you” and told her she was very sweet, but I was really too stunned to formulate a proper thanks.
The next day, when the three of us ran into each other again at the Dykes on Bikes party at El Rio, I explained about my missing clothes and how funky I had been feeling, and how she made my night. We introduced ourselves and ran into each other one more time, at the Dyke March, before the weekend was over.
I know I’m supposed to be able to move through the world without needing the feedback of other people to feel secure, happy, and attractive, but I’m not always completely at peace with myself. A heartfelt compliment is a mood-booster.
In my days as a department manager, I was told that any effective compliment should be brief, specific, and sincere. And I think that’s true in our non-work life, too. For most people, it feels uncomfortable to be gushed over, when a simple “that haircut is great on you,” sounds so real. Statements like “you rock,” “you go, girl,” and “you’re hot,” feel as ubiquitous as “wassup?”.
So when someone takes the time to approach and say something meaningful and nice, it’s special.
The best part of this sort of exchange is that it inevitably pays forward. On Saturday, we passed a young woman sitting on a curb in Dolores Park. She was wearing a long, vividly printed halter dress that looked absolutely amazing against her dark skin.
I stopped right there and told her so.
*une lesbienne d’un certain age: Probably too old to be a MILF, old enough to hunt younger cougars, and not old enough to star in granny porn.
** A special hug to Vanessa in case she reads this.
Posted in Butch/Femme, Opinion, Style
I seem to have a theme this morning:
This strange little video is part of a viral advertising campaign orchestrated by The Richards Group ad agency for their client Summer’s Eve, a maker of various vaginal douches and similar concoctions.
The campaign is part of a rebranding effort that’s been underway since 2010, when Summer’s Eve released an incredibly douche-y ad encouraging working women to cleanse their vaginas before asking for a raise. That ad won a 2010 Tracy Award, a yearly award given to the very worst ads from around the world.
Douches, vaginal cleansers, and “feminine hygiene sprays” are living fossils of an age when women were taught to hate, mistrust, and apologize for, their bodies. Framing it this way, it’s no wonder the damn cat has a male voice.
For goodness sake, love your own kitty. Wash, rinse, and enjoy. That’s all there is to it.
That’s vaginal.
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