V for Valentine? V for Violence?

Ah, yes. It's that time of year. That time with the over priced chocolates at Woolies sharing space with the bunny rabbits and eggs waiting for Easter. The time when no restaurant can accommodate a reservation that was not booked at least six months in advance and various card and gift companies have an opportunity to rake in some extra cash to prepare for the slump that caused accountants to gasp in pain in January. Yes, indeed. It's one of the most cleverly made up 'holidays' ever created: Valentine's Day

It's (supposedly) a day of love, romance, seduction and passion. The story told about St Valentine, who the day is named after, is that he would perform weddings for those who could not afford the big ceremony. At least, that's one of the legends. Very romantic indeed. Which is a lot more of this:

Adorable, yes?

.... than this, which is the most likely fate of Valentine: an afternoon bludgeoning:

Not-so-romantic torture and murder of a Christian martyr



I am one of those who believes that Valentine's Day was one of those pagan holidays that the Catholic Church chose to claim as their own, since the converts seemed to like it so much. Valentine's Day falls on the Roman feast of Lupercalia, a veritable orgy of debauchery and lust. Which sounds a little more like it, and a little more like something the Church would prefer to soften. And discourage.





Those pesky pagans having sex all the time.



So, it would seem that the holiday is born out of two mindsets: sex and violence. Which is why it strikes me as rather odd that  a mass protest/uprising against rape is planned by V-Day.Org for that specific day.

There is no way I can express things better than Lesley Perkes did in an article on Daily Maverick.

I won't be taking part in any marches against rape. I stand for respect for women, men and children. Respect for boundaries, respect for bodies and souls that live within those bodies. Yes, I can turn up at this protest suitably angry. I can carry my placard and march until my feet bleed. I can talk about my own experience and share tears with my sisters. But I won't. As cathartic as such an experience may be. Because regardless, the 'ordinary' guys who would 'never dream of raping a woman' will still see us like this:

 

And worse still, so will most of us.

Afrikaans: Die Taal van Liefde...



The Girls - Tamara de Lempicks - 1928
(Incidentally, Tamara liked the ladies as well as the gents)

 (Afrikaans: The Language of Love)

One night, somewhere at the beginning of our relationship, I sidled up to my wife and whispered into her ear: "Ek wil jou lyf teen my vas hou." (I want to hold your body against mine).

She looked at me most peculiarly. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"Trying to seduce you," I offered sheepishly.

"What?" she said, "In Afrikaans?" She laughed.


Which was not quite how I envisioned a romantic night to go.

It did, however, make me consider the sex quotient of the Afrikaans language compared with, say, Italian or French. I asked my beloved, an Afrikaans speaking South African,  what the word was for 'clitoris'.

"I have no idea, my darling," she replied, a little exasperated, despite being accustomed to my strange questions. It could have been because the question had been plaguing me while she was gently drifting to sleep, and was rudely asked just as she was about to nod off. (I do that. Often. And she has not yet filed for divorce.)

Since she was sufficiently awake, I pressed on: "And 'orgasm'? What's the Afrikaans for 'orgasm'."

She appeared to think about this one - although she could have been drifting off again - before saying, "I don't think there is a word for it," and turning swiftly onto her side, her back towards me, she pulled the covers up over her head.

What? My brain could not comprehend such a linguistic tragedy. If there was indeed no word for 'orgasm' in the Afrikaans language, then that was such a sad reflection of the sex life that Afrikaners could enjoy. Or not. Tears gathered at the corners of my eyes as I envisioned my Afrikaans ancestors having absolutely no words for passion, and never knowing how good two people could feel together without having to do the sakkie-sakkie.

Which reminds me... did they even have a word for oral sex? Nege en sestig (nine and sixty) does not have the same ring to it as sixty-nine. Orale seks sounded way too clinical. Did the Voortrekkers even engage in oral sex?

I was about to stir my wife with these hugely important questions when I heard her snoring softly. (Which she could easily have been be faking, not wishing to be disturbed by me yet again. I've never asked.) Surely there had to be some sex to the Afrikaans language. After all, it's the language that got Steve Hofmeyr laid.


I found an Afrikaans-English translation site. It tells me that the translation of 'orgasm' is 'geprikkelde toestand' (a prickling state), and it provides the rather vulgar term 'doos'(box) as a translation for 'vagina'. It could have at least provided the slightly less offensive 'koekie' (cookie). And I hardly think that 'a prickling state' is descriptive enough of an orgasm. That can't be right.

I've not read any Afrikaans erotica, although it does appear to exist. A Google search revealed that a man named Frederick J Smith wrote erotica - in Afrikaans. Despite his very English sounding name. I can't imagine what Afrikaans must sound like in the erotic romance context: "Gerda het haar vingers diep in haar lesbiese minaares se koekie gedruk totdat say 'n geprikkelde toestand beruik het". * Most certainly does not sound sexy to me.


"Was it true when you said there was no word for orgasm," I asked my wife. I explained about the geprikkelde toestand.

She shrugged. "Orgasme?" she offered.

"That's boring," I told her.

"Afrikaans is not an erotic language," she said, "I'd rather you tried talking dirty to me in English."

Well, paint a giant exclamation mark over my head. Not even Afrikaners find Afrikaans sexy!

She does have a point, though. Even the cheesey voulez voux couchez avec moi se soir sounds immeasurably better than 'Ek wil graag vanaand seks met jou he'. **

It does beg the question, and perhaps someone out there can help, is there ANY eroticism to the Afrikaans language? I mean, of course beyond some odd fetishist fashion or erotic instrument of torture used in BDSM.

If you do have an answer, I assure you, it would cause me to be in a prickling state.






* Gerda pushed her fingers deep into her lesbian lover's cookie until she reached a prickling state.

** I want to have sex with you tonight

Romance and Reality

My sister blames Stephen King for my lack of romance.

We are both avid readers, and in our home, we could be frequently found with books propped up on our knees, silently emersing ourselves in different worlds. (This was most disturbing to our mother who often complained that we spent too much time with our 'noses buried in books'. That is another tale entirely.)

My sister, a speed-reader, favoured Barbara Cartland and "Thrills and Swoons". She devoured these skinny little volumes in one hour per book. I, on the other hand, took my time scaring myself catatonic.

"There's not a shred of romance in you," she would tell me regularly.

"And you have your head in the clouds," I would reply, "Romance isn't real." And she would stalk off in a self-righteous huff with her bodice ripper tucked under her arm, while I made fun of her books from a distance.

I didn't get any more romantic as the years rolled on and I realised that a great deal of couples buy into the romance thing and what I like to call "The Happily Ever After Principle": You meet The One, You Fall In Love, You Live Happily Ever After. Just add sprinkles and ta-da! Ready made happy relationship.

Flowers, chocolates and candlelit dinners, while lovely, do not a good relationship make. Grand gestures and midnight massages with soft, sexy music will only take a couple so far. Relationships are hard damn work.

It's only after the pheromones subside and the bed death sets in that we get to see what kind of stuff our relationships are made of.

Honest communication is what I believe to be the glue to successful longterm lesbian relationships. Honest communication and freedom of expression. Trusting that you can say whatever needs to be said without the other party packing her power tools, gathering up her cats and heading out the door. Or worse: trashing your L-Word collection, packing her power tools, gathering up her cats and heading out the door after delivering a swift kick to your prize winning petunias.

My dad's advice on relationships still rings true for me: "Marry your best friend." It was the only thing he ever said to me about relationships. It is the only advice on relationships I ever followed. There will come a time when you and your partner will need to move out from under the sex scented sheets and into the world. And it would be preferable to do so with your best friend than with someone who scares you catatonic.

Miss, Mrs... no. It's Ms van Dyke to You.

 

"Bitch, please... don't call me 'Miss'..."

I reckon that the only reason I got myself ordained as a reverend (over the internet, it has to be said - not so much legit) was purely because I got tired of people calling me 'Mrs' or 'Miss', despite me making it clear that my preferred title is Ms.

Now something like this shouldn't be an issue, and I am sure that people will say I am being petty. After all, what's in a name, right?

The most entertaining part about insisting on being called 'Ms' is the amount of times people will actually argue with me about it.

The first time I used the title was when I opened a bank account. The lady behind the counter looked at the form I filled in and asked, "You marked the box 'Ms'."

Me: "Yes, that's right"

Bank Lady: "But you also ticked the box that says 'single'"

Me, confused: "Yes... that's right."

Bank Lady: "But you only use 'Ms' if you're divorced..."

Oh boy. Poor Bank Lady. I gave her a loud and impromptu lesson in feminism. Because, you see, I use the title 'Ms' for feminist reasons. Surprise, surprise - calling yourself 'Ms' has nothing whatsoever to do with one's marital status nor sexuality. In fact, the term was in fashionable use in the 17th Century. (Seriously. It was.)

Back in the day, 'Miss' referred to those ladies who were unmarried. 'Mrs' referred to those who were. 'Ms', on the other hand, doesn't reveal one's marital status. Kind of like 'Mr'. (See where I am going with this?)

The term fell into disuse, but was later resurrected because sometimes, writers of letters wouldn't know if the woman they were writing to were married or not, so 'Ms' became a convenient solution. And of course, the feminists eagerly adopted use of the term during the women's liberation movement for obvious reasons.

To me, personally, 'Ms' means that I don't belong to a man, I belong to myself.

And still, the bank does not get it right. I keep ticking the 'Ms' box, and my statements still get sent to 'Mrs'. It's as though the whole idea of 'Ms' fries the bank's data capturer's brains and there's a short circuit that leads directly to 'Mrs'. After all, I have ticked the 'married' box too.

The Lesbians Are Coming to Steal Your Daughters!

... and other myths about The Sapphic Sisterhood.

The sad thing is that many people will read the title of this post and think, "OMG! The Gay Agenda - it's all true!" Oh dear. What have I done? Worse still, there will be others who will read through this whole post and think that yes, indeed, lesbians ARE coming to steal their daughters. Rest assured, your daughters are safe (the straight ones, anyway) and the lesbian mafia will not be descending upon you in the dead of night to deliver an impromptu castration.

Since I blundered unceremoniously from the closet, I noticed that people had some really odd ideas about gay women. Even before the aforementioned blundering, I noticed that men, particularly, had some weird ideas. For example, two buxom blondes with French manicures pawing each other in a porn flick was sexy. Two real-live normal looking lesbians, with no French manicures and sensible shoes, holding hands in public, was considered unnatural and disgusting. Odd indeed. Apparently, only lesbians who look like Barbie, engaging in lewd acts for anyone to purchase and see, is far more acceptable than two women who clearly love each other. With their clothes on.

I had  much to learn. And I did. In the process, I disovered a few myths about the sapphic ladies, the inverts of society, the ladies who love ladies... and I shall share them here with you, and perhaps bust a few of those myths in the process.

1.  "The new girl is a lesbian! Be careful - she'll be making passes at all of us in the ladies' bathroom."

Okay. First off - don't flatter yourself. Each gay woman has a 'type' or personality she finds attractive, and it's not necessarily yours. We're not circling sharks who are attracted by whatever chum is thrown into the waters. Secondly, the bathroom? Really? Not exactly romantic, now, is it?

2.  "Lesbians want to convert every straight woman they meet to being gay."

Generally, many gay women stay clear of  hook ups with straight and 'bi-curious' women. It's just not worth the hassle of falling for someone only to have them return to their man-loving ways. And let's not even speak of  the sexual identity crisis that comes with it. It's an on-again-off-again roller coaster emotional nightmare. A sane, self respecting lesbian would avoid putting herself in the situation where she has to deal seven different shades of crazy straight lady. So, no. You are straight. I am gay. It's all good. You're safe.

3.  "Lesbianism is unnatural because the women are taken away from their duties of having babies."

This argument is very frequently put forward by men who think that a Feminist is a kind of hygiene product used once a month, and they're better off not knowing exactly what it is. Feminism aside, though, is there perhaps a plan for nuns who 'unnaturally' shun men to pursue a religious life? And what of those women who cannot (for whatever reason) conceive? Um... and what about those lesbians who are raising children with their life partners? Nothing to say? Exactly.

4.  "Some women become lesbians because they haven't met the right man"

Funny thing is, that is often said by men, and I have to assume that the arrogant jerk saying this imagines that he is The Right Man. Let me put it to you delicately: Lesbians are not looking for The Right Man. They are looking for The Right Woman. That's the whole point.

5. "Lesbians are lesbians because they were sexually abused and because of that they shun men."

I don't dispute that abuse at the hands of a man would indeed turn a woman's head to the fairer sex. However, I have a couple of straight friends who have suffered such abuse and have remained straight. If there is no inclination for a woman to love another woman, she will not go there, no matter what the circumstances. Just as many of the gay women I know who have never even had a man sneeze in their direction, and they're still gay. Perhaps it's genetic, as several studies have already revealed? No? You don't think science counts? Where do you think the internet connection you're using to read this comes from?

6.  Corrective rape will cure a woman of her feelings towards other women.

Not so much, actually. If you'd like to start a dialogue with a lesbian, to understand how she is in the world, then forcing sex on her is not the way to do it. All it proves is that there are people who have no respect for women in general and lesbians, specifically. Personally, I believe that the perpetrators should be turned over to a mob of angry lesbians and watch as they themselves are mutilated and their genitalia rots and drops off. (They should do that with paedophiles too.)

7.  Lesbians want to destroy the family

Why? I have not received the memo. I am in the dark here. Last time I looked, straight people create their own family and relationship problems. Why blame someone you've never met before for the problems you're having? Because it's easier, of course.





If you have any other myths to add, please leave your comments.. I'd be happy to read them.