Rin was one of my first lovers, ever.
I've been very hurt and angry, for very many years, because of the way she treated me.
But she didn't know something, and neither did I.
I believe it was the first time we made love.
She was between my thighs. She was reaching up to touch my breast.
As her hand stroked up my body, she felt the tension in my abdomen.
She stopped and asked, what's this? What are you doing?
I explained I needed to bare down, to force blood to my genitals, in order to orgasm.
She said that, no, I didn't need to do that. She coached me on moving my body, to feel more pleasure.
Sometimes, it would work. Often, it would not.
I felt inadequate, incomplete and stupid, very often, for being preorgasmic.
I had a great deal of difficulty, both sustaining arousal and orgasm.
Somewhere along the way, I discovered that both marijuana and alcohol helped. Alcohol was tricky, of course; it can deaden sensation. But marijuana was a sure fire medication to reduce anxiety, to increase sensation, to reduce inhibition and even to reduce the pain I feel when aroused.
One night, I smoked some marijuana before sleeping with Rin. She was furious, that I felt I needed a chemical with her.
I don't remember if she intentionally humiliated me, but I was humiliated.
In those years, I didn't know I'd been insestuously raped. And I certainly didn't know I'd been genitally mutated!
So, coming from a Southern Baptist brainwashing of believing: sex outside of heterosexual marriage is evil, sexual women are evil, Lesbians are evil, any sex besides heterosexual intercourse in the Missionary Position was evil -- coming from THAT background, into a sexually "liberated," woman-only ...blah blah universe was, to say the least, confusing.
And now, my lover is telling me I'm a failure as a woman.
After that, I learned to fake orgasms with partners. And I felt horribly guilty and ashamed for doing so.
I had an affair with a man, WHILE writing for the Lesbian Tide. It was SO much easier! He didn't CARE if I felt anything, as long as he got his.
Soon after, I left the Lesbian Feminist community. I tried to stay "true" to the sisterhood, but got little support from it.
So, as the eighties came along, I found myself with men. It was easy to drink alcohol, pick them up, use them and never see them again.
After I got sober, I came out again. I fell passionately in love with an old friend, Teramota.
But, for reasons I still don't understand, she was ashamed of me, embarrassed by me, unsatisfied with me. She never told me the truth as to why.
I do know I went to a Queer 12 Step conference with her, in San Francisco, and that she became very agitated with me for my response to a workshop on incest survival.
Again, I STILL didn't remember the incest, or the genital mutilation. I was JUST beginning to approach my core trauma, without even knowing what I was doing! All I knew was that I'd attended a poetry reading, back in Pacific Grove, that dealt with incest, and that I'd identified with that, and wanted to know more.
I don't know why Teramota became so angry with me, for my response to both events. But she was furious with me for my emotions. She was short tempered and verbally abusive. She even said I "made" her want to hit me!
She was, by the way, a psychiatric nurse, and should have known better. I took the abuse, never told a soul, and felt guilty and ashamed....and crazy.
I had moved to Pacific Grove, where she lived, because the community and environment seemed healthier than Los Angleles, where I'm from originally.
But, as my income reduced and the costs of living there rose, I was forced to pack up and return to L.A. for schooling, for a hope of a career in radio.
I felt like a failure that I had to leave.
I got a job and met Juan. We had a passionate affair for about six months. I married him, for legal reasons. He was a good sex toy and kid brother, and I loved him very much. But he was never a partner.
From the time I was seventeen, until the time I met Juan, when I was about thirty-five, I had a good friend. Her name was Ardy. We were like peas and carrots. We tore things up. We adored each other.
Ardy was travelling a lot, and I missed her something awful. So, one day, when she was in town on one of her rare appearances, I invited her to visit me at the apartment I was sharing with Juan.
She arrived and I met her downstairs, at her truck.
She wouldn't come up. She said I was sleeping with the enemy. She said she didn't want to be around me, because I was drinking alcohol again.
I'm not an alcoholic. But during those first years after leaving the Lesbian community, I'd had a horrible job. I was alone and lonely, constantly. I'd drink a beer an hour, for twelve hours, to sedate myself enough to stand my job. After work, I'd drink several shots of hard liquor, pick up a man and "do" him, to ease the loneliness.
My boss suggested a therapist, when I marched in one day and tried to quit. The therapist recommended AA.
I'd told both of them: I can't do this job without drinking, and I need to quit. They wouldn't let me quit; they tried to blame it on the drinking, not the working conditions!
AFTER I quit the job is when I moved to Pacific Grove.
I stayed sober in Alcoholics Anonymous for over two years.
Back down in L.A., Juan's cousin came up from Mexico. He'd bought some tall cans of beer, and offered me one. I accepted. I drank almost half a can, and passed it back to him. I knew I didn't need or want to get drunk.
And that's the way it's been for me with addictive, mind altering chemicals ever since.
I was never an alcoholic, but I might have become one, if I hadn't chosen a healthier life.
But Ardy didn't want to hear it. The indoctrination of AA kicked in for her: if you drink, you'll get drunk, and THAT will kill you.
So, I lost my best friend.
Now, here I am, hundreds of men later, coming out again. All alone; there is no community for me anymore.
I've tried to find Rin, Teramota and Ardy. I want to tell them.
It was never about me being inadequate, crazy, a traitor, incomplete, etc.
I am an incest survivor. I survived genital mutilation which is, at the moment I write this, causing me pain for wanting the most beautiful woman I've met in fifteen years.
And I loved you women! And I TRUSTED you women! And YOU HURT ME to the very CORE of my womanhood, and then blithely and smuggly turned your BACKS on me, and WALKED AWAY!
I was left with silence: the toxin that has killed MORE of us than beatings, drugs and rapes, combined!
You LEFT ME TO DIE!
And I loved you! Torn and damaged as I was, I LOVED YOU!
THAT's what I want to tell them.
To make ammends to MYSELF, THAT'S what those women need to KNOW!
