It Never Was But it Never Matters

Losing friends is part of life. All life on this planet ends in its time. People, animals, plants - relationships. Ultimately, they are all doomed to death.

Some things die in natural course. Some die before their time. But all things die.

There were people who lived hundreds or thousands of years ago. Not a single person on this planet today knows they were ever here. But they were.

There was a time when they were alive and living. And when they died their life continued in the memories of those who knew them. But then those who knew them died, and their life could only live on in those who had been told about them. And then those who had been told about them died. Fewer and fewer people talked about them. Until nobody remembered they were here. All that become known was that someone was here. But nobody knew who.

The physical death of a lover is devastating. Some people never actually recover. The best they ever manage is to continue in their own life. But they don't really live it anymore. The grief just doesn't go away.

They are lonely.

I won't say it is more or less painful, but when the lover lives but the loving has died it is very much like physical death. There is grieving. And some people never actually recover.

We're lonely.

I have been told by many people recently that if someone truly loves me, then in time they will let go of anger/hurt/whatever negative feelings they have and return to me. And if they don't ever return to me then they probably never really loved me in the first place.

I know they mean well, but does making me think they never loved me in the first place supposed  to make me feel better? The only remaining joy I have of my lover turns out to be a lie? That means there are no happy memories.

When Blue-Eyed Boy was very young - couldn't walk or use many words - I had him with me in a store. He was fussy. Life gets awful samey when you're sitting in a shopping cart. And for people that young samey can get bad in a hurry. But before his fussed too much he saw something fantastic: a giant wind-up jumping Tigger toy. It was being demonstrated. Wind it up and it would bounce its head a few times and then do a big flip. Blue-Eyed Boy thought that was pretty cool. And by letting him hold on to one and play with it I was able to complete my shopping in peace.

I had no intention of buying the toy, so it never really belonged to Blue-Eyed Boy. But you all know what happened when I finished shopping and finally put Jumping Tigger back on the shelf? Blue-Eyed Boy was upset.

Now I have been lucky with Blue-Eyed Boy. He has only thrown one tantrum in his whole life. That was a difficult time, but we got through it well enough. It took the most difficult time out I've ever experienced. I sat with him. We were BOTH in time out. And maybe that's why he never had a tantrum again. He knew he was not alone.

But losing Jumping Tigger was hard. Blue-Eyed Boy had come to believe Jumping Tigger belonged to him. So having it taken away was not a matter of him not getting his way. It was like losing something he already had.

He didn't throw a tantrum. But he cried. He cried a cry he had never cried before, and only repeated since when we lost animals due to illness. He was grieving.

Did it matter to him that the toy had never really been his? That poor communication on my part had helped him misunderstand? No. That didn't matter at all. What mattered is that he had believed he had something precious. And now it was gone. It broke his heart.

There are those who probably disagree with what I did next. We were actually more than a mile away from the store when I stopped the car to try and talk with him. Then, crying myself, I turned around and went back to the store and bought Jumping Tigger. Blue-Eyed Boy still has it. Hasn't played with it in more than ten years, but he still has it.

That was the only time anything like that ever happened with Blue-Eyed Boy. Since then I have been careful to be more clear about what is - and what is not - his.

But why is it so wrong for me to feel the same way about a lover?

Does it matter their love was never actually mine in the first place? No. Because there was a time I was convinced it was. There was a time when I sat in my shopping cart content with what I believed was mine. And now that it has been taken away - - - - -

I'm grieving.

So go ahead and tell me I was never loved in the first place. The proof is that my plea for reconcilliation has been ignored. Not even a "no" answer. Just silence. Like I don't exist.

It doesn't matter if they never loved me. Because I believed they did. And now they don't. And it hurts. And I always feel like crying. And I don't know how long it's going to take to recover.

I'm lonely.

So What Have I Done Anyway

Fairyhedgehog, who has some of the most adorable, humorous, and clever posts has another one: Have You Had Sex.

She links to another blog in which study results are listed. Included in those results is the statistic that 95% of respondees considered penile-vaginal intercourse sex. So what do the other 5% think of that? God knows. lol

What I find most amusing about that statistic is I have struggled with the definition of sexual intercourse myself. (Oh. In case you're wondering, this is one of the few times I go with the majority. I DO think putting a penis into a vagina is having sex.)

But then there are the cases of rape. Is that sex? Unfortunately, yes. It's just that sex has become a weapon and not a means of love making.

But enough about that.

One of the the comments to fairyhedgehog's post mentioned "phone sex" and "cyber sex". IS that sex?

And what about this scenario:

A woman goes online. She takes on a male personna. (Why doesn't matter. She just does.) She meets a female personna. They get to chatting/texting and find they are attracted to each other. So, unable (and unwilling to take the risk of) to be together physically, they begin talking about what it would be like if they could be together. IOW, they have cyber sex.

Is this woman a lesbian? Did she engage in sexual activity? I mean, she knows she's not a man. But she really doesn't know if the woman she's been pretending to have sex with is actually a woman. What if it's a man pretending to be a woman?

This whole gender/having sex thing online is very confusing to me.

No wonder I say I'm gender confused.

What Should Writers Know When They Write

What I probably should be doing is taking a few days between posts to collect my thoughts better, instead of wandering around every day with random thoughts. But for now I'm posting even when I'm not entirely clear in my head what it is I want to say. I hope it doesn't make me too difficult to follow.

I'm thinking more about the fact that writing about sex and writing about lesbian lifestyles do not have to be the same.

Maybe it's just an excuse, so I can tell myself I don't have to write bedroom scenes. Not that lesbian love scenes are any harder (or easier) to write than heterosexual love scenes. I don't write those well, either.  The problem I run into is getting so caught up in the physical I forget to include what's really important: the spiritual binding which comes between real lovers, as opposed to sexual partners. I suppose even in mere sexual gratification there is some sort of spiritual binding taking place, but it would be minimal.

The more I write about it the more I find myself wondering if sex isn't merely a red herring. Perhaps what I am really struggling with is writing believable love. For that is what I really want to write. Sex is simply one of many possible manifestations of that love. It's such a controversial topic that it easily can assume center stage. But the real issue is the love which motivates the sex. Without the love there is no story worth reading. With the love it is the anticipation that these two people really belong with each other. Olympia and Aileen (opened my baby name book to two random pages and took the first names I liked) are two women - or I suppose they could be too young to be called women - who meet casually. They are not looking to fall in love. They are not looking for a sexual partner. They just meet and 'click' together, so they continue to meet when they can. They become friends. The friendship blossoms. At some point in time romance enters the relationship.

The truth is, that is pretty boring stuff all by itself. In a story, there has to be more going on. Something, or someone, has to be under challenge, and at least one of the main characters has to be directly involved in resolving the crisis. It is, in fact, this crisis which allows the relationship to build quickly and quietly without being addressed by the women. They are so focused on resolving it that they don't take the time to address their relationship properly. This will ultimately put their relationship at risk, for ignored relationships can fall apart just as quickly as they formed in the first place. The story's climax (I'm sorry, I couldn't think of a better word) is when both crises reach their moment of decision. The external crisis must be solved for good or ill, and the internal, love, crisis, must also be decided.

That, of course, is only one way of doing it. Another would be for Olympia and Aileen to meet and almost immediately begin a physical relationship. In this kind of story the question isn't about sexuality, coming out, or anything like that. The internal crisis is whether or not the relationship is truly a life long relationship, or one which should be broken, and the women go their separate ways.

There are a variety of ways to write the story. The key is very much like other things I've posted about. To write a story there are things a writer must know in her head:

• Who is the target audience (women, men, young girls, questioning, timid)
• What is the underlying question (sexuality-discovery/coming out, relationship-marriage/just lovers)
• What is the focus (love, sex)

I have probably oversimplified the questions, but I think you get the idea. Whether we, as writers, use written down outlines or not, we must have a clear idea of the answers to those questions and questions like them before we can effectively tell our stories.

If our goal is to produce erotica then we certainly should not be writing for young girls, and our focus is clearly going to be more on the sex than the love. And the underlying question is probably less about discovery of oneself than it is about what kind of relationship is going to be established.

If our goal is to explore sexuality then our target audience could be any of  the choices, but probably less likely to be men. (That's a prejudice of mine.) The relationship is more in the background and self-discovery and acceptance becomes the focal point. I also believe a story like this is ultimately less about sex and more about love.

There are valid reasons for writing any kind of story for any group of people. But we need to know what it is we're trying to do when we go into a story. Why is this story important to us, as writers? That's probably the biggest question of all.

What are the Requirements

The first I remember being aware of there being anything other than female-male relationships I was in junior high. Whenever anyone was to be severely criticized, or made fun of, inevitiably they were accusing of being queer. I had to ask what this meant and was told it was a girl-girl or boy-boy relationship, depending on what they were. For some, this tag remained with them all the time. For others, it was only while they were in disfavor.

I was some place in between. The only time the derogatory remarks were directed at me was when I was in disfavor (which, I confess, was often). But I learned through the grapevine that should I ever come up as a topic for discussion (not real often) the talk was that I was also queer.

This confused me because I didn't understand why. True, I didn't date. And equally true, I was often friends with others were 'known' to be queer. There were no labels of gay, or lesbian, back then, although the terms were known. The slang at the time was queer. It was always used in a negative sense.

The whole thing confused me because I was the only one not being called it to my face, except in cases of angry disfavor. I didn't understand it then and I'm not sure I understand now. Unless, just being in love can define someone as lesbian (or gay).

I don't mean platonic love, as between relatives or good friends. I mean real love. Romantic love. Just without the sex.

What if two women are deeply in love with each other, but never engage in lovemaking? I remember reading about two such women from the late 1800s or early 1900s. The story is vague in my memory and I don't recall their names. It seems to me that one became a famous author, or poet. The girls had grown up together and everyone knew they were very close friends. But then questions began to be raised about how close their friendship was. There didn't seem to have been any bedroom scenes, but the deepness of their love came under question. People wondered about them. Eventually they were split up, even to the point of living in separate countries. I'm thinking one lived in Australia and the other in England.

These women would have been called lesbians had they shared their bodies with each other. But they only shared their spirits. Their love. Their love was so deep that at least one of them pined away for the rest of her life. But I think they were both very lonely.

But were they lesbians? Does being a lesbian require sexual acts?

And the pining away brings up another point. Why is it that lesbians are viewed as promiscuous? Why is it that only heterosexuals can be viewed as monogomous? I think this is another form of harrassment, sterotyping. It just isn't true. Monogomy is a commitment of will. Why can't lesbians have that?

I remembered reading a long time ago that studies showed each of us meets someone we could fall in love with every four to seven years. It doesn't mean we will fall in love, but we could. But does this deep kind of love require sex? What about people who physically cannot have sex? Does this mean they are incapable of deep, romantic love?

Most of the gay and lesbian friends I have had in my life were unknown to me as gay or lesbian until after we had gone our separate ways. The topic of sex seldom came up in our conversations, I guess. Certainly, I never felt like anyone was coming on to me. Of course, my idea of someone coming on to me is they kiss me like a lover. Subtle things I tend to pass off as my imagination. But I learned of my friends' sexual preferences through other friends afterward. I guess I don't pay close enough attention to the sexual things.

Or maybe I'm just dense.