Posts by Megan Wegan
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She held on back like a child, and listened and smiled, even though I could tell the words weren’t really getting through. It didn’t matter.
When I was little, I loved nothing more than to play hairdresser with my grandmother. I'd give her mohawks and spikes and I think I once attempted dreads. But she loved having her hair brushed, so it worked out nicely. When my grandmother was dying, of alzheimers, I went to visit her. She no longer knew who we were, and hadn't for a long time. I couldn't quite cope with sitting there watching her, raspily breathing, so I picked up a hairbrush, and started brushing her hair. She visibly relaxed, her breathing got slower. I like to think she knew it was me, and while I know she likely didn't, it did demonstrate the power of that sense. And it made me feel better too.
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Part of that change is generational, partly because I’m now in an artier and more liberal milieu. I also know a lot of people who live with depression, PTSD or other mental illness, and I think many of my friends are aware of the value of Platonic touch (as Ben, John and B Jones have pointed out) for maintaining self-esteem and human connection. It makes for a much more humane society.
I have always been a fairly touchy person, particularly with friends. Lately, I am less so, and am sometimes (not often) quite uncomfortable, even with my closest friends touching me - in non-sexual ways. It's a weird feeling to be on the other side of it, and to not have the words to say "you're making me uncomfortable, please stop."
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See, I’m looking at it from this perspective. If I’m young, and same-sex attracted, and a woman in a bar is kissing me, how do I know if she’s attracted to me, or if she’s kissing me because she wants a man to find her attractive? Consider, for a moment, how fucking depressing that question is.
Oh, completely. I think I meant that maybe if (especially young women's) sexuality wasn't so performative, and so tied up in so many things, that would be easier to know?
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Up Front: Or It's Who We're Drinking With..., in reply to Tom Beard,
Unless you find that “playing into the patriarchal narrative that faux-same-sex-attraction will get a guy to think you are hot” is annoying in itself.
Hate the game, not the player. Mostly.
There’s also the assumption inherent in the wording “straight girls who kiss each other in bars” that kissing each other isn’t something that real straight girls would do for its own sake, so they’re faking it.
I try really hard not to give myself a label, for various reasons, but I assume most people who know me would describe me as straight. And yet, I've done my fair share of snogging girls in bars.
Once, when I was (much, much) younger, because a guy dared my friend and I to - because female sexuality is illicit and therefore dangerous. (And also, hot.) I remember at the time doing it not at all because I was "scared" to kiss her, or required daring, but because drunkenly kissing a girl in bar seemed like the thing to do at the time. And this was pre-Katy Perry. And I wanted him to think I was hot. But yeah, as Amy points out, if I'm seeing two girls in a bar, how the hell am I supposed to know a) they're straight, and b) what their motivations for kissing each other are.
Except that a) the default position is that women are straight, and that sexuality it fixed, not fluid. And b) their motivations must have something to do with men, right?
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Up Front: Or It's Who We're Drinking With..., in reply to Tom Beard,
Well, no, because I don't find it annoying. Well, much. I find the cultural biases behind it frustrating (if indeed it is two drunk girls pashing because someone told them to), but mostly, I don't give a shit who is kissing.
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Up Front: Or It's Who We're Drinking With..., in reply to Emma Hart,
But for me it contributes to that feeling that that side of my sexuality is faked, performative, done mostly for the benefit of others. It reinforces the idea that bi women are just straight attention-seekers.
And not only is it performative, but that your sexuality exists for the male gaze. Because we all know that all men are turned on by the idea of two women. (/sarcasm)
There’s a question on (internet dating site) OK Cupid, that asks “straight girls who kiss each other in bars are…”. I’ve never been able to bring myself to look at the possible answers, but imma go ahead and assume that one of them isn’t “often playing into the patriarchal narrative that faux-same-sex-attraction will get a guy to think you are hot.”
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Hard News: Party on, dudes, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Surely he wasn’t displaying them at the bar
Dude, you've been to PAS gatherings. What do you think?
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Hard News: Party on, dudes, in reply to Emma Hart,
To be fair we have had a couple of conversations about Megan’s… “attributes”.
That, possibly. And I used to have an avatar, which appears to have gone missing.
But then, I would not want to cast aspersions on Hadyn’s excellent attributes.
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Random Dude in Bar: Hi, I'm RDIB
Megan: Hi. I'm Megan
RDIB: Wait, are you Megan Wegan?
Megan: I am......but, um, how do you know that?
RDIB: Oh, I recognise you from Public Address.
Hadyn (who has been sitting quietly): Do you recognise me?
RDIB: No? Should I....?I feel bad laughing, but...I can't not. (Given Hadyn is a) a contributor, and I am just a annoying commenter, and b) they'd actually spoken on Twitter previously.
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Hard News: Party on, dudes, in reply to Emma Hart,
Hadyn in particular. It's pretty much one of my favourite stories ever, but he gets this funny look on his face when I tell it....