I've been feeling a little heavy. Been doing some soul excavating as well as observations going on within my world and in the outside world.
Although I don't like labels (hence my referring to myself as No Labels), I do identify more with the lesbian lifestyle than not.
I was thinking about a conversation I had with one of my friends who had decided to drop the lesbian label as part of her definition.
I understood her stance--she wants folks to see her work and not just see "lesbian". Cause anything that makes you remotely different is usually the main thing people focus on.
Cause I never identify myself as a lesbian poet, lesbian author...and it's not because I'm ashamed of living my life as one. It's because I was a writer long before I came to terms with my sexuality and my writing covers a variety of things, not just erotica.
I think of myself as a life writer, and I write about such.
But do the people that choose not to carry the label as it relates to their crafts doing a smart thing marketing wise or are they using it as a way to stay closeted?
Which brings me to my Soul Cleanse...at least, part one of it:
Soul Cleanse: Just because one doesn't want to attach a label doesn't mean he/she is ashamed of who he/she is.
You don't see folks saying, "I am a straight artist" or "I am a proud heterosexual graphic designer"---putting it that way, it sounds kind of stupid.
Plus, no matter how many strides this country has made in tolerance, we still have a long way to go in comparison to the rest of the world.
Although the US is deemed a melting pot, I always found that to be a lie.
We are more like a sea of ingredients that are in a pot but the main properties haven't broken down enough to make some good stew.
So I think she is making a good decision. Not putting it everywhere doesn't make her less of who she is not diminish from what she is trying to accomplish. It's too dangerous to assume that everyone is cool with a lifestyle that is different from their own.
Much easier to assume that there are more intolerables than not and adjust when necessary.
Yes, there is a part two, but it's associated with another type of L word.
I'm going to go eat lunch now.
Take care and Happy Hump Day!
Peace.
No comments:
Post a Comment