More than two decades ago, I worked as a proofreader/editor at G&S Typesetters, a company involved in the publication of scholarly books. One of my colleagues was a short and stout female by the name of Adrienne. I was reminded of her by the recent death of Adrienne Rich, who is said to have “brought the oppression of women and lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse.” Both of these ladies—is it OK to call them ladies?—were homosexual.
First, a word about Adrienne the poetess. I had not heard of her until I saw her obit in the New York Times on March 27, 2012. It was extensive and made clear that she had been a highly accomplished and respected person in the fields of academe and the arts. Married and a mother of two, she seemingly realized her true nature in the early 1970s and became a lesbian—something she considered both personal and political. Rich wrote strident socio-political essays, including one entitled “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.” She applauded men who underwent surgery to become "women," saying that they had "given up the supposed ultimate possession of manhood in a patriarchal society by self-castration." Rich loved her victim status, clinging to it like a child does to her teddy bear.
Adrienne and I got along just fine until one day when I told her about a book I was reading, Sappho Was a Right-On Woman (1972) by Sidney Abbott and Barbara Love. (Sappho, who lived in the sixth century BC on the Greek island of Lesbos, wrote lyric poetry about passion and love among women.) While I have no idea what prompted me to read such a book, I would like to think it is indicative of a desire to learn about things that are somewhat “foreign.” In this case, it was about lesbians from their own viewpoint. I surely saw nothing improper in adding this book to my library, but Adrienne did.
She was angry and offended, scoffing at the very notion. I expect she went home that night and told her sweetheart, Daisy, about what had happened. I can only assume that she thought I was “slumming” or reading the book because it might prove titillating to a heterosexual male. I am really not sure because I found Adrienne’s response equally offensive and thenceforth saw no reason to converse about anything beyond our work at G&S.
Had she not gotten all pompous and self-righteous, Adrienne might have realized that I was not quite the enemy she supposed. I have never considered homosexuality an especially moral issue. As indicated above, if that were my nature, I would embrace it. But try howsoever I might, I cannot understand gay sex. I have never been able to grasp the attraction of male−male or female−female. Where, I ask, is the spark if both partners have the same biological and psychological makeup? I realize that 10% of just about every culture on earth is made up of gay people, so we “straights” have no choice but to deal with it.
I recall a controversy from when I lived in Austin, Texas, carried out in the pages of the local newspaper. A columnist had dared to use the term “male−female template.” You should have seen the outrage among gay and lesbian people. By contrast, it made perfect sense to me. How, I always wonder, does the human race stay alive, if not by the conjunction of man and woman?
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