Post No. 238 - The L-Word

I have been spending today looking after my partner while she is unwell, and we've been watching Season One of The L-Word. I'm glad (most of) the lesbians, bisexuals and trans people I know in real life are more "together" than the naive nongs that the characters have come across as so far.

I mean ... really, Bette: you're gallery is being vandalised, your customers hassled, and you are even being harangued and threatened at home - yet you don't call the police? And the group session that Bette and Tina go to! My partner has almost finished a social work degree, and she had some very apt comments on the mistakes being made in that group. Not to mention Alice putting her chart up on the Internet??? Wow - must be no privacy laws in that little universe ...

A lot of the other behaviour is akin to high school schoolyard dramatics. (I would also describe the behaviour as emotionally "self indulgent" in the shamanistic sense - see Castenada's books for more on that.)

It would also be great for the characters (I am aware the actors in real life are very different people!) to learn a few words like ... polyamory, or ethics (and for the gay characters to learn that the word bisexual is real, and represents a valid choice - although I must say that many of them do accept that, and the straight characters tend to be the sinners on this aspect). It's quite a shame, as, in my life, the most ethical people I know are from the LGBT I Q and polyamorous communities - far more so than more I know from various spiritual/psychic communities. (Many activists can be very ethical, also.)

I can understand the LGBTIQ community apparently not liking Jenny, and I was very surprised to read that Ilene Chaiken based Jenny upon parts of herself as a young lesbian.

From a spiritual point of view, I consider:

• all intimate relationships should be consensual, non-possessive, based on love - and conducted as mature adults;
• no person has the right to force someone else to be something against their will if it is not doing any harm - which is what parents and other refusing to accept someone because of their sexuality or gender identity are doing (possibly out of embarrassment);
• no society or group has the right to force someone else to be something against their will if it is not doing any harm - which is what the Christian fundamentalists as portrayed in Season One (who I would describe as having a very immature version of "spirituality") are trying to do (please note not all Christians are like that - some, such as MCC, are actually quite accepting of LGBTIQ people - and others do a fair job of some parts of social activism, particularly in South America);
• most people have some responsibility to make an effort to stand up for themselves: sitting quietly and taking verbal abuse is rarely something that would be considered spiritual (the exception to this is people who have suffered a lot of abuse, such the victims of domestic violence or torture, or massive amounts of discrimination [which applies to many races who are not white, such as Kooris in Australia, or African-Americans or First Nations people in the USA, and often applies to many LGBTIQ people, particularly outside the Western world], as some such people can literally be beaten into submission - in which case collective responsibility becomes active: remember that word "activist" I used a few paragraphs ago? Actually, this has a role anyway, as we all contribute to the world we live in), and one should be aware of the saying that we train others how to treat us [1];
• everyone should seek to be all that they can be, and for some, that is having a lot of sex, for others it is pursuing creativity, for others a family, for others reclusiveness, etc, etc, etc: one size does NOT fit all.

It's good, however, to see the range of relationships being dealt with as a normal part of everyday life, without either patronising or trying to make such relationships appear so rare that they need lots of comment - and it is good to see femme lesbians being portrayed (well, they are in relation to me, at any rate :) ).

So ... now for a coffee and the next episode.

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr

Notes:

1. There is an interesting example of this in Sheelagh Rouse's book "Twenty Five Years with T. Lobsang Rampa": when Lobsang Rampa takes his synopsis of "The Third Eye" to a literary agent, the agent tries to intimidate Dr Rampa and avoid committing to reading the synopsis, who responds by saying calmly that the synopsis is his property, and he will return in a week to collect it (on pages 51-52). I have always admired people who are unflappable in that way (my word), and have tried to develop that characteristic in myself).

This post's photo is yet to be posted.

Tags: sexuality, purpose, discrimination, society, Christianity, extremism, self indulgence,

First published: Thorsdagr, 3rd March, 2011

Last edited: Thursday, 3rd March, 2011