One of CCL’s favorite butches chimes in on the “Real” L Word ….
The following post was written by Guest Butch, Raye
Watching The Real L Word was never a huge priority for me because somehow I knew it would never be “real” to me. However, I recently got a promotional deal for Showtime with my cable provider and since I am a huge fan of United States of Tara I decided to give it a go. While perusing the On Demand features for Showtime series, I noticed that The Real L Word was an option. And since I had already exhausted my viewing pleasure of Tara while in bed with a tummy bug, I opted to torture myself with this quasi-reality show despite my better judgment.
A lot of discussion on this blog has centered around this show recently and I guess I didn’t really have much of an opinion since I hadn’t really seen it for myself and hadn’t seen the full context of certain discussions. But I have to say that (no offense to my wonderful friends in Cali) I am really a little disappointed if this is the reality of lesbian culture in L.A. I always heard that there were more beautiful lesbians in L.A. and who better to portray the beautiful people in our community than a show about L.A. lesbians? But I honestly don’t think they are any more beautiful than the girls I see all over the country. And some of their attitudes are ugly as fuck. Rose is a first class asshole and Whitney is an arrogant first class asshole. At first I thought Mikey was all swagger and no substance but then I saw how she became totally insecure in body language when her girlfriend didn’t show up to her fashion promotion event thing. All of this begs the question, are these women really as vapid and vacuous as they seem in their incessant hook-ups and self-promoting braggadocio? Someone please say it isn’t so. Pretty on the outside is quickly vanquished by ugly on the inside. I know it is just a show but is California and furthermore our community really this shallow and devoid of soul or spirit? The reason this question bothers me is because we as a generation tend to follow in the footsteps of Hollywood because we are bombarded with it 24/7.
I watch a person like Whitney fuck a girl in the bedroom during a drunken party while another girl she slept with in the same bed the night before stands outside drinking to cope with the pain… and it hits a special place in my heart because that girl was from Connecticut. I lived there, came out there, and met some of the sweetest girls there and it pained me to see one of my “own” being treated like she was expendable by one who is a self-proclaimed “pussy slut”. And I guarantee there are those in our community who are trying their damnedest to emulate her as we speak. As a traditional butch, I would like to again state that I am proud that I am not like Shane or Whitney. Even though I see beautiful femmes throwing themselves at these pieces of garbage, it does not make me want to be like them at all. I hope that I retain a conscience no matter what happens to me along the way. I hope that we as a community don’t lose our conscience trying to prove to the world that women want us. I would never want to be the cause of that betrayed look on Victoria’s or Natalie’s face. They are beautiful women who deserve better. How can these assholes live with themselves? Unfortunately for those femmes, sometimes beautiful people can’t see the ugliness behind the mask…
I wonder what our lives would be like if we just didn’t put prerequisites on getting to know people. And I would love to do a social experiment one day with this as the subject. Here’s the scenario: A woman says hello to you or is giving you glances across the room and she looks different than what you are normally attracted to but she is by no means unattractive. But you decide to throw caution to the wind for the sake of research and engage this person in conversation and find out who she is and why she is eyeballing you. What is the worst that could happen? She acts disinterested? She has very little to say? Any of these responses could be detached from personal experience and noted as scientific anecdotal evidence in a grand social experiment about people. Who knows? You might even make a friend… or maybe an FWB is more appealing to the early 20 something lesbians today. In either case it is a win-win situation right? If you let rejection be relegated to the arena of social research rather than a personal attack then you could conceivably get beyond social masturbation and graduate to social intercourse. ( I am talking about meaningful interaction between people…get your minds out of the gutter.) Then as a result of this grand experiment we could all come back here and post what we learned about people or what wonderful people we met or what assholes we found. What if everyone tried this? What if we all started getting past the surface and really got to know people? Would our attractions change? Does anyone see why I am not made for clubs and loud bars?
My next experiment would be to set up a profile on eHarmony posing as a man but with all of my personality traits and see how many straight women would be interested… until they found out I am a chick of course. I know some of you are gawking and shaming me for being so callous but it’s not like they mind being callous about disregarding our relationships as a joke or something less than theirs. I wouldn’t feel bad about doing that because those people are patronizing a company that actively excludes gay people. It would be interesting to see how many straight women would think I am the perfect man….
Raye, what’s a FWB? and I love the line, ” …. how many straight women would think I am the perfect man ….” ….. LOL so true. My straight girl friends always say how Remi’s the perfect husband. HAHAHA
FWB = friend with benefits darlin.
Oh
Raye, you’re brilliant. I think you should try these social experiments. I’m all for it.
I would love to do this! It would allow me to ask cute girls out without feeling so self conscious… I’m really confident, but not yet at the point of just hitting on anyone I think is attractive.
I’m always interested in meeting new friends. I think an experiment such as the one Raye proposes can develop good dividends in that regard, though I’ve currently got zero interest in developing any more than that. I’ve got a girl and I’m happy, but I can never have too many good friends. It seems those are getting harder and harder to come by and develop, and in my own way I’ve been seeking them out. If I put this into practice over the next few weeks or so, it’ll be interesting to see what I come out with. My social circle is getting sort of stale, it would be nice to freshen things up a bit!
I would just like to mention that your experiment has been done in reverse many times on dating sites, with men posing as lesbians and then after getting women to get emotionally involved with them over numerous emails they reveal that they are men. This has not been done to me personally but I can only imagine the feeling of violation that would come with knowing that you revealed your past and emotions to someone who has been lying to you from the start. I am not trying to condemn what you are doing, as I do find the topic interesting, but if you decide to do it don’t get too involved in it. After all, experiments (or at least the professional ones) need to maintain a proper level of ethics.
Also, I feel that this: “I know some of you are gawking and shaming me for being so callous but it’s not like they mind being callous about disregarding our relationships as a joke or something less than theirs” is a very generalizing view of heteros. It makes it seem like you’re punishing all straights for the crimes of the bigoted ones you’ve come across. I guarantee that many of the people who use eHarmony don’t know about how it excludes GLBT people, because I’ve definitely had to tell some of my straight friends about it because they had no idea.
I’ve never watched the show,the promo’s never captured my interest. And me being a black butch from Philly, I don’t watch it because these females don’t represent me in anyway. I have nothing in common with them.
Know this is an old post but it’s very interesting/well written.