Four days ago, ABCNews.com reported that two senior girls at a San Diego high school had been awarded the titles of Homecoming King and Queen.

First of all, YAY FOR THEM!  And second of all, how cute are they? The adorable duo was crowned separately – Rebeca Arellano received her award at a pep rally and Haileigh Adams was crowned at the homecoming dance – but it says so much when this kind of thing can happen in an American public school.

According to the ABC article, after Haileigh won the crown, Rebeca posted the following on her Facebook wall:

I was happier than when I won, my little Haileigh has just been announced Homecoming queen and I couldn’t feel happier! Thanks to every single one of you! You guys made this happen and we are all part of something huge. I can’t fully express how grateful I am. I am in completely shocked that this happen [sic]. My girl looks absolutely flawless.

The article also mentioned that “the two girls told ABC News that they’re thankful for the abundance of support they’ve received from family, friends, and students and staff at the school. Arellano said one of her teachers told her, ‘Today school is a bit better because of you girls.’”

However, as is typically the case with happy couples, negative reactions came into play.

The LA Times reported that the high school received many disparaging remarks, mostly from parents, that, according to the principal of Patrick Henry High School, “[demonstrate] such a lack of tolerance and [present] such a negative role model for children with their hateful comments.” God bless that principal, let me tell you.

As her own (awesome) reaction to the negative comments, the ABC article also reported that Rebeca said:

For all the girls who think tradition should be continued, go back to the kitchen, stop having sex before you’re married, get out of school and job system, don’t have an opinion, don’t own any property, give up the right to marry who you love, don’t vote, and allow your husband to do whatever he pleases to you. Think about the meaning of tradition when you use it in your argument against us.

Amen, girls. And you’re welcome in Jersey anytime.

I have come to a conclusion.

Actually, I have come to many conclusions as of late, however they all stem back to the same central point. In fact, I’m not quite sure conclusion is the proper word for whatever this is, as I feel like it is not an end but rather a springboard to what will hopefully be a more enlightened state of being… at least for me. But, for lack of a better word… as revelation seems too lofty, and epiphany seems too personal… conclusion shall be the word by which I will be calling this occurrence.

“What might this conclusion be?” you are probably asking. Well, I have determined that humanity is entirely disingenuous. Shocker.

We have become a society of fools, where falsified identities are the norm and we are all actors playing to a more than receptive audience. The phrase I have heard most often thrown around is something along the lines of “you are who you associate with”. By choosing to interact with a group of individuals where the primary topics of conversation revolve around who was booted off Dancing With the Stars, who is sleeping with whom and how their respective exes feel about the situation, and who was that poor soul Wednesday night who got blackout drunk and embarrassed themselves all over Asbury, we are doing a disservice to our minds.

By continuing to perpetuate this cacophony of vacuous  discourse, I feel as if we are lost. Lost amongst the struggle for something more… anything more… to carry us towards tomorrow. We settle. We may find ourselves dressing a certain way, listening to certain music, going to certain parties, as to adhere to a certain standard of expectations as defined by the community. We assimilate.

I am not trying to say that I am innocent of this discourtesy, nor am I classifying this as the definitive way by which the myriad of acquaintances with whom I have interacted with in the past conduct themselves. I am just so intensely frusturated by this that I want to shout from the rooftops

“WAKE UP!”

It is easy to be complacent. It is easy to fall into a routine of mindlessness, blindly following the pack into the desert of uninspiring confabulation until you’re begging for an oasis with an iota of intellect… lest it be a mirage.

How do we release ourselves from this intellectual and societal serfdom? How do we go about reclaiming our true selves? Our genuine, enticingly passionate, irrefutably brilliant selves?

We stop asking permission to listen to NPR. We dress how we choose because it makes us happy, not anyone else. We stop making fools of ourselves in public. We start respecting ourselves and showing compassion and being whomever we are in the moment.

We start showing that we have no shame. We are SHAMELESSLY BEAUTIFUL WOMEN. We do not have to answer to anyone except ourselves… and it is time we start acting like it.

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” –  Kurt Vonnegut

I would like, if I may, to take you on a strange journey …

Essentially, it’s an exploration into the longevity of drama – the “whatever happened to fuhgeddaboudit?” attitude – of lesbians in New Jersey.

There’s drama in Jersey, all right. We’ve talked about it ad nauseum on this site, and with friends, and in the bar, and everywhere else you may find us.

But the fact of the matter is, in Jersey, drama amongst lesbians is like a blog post on the Internet: it will always be there, and if someone is looking for it, they can (and often do) always bring it back up.

Lesbians just seem to have really good selective memory out here. They can get blasted out of their minds at the bar and not remember what they did the next day, but, God only knows, mention something a year later regarding a hookup between so-and-so and such-a-body that happened the same night, and they’re the expert. “Ohmigod, I totally remember that. That bitch hooked up with [insert name here], even though she was [insert name here's] ex of three weeks, and she had already made out with [insert name here]. Oh, and she was wearing a purple shirt, tight jeans, and stripper heels. And she had a zit on her left temple. And she blinked twice when I said hi.”

I mean, what goes on with that? And why does it seem so important to everyone

Avoid the drama, and avoid the perpetual stigma, by following these standard guidelines for being a lesbian in New Jersey:

Don’t talk behind someone’s back.
This will always come back to bite you in the ass. Plus, it makes you look like a putz. So just … don’t do it.

Don’t side with someone on a particular issue, only to renege on it later.
Again, you will always look like a douche if you sympathize with someone’s plight – “Oh, god, she was just awful for [doing whatever it is she did] to you” and then, a month later, turn around and do exactly the same thing. And then wonder why your (now former) friend now has a problem with you. Really?

Do not date a friend’s ex without an explicit, “Yes, I am totally okay with that.”
How many times has this been an issue? For Christ’s sake, people. If your friend dates someone for longer than, say, six months, I say it’s only common courtesy to say, “Look, I’m totally feeling this girl, and I know you dated her. Would you be okay with me asking her out?” Provided they’ve been broken up over three months, you have a 99% chance of them saying back to you, “Um, duh. It’s totally okay.” But they’ll respect you for asking, even if they have no romantic inclinations left towards the targeted party, and, in turn, you’ll have peace of mind knowing that no one (that you know of) could possibly get upset if you and the girl in question ended up an item.

These three points may seem to many of you as the most obvious, “duh”-worthy ideas ever. It certainly seems that way to me. But some people just don’t get it. And a few of them never will. And a lot of them will never let things go, and will remind people of their wrongdoings long after the fact. And that’s just sad. Chances are, dwelling on the past will never get you the next great career or the next great relationship. Go focus on something life-altering, inspiring, or invigorating, will you?

Have you ever had something you did in the past come back to haunt you later?

(And, by the way, tell me where the first line quote comes from. Major brownie points to those who know it without Googling!)

Billy Crystal once said that men and women can’t be friends, because the sex part always gets in the way. That in the end men always want to have sex with women, even if the women is unattractive because the sex part is already out there and therefore the friendship is doomed. So what makes this statement different if it’s two gay women, or two gay men? Why is that (to the best of my knowledge and in my experience) gay women and gay men usually are friends with mostly gay women or gay men, respectively? Do we not operate the same way as a man, or is it just that we constantly ignore that at least half of the friendship wants to bang the other half?

Personally, I know that there are quite a few of my friends that I find attractive and if I were single and they were single, I might this whole “banging them” idea a proper go, but because of circumstances they will never be more to me a friend, and of course the attractive friend that makes me look good when we go out. At the same time, lots of my friends (and I) have either hooked up with each other or had relationships that didn’t work out, and now are just good friends. How do we do that? I’m amazed by that. Even just now thinking about it, I remember conversations that I have been a part of where we compared notes about who in the room we had hooked up with, and by determining who had hooked up with more people in the room, who was the bigger slut. Straight men and women generally don’t do that sort of thing, they see as if not impossible, then at least uncomfortable. I’d also like to know about gay men. I’m not a gay man and I don’t have many gay men friends, but do they screw around with their friends and then maintain these close friendships?

If this is a perk of being a gay woman I’ll gladly take it: somehow we have worked out a way to not only get close to other gay women without the need for sex to be a part of it, but if sex were to become a part of it? We’ve found a way to either, 1) make it into a relationship that works because it was built on a friendship, 2) have a couple-week fling, realize it’s not going to work, and be able to laugh about it with everyone else later, or 3) have sex once and wake up the next morning not able to look at each other, but somewhere down the line go out for coffee and realize there is a friendship to be salvaged. And to those that let sex (not feelings, but sex) ruin a friendship, maybe you’re straight after all.

I took the liberty today of sending a text to a completely random selection of individuals from my address book that read: “What’s the best way to get over a break up?” Some of the responses were as follows:

• “Have sex with someone else.”
• “Rebounddddd.”
• “Hook up with everyone.”
• “Find another one!”
• “Get one of those Men in Black mind eraser things.”

Thanks, Pops, for the last one. Hahaha.

Clearly, a lot of people with whom I’ve talked think that going on the rebound is the best way to get over a break up. While it is a good distraction, and can be quite enjoyable, I’m sure, it’s merely a band-aid for the healing process (but then, so is excessive drinking and recreational drug use, which are some other ways I’ve known people to deal with a break up). Think of it as a temporary high. To successfully get over a break-up, one really does need to focus on things that will be more beneficial in the long-term.

Break off all communication with your ex, at least temporarily. Emotions run wild during the first few weeks, or even months, of a breakup, no matter how amicable it was. Most people do hope to be friends with their ex eventually, barring some really heinous reason for the breakup in the first place (and those of you who insist on being friends with an ex-girlfriend who has abused them might actually be the target of a future post), but one really has to let things settle down before trying to “get back to the way things were” before the relationship began. This means … *inhales* … no phone calls, no texting, no Facebook, no instant messages, and no hanging out to talk about “things.” And if she tries to contact you, don’t answer the phone, the messages, or the emails. If you broke up, no matter who instigated it, there is a reason for it. No matter how hard it may be to let go of the person with whom you spent weeks, months, or even years, it’s for your own good, and hers as well to have some distance for awhile. Not doing so just confuses things.

Get emotional. It’s healthy! Spend a little bit of time mourning the loss of a relationship, no matter how big an impact it had on you. If you need to cry, cry. If you need to get angry, get angry. Accept your feelings, let the out, and you’ll actually find that you feel better afterward. The world will not seem so bleak.

Understand what happened, and learn from that. Take a quiet moment to look at the relationship and break up analytically. Were there obvious signs that a break up was imminent? Were there certain differences between you and your partner that simply couldn’t contribute to a lasting relationship? The important points here are a) do not dwell on this for a long period of time and b) don’t obsess over what you could have done to save it. By evaluating the relationship on your own, as objectively as you can, you can learn from what happened and, hopefully, apply those lessons to any future relationship.

just explained the breakup in detail to my big toes. that consolation brownie was Amazing. (TFLN)

Take some time to focus on Number One. You’ve spent a good period of time sharing your life with someone else – time, experiences, money, and everything else. Now is the time to remember who you are and what makes you happy. (I can hear some of you saying, “But she made me happy!” now, but you need to put that aside right now.) Take up some hobbies that you neglected during your relationship, or dive right into them. See some movies that she didn’t want to watch. After my last break up, I spent a lot of time singing and playing guitar in the confines of my room. It sounds like a very solitary activity, but I found it to be extremely therapeutic, and ultimately improved my playing skills.

Spend time with the people who love you. You may be dwelling on the fact that “the only person who loves me” is no longer with you, but you still have your friends and your family. Spend time with the people who enjoy spending time with you. Use it as an excuse to vent some of your frustrations or emotions. Not only will they give you helpful advice, but they’ll distract you from what feels like a new void in your life.

Don’t ever let a break up cause you to doubt your own self-worth. This relationship may not have been meant to be, but you’ll move on and find someone else down the road who suits you better. Keep your head up, and things will be okay.

How many of us have contemplated it? How many of us have participated in it?  What’s the fascination with it?  In a way, is it like having your cake and eating it too, a form of cheating but, really, you’re not? Is doing it a sign that your relationship is fading or that you’re girlfriend is a sexual animal and wants to try new things?

Threesomes can go many ways.  You play and, that’s it, someone starts having feelings, or in some cases a couple starts to have resenment towards one another.  Personally, I love a threesome. I find it to be a major turn on.  I’d rather watch than participate to be quite honest but I’ve always been a bit of a voyeur.  I don’t find them threatening for the simple fact that there’s nothing another girl can you give sexually that I haven’t already or that I can’t.  In the same aspect, I do believe there should be a set of defined rules beforehand.  I’m all for people spicing up their sex lives; just make sure you and your partner are on the same page. 

The first thing you should ask yourself is if you can separate sex from feelings. If you’re a stage-5 clinger then, yeah, this probably isn’t for you. But for others, fucking is fucking, and threesomes are just sex.  It’s a thrill, a bit taboo, and frankly just fucking sexy. I guess I don’t need to keep repeating that, you get the idea.

The next thing you need to discuss with your partner is that once it’s done, is it done? Meaning, do you sleep with someone only once, or, if it’s enjoyable for all involved, do you all eventually participate in it again? Whatever your decision, be certain that your partner is in agreement.

Discuss beforehand what accpetable and what’s not. I’ve encountered threesomes where performing oral sex wasn’t an option and that was to be saved for myself and my girlfriend alone.  Communicate with one another and make sure you and your partner are comfortable with everything going on. 

I’ve had my share of threesomes. Some were for the right reasons and some were not.  I probably should have followed my own advice beforehand in some cases, but I did it because I wanted to and didn’t really think the situation through.  Some ended with all of us being friends and some ended with people having feelings.  It’s a personal choice between you and your partner.

I tried to find some online material to add to this but the only thing I came across was a man’s tutorial on how to get lesbians to participate in a threesome.  I’ll save that topic for a totally different post but here’s the link if you want to laugh yourself senseless.

Basically, if you’re in a relationship and you’re considering having a threesome:

• ensure that you and your partner are both doing it for the right reason (ie, to try something a bit non-traditional for the sake of adding some additional spice to your sex life, much as you would with handcuffs, blindfolds, or even flavored panties);
• decide whether this is a one-time deal, or if all three parties might consider the possibility of hooking up again down the line; and
• define the rules prior to bringing that third person into the bedroom, whether that means determining what sexual acts are absolutely off-limits, or even coming up with a “safe word” in case either you or your partner gets uncomfortable and wants things to stop

Threesomes can be a good time for all that are involved, but always remember that, when two of the parties are in a relationship, it requires a bit more planning and understanding. All parties should be on the same page at all times.