Gscene 59
GOLDEN HOUR BY BILLIE GOLD
TWISTED GILDED GHETTO BY ERIC PAGE
Girl Talk
STEP IT UP!
) As a woman whose only sexual partners are women - except the odd one that slips through the net if I’m feeling fancy - and having had a recent chat with a friend about having multiple partners and safe sex, I decided to do a little digging around statistics regarding how often people who identify as lesbian are actually getting checked - do we think of ourselves as at risk?
) Up, stretch, eat, work, sleep; and again, yawn, ache, munch, work; and again, wake, move, do the same thing again and again, sleep, and wake, sleep and sleep, and when will this repetitive regularity of the Pando end… Covid had condensed my life to that of a medieval nun, just without the bell ringing, and believe me I’ve tried to sign up to the Camp Campanologists of Kemptown association, nine months waiting list. So back to the cloister it is with a hot boyfriend to spend the groundhog days with.
Having lived a straight life for many years, I have been no stranger to a sexual health clinic, getting checked for STIs, having my birth control changed and regular check ups. Sexual health was commonplace, even with a monogamous (I think) relationship, so why when I came out and had same-sex partners did I no longer have the “I should get checked” thought after a new partner that I used to? Granted, the main reason for getting checked while in a heterosexual relationship was HIV, syphilis and pregnancy. While it is very rare to contact HIV in a same-sex relationship with a woman, it still happens, along with all the other usual suspects such as chlamydia and herpes, however I have never once slept with a woman who used a condom on a sex toy, or a dental dam, surely this is the girl version of barebacking? Our community is fairly good with spreading the message about safe sex, protection is usually somewhere in a bar to simply pick up, but there’s practically nothing for safe sex between two girls, and while researching this I had to think, had I been a little jaded and assumed I was immune? I’ve been through a little phase of having lots of partners, I’d not asked any of them if they had been checked recently, nor had I disclosed how recently I had been. As a cis woman, most of my trips to the GUM clinic have been purely for smear tests, which are of course a delight, or to discuss my birth control, which wasn’t without its preconceptions. One nurse told me to simply come off it since I identify as gay, without a thought that it may not be to prevent pregnancy and might actually be for my own comfort.
“Why when I came out and had samesex partners did I no longer have the “I should get checked” thought after a new partner that I used to?” If I had not given much thought for my sexual safety since being ‘out’, it stands to reason that not many of my partners had either. I’ve found very few statistics on who goes to the clinic more, but I did find one troubling one. Of gay women that went to the sexual health clinic, 40% received a diagnosis compared to 18% of straight women, which says to me that gay women are waiting until they see actual symptoms being going to get checked, rather than making it part of their regular health check up - enlightening, right? With the notion that we aren’t getting checked until we notice something wrong, perhaps us girls that like girls should be thinking more carefully about our sexual health.
My medieval life has it all; village life, a touch of overwhelming doom, plague, a world as wide as I can walk, a hot baker with sky blue eyes, the rhythms of my day dictated by the rising of the sun. Why the Downs behind Roedean hold as much excitement as the Jungles of Cambodia to me, Old Stanmer on the weekends with manicured prairie and boreal province smacks exotically of Saskatchewan and Hove is my own little Manhattan. Is this sad to take such small mercies of excitement and joy from the mundane (very mundane) excursions of my days or is it some kind of gift? To rein in demanding expectations of travel, and luxury, of excitement and the Thrill of the New, of different food and language, strange people and customs, why all of this is laid out in Hove for me, like ripe fruit on heavy laden branches. Supermarkets have become the new clubs, with their doorman, queues and hotties in masks, grumpy chunky daddies sly eyeing me, svelte twinks with a touch of blusher, muscle boys slowly turning to lard in their leggings, Bold Queers from the outer-lands slaying the aisles with their sashaying otherness and couples playing tug of war over the last packet of wild rocket. With no Queer spaces open, no mobs of peers! No Prides, parades, post-clubs, no street or night life, no travel or Queer migration to parties, cities or beaches, this Covid wasteland is all we have. The supermarket is the place I see more Queers than anywhere else, one or two I’d rather not see, but even a hiss and an exaggerated eyebrow from behind the discounted beans is passionately embraced for the five-star Jane Eyre social engagement that it provides. Miss Rona has opened up this startling prospect to examine the minutiae in our lives, up close, over and over. For those of us who live with others we’ve also been blessed with 24/7 opportunities to explore patience, understanding and unconditional love. For those of us who live alone more opportunity to look upon ourselves and gaze in wonder at our creations and tinker with perfection. There is no doubt it’s hard, and going to be so for a while yet. We feel powerless, adrift, but we are not. We have our routines, however small, we have each other, even if we only catch a glimpse of each other. We need to share more of the pent-up Queerness that we have, tiny weeny us, put on a smoky eyelid, do slow baroque dances in the endless queues, mince like f**k in public, dress up for that food shopping trip, hats, gloves, heels! Winter is coming, which means even less light and time to shine, so drag out those LED lights from Pride and swaddle your rucksack, we need to STEP IT UP, for all our sakes. Be the brilliant denizens of the Twisted Golden Ghetto that we are, by dazzling right of being, and then go home, smiling under our masks to start over, be exquisite and never explain.
