Joe Jackson is so much more than Is She Really Going Out with Him and Steppin’ Out.

Down there in the ashes
There’s gold and silver too
Dear sister, I try to share with you

But I left the gold for you to find
When you broke the bridge on your side

I’m also quite partial to the rest of the album.

Evil is not leading people unto temptation. Temptation is easy. True evil is giving people absolutely everything they need to succeed and then sitting back to watch them fail.

I attended the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York City in 1994. I was in town for the International SM Leather Fetish Celebration (I wrote about it on the JT’s Stockroom message board in 2006) at the Grand Hyatt and the Gay Games were in town, so to say it was an enormous weekend is a bit of an understatement. I’ve yet to see a pride parade that big. Not even the one I saw in San Francisco a couple of years later compared in size or scope.

Life for gays and lesbians before Stonewall and the LBGT activism borne of it was simply awful. If you were overt about your interests in same-sex partnerships, you could be arrested. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the bible of mental disorders, included homosexuality in its pages, so a person could be committed to an institution just for being gay or lesbian.

The harassment and discrimination suffered at the hands of people who fear those who are sexually different is embarrassing by today’s standards. Except in Dallas, where a gay club was raided this past weekend as bar attendees were celebrating the anniversary of the event that made coming out and being seen a political cause.

Here’s a more positive story on the recent anniversary weekend, but it seems we still have a long, long way to go.

Minorities in Dallas do, too.

You’re missing the point.

I don’t hide.

I walk away.

Big difference between them.

The man behind the curtain is involved with an egalitarian, full-partnered woman who is masculine-identified in personality. The man himself is a nurturer who embodies all the feminine qualities I lack, including levels of patience that I’m sure have saved our own relationship on more than one occasion.

This means, more simply put, that when someone starts bullshit with me, I shut down and walk away. My love, on the other hand, has a harder time letting go. Hence, our personalities are switched in the traditional masculine and feminine roles, especially if a problem develops with other people.

I step back, because I know my limits. He steps in because his limits are wider and deeper than mine. I don’t try to convince him of my position; that’s not my place. He is an adult who can make his own decisions. He doesn’t try to bring me around to his view, either. I am capable of handling my own life.

What I find interesting is that no matter how I try to distance myself, no matter how far I walk away, if a friendship goes really, terribly, horrifyingly south, I am the one who usually receives direct invective, spite, venom, and name-calling. I don’t even necessarily have to reach out to get it, either; sometimes it arrives from someone I don’t even speak to, just because my love has attempted to connect or re-connect with that person.

It occurred to me today that this may be because in a more traditional relationship, the woman is more emotionally volatile and, as such, most women are a “weak link” who willingly answer derision with return volleys, or at the very least tears. Negative attention is still attention and any attention at all gives the impression that all is not yet lost. (Of course, it also may be because people are as terrified to piss off my love as I am.)

Whatever the reason, I don’t react to these moments the way “normal” women do. I think, contemplate, read, philosophize, and write. If the problem is big enough, I might dwell on it more than other life problems, but if there are distractions (work, school, travel, etc.), putting it on the back burner isn’t a big deal. I don’t completely shut down - I’m long past that stage of my life - but having been in the movie before, I know how it can end. True friendships stand the test of time, so reaching out when things are calmer can sometimes work.

If I am met with more bullshit, though, you can bet I don’t sit through the credits.

Fini.

Men We Love understand that … we are engaged in a cross-cultural relationship. They know that we know much about their world and they but little of ours … They accept [knowing] that they do not know.

Men We Love must make a leap of imagination to believe in the female experience. They do not call women nags or paranoid when we embark on the arduous, often boring, nonnegotiable daily chore of drawing attention to sexism … they’re grateful in the long term that someone is willing to teach them …

I think Naomi Wolf has met the non-husband.

It would be nice, one day, to be recognized for my writing.

Positively.

Sometimes “never” is too soon.

The difference between truth and rumor is what you believe, not necessarily what is true.