IN THE SACK:
Your letters. My responses. All in a fancy, condensed format.
I met a great girl and we fooled around some, and I could tell she was holding back. Finally she told me she got HSV (Herpes Simplex Virus) 2! I was shocked and felt bad, but I stopped seeing
her because of it. Two years later, someone I’m sleeping with gets it. I get
checked out and I don’t have it. A year later, it shows up! I don’t know where
I got it, when or from who! I have slept with women and not told them, and I
just use condoms. I haven’t passed it on to anyone. But I feel bad for not
being truthful. I know a lot of other people feel the same way.
Bugged Out
Dear Bugged Out,
There’s a giant ship that’s
also called the HSV-2, which stands for High Speed Vessel. What’s my point, you
ask? Don’t you see any correlation between yourself and that hulking piece of
steel? You both ram your giant vessels into open ports, unload a bunch of
unruly seamen, pollute the local ecosystem, and then speed off to your next
port of call in a new, strange land. Me, I’d at least want to know what I’m
welcoming into my waters. So, you now have HSV-2 and don’t tell the people you sleep with, who in
turn might have contracted it, and then they sleep with other
people. And yet you say so assuredly, “I haven’t passed it on to anyone.” Yeah.
That’s what the sailor said.
As a former “married straight girl”
who has been with a woman for the last five years, I’ve heard it all. I’ve had
several conversations with people on this topic, and you said it well [in the
Flirt issue’s column, “Label Whore”]: “I’d rather it be a defining moment in
our lives than something we feel we need to define for others.” I’ve noticed
that these are the relationships that are easiest for everyone to pick at. At
the beginning of mine, it wasn’t about me switching labels. For both of us, it
was about making the commitment to one another. Life is made up of phases, and
sometimes we’re lucky that the good ones stick around and make up all the
brilliance of our future.
Flip-Flopper
Dear Flip-Flopper,
My god, if only my
relationships were solid enough to endure the three-week lag time in
publication. That altruistic outlook of mine was soooo winter ‘09. I’m not sure
what phase she’s in now. But this is my new “phase” — rich husband. Where art thou? Please, no
more women with their talking and their crying and those pesky mutual
menstruation cycles. (And by women, I mean me.) Right now, I couldn’t care less
about the sexuallabels, but I’d love some nicer ones on my clothes.
Maybe you would like to weigh in on
an issue that has caused me some vexation. In a few of my recent girl-to-girl
relationships, I have noted that many women who prefer to have sex with other
women are completely intolerant of the presence of my very close male friend,
who is exemplary in that he is not attempting to siphon off something for himself
from my female lovers, but would like to be included sometimes in a very
marginal way. In your opinion, Jeannie, is the state of woman-to-woman affection
so feeble that it must refuse all men from proximity? Must women who have
experienced consternation with some males reject even the best men?
Vexed Vixen
Dear Vexed Vixen,
If by including him in a “very
marginal way,” you mean he’d be picking up bar tabs and opening those ungodly
heavy doors of the world, then perfect. But I suspect many “women who prefer to
have sex with other women,” also sometimes known as “lesbians,” wouldn’t want a
side of steak on their plates if they ordered tofu. In other words: “What the
hell is that random dude doing masturbating at the foot of the bed?” Sure this
“male friend” might be “very close” to you, but he’s likely a stranger to your
mates, who probably didn’t bargain for the threesome. And if by “proximity” you
mean “in my vagina,” then I’d likely react with consternation as well.
Jeannie Greeley is a freelance writer who checks her mail at jeannieg@comcast.net
