lesbian until graduation

eine kleine queer representation

her parents labor through her childhood and adolescence to put the fear of men into her—men who use you, humiliate you, mess with your academic success, try to get you knocked up & are then free themselves to leave you holding the bag. they succeed. they tangle & snarl her desire for men until it’s impossible for her to follow. then they are outraged when the monkey’s paw curls and in her freshman year of college she gets herself a girlfriend.

she is not quite conscious of her satisfaction in simultaneously following and breaking their rules. it’s not that they are okay with this life path; it just didn’t seem as salient to them when they were hammering her into shape. and, unfortunately, she has been warned so much about the humiliation of being cast aside by men after they date you, that she gets some satisfaction out of the fact that her girlfriend, a lesbian, has fewer options than she does. (her attraction to men is all mixed up but she recognizes it enough to keep it in her back pocket to limit her dependencies.)

uh oh. her girlfriend does always have one option: breaking up with her. she might have fewer options for partners but she is basically healthy-minded & self-respecting in a way that our poor heroine simply is not. goodbye!

our heroine smarts. her parents celebrate. and she does end up marrying a man, producing grandchildren, etc. many such cases. her parents don’t realize how grateful they should be to her ex girlfriend. if their daughter had been totally straight, their warnings against men would have (inadvertently) totally inoculated her against love. but after having tasted a little love from her ex girlfriend, her fears seemed less important than love did. she was motivated to seek love out again & try to keep it.