All I know about the word “Lesbian” as opposed to other terms for female same-sexers is that it’s an advertisement for ancient Greek. That’s why I wish the term “Dorian” for male same-sexers had caught on.

@ Maggie Jochild # 139
Thank you too, all’s well that ends well and I did have a great night’s rest.

Bechadelic, I remember the exchange, and I was the one who tried to explain why the term “gay” was/is sometimes irritating to lesbians, since mainstream US society is so much more comfortable with the word “gay” than the more accurate (threatening? subversive?) term Lesbian. The only reason I’m mentioning it again now is that I just realized that our whole discussion occurs against the backdrop of Alison’s genius: DYKES to Watch Out For. Not lesbians, not gay women to watch out for. Dykes! I love dykes! Alison blazed the semantic trail!

Alex #115 (re: #105), I appreciate your apology. I do/did realize that your intentions were good. It was the impact I wanted to enlighten you to. I even understood that you had a rationale for using that ‘metaphor’ (that it initially came from survivors of Hitler’s atrocities), but again, it’s different when repeated by someone else. Again: impact, not intention. Thanks for all your contributions and for caring.

Feminista – girl, I hope you have the greatest birthday. I’m glad you’re here!

Maggie et al – thanks for keeping the conversation lively and passionate as always.

It was 89 degrees here in the Northeast, a record as far as I remember. It has snowed 2 feet on my birthday, at other times, so it’s a crap shoot how to plan in advance.

I, for one, don’t believe that my cleverness/wit is my best personality trait (I would hope that, in the end, kindness or compassion trumps it) but I do enjoy an engagement of wit and being in the company of others with quirky minds, interests and facility with language(s) pleases me. I like a blog that can go from bacon to schmaltz (hoh, I used it this Passover, as always, to lubricate the matzoh balls. Excellent) to lists of books I haven’t read to birds to what it was like in the 50′s in the US. And I am way into the neuroplasticity of the brain, and love the corpus collosum and hearing the story about singing when speaking won’t work anymore. Part of my work life is spent helping to retrain nervous systems to find new, non-habitual pathways, and it is incredibly fun and exciting that so much research is being done on this in so many venues. Has anyone read Norman Doidge’s book “The Brain that Changes Itself”? I’ve just started it and so far it’s fascinating.

Mentor, I’d love to evaluate this rationally by citing and analyzing examples. But I don’t think it would work with this issue. Here’s why.

0. People have expressed a feeling of intimidation. That this involves the possibility of being mocked is my interpretation. (Which I believe to be correct — but it’s not the original complaint.)

1. I don’t want to accuse individuals of being intolerant.
a. I’m not always such a nice guy myself.
b. A lot of hurt feelings could result.
c. The questions of what constitutes snark and when it’s undeserved inevitably have large subjective components.
d. Some of the sharpest elbows belong to people who also can be very funny and perceptive. At least IMO.
e. Most of all, the problem is that some people have expressed a general feeling of not being welcome. They haven’t expressed concerns about particular individuals.

2. If I’m right about what worries people, rationally discussing examples would be a very tricky way to address this particular problem. If I produce rational arguments to show people that their fears are unfounded, that looks an awful lot like dismissing their concerns on the grounds that I’m smarter than they are, which is (I think) what they were concerned about. If I argue that such and such constitutes bullying, it will be all but impossible to avoid the problems in (1) above. So where can my rational discussion of examples lead?

Maggie, I don’t think Anonymous was saying lesbians are dumb. I think she was saying lesbians include all sorts, in this case those who like playing intellectual games and those who don’t.

If you were an articulate, opinionated male who thought he had a lot of answers (like me) and you received a liberal arts education in North America after about 1980, at some point someone told you that you needed to shut up and let the women get a word in too. That idea that women are shortchanged in their educations by men who dominate the conversation was acted on, at least by some teachers. On balance, I think that was a good thing. It’s a little ironic to see a similar point arise in the comments section of Alison’s blog, though. The only answers I know of, in either context, involve judgment and balance. The noisy people have to learn to be quiet sometimes and the quiet people have to learn to speak up. If there is a rule that can be applied, it has escaped me so far.

Maggie,HoH’s description of the 50s is pretty much what I would have written,with these additions: for ‘mericans outside of major cities,liking jazz and/or classical music-lover was enough to get labeled an “egghead.” There was huge pressure to conform in terms of food,clothing,spare time interests;the average age for women to marry was down to 20 in 1950 and 1960,and divorce was rare except if one was a movie star. Liking anything about the Soviet Union got one labeled a communist,a complete reversal from WW II when the Soviets were U.S. allies.

Jazz was much more popular in France,however,so a number of Black jazz musicians,like John Coltrane, found more acceptance in Paris. Paris continued its tradition of hospitality to other “outsiders” like James Baldwin,Af-Am gay author of Go Tell it on the Mountain and Giovanni’s Room. (France wasn’t perfect,of course–just ask the Algerians.)

Branded a liberal egghead,Adlai Stevenson bravely ran against the very popular WWII General Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower in 52 and 56. Cold warrior,Joe McCarthy supporter,and xenophobe Tricky Dick Nixon was Ike’s VP.

#134, Bechadelic: I’ve been reading DTWOF in the UK since 1984 or thereabouts, albeit somewhat erratically as availability wasn’t particularly reliable…

#142, HoH: 90 degrees? Wish I was in NYC…

#145, Feminista: Many happy returns!

And in general, I’m always googling things as I read this blog; “corpus callosum” being the most recent. Here I am entertained, and educated.

Who needs TV when we got AB?