madame zenobia's

is it personal because folks don't want to hear about it so keep it to yourself, thank you very much? is it personal because it makes folks uncomfortable? is it personal because to be non-personal would make us vulnerable?

remember when marv albert was busted for beating up that woman, forcing her to perform oral sex, and biting her on the back? it seems to me that that was his personal life...but not really because we heard all about it...read about it in the papers and saw it on the news. his straight personal life and its exposure has a different kind of currency because it was that kind of personal that's embarassing versus the kind of personal that's repulsive like the woman who may have been a potential witness on l&o: criminal intent.

where's the line? public/private...if we continue with the idea that queer lives should be personal lives, we can continue to make queer lives invisible. queer health care, queer housing rights, and queer propery rights will remain personal = private = invisible.

for my part, i'm going to have some personal ice cream in my personal apartment and watch my personal television and enjoy my personal.

quote of the day

"But you cannot draw the line on freedom, you cannot draw the line on equality. And if I am not free and if I am not equally entitled to love and desire both men and women, in other words,
if I am not free and if I am not entitled equal to heterosexuals and homosexuals
then
homosexual men and women have joined with the dominant heterosexual culture in the tyrannical
pursuit of E Pluribus Unum
and I
a bisexual woman committed to cultural pluralism and,
therefore to sexual pluralism, can only
say, you better watch your back!"
June Jordan, "On Bisexuality and Cultural Pluralism"