Oranges, apples and vibrators.

Did that get your attention? Yeah...probably. Because a woman making remarks about something to do with her sexual pleasure is kind of...shocking.

And that is more what this is about than anything I personally am doing.

Many years ago a couple of friends and I would laugh about going to a sex shop on K-Road. One day the two of them actually did. One of my friends was almost obsessed with carrying out what almost amounted to a dare.

Bear in mind that we were 'good Christian girls.' Sex and sexuality beyond its reproductive potential was rarely discussed, other than the widely accepted idea that it was fun, and that was ok, but it was only fun to have with your husband. The idea of sex toys in sex shops was taboo, and the idea of actually walking into one of these shops bordered on scandalous.

In recent times, I have learned more and more about patriarchal policing of women's sexuality. On a very basic level, of course, we have the slut vs stud mentality. Men are supposed to sow their wild oats, but women are supposed to be careful and discreet.

Lesbians are a threat to men's sexual superiority because...well...it means women don't need men to have a good time.

Sexuality was draped in shrouds of secrecy, and shame unless it was conducted within a certain set of rules (and I use the word 'conducted' rather than 'expressed' on purpose.)

As for self pleasuring? Well...that was the on-ramp for the highway to hell.

I don't really know if I was explicitly taught these things, or if they were somehow ideas that I absorbed from people around me, but they were there nevertheless.

For the most part, I have moved on from those days, where my sexuality was something I did, not something I felt. I started acknowledging myself as a sexual being, and as a woman.

I have moved away the idea that women independently exploring their sexuality without commitment is a source of shame.

Then I came across the opportunity to put independent, sexually liberated woman to the test. In Countdown.

Yup. In a chain supermarket.

Where I found this little beauty. The Durex Delight Vibrating Bullet.

I don't know if you've checked out the price of vibrators lately, but a quick glance puts them in the hundreds-of-dollars price range. I'm sure they are long lasting and great quality, but its not a price point that appeals to the first time consumer, to people on low incomes, or to people who still have those old hangovers about the sex shop on K-Road.

This post has two points. One was that I decided to make a stand for women's sexual pleasure, and carry that goddamn vibrator up to the (self) checkout at my local supermarket.

The second is that we have moved along as a society to the point that it was there in the first place. You can now buy a reasonably priced sex toy at your local supermarket. You can throw it in your trolley as you stroll down the aisle with the paracetamol and nappies.

I am willing to bet that there are lots of women out there who still carry the baggage of shame around their own pleasure, and are too self-conscious to engage with an 'adult shop' to buy a sex toy.

But if you can chuck your $35 vibrator into your basket with your bread and milk, then maybe you might just give it a go.

Assumptions

When I first started wondering if I was a lesbian, I grappled with issues around presentation. I had read books about lesbian history, and all about the coded dressing that went on when lesbians couldn’t be out and proud… labrys earrings and pinky rings with a wink and a nudge. Stereotypes lived on with the idea in my head that most lesbians dressed like male truck drivers in steel capped boots and flannel shirts. The books I had read about middle aged women discovering their attraction to women advised that they go and mix and mingle with the ‘lesbian community.’ But…. how do you do that? For a start, I didn’t know where I’d look. And if lesbians dress like men, then how on earth would I fit in?

I read Lisa Diamond’s book about sexual fluidity, and got quite stroppy about labelling. Why have a label? I don’t need one. Plenty are doing without. I continue to be confused by all the issues around labelling and presentation, and even queer media seems to have different views.

Even in the last week, I read an article about femme invisibility being a ‘dirty secret’ of the queer community. That is, the lesbian community largely presenting as butch, and excluding and erasing women who identified as lesbian, but presented in a feminine way. You know - ‘You’re too pretty to be a lesbian.”

Then on the other hand, this piece was posted by an online magazine called ‘PRIDE’ which claims to be be a platform for queer millenials. Queer millenials seem to be throwing off labels, which then seems contrary to this piece which reinforces stereotypes about lesbians wearing boots and flannel shirts.

This is so incredibly problematic, as it is not only a community being non-inclusive, but doing so to the point of reinforcing stereotypes.

But this still happens, and I am utterly puzzled as to why. I tried joining a few lesbian Facebook groups, and the ‘exclusivity’ was annoying. I heard about a local lesbian event, and asked the administrator of one of the groups if she’d post it for member. “Oh, I’ll see what the organiser says. But its probably not necessary - its a well known event in the community.”

I see.

What if I don’t belong to ‘the community’ yet? How will I find out? Remember back at Stage One, where the books said ‘find the lesbian community?’ Well, how is that going to happen when the ‘community’ cloaks itself in some kind of exclusiveness?

I can understand discretion if you are doing something that is generally not approved of in society, but has ‘the community’ not realised that we have equality on pretty much all fronts? Any discrimination that lesbians face won’t be because they're gay - it will be because they’re women.

Other online magazines have been exploring the idea of doing away with labels, and celebrities like Miley Cyrus talk about ‘fluidity’ rather than taking on sexual identities related to attraction to any particular gender.

While I have been pondering what label to wear, I have enthusiastically posted articles about not labelling.

Then a lesbian friend said “But I don’t want people assuming I’m straight.”

She raised an excellent point, but I have explored that a bit further in my own personal context. I still don’t have a set identity. Other people label me as a lesbian, and that’s fine. I suppose I resist labelling because I think that there are more important defining things about me as a person than the gender of the person I’m in a romantic relationship with. In any case, labelling sexual identities is a relatively new phenomenon. We can thank the Victorians and their urge to catalogue and classify everything for that. 

And then I hit on it.

I don’t want people assuming I’m with a man.

I don’t want people assuming I’m married.

I don’t want people assuming I’m coupled at all.

I don’t want those things for anyone, actually.

Perhaps it was not so much that I don't want assumptions made about who I'm attracted to or romantically involved with or deeply in love with or having sex with. Because that's kind of personal, right? But more that I don't want about assumptions made about which societal box I fit into. As the writer of the article in DIVA said, In fact, by self-labelling as gay, my real intended meaning is that I don't fit the heteronormative category.

I remember when I was a newlywed nineteen year old I took a bit of pleasure in subverting people’s ideas about what I should be. So I suppose that’s an example in and of itself. 

Don’t assume that a nineteen year old isn't married, and don’t assume a nearly forty year old is.

And don’t assume all lesbians wear flannel.