If I seem a bit disconcerted, please forgive me: for I have recently

been made to acknowlege that I am in fact, a Chicana...and not only a

Chicana, but a Lesbian Chicana. The discovery was made in an innocent

enough fashion. I was 'frappin & rappin', as is my wont.

I was talking to the Bearded Guy about my childhood. After a series of

stories, I finally told him about a couple of incidents that happened

in High School concerning some transfer students from a mostly

non-white area of Phoenix. I said, "I don't know why it made me so mad

then, and still pisses me off a little, twenty-five years later." He

smiled at me and said, "It's because they didn't recognise that you

were Hispanic, too." I cocked an eyebrow disdainfully as he continued,

"Let's face it, your grade school was almost 3/4 Hispanic Catholics,

right?" I nodded. Your entire NEIGHBORHOOD was about the same and you

didn't play with any of the anglo kids that didn't go to your school,

did you?" I shrugged. "Your best friend for the first couple of years

in high school was Hispanic, Si?" "Si." "Can you cuss as easily in

Spanish as you do in English." "Back off, Pendejo..." He pressed,

seeing my lapse into slang as a betrayal of weakness. "How many people

tell you your paintings look...Mexican...all those bright colors and

exotic faces...magical stuff..." I covered my face with my hands...it

was true, all true. I was pissed off because those girls weren't

reading my signals. They were looking at my skin and not at my

behavior or speech patterns. Who could blame them...I didn't even

realize it myself.

Now as to the Lesbian part...one of the stories I was telling him

involved the locker room at my high school...which made me think about

the locker room itself, and how I came to enjoy it as a power base. I

think I've mentioned that I've probably seen tons of naked females and

it all started in high school.

Freshman year: sheer terror as we realize that a) ALL freshman girls

must take P.E. and b) ALL girls who take P.E. must shower...naked...in

front of other girls. Well, this little Catholic girl was totally

traumatized. Not only had I not seen another human being naked since I

stopped showering with my mother at age five, but my grandmother wasold fashioned and my underwear was horrifyingly childlike white

cotton; and lastly c) the towels were microscopically small. I

developed a technique for avoiding the other girls while undressing,

covering the most essential parts, dampening my legs and arms, and

redressing.

Sophomore year: I liked P.E. to my surprise and took it again. See

previous year's solution. Continued, but now willing to drop the towel

for brief periods to rinse the entire body. Under NO circumstances do

you make eye contact with anyone else. Stay away from the Varsity end

of the showers.

Junior Year: Now I shower at the Varsity end...We actually

shower..using soap and everything. We tentatively bullshit with the

Seniors. All pompon girls and cheerleaders must take modern dance,

that means, you practice before school (shower) classes, take

dance(shower) classes, practice after school (shower). When you shower

three times a day with the same people you get used to being naked

together, you develop a camaraderie...in-jokes. You get the BIG

lockers.

Senior year: By my Senior year, I was the thing I feared. We taunted

Freshmen with our unabashed nakedness. We soaped our privates

elaborately and snapped towels at their asses. I felt perfectly

comfortable walking around the locker room without a stitch. It was my

territory by then. I had earned the right to be a naked bitch.

Being naked was a power trip.

When the hottub phase hit in California, I was right at home. As other

women giggled, looked shocked and played "beg me to take my clothes

off," I displayed my power by being absolutely comfortable with my own

nudity. There is a vast difference between being unclothed and naked.

The tale went from there to my old softball team in Carmel, the

Foxtails, and our favorite competitors, the staff of the local lesbian

newspaper. They were fun to play against because they knew better than

to treat us like Bimbos (my team was sorta hand-picked by our sponsor,

a local single millionaire with a fondness for large breasts and blond

hair), could take an incredible ribbing, and were the only team that

would party with us after we shellacked the hell out of them.

Which brought me to realize that half the women I know are lesbians,

and that those that aren't, the ones that I'm close to have a really

high ratio of lesbian friends. Well, if it walks like a duck and it

talks like a duck, even if it doesn't FUCK like a duck isn't it pretty

much a duck? My friend Lauren (not a lesbian as far as I know) told me

that her women's studies teacher told her that we should ALL claim our

Lesbianhood. That women have more in common with other women than we

do with men, and that we can simply qualify our Lesbianhood by stating

that we prefer sex with men. I can live with that definition.

So...if I seem a little shaky, it's because I just recently discovered

that the Bearded Guy has been showering with a naked Mexican

Lesbian...

***

Reverend Mutha Tarla Star of the Little Sisters of the Perpetually

Juicy; a Proud jism schism of the Church of the SubGenius.

Worshipping Juicy Retardo and "Connie" Dobbs since 1986.