04.30.06
Posted in General at 7:07 pm by AnJ
Dedicated to the two of you.
[You know who you are. =) ]
When I browse through the papers,
What do I see?
White teeth, flawless faces,
Smiling back at me.
They hold each other’s hands.
Gaze into each other’s eyes.
A man and a woman…
“By you i am mesmerized.”
But you, who go against the grain.
Taunted by a wilderness unknown.
You found someone. You stood your ground.
Heck societal’s disapproving tone!
Our love is true, you declared!
You love with incandescence.
A powerful love story you began to craft…
Even movies paled in comparison.
Then obstacles appeared…
Nothing seemed to be going for you.
One wave upon another,
To break up, you took that as a cue.
But oh don’t you see?
The coming together of two imperfect people,
Disappointments and differences
Mistakes and errors… are inevitable.
You said you wanted to let go;
But you couldn’t.
No- deep down somewhere, you believed
And that’s why you wouldn’t.
This is love:
Not that it was never scarred.
Not that foundations were never shaken.
Not that there were no differences.
Not that things don’t pose a challenge.
But that in spite of it all,
The love between you remains.
Strength in the midst of weaknesses;
And of courage and perseverence it paints.
A love extraordinary.
*I wish the two of you all the best.
- About: Mier wishes happiness to all couples out there who are in the midst of trials.
- Forum discussion: Same-sex Dynamics
- technorati: lesbian, love
Permalink
04.28.06
Posted in General, Identity at 8:50 pm by AnJ
Labels- why do you hate them?
Some people hate labels because they don’t fit into any category:
“I am not femme; andro or butch!”
“I am a little femme… a little andro, what does that make me?!”
“I behave differently at different occasions. What does that make me?”
Some people hate labels because they don’t identify with the stereotype of that category:
“I am femme BUT i am not passive DAMMIT. I wanna take control!”
“I am butch but that doesn’t mean that i want to give (in bed) and not receive!” Read the rest of this entry »
- Column: Mier doesn't fit nicely into any label either.
- Forum discussion: Things to Muse About
- technorati: labels, lesbian, gay, stereotypes
Permalink
04.26.06
Posted in Bisexuality, Identity, Minority at 10:25 am by pleinelune
Last week, Pleinelune examined the problems bisexuals face. In the last part of this series, she explores the nemesis of lesbians everywhere: the bicurious woman.
It is a Saturday night, and you head off to the club for a night out with the girls. After knocking back a few drinks, you notice a hot girl standing off to the corner of the bar, nervously looking around. You head over to her, ask her for a dance. During one of the slow dances, you get close… you kiss. You take her home, and give her the best sex she has ever had in her life, though it seems that she has little idea what to do.
You wake up with her the next morning, and she’s talking to her boyfriend on the phone.
Damn. The bicurious woman strikes again.
If lesbians hate bisexual women, they hate bicurious women even more, though in many quarters, bicuriousity is equated with bisexuality. *cough*Fridae*cough* To reiterate the existing stereotypes: they break lesbian hearts by the dozen, and leave them for a man with a big dick and a bigger wallet. Or worse, they grope girls in the club in order to attract attention from men.
Read the rest of this entry »
- About: Pleinelune detests exclusive, binary-minded people.
- Forum discussion: Minority
- technorati: queer, lesbian, gay, bisexual, bicurious
Permalink
04.24.06
Posted in General, Queer News at 12:58 pm by sayoni
Utopia Guide to Singapore, Malaysia & Indonesia : the Gay and Lesbian Scene in 60+ Cities Including Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Johor Bahru and the Islands of Bali and Penang
SINGAPORE, April 21 2006: Which country is home to Asia’s fastest growing openly homosexual sub-culture? Would you believe tiny Singapore? With more than 30 openly gay businesses in the tourist-friendly Chinatown neighborhood alone, Singaporean
entrepreneurs are feeling free enough to fuel a huge boom in the city-state’s pink economy.
But which country do gay Singaporean’s think has the hottest scene going? They point to their neighbor, Malaysia. Indeed, though still largely underground, Malaysia’s gays and lesbians have a steadily growing number of restaurants, clubs, spas and gyms that
openly welcome them and world-class venues are popping up in even small cities like Penang and Kota Kinabalu. Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
04.22.06
Posted in General at 10:14 am by snorkeem
Do you have something to say about the lesbian community?
Want to submit an article of your own?
Have a really good idea and an explosive opinion or just about you and yourself?
We welcome queer women from any country, in any shapes and sizes, pink or blue, so come share your experiences!
Email us now! With your article at sgsayoni@gmail.com and your desired alias and whatever author details.
*Please remember to cite your sources if you have any. Please note that we will try our very pretty best to publish all articles but not every one of them will have a chance to go through. Just try again!
Permalink
04.20.06
Posted in General at 10:14 am by AnJ
What is “othering” the community?
That means trying to make a specific group as different from oneself as much as possible. This is generally done to make oneself feel superior to another group… or to justify prosecution of another group (Note: the Aborgines and the White Australians; the colonial masters and their colonized Indian natives).
Now that’s a feat considering that homosexuals do not differ much from heterosexuals. There are many ways the homophobes try to marginalize gays and lesbians. Let’s examine some popular roll-off-their-tongues-without-thinking statements:
1. “Their lifestyle is deviant. It is against nature.”
By now, we all know that animals have same-sex activity. So it appears that homosexual lifestyle is not a man-made recent idea; a new vice among the YOUTHS. Homosexuals exist in our natural animal world. By now, we all know that animals have same-sex activity. Actually this is OLD news- I read about animals having same-sex activity about a decade ago! The news was hushed. It is detrimental to the argument that “being gay is unnatural” which is crucial to the inexorable persecution of gays in our society.
Down with the “nature argument”!
Secondly, i find the use of the word “lifestyle” inappropriate. When we talk about lifestyle, it’s a way of life! The way i see it: homosexuals ALSO go to school, work; hang out with friends; attend church; attend functions and gatherings; read books; exercise; date; establish lasting romantic and platonic relationships with people etc. Why is the gender of their partner THAT significant?
2. “If we allow homosexuality, we allow pedophiles and sex with beasts and other forms of perversion.”
Some people lump a few things together to give something a bad name. It’s a psychological trick that many fell for- association. Let me introduce a term: Goterim.
Read this: Goterim, perversion, immorality, unclean, impure.
What do you think Goterim is?
Now read this: Goterim, serenity, exuberance, purity, beauty.
What do you think Goterim is? Read the rest of this entry »
- About: Mier seeks greater clarification of usage of terms in the public domain.
- Forum discussion: LGBT Rights
- technorati: discrimination, gay, lesbian, homosexual, other
Permalink
04.16.06
Posted in Bisexuality, Identity, Minority at 5:50 pm by pleinelune
Last week, Pleinelune discussed the scientific position on bisexuality. Today, she shall exposit on the troubles bisexuals face.
So, one fine day, Pleinelune logged on to her computer, and immoralfear alerted her to a Fridae article, named The Bisexual Boogie Man. After one read through it, Pleinelune had to take a walk around the house to calm myself down. It is one thing to be reading homophobic trash at some anti-gay website, but entirely another to be reading a biphobic article on Asia’s largest gay portal.
Then Pleinelune came back to face my second heart attack: the comments on the article. Surely, Pleinelune thought, people would be bashing the author for such idiotic trash. Instead, Pleinelune found her Sapphic sisters bashing bisexuals. Among the expletives and insults thrown were “bisexuals cannot be trusted”, “get out”, “greedy” and “liars”.
[Slightly out of point, but tangentially relevant: this author’s personal favourite comment is “pure passive lesbians r different, they're born 2 detest men & they r e 1s who really stays...” Everytime she looks at this, she doesn’t know whether to laugh, cry or pound her head against the wall]
Alright, stepping back from that article for a moment, let’s review what bisexuals have been charged with, in the court of Homopolis.
Bisexuals…
1. …are just “pretending” to be gay or straight for reasons unknown, or in denial
2. …cannot make up their minds between men and women
3. …will leave their lesbian lovers for a man eventually
4. …are just in transition to being gay
5. …are promiscuous
6. …[insert your favourite misconception about bisexuals]
I cannot speak for gay men, but lesbians do not like bisexuals. That is very much clear, from the general attitude. They are perpetually afraid of their partners leaving them for The Man, “the enemy”.
Read the rest of this entry »
- About: Pleinelune thinks that discrimination of any kind is stupid - especially those which work on our insecurities
- Forum discussion: Minority
- technorati: queer, bisexual, lesbian, discrimination, women, biphobia, Kinsey
Permalink
04.13.06
Posted in Coming out, Identity, Youth at 4:22 pm by lublub
There we sat, side by side on the stone bench, watching the ‘A’ division softball matches as the sun went down. The breeze was blowing and it wasn’t too hot. And there we were, me and my softball teacher-in-charge, talking about the things that mattered that was closest to our hearts and was our common passion. Softball.
This teacher to me was special. Our relationship was so different from the other teachers that I have in JC. Other teachers were more distant and more of an authorative figure (or a dispenser of education and whom I saw as nothing but a vessel of knowledge from which I could harvest). They were never human to me. In the sense that I couldn’t feel like a person of equal worth in their presence. JC teachers weren’t like university professors whereby students are generally closer to them and are on first-name basis.
We were also quite similar in person, both being ex-captains. Plus, we had to work together to manage the team and thus I felt close to her. Compared to other teachers in JC, I sincerely respected this teacher a lot.
For me personally, I will only come out to those people who are unlikely to accept my homosexuality…if and only if they mattered to me and were important in my life. To me, an act of coming out can be an act of love, because it shows that I cared enough to want to share this secretive part of my life with you. This deeply personal story that could have been conveniently kept under wraps. But no, I do not wish to lie to the people I love. I want them to know me in my entirety. Homosexuality included.
Read the rest of this entry »
- About: Lublub is a youth in transition … who is continuously astounded by the people she meets along her journey.
- Forum discussion: Youth
- technorati: gay youths, Coming Out, Identity, Lesbians, Queer, glbt
Permalink
04.10.06
Posted in Bisexuality, Identity at 11:33 am by pleinelune
This is the first part of a three-part series on bisexuality. This article explores bisexuality from a scientific viewpoint.
Image taken from biflag.com
Not gay, not straight. The never-never land between heterosexual and homosexual: the B word.
What does it mean, specifically? The dictionary defines it as a person who is attracted to both males and females. To what degree, it has never specified. The Kinsey scale hypothesises everyone as innately bisexual, except for a minority on the extreme ends of the scale.
Image taken from iss.co.za
While the Kinsey studies have their own opponents, it has proven to be a fair approximation of the ground situation. The distribution would not look like a normal one, where intermediate values are most common, but (according to this author’s untested hypothesis) more like this.
Read the rest of this entry »
- About: Pleinelune is an out and proud bisexual woman
- Forum discussion: Minority
- technorati: queer, lesbian, bisexual, bisexuality, kinsey
Permalink
04.08.06
Posted in General at 12:24 am by pure ego
Ok ok, the time is here again! Yes, it’s the 19th Singapore International Film Festival! So, is anyone out there who is excited? (Waiting and tapping finger on the table)…
All right I know the SIFF isn’t something which is terrbily exciting to everyone, but here is a little insider’s story that might help you appreciate this yearly local film event a little better…
Just not too long ago, like maybe last year? A friend told me that the SIFF might not happen this year because their main sponsor Asia Pacific Brewery, had been warned by the government not to fund the event. The reason? I think a documentary on Chee Soon Juan was made and the SIFF tried to screen it in the local short films competition non-finalist screening. That made YOU KNOW WHO very, very much unhappy. Moreover there was the Royston Tan’s fiasco a few years back when he made ‘Cut’ to poke fun at the film censorship here. Yes, ’Cut’ was screened in the festival.
Then rumours surfaced that the men dressed in white wanted to stop the event! Horrors! What will happen to the future of Singapore film-makers?! Wait, I need to take a deep breath to calm down…
Read the rest of this entry »
- About: Pure Ego loves movies and would like to one day translate what she thinks on the BIG screen. Oh yes, I'll try not to be overly neurotic
- Forum discussion: Entertainment
- technorati: SIFF, films, gay, queer, lesbians, glbt
Permalink
« Previous entries
