from prowling to purring

on queer desire + domesticity

Throughout this Pride Month, our coffee table has been graced with a book about the lesbian bars that remain in the U.S. It’s been here beside the comfy couch where we spend every single night with our two cats and our giant popcorn bowls and our quirky TV shows.

Diana and I have been together for almost seven years and have been living together most of that time. We have our routines down. I meal plan and grocery shop. She’s the sous chef (because I’m terrified of knives). I cook the meals (because timing them stresses her ADHD). She does the dishes. I care for our trillion plants. She scoops the litter boxes. Domestic queer life purrs along over here.

I bought The Lesbian Bar Chronicles (as I mentioned in this month’s Pride post - ICYMI) wanting to understand the history of sapphic spaces. I wish for these safe havens to thrive, and I suppose we queer women need to get off our respective couches to make that happen. There’s been an 82% decrease in the number of lesbian bars since the 80s — from over 200 to now just 36 remaining, even though there are more queer women than queer men in the U.S. The primary reason is the ol’ pay gap — gay men can afford to go out to dinners, order fancy cocktails, and pay cover charges. Gay women are still women, so we earn less.

Beyond the economics of it, there’s a socialization component. In last week’s Handsome Podcast episode, Fortune Feimster discussed the stereotype that when women couple up, they stay home. We’re socialized toward nesting and relational depth, so when women are in relationship with each other, those tendencies can get, well, multiplied by the power of two 😉. In contrast, men have been socialized toward sexual pursuit, and gay men have had a history of a robust sexual subculture of cruising, open relationships, apps used explicitly for sex (not that other genders don’t partake in these things — this is just a bigger part of gay men’s culture). In addition to being able to afford nights out, this also keeps men in active pursuit even within relationships. Queer women’s culture has centered emotional connection and community over sexual quests, so our prowling days end sooner. We snuggle up on the couch, just like our kitties. I suppose the domestication factor for queer women is part economic, part socialization, and part the relief of finally being able to stay home.*

wild cat, domestic cat

This summer, there’s been a new routine at our house. Because our backyard is now safely fenced in, mostly landscaped, and cozy with outdoor furniture, we’ve begun to let our twin indoor cats, Jinx and Juju, explore the backyard — only with us present and usually with a one human per cat ratio. We do this in the morning with our tea, before the heat of the day hits, and while I’m watering our tomato plants and herbs. Jinx is out there in all her wildcat glory — frolicking among a patch of weeds we’ve yet to landscape, batting at insects, watching birds and clouds pass overhead. Barking dogs or construction next door do not phase this particular little lion. Juju, a more timid and tame lap cat, finds her spot on the patio, rolls around, and settles in for a belly rub — until she hears any loud noise, at which point she scuttles into the house. Although they’re twins, these cats are on vastly different ends of the spectrum from wild to domestic. At 50, I seem to fall somewhere in between.

wild huntress jinx, content-to-be-belly-pet juju

In my book, Midlife Emergence, there’s a chapter called “walking the tightrope” that explores how, in midlife, we fluctuate between choosing the safety of familiar, sweet domestication or the wildness of expanding into seductive, novel terrain. My book was written when I was consumed by the wild fire — burning, longing, and desiring to shake shit up to express previously unseen parts of myself. It felt far more aligned than any ‘should’ I’d performed in my youth — it felt like a MUST coming from inside. My book was written during the debilitating dissolution of my marriage and the intoxicating gratification of NRE (new relationship energy) running concurrently through that timeline in my life.

our pride

Over the weekend, Diana and I went to a sapphic event we’ve attended annually during Denver Pride. We got outta the house, heard music, hugged friends, watched drag, felt proud. After a few hours, we returned to the couch where the book about lesbian bars is perched between us and the TV. Is this the reward after a long, hot day of whooping it up — once you’re in midlife and in a relationship? Or is it an extinguisher?

Now, years beyond that urgent, fiery phase of my midlife emergence, the inferno has become more of a slow burn. I am more grounded in myself — my identity, my relationships, my style, my body. I feel lucky to have such steadiness in my relationship with Diana. I enjoy creating a serene home with her. AND, as a person whose astrological chart is mostly fire and as an enneagram type four, I am one whose internal embers will always flicker. If I weren’t feeling desire and longing, I think I might be pronounced dead (or perhaps on far too high a dose of SSRIs).

I love being horizontal under a blanket with my kitties and snacks, but there’s a feral streak in me that I hope never fully calms. I have a thirst for life and a desire to ring it dry of all the juice it has to offer. I’m an artistic creator, a sexual being, an expressive human, and a curious explorer. I hope I don’t ever let go of those pieces of myself as I age and as our relationship continues to mature, even in its comfortable (and sometimes itchy) domesticity. I'm not ready to stop pursuing new experiences, but I'm also not getting off this couch most nights. Maybe the purr and the prowl were never total opposites — maybe this is just what it looks like to be a cat who knows she has a home.

our pride 🦁🦁🦁🦁🏳️‍🌈

*I acknowledge the gender binary in my language as I talk about the history of the L and the G, (and I’m so fucking glad that the B, T, Q, I, and the A are scrambling it all up so beautifully!)

• watching on our couch: Diana, Jinx, Juju, and I are about to start watching Hacks. We are late to this party.

• venturing into the world to see in a movie theater: Girls Like Girls. I reeeally wish this film had existed when I was in high school. Things would have made more sense. Representation matters.

• curious about: Bonjout balm vs Froya Organics… This is the skincare that gets advertised to women in midlife on Instagram past 10pm each night. I’m a sucker for skincare, but I hate “anti-aging” movements. Have any of you tried either of these? Or other things you love? Email me! My current regimen is tired, and I want to simplify.

• reading: Y’all, I’m gonna admit here to you that I began listening to the audiobook of Dorit Kemsley’s memoir, Unburdened. The Real Housewives (just the NYC and Beverly Hills franchises) are a vice of mine, and for those who don’t know, Dorit is a Real Housewife of Beverly Hills. (Don’t @ me because I watch Bravo!) To me, this book reads like AI slop. It’s said that Dorit worked with a mother-daughter ghostwriting team for her memoir, but honestly that ghost feels sooo much like Claude! It sounds entirely like AI-speak with all the AI tells: “it’s not this, it’s that…”, lists of threes, and the adverb “quietly” in nearly every paragraph. I didn’t think it was possible to copyright AI content, and I figured most publishing houses would be adept at sniffing it out by now. I shouldn’t be surprised, I guess, but I am bummed that so much writing is being diminished to this one very specific robot voice. Okay, that’s my AI rant and my smutty TV admission of the day. Carry on! Have a great week! 🌞

  🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ HAPPY PRIDE! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

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