Incestuous Little Community

A lot of the time I feel like I am stuck in this incestuous little lesbian community.

I've heard of other lesbian communities feeling this way, but the extent this one reaches is unreal. I truly feel like everyone knows everyone, everyone knows each other's business, and everyone is telling someone something about someone else that may or may not (usually the case) be entirely true.

We've got small town syndrome over here, and it drives me nuts!

Why we (and yes, I say we because, unfortunately, I am guilty too) behave this way is what I want to know. Life down here is already hard enough with the flack we get for being gay from many people that live here. Many of us feel the need to hide our sexuality from our employers, our families, and even some of our friends. (Luckily for me, I have to hide it from none of these groups.) With the stress that causes - and given the fact that it's a stress we all understand and have experienced at one time or another when living here - why do we make life harder?

The lies. The drama. The backstabbing. The hate. The passive agressive behavior. It's all being thrown around to hurt each other. Sure, we lesbians can't get along all the time and there are even a few we just hate - often because they are dating our ex, but is it really necessary to make each other's lives (and our own) miserable?

Cheesy, but I ask anyway: WHERE'S THE LOVE?

Shouldn't there be a sense of camaraderie, especially given that the community is so small that everyone feels related to everyone else?

Does anyone have ideas on how to combat this problem?

Submitted by sunny_meg (view blog

) on Tue, 11/10/2009 - 10:46pm

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I think...

And let me just say that my thinking comes from being an outside witness to what you describe - I've done a darn good job of staying out of the queer community partly for this reason and partly because I'm kind of anti-social (some people are shocked by this statement, I know.)

Anyway, I think this happens so often in lesbian communities because of the stigma from outside of the queer community. The very fact that you have to hide in all other places causes weird interpersonal relationships in places where you don't have to hide. Does that make sense?

~Denise BlogHer Community Manager
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Submitted by Denise on Wed, 11/11/2009 - 08:03

I think..

I think it can happen that way with a lot of different types of communities-online communities, mommy groups, sororities, Junior League, Garden Clubs and PTA (OMG-PTA drama, backstabbing, hate) etc. Except in most of those cases, you haven't slept with anyone else in the group.

It may be that it is just so magnified because really if you are a member of the lesbian community in a limited small area-you can't just drop out and join a different group.

Or you can, we lived in a small area once upon a time. Every year for pride we would go to the parade and to the festival-we recognized all the lesbians in town on sight. (except perhaps the new college students) We didn't participate in any of the social activities during the year. We did shop at the women's book store...but not often. We went to one event there in 8 years.

Socially, we did other things. Or didn't...as we are a bit anti-social. But, we primarily had friends who mostly were straight or something like straight.

I am guessing we are a bit older and we were already a couple so there wasn't the looking for someone aspect. That could be an issue.

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