The Harm in Asking: My Clumsy Encounters With the Human Race

by Sara Barron

  I was such a dork growing up, but it was worth it! It’s what made me who I am today.

  Of course, there’s an unstated presumption at work, and that’s that who they are today is something other than mind-numbingly mundane. The whole thing’s a reach at seeming humble and complex, a bit of self-delightedness sold as self-effacement.

  The behavior is annoying, to be sure, but it is not without its upshots. Namely, that when I entered my early twenties, Barron Family Activity Days morphed yet again. This time into something I was proud of. Suddenly Barron Family Pedal-Boating Day wasn’t embarrassing so much as it was adorable. Adorable and hilarious! A contributing factor to the unique piece of sass I’d become! Tell a person post-collegiately, “Sorry I can’t make it to your party. It conflicts with family pedal-boating,” and prepare to bask in public praise.

  “Did you say ‘family pedal-boating’? OMG. How cute are you?”

  “Whatever. We’re, like, total nerds.”

  “Whatever! You’re awesome!”

  Praise is what’s awesome, and seeing as how my twenties were otherwise a revolving door of waiter shifts and unbiblical sex, any meager boost to my self-esteem was welcome. In 2004 I had a boyfriend I both scored and maintained owing almost entirely, I think, to Barron Family Activity Days. On our third date, he invited me to a party, and I declined the invitation citing a conflicting visit home. I said, “I really would love to, but the thing is, my parents schedule these, like, Family Activity Days.” I leaned coquettishly in on my elbow. “And they’re simply not to be missed. It’s so super-nerdy. Oh my God. I’m such a dork!”

  It’s really effective, seeming all at once unavailable and family oriented, and this guy slipped into the palm of my hand like it was greased and hanging on a better-looking woman. Someone more authentically aloof. Things between us fell apart eventually, of course, once my neediness and lack of generosity shined through. But just because victory isn’t yours forever, well, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t yours for once.

  THIS BRINGS US to today: Sam and I are both in our thirties. My mom is sixty-five. My dad is sixty-nine. The four of us do still indulge in Barron Family Activity Days, but my feelings surrounding these activities have shifted for what I think might be the final time.

  They had been enjoyable, and then embarrassing, and then exciting to exploit.

  They have, however, gotten sad.

  The time we now spend together sledding, say, or communally wading in lakes, looks less “cute” than it does deranged, and the problem (from what I can gather) boils down to lack of grandkids.

  Let me here state that if you care to feel the active withering of your own, personal womb, you ought to try burying your arthritic mother in the sand in lieu of the toddler you’ve failed to produce.

  The subtext of most of what my parents say these days smacks of “We don’t need grandkids! We’re thrilled to be here, just us four!”

  It’s pretty depressing, and it’s made even more depressing by the fact that they know they’re not getting one anytime soon. Sam makes just above minimum wage as a line cook, and I lack any vague interest in putting someone else’s needs before my own. So my parents get depressed. They try to act like they’re not, but they are. If you ask them their opinion on the matter, my father, teary-eyed, will tell you, “Oh, you know. It’s fine.” But my mother, more defensively, will say, “My kids are creative, okay? They’re artists. You have grandkids, I have artists. Sam and Sara are creative artists, and artists take longer when it comes to having kids.”

  If by “artist” she means that Sam peels carrots for a living or that I’ve done a stand-up act in sweatpants, fine. Whatever gets you through.

  What gets me through, of course, is knowing that I’ve suffered. Oops. Sorry. I mean, “… is knowing that I’ve Suffered.” It’s knowing it’s been hard but it’s been worth it. It’s knowing I am one Winningly Complex Adult.

  4

  Seven Ages of a Magical Lesbian

  AGE 1

  The Infancy

  In December of my eighth year I received various Salon Selectives hair-care products from off my Hanukkah wish list. This was undeniably thrilling. However, the problem with the gift was that I didn’t understand its limits, and so got quite upset when they failed to make me look as though I’d just stepped out of a salon. I smelled pretty good—like papayas and Vaseline—but my hair, as usual, maintained its Garth Algar Triangle Shape.

  Well, I was devastated. Just devastated. I’d been saving my gift for first use before an exciting holiday party thrown by my mom’s friend Alison. Alison lived with another woman named Emily. This circumstance struck me as compelling by virtue of being unique. Something all their own. I peppered the car ride to their party with questions on the subject. These served as interstitials to my attention-seeking sobs.

  “Are they friends?” I asked, and wiped at my nose.

  “They are friends,” said my mother, “but also, they’re in love. Like mommies and daddies. But instead of a daddy, there are two mommies.”

  The most interesting part of this conversation was not that someone could have two mommies, but rather that mommies and daddies were supposed to be in love. I thought love was something reserved for people much younger and more fetching than my parents. I hadn’t ever thought about how they met or what they would’ve been like when they met. Had I invested the time, I think I would have pictured them meeting for the first time on the street.

  My mom: Hello. I agree to make the dinners, and I like to have my back scratched.

  My dad: Okay. Then I agree to make the lunches, and I like when you leave me alone.

  It was difficult to make the connection between, for example, Marty and Jennifer in Back to the Future, and my mom and dad in what, at this time, would have been their seventeenth year of marriage. I had to work to understand that although the versions were different, the model was the same.

  Like small dogs and big dogs, I thought. Or salad and ham.

  Minutes passed, and I chewed on the idea and sobbed a little more about my hair. It was only as we approached the parking garage to Alison and Emily’s Lake Shore Drive apartment that the issue of the Two Mommies could register. Could even start to register.

  “Two mommies,” I repeated.

  “Yes,” said my mom. “They’re called lesbians. They’re lesbians, and that’s fine. Repeat what I just said.”

  “ ‘They’re lesbians, and that’s fine.’ ”

  “Good. Now let’s go to a party.”

  We took the elevator up to the penthouse apartment, and it, the elevator, opened into the penthouse apartment. My mood lifted instantly at the sight of it all: textured floral wallpaper and an adopted Asian toddler. A footstool embroidered with a picture of a clown. A porcelain panda whose head had been stylishly flattened to serve as a tray. The whole thing was very Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but minus the psychedelic influence and any vague sense of impending molestation.

  My mood had improved, as I said; however, I still continued crying. Just for the sake of it, really. Just because I’ve always liked when people ask me how I’m doing.

  “Oh my goodness!” said Alison in greeting. “What is it, my darling? What’s wrong?”

  “We’re having an … issue,” said my mother. “Someone thought her new shampoo would solve her … problem.”

  “But that’s no problem,” said Alison, and, with no further words exchanged, put a hand on my back and nudged me toward her rose-scented bathroom, where she did a number on me with a flatiron. When I emerged, I looked awfully adorable. “Like I just stepped out of a salon” was still a stretch, but it was nonetheless the singular moment of my life in which the adjective “polished” could be justifiably attached to me.

  The party rolled on and I feasted on sprinkled doughnut holes served atop the head-tray of the porcelain panda. I played hide-and-seek with Alison and Emily’s daughter, a pudgy Asian two-year-old named Lily. Christmas music played, and was intersp
ersed with the musical soundtracks I myself would have chosen: Annie, A Chorus Line, and Cats.

  The party was an altogether transformative experience, for it led me to the belief that lesbians were but magical confections that brought joy to all the land. They were regal, special, and festive. They were like beautiful unicorns, those lesbians, for you had to search to find them. Oh, yes. You had to dig around. I had a gone a full eight years without knowing they were out there, hidden away in luxurious penthouse apartments. But now I knew, and on the car ride home gazed out the window at Lake Shore Drive and all its gorgeous aspirational housing where the lesbians were, where the lives were happy.

  I’m going to be one, I thought. I’m going to try.

  The only hitch in my plan was that I didn’t grasp its linchpin. I did not understand that in order to be a lesbian I must be physically attracted to women. I had observed Alison and Emily throughout their party and they had displayed nothing in the way of physical affection. They’d exchanged a few exasperated looks about the placement of the hors d’oeuvres. They’d laughed together at an anecdote about the pitfalls of business travel. That had been the extent of it, however, and while at eight years old I did understand Alison and Emily were, as my mother said, “in love”—that their relationship model was Mommy/Daddy and not Friend/Friend—I could not make the leap from “in love” to the specific physical logistics that being in love would entail. My sexual understanding started and ended with French kissing, and in much the same way I did not imagine my parents French kissing, I did not imagine Alison and Emily French kissing. More to the point, I did not understand that Alison and Emily wanting to French kiss each other was a large part of what made them lesbians in the first place.

  That piece would take me more time.

  AGE 2

  The Schoolgirl

  In March of my eleventh year, I attended Diana Bloomberg’s twelfth birthday party sleepover. Diana Bloomberg was a young woman with tremendous breasts and an older sister named Amy. Amy also had tremendous breasts, as well as a belly-button ring. The Bloombergs were wilder than the rest of us by virtue, I think, of their breasts and their piercings. We all played a game of Truth or Dare in which I was forced to describe the last time I’d seen my brother’s penis. It was a traumatic truth, to be sure, but my dare had been to let Diana measure both my labia with a ruler, and then report back to the group on which one was longer.

  So I chose to think about my brother’s penis. When I did, Amy inquired on why.

  “Why wouldn’t you let Diana measure your labia?” she asked. “What, are you afraid you’ll get turned on?” A pause. “Oh my God. You are. YOU ARE! You like girls! You’re a lesbo! SARA BARRON IS A LESBO!”

  “No I’m not,” I said. “My labia are weird and different lengths. I don’t want anyone to see them.”

  I stated that I was not a lesbian not because I was mortified to be one, but rather because I could hear an aggressiveness in Amy’s voice, and on instinct—and without considering any of the relevant specifics—I thought to myself, Shut it down.

  My attempt was successful. My admission that my labia were, in fact, “weird” and “different lengths” stole focus and got the group of us off the subject of lesbianism and onto the subject of labial length.

  Minutes passed. We then moved from the subject of labial length onto the subject of my brother’s penis and, from there, onto the subject of whether any of us had ever done anything sexual with a cousin. It turned out that one of the other girls, Jamie, had once cupped a cousin’s scrotum. So we focused on that for a while.

  It was only with the focus off me and on Jamie and the scrotum that I had the necessary mental space to consider the specifics of what Amy Bloomberg had said:

  “You like girls. You’re a lesbo.”

  IN THE YEARS between this accusation and my initial meeting of Alison and Emily, there had been moments—flashes of knowledge I could not identify for you now—in which some hint of understanding would flutter through me. Something about lesbians, about how maybe their magical unicorn ways were not defined by a lavish apartment and good taste in wallpaper. But these thoughts were fleeting and left me, still, without a full grasp of the idea. Still, I had only a vague sense that maybe—just maybe—there was something I was missing.

  But what could it possibly be?

  The path to understanding was not like flicking on a light switch. It wasn’t off, then on. It was running up a mountain, working hard to reach the top. It was earning, as reward, a clear perspective. The lay of the land. My brain had made its slow, subconscious effort for years—climbing … climbing … sloooooowly climbing—until Amy Bloomberg, good coach that she was, jumped in and pushed me to the top.

  I stood there now, seeing it. Getting it.

  A lesbian is a woman who has sex with other women. She kisses these women. She wants to touch their breasts.

  I was now in a position to understand physical attraction because I myself was now in the full-on throes of puberty. Contrary to what Amy Bloomberg had announced to my fellow partygoers, I was not wrangling with lesbianism so much as I was dealing with an obsessive interest in the penis. I liked, for example, to ogle my pediatrician’s. I saw him frequently thanks to my ongoing hope that any of my various symptoms might blossom into something bigger. And this pediatrician had an affinity for a particular pair of tan slacks that showcased his central crotch with the efficiency of a spotlight. Powerless against the urge to stare, I’d run a script in my head whenever I saw him, a monologue directed at his penis: “Hello there, you. What’s that? Shake hands? I’d love to, really I would, but my mother’s right there going on about my brother’s asthma. Another time perhaps.”

  The supermarket was the other hotbed of heterosexual attraction. I loved phallic vegetables, and so would stay stationed in the produce department while my mother shopped elsewhere in the store. I’d tickle my cheek with a cucumber or an elongated heirloom tomato. I’d carry out all the conversations that I couldn’t with my doctor’s crotch.

  “Whatcha doing later?” I’d ask. “How’s about you and I get to know each other better?”

  If a lesbian was stirred by Jessica Rabbit (let’s say) in the same way I was when I saw a nice long heirloom tomato, then no. Being a lesbian was not a realistic option. It would require too much work.

  I ARRIVED BACK at my parents’ house the Sunday after the sleepover, and went straight upstairs so that I might carry out my usual weekend routine: I would grab a tube of VO5 hot oil from the bathroom, and bring it with me into my bedroom. I would close my bedroom door and rub the oil on my Ken doll, and I would consider the truth. I would consider my truth:

  I was not, at present, a lesbian.

  The larger question, then, was whether or not I could become one over time. I did want to become one. I liked the two lesbians I knew. I’d invested serious time in envying their lifestyle, and now, with a clear sense of the backbone of that lifestyle, I could tell it was suitably attention-getting and unique. When my family was out with Alison and Emily’s family, the latter group would steal focus. They would get all the attention. And as theirs was a liberal neighborhood, this was some positive attention.

  Well, aren’t you all interesting to look at!

  Or: Well, isn’t that lovely. So nice to see you out!

  Everything about my parents’ lifestyle seemed dull and average by comparison. It seemed so much more fabulous to live in the city, to fall out of your front door into a throng of fans, ostensibly, who viewed you as exciting.

  It is my perfect fit, I thought. Perhaps the urge will come.

  But then at age fifteen I landed myself in that Student Coalition for Awareness. I attended this one LBGT seminar at National Louis University and learned that, sadly, it would not. Lesbianism was not something I’d grow into. Why? Because: Sexism for Never and Gay Is Not a Choice. In 1993, I did actually own a T-shirt that read GAY IS NOT A CHOICE. Alison and Emily’s holiday party had become a family tradition by this sta
ge, and in December of 1993 I made a point of going to their party in my GAY IS NOT A CHOICE T-shirt. I wore it over a turtleneck. For warmth. And marched proudly around. For attention.

  AGE 3

  The Lover

  The summer of my seventeenth year, I worked at a bookstore in a strip mall. The bookstore was called Crown Books, and it was a poor man’s Barnes & Noble.

  “If You Paid Full Price, You Didn’t Buy It at Crown Books.”

  This was the Crown Books slogan.

  I think it’s lovely in theory, a bookstore geared toward the spendthrifts, but in practice it meant the store was frequented mostly by the mentally retarded. They had a home/center nearby, and they’d come in droves on the weekend to browse the magazine rack and sleep in the armchairs. Most of the visitors were male and at some point during their visit a large percentage of these gentlemen would take porno magazines with them into the bathroom. We were an all-female staff, and we’d take turns at the end of the shift removing the abused paraphernalia from the stalls.

  It was not not depressing, cleaning up these magazines and/or watching the gentlemen clutch them to their chests. To lighten the mood, I’d spend my days off going to the movie theater that was also in the strip mall. I saw pretty much everything that summer, most notably a film called Female Perversions. I knew nothing about Female Perversions prior to seeing it. I just went because the show time worked with my Crown Books schedule.

  Female Perversions starred Tilda Swinton as Eve Stephens, an ambitious lawyer by day who, by night, performed masterful oral sex on other women.

  I am eternally grateful to this film, for it provided me with four years’ worth of masturbation material. I saw the movie once, and it got me through four years. Androgynous Tilda descending into her myriad Sapphic entanglements beat out (as it were) all the other visuals I’d previously employed: John Stamos. A greased-up Ken doll. My pediatrician reimagined with the body of a greased-up Ken doll.