LHMPodcast 13d: Beguines, Boston Marriage, and Bed Death: Historic Archetypes of Asexual Lesbianism

I'm not going to lie: I'm feeling a bit anxious about the reception of this week's podcast. The topic of how erotic desire has been handled with respect to the history of lesbians has the potential for hurtful erasure on every side. Some scholars have approached the history of sexuality from a position that erotic desire and erotic activity are how you define the presence of lesbianism. Even aside from the way in which an eagerness to "claim women for the L team" tends to erase bisexual identity, using sexual activity and sexual desire between women as the sine qua non of lesbian identity erases those for whom romantic attachment, rather than sex, is the key factor. (Although it does encompass aromantic women who enjoy erotic attraction to women.)

In this episode, I look at the patterns of history, not through the question of "how did specific women experience homoerotic and homoromantic attraction?" but through the lens of cultural archetypes. What were some of the prominent cultural archetypes that combined romantic bonds between women with an absence of the expectation of sexual activity? I'll be very curious to hear what people think.

Listen to the podcast here at the Lesbian Talk Show site, or subscribe through your favorite podcast aggregator, such as iTunes, Podbean, or Stitcher.

Post-travel nattering

I thought I'd dump some stuff here that I don't feel like putting on my Alpennia blog because it's mostly about cranky physical stuff.

I've been gradually getting used to the notion that travel is exhausting and I need to not plan on doing anything else on the days I do it. And, of course, flying nearly halfway around the world intensifies the effect. It used to be that I could at least count on getting bits of computer housecleaning done while sitting in airports, but I've more or less given up on that and stick to things like getting caught up on listening to podcasts and the like. Yesterday I woke up in Ireland and went to bed maybe 20 hours later in California. I successfully avoided napping on the plane and managed to get in about 12 hours of sleep with only a few biological interruptions. It won't get me completely re-set onto Pacific Time, but it's a good start.

I don't seem to have gotten any sort of post-con crud, but around the time I was traveling from Durham to Dublin I started feeling the beginning nibbles of a Respiratory Thing. I slammed it with drugs and managed to stave off any level of symptoms that would have significantly impaired enjoyment (took it down to a scratchy throat and a minor cough) and we'll see whether my plans for a very low-key recovery weekend succeed in getting it out of my system. (I've tried the pre-emptive cold pills method before and often it just means I get a zombie cold: as soon as I think I'm past it, I get slammed with full symptoms. So I don't count myself out of the woods yet.)

In a secondary benefit, I think that using the CPAP has really cut down on convention-related respiratory symptoms, in part because it means I don't get the irritation that comes with dry mouth, even without using the water reservoir. (My machine has a detachable water reservoir but leaving it off cuts the physical size in half, and besides which I didn't want to deal with tracking down distilled water while traveling. I did have some interesting logistics with the relative location of electrical outlets and hotel beds. Facebook friends suggested I should have asked the desk for an extension cord, which was a sort of "doh!" moment. But I've gotten used to hotels having outlets on the bedside light fixtures. And I have an unfortunate reflex of  assuming that I have to work out my own solutions rather than asking for accommodations. I need to think about that some more.

One of the things I enjoy about touristing in European cities is the ability to see a lot of fun stuff on foot. And in the particular places I was staying, there was a great concentration of things to see at that scale. But all that walking gradually started messing with my right knee to the point where, in the last couple of days, I was limping rather significantly, especially right after getting up. I've had periodic problems with this knee ever since I sprained it badly skiing when I was 10 years old. It's a chronic thing, not an acute one. Possibly more troubling was that my right hip was also a bit painful. Since that's the side of my body that has the sciatica, the aches and pains tend to be of complex origin and manifestation. Lots of walking usually improves the situation, but perhaps there's also too much of a good thing. In any case, it never got to the point where it bothered me enough to not do any sightseeing, but on that last full day in Dublin I did get to a point where the tradeoff was getting close.

All in all, my decision to focus my trip on seeing people (and staying in specific locations for multiple days) rather than trying to include a more whirlwind tourist experience was exactly the right decision. It was great spending time with Irina, Sara, Liz and respective families as applicable, and I got the extra bonus that they lived in delightful cities to visit. And I simultaneously am inspired to do more travel/visiting and to be very aware of how exhausting the travel part of it is. I need to mull over how to balance that.