The Thinking Woman's Viagra

The other night I came across a “documentary” in which a young woman (I’m thinking maybe mid twenties) calling herself a “journalist” was embarking on a journey to investigate what it might be like to be a lesbian for a month.

She had decided to live with a group of lesbians, abstain from any contact with men and find out about her own desires for women, during that time. She made it sound like she was off to live with gorillas in the depths of the deepest jungle.

She mentioned she’d recently experienced a ménage a trois and REALLY enjoyed it. So she wanted to explore those feelings further.

She said she went on a lot of dates with men, had a lot of sex with men and liked them big and hunky. It made her feel girly, she said. She REALLY liked it.

Now first of all, what does that mean? Not the ménage a trois bit. The girly bit. I really have trouble getting my head around that one, at least in the way she used it. To feel girly; is that a kind of helpless, giggly please-look-after-me feeling? Or is it a pretty, dress up in pink, I play with Barbies feeling? What does she mean? And why is feeling girly important to her? Can anyone enlighten me?

Before she set off on her big adventure, she consulted her sister “who understood her best in the world” and had had relationships with both men and women. When asked if sister thought the lesbians would like her, she replied “Of course they will” - in her best International expert on the social preferences of lesbians’ voice. She went on to say that women became lesbians “all the time” and that it was a well known fact that women’s sexuality was more “fluid” than men’s. I thought that was a particularly apt adjective for a sexual reference.

Now I’m not a complete prude and am open to the diversity of tastes in both genders, but for some reason both these women really irritated me. Journalist girl’s casual description of her sex life seemed less about a genuine desire to explore her sexuality and more about her desire to be on television and get famous. Journalism girl’s sister was just unfathomably dull.

Or maybe it wasn’t her fault. Maybe it’s just that this kind of Reality TV is getting boring. Someone needs to come up with a new concept. It’s no longer reality you’re watching, it’s fabricated reality. I guess it always has been.

It’s like processed cheese, it tastes nice every once and a while but you know its fake and it isn’t doing you any damn good.

You’d think this whole lesbian vs hetero subject matter would have had us glued to our small screen, if not for the sexual bravado then the shock value. But it really just made me yawn. Even my partner, who I’m sure is not averse to watching a bit of girl on girl, changed channel once the banal ramblings of this confused young thing had managed to eject me from my comfortable seat.

Honestly, why can’t she just fantasise or explore in the privacy of her own life? Why does she need to broadcast it? Fantasy may be the thinking woman’s Viagra, but do it on the inside!

I didn’t watch the end of the programme, so perhaps she did have some sort of epiphany. If you watched it, and she did, let me know.