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Johnston, Lesbian Nation

Some old lines and some new ones thrown onto each other for the town hall affair

The title of this epi­sode is a new approach : All women are les­bians except those who don’t know it natu­ral­ly they are but don’t know it yet I am a woman who is a les­bian because I am a woman and a woman who loves her­self natu­ral­ly who is other women is a les­bian a woman who loves women loves her­self natu­ral­ly this is the case that a woman is her­self is all woman is a natu­ral born les­bian so we don’t mind using the name like any name it is quite mea­nin­gless it means natu­ral­ly I am a woman and wha­te­ver I am we are we affirm being what we are the way of course all men are homo­sexuals being having a more sense of their homo their homo-ness their ecce homo-ness their ecce prince & lord & mas­ter-ness the 350 years of Abraham inter­sample Abraham lived for 350 years because the Bible ages are only a suc­ces­sion of sons and fathers and grand­fa­thers inten­se­ly iden­ti­fying with their ances­tors their son so iden­ti­fied natu­re­ly with the father that he belie­ved he was the father and of course he was as was Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Esau and Reuben and Simeon and Levi and Judah and Joseph each one lived for 350 years, but who are the daugh­ters of Rachel and Ruth and Sarah and Rebekah the rest we do not know the daugh­ters never had any daugh­ters they had only sons who begat more sons and sons so we have very lit­tle sense, from that par­ti­cu­lar book, of the lineage and liga­ments and lega­cies and iden­ti­ties of mothers and daugh­ters and their daugh­ters and their mothers and mothers and daugh­ters and sis­ters who were natu­ral­ly not les­bians if they had nothing of each other save sons so now we must say Verily Verily, I say unto thee, except a woman be born again she can­not see the Kingdom of Goddess a woman must be born again to be her­self her own emi­nence and grace the queen queen-self whose mother has pres­sed upon her mouth innu­me­rable pas­sio­nate kisses so sigh us…. There is in eve­ry per­fect love / A law to be accom­pli­shed too : that the lover should resemble / The belov’d : And be the same. And the grea­ter is the like­ness / Brighter will the rap­ture flame — even as John there St. John of the Cross rap­tu­red on his pal Jesus whose son he was his father his son as when Jesus in ano­ther time said to his lovers and haven’t you heard it a deluge of times And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And straight­way they left their nets, and fol­lo­wed him. Ah lover and per­fect equal ! I meant that you should dis­co­ver me so, by my faint indi­rec­tion ; And I, when I meet you, mean to dis­co­ver you by the like in you… I want she who is the tom­boy in me… I want she who is very female in me… I want she who is British about me… I want she who is ugly American about me… I want she who is mayon­naise about me… I want she who is the cunt and the balls and the breasts of me and the long straight brow­ny hair and the gan­gly boar­ding school ado­les­cent in a navy blue bla­zer and gold but­tons of me… « nar­cissme, qui consiste à se choi­sir soi-meme comme objet ero­tique… » and I want the men to car­ry my boxes of books for me and car­ry me upsy dai­ly pig­back and pay for me eve­ryw­here and adore me as a les­be­ra­ted woman… Over the inevi­table we shall not grieve… This is the body that Jill built… Ecce Leda the Lesbian… Ecce Greta the Gay the gay Gertrude the gay gay gay­ness of being gay, of being, to be equal we have to become who we real­ly are and women we will never be equal women until we love one ano­ther women and say Woe, and behold, a voice from Hera saying This is my belo­ved daugh­ter in whom I am well plea­sed O Women of America the World you are your own best friend, your own clo­sest friend, you are the best com­pa­ny for your­self… you should go through and stu­dy even right back to your child­hood, and of course if you have the great abi­li­ty to go back to your pre­vious lives you should do so Women of America the World you are your own best friend… These are the series of sayings we are saving the world with : the lamen­ta­tions of Mary and Marilyn Monroe. Lord help you, Maria, full of grease, the load is with me ! Her smile is bet­ween her legs and her mus­tache is in her arm­pit and she orde­red that his­to­ry should begin with her with her this is a mus­ter of ele­phen­tal cuns­te­quence the lost and foun­da­men­tal situa­tion of the femi­nine is the pri­mor­dial rela­tion of iden­ti­ty bet­ween mother and daugh­ter the mys­te­ries of Eleusis of the reu­nion of Demeter and her daugh­ter Persephone to be born again and again and Arethusa and Artemis and Hebe and Hera and Diana and Daphne and Doris and Dora and Dolly and the Danaides all but one mur­de­red their hus­bands on their wed­ding nights our case revives their sto­ries for more than a hun­dred years I wan­der about in it without coming to the end of her body the most we can do is to dream the myth onwards, and rewrite the sto­ries we will reu­nite Electra and her mother Clytemnestra and Jocasta will be well plea­sed in her daugh­ter Antigone who will be more invol­ved in her mothers and her daugh­ters than in the pro­per burial for her bro­ther and we will remem­ber the his­to­ries of say how Eleanor of Aquitaine made a cru­sade to the holy land and dres­sed all her ladies in wai­ting as Amazons in leo­pard skins and dres­sed her­self as Pan Athenea and that’s how they rode through Greece for the queen­dom of hea­ven is as a woman tra­ve­ling into a far coun­try who cal­led her own ser­vants and deli­ve­red unto them her goods for Whole the World to see a woman finds plea­sure in cares­sing a body whose secrets she knows, her own body giving her the clue to its pre­fe­rences giving each the other their sense of self tra­cing the body of the woman whose fin­gers in turn trace her body that the miracle of the mir­ror be accom­pli­shed bet­ween women love is contem­pla­tive caresses are inten­ded less to gain pos­ses­sion of the other than gra­dual­ly to recreate the self thru her own self among the women and the women the mul­ti­tude on the way to the way the world was before it began it is now the world is hea­ding defi­ni­te­ly toward a matriar­chy more often to return to the source of things we must tra­vel in the oppo­site direc­tion, Wring out the clothes ! Wring in the dew ! Before all the king’s Hoarsers with all the Queens Mum Her birth is uncon­trol­lable and her organ is wor­king per­fect­ly and there’s a part that’s not scre­wed on and her edu­ca­tion is now for by and about women and pre­si­ded over by woman All women are les­bians except those who don’t know it of course since whe­reas both sexes (even as Sigmund sd) are ori­gi­nal­ly more atta­ched to the mother and it is the task of the girl to trans­fer this attach­ment to the father natu­ral­ly they we are but don’t know it yet that woman is now approa­ching her ancient des­ti­ny as woman I am and the­re­fore les­bian which means nothing we could say it over and over again over les­bian­les­bian­les­bian­les­bian­les­bian­les­bian­les­bian­les­bian­les­bian — Special from the White House, the President of the United States announ­ced last night the appoint­ment of a les­bian to his cabi­net… it’s nice if you can invite them in, they usual­ly come in without kno­cking… Womens lib and let lib new offi­cial posi­tion on les­bians : Hey ladies it’s okay, like Red China is there so we might as well reco­gnize it… yupyop… Liberal Schmiberal… Maybe… uh… we should invite… uh… her… uh… one of them to din­ner… One of what, dear ? Uh, well, uh, she is a bit odd isn’t she ? I mean, you know how we’d feel if a black man was inter­es­ted in our daugh­ter — Aaaaaaaaaaaaa…. Oh god, and she might make a pass at my wife… Agh… But if she just doesn’t talk about what she is… We could pre­tend… Whaddyou say to the naked lady please please sor­ry thank you we are get­ting to the bot­tom of women’s lib we are going down on women’s lib I am beside myself with love for you when you are beside me my love the begin­ning of the uni­first is rite now if all thinks are at this momen­tum being cre­ma­ted and the end of the uni­hearse is right now for all thinks are at this momen­tus pas­sing away we went to see the Dairy of a Skinzopretty girl O why dint her mother straigh­ten out her teeth when she was young O she is envol­ved in many strange and won­drous adven­tures O in short she had come into that abnor­mal condi­tion known as ela­tion O she did not yet love and she loved to love ; she sought what she might love, in love with loving… O what can she say now that is not the sto­ry of so many others O do not fail me she says you are my last chance, indeed our last chance, to save the West… and who vants the Moon ven ve can land on Venus… and O how would you like to be the heroine of yr own life sto­ry (she’s loo­king for­ward to it extre­me­ly) and O don’t be ner­vous be mer­maid be she whom I love who tra­vels with me and sits along while hol­ding me by the hand she ahold of my hand has com­ple­te­ly satis­fied me o natu­ral woman woman vim­min vir­min wore­man woe­man of America the World until until women all the women see in each other the pos­si­bi­li­ty of a pri­mal com­mit­ment which includes sexual love they will be denying them­selves the love and value they have rea­di­ly accor­ded to men, thus affir­ming their second class sta­tus for within the hete­ro­sexual ins­ti­tu­tion no woman can be the equal it is a contra­dic­tion in terms the hete­ro­sexual ins­ti­tu­tion is a male ins­ti­tu­tion a homo ecce homo ins­ti­tu­tion and you can’t ever change the abso­lu­te­ness the ins­ti­tu­tion is poli­ti­cal is built out of the ins­ti­tu­tio­na­li­zed sla­ve­ry of women so it is a contra­dic­tion in terms — such an ins­ti­tu­tion must only col­lapse of its own accord from within the hete­ro­sexual ins­ti­tu­tion is over spi­ri­tual­ly over and the new thing now that is hap­pe­ning is the with­dra­wal of women to give each other their own sense of self a new sense of self until women see in each other the pos­si­bi­li­ty of a pri­mal com­mit­ment which includes sexual love they will be denying them­selves the love and value they rea­di­ly accord to men thus affir­ming their second class sta­tus. Until all women are les­bians there will be no true poli­ti­cal revo­lu­tion until in other same words we are woman I am a woman who loves her­self natu­ral­ly who is other women is a les­bian a woman who loves women loves her­self natu­ral­ly this is the case that a woman is her­self is all woman is a natu­ral born les­bian so we don’t mind using the name it means natu­re­ly I am a woman and wha­te­ver I am we are we affirm being what we are saying the­re­fore Until all women are les­bians there will be no true poli­ti­cal revo­lu­tion mea­ning the ter­mi­nus of the hete­ro­sexual ins­ti­tu­tion through the recol­lec­tion by woman of her woman­hood her own grace and emi­nence by the intense iden­ti­ties of our ances­tors our des­cen­dants of the mothers and the daugh­ters and the grand­mo­thers we become who we are which is to say we become our own iden­ti­ties and auto­no­mies even as now we are so but except those who don’t know it yet will be quite upset about it for some time to come as I would more pro­per­ly be as majo­ri­ties would have it lea­ning on my sword des­cri­bing my defeat some women want to have their cock and eat it too and les­bian is a label inven­ted by any­bo­dy to throw at any woman who dares to be a man’s equal and les­bian is a good name it means nothing of course or eve­ry­thing so we don’t mind using the name in face we like it for we can be proud to claim allu­sion to the island made famous by Sappho the birds are tal­king to us in Greek again and conti­nue on making a big thing out of it over all these cen­tu­ries time we can do that we don’t mind it’s nice in fact for we all all of us women are les­bians why not and isn’t it won­der­ful what a lot of devo­tion there is to us lying around the uni­verse espe­cial­ly to those all envol­ved in some penis they’re wrap­ping their cunts around…. Oh well… Lillian over and out… he sd I want your body and she sd you can have it when I’m through with it… Keep yer hands off me you world­wide weir­do, I just want to be noti­ced, not atta­cked — we had a big argo­naut about it… The age of shri­vel­ry is abo­nus again… A Lord was not consi­de­red defea­ted in a local war until his flag had fal­len from the main tower of his castle… svas­ti­ckles fal­ling outen da sky… the cur­rent dis­pute would be set­tled if the cen­tral figure was no lon­ger present (at this moment our lea­der Norman Mailer akst me to read my last line and I said I’d like to for­go the ques­tion and my friends appea­red on stage and I made love before notables and my cir­cui­try got over­loa­ded and the men in the audience voted they dint want to hear me no more and I don’t remem­ber too much except lea­ving and wishing later I’d kis­sed Germaine before we wal­ked off)… Flash from the White House : last night the President of the United States, clad only in a scan­ty tri­bal cos­tume, announ­ced the resi­gna­tion of the American Government… His life was an emp­ty record of gam­bling cock­figh­ting tit­ting balls and masques vim­min and vine clothes… Better latent than never… ali­quem alium inter­um… there’s no such thing as sexual dif­fe­ren­tia­tion in the spi­ri­tual nature of wo(man)… This is the pro­blem pas­sion play of the mil­len­tu­ry… O this Restoration Comedy — it’s going to be a beau­ti­ful reu­nion… plun­der­pus­sy and all spoi­led goods going into her nab­sack and some heroine women in wings of Samothrace… Is it to drown her pas­sen­gers that you have bored a hole in her ? Rubbish, what bun­kum these people talk… Events are pre­shi­pi­ta­king them­selves in the har­piest confu­sion… cun­ni­lin­guist… Listen. If you reco­gni­zed an aspect of your­self that you love in these ancient new womens heads I too have reco­gni­zed an admi­rable aspect of myself in your willin­gness to be as beau­ti­ful as you are who you are My mother was a ves­tal, my father I knew not no prince nor lord nor mas­ter-ness but the nipples and navels of the whirld a won­der­wo­man the mothers and the daugh­ters and the great grand­mo­thers and daugh­ters of Rachel and Ruth and Sarah and Rebekah the rest we will know now the daugh­ter the mothers and sis­ters will have daugh­ters who beget daugh­ters so we will more sense, from this time, of the lineage and liga­ments and lega­cies and iden­ti­ties of our mothers and daugh­ters and their mothers and mothers and daugh­ters and sis­ters who are natu­ral­ly of course les­bians if they have of each other and saying Verily Verily except a woman must be born again she can­not see the Queendom of Goddess a woman must be born again to be her­self her own emi­nence and grace the queen queen­self whose mother has pres­sed upon her mouth innu­me­rable pas­sio­nate kisses… Sail away where the wind blows sweet… and take a sis­ter by her hand… Lead her far from this bar­ren land…
ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE YOUR MOTHER.

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« ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE YOUR MOTHER » Lesbian Nation [1969–1972]
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p. 266–273