Merideth Baxter - Walk a mile in her birkenstocks

When I turned on the View a couple weeks ago to catch up on the important news in the world and heard that Merideth Baxter had come out as a lesbian I admit...I felt a moment of titillation.  Trying to figure out why is a question I will not bother to get a therapist for as it is not a top 10 puzzle AND I get weirdly shy discussing my fantasies with a therapist.  What followed in the discussion on the View though could drive me to drink.  I will share with you what I am sure has damaged my ever so refined, delicate and now fragile queer self image.   

Bill Getty, producer of the View asked the asinine question that must be on some Americans mind.  He wanted to know if the reason all these women that were coming out later in life were doing so because of the lack of available men?  Thank heavens Whoopi is on the panel and seems to come close to knowing where our team sits on the bench.  Some days I feel hit by a bat and this was one of them!  Whoopi denied this idiotic premise but I thought I should break it down for those in search of a village (of course, they aren't reading this as they are hitting the brush).

It appears that some peoples illogical logic has to be that we homo female types:
a) are too butt ugly (unattractive) to catch a man or
b) there is not enough eligible bald pot bellied men of a certain age so we have no choice but to turn to eat our own!

There were the usual jokes or concerns [on the View] about how Merideth's poor husbands must feel about her coming out.  They might feel like they did something wrong to make their ex wives get with a woman butcher than them.  This begs the question of whether a person can be 'made to be gay'.  There certainly seems to be a weird sense of responsibility that people take on for anothers' sexuality that I find off base and icky.

I remember in high school I knew a guy who had 2 or 3 girlfriends who came out after being with him.   Yes, he did get teased a bit but he played it up because he liked the idea of going where 'no man had gone before or after'.  Mind you, it was the Star Trek era.  Now, did he turn them queer or did he happen to be attracted to lesbians?  I doubt he chased them out of the closet with his penis.  He also LOVED telling people he had been with real lesbians (vs fake ones I guess?).  I believe people get to know themselves and gain a comfort level in their own time with who they are and it is unlikely in most cases to have anything to do with a current or ex spousal unit. 


Yes, men seem to be treated in conversation as if something has happened to them by their EX, mind you many years divorced EX WIFE coming out as I saw in Merideth's case.  A woman's internal feelings become about a man in our ego sideways male driven society.  Interesting how a woman once again is referenced in terms of her [ex] husband instead of her own accord.  This is not unusual in other countries at all but here we think we are so evolved.  

Sometimes I thing things are as simple as people are attracted to who they are attracted to.  Isn't that profound?  Maybe some women are coming out later in life because they finally have the opportunity to pay attention to their own wants, needs, desires and who they actually are versus who they have been told they should be their entire lives.  Perhaps after years of taking care of others they are looking inward and deciding it is time to take care of themselves.  Whatever the reason, I applaud, encourage and respect women to find their voice and come out in whatever way feels right for their individual path. After all, they are the ones that have to walk in their birkenstocks.

Ms T



Disclaimer:  if you need to read this disclaimer to realize this is written in the style of satire then I am glad I made you put on your glasses.  I only intended to offend people with no sense of humor or lack of style shown by wearing polyester seersucker clothing.

Satire definition according to Dictionary.com:

1.     the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc.
2.     a literary composition, in verse or prose, in which human folly and vice are held up to scorn, derision, or ridicule.