Four Noble Truths for Lesbians

After crafting the Revised Four Noble Truths for gays, I thought I’d take a stab at a similar post for the grrls. It’s a tough crowd, one not afraid to express itself (did you notice how I capitalized 'Lebsian' but left 'gay' lower case for the boys?). But no matter who we are, if we take ourselves too seriously, nobody pays attention. So here it is ladies, unabashed and audience tested.

Now this – all you lipstick lesbians, diesel dykes, cat-women dominatrix, flip-flop wearing Peppermint Patties, matronly moms, stressed-out bodybuilders, long-legged beach queens, beehive homemakers, grease-pit goddesses, and thin-lipped librarian types – is the noble truth of stress:

Having a middle-aged man call you “honey” is stressful; having a gorgeous young girl call you ma’am is stressful; being repeatedly asked by straight people if you own a motorcycle is stressful; learning your girlfriend really does want a penis is stressful; running into a bi guy at a gay bar is stressful; having arm-flailing gay men in front of you at an Indigo Girls concert is stressful; meeting a really super nice straight girl who likes you a lot but isn’t going to sleep with you is stressful; broken carburetors are stressful; having to change a tire for a gay man is stressful; finding out your date hasn’t got a clue about what Scissor Sisters is a reference for is stressful; having someone ask you if you’re lipstick or diesel when if they’d just open their fucking eyes they’d know is stressful; getting a breast exam is stressful; getting a PAP smear by a gynecologist that sniffles is stressful; being constantly asked if you hate men is stressful; being mistaken for a boy is stressful; being mistaken for a girl is stressful; having to be asked yet again whether Annie Leibovitz is a lesbian is stressful; trying to figure out why Willa Cather mostly wrote about men is stressful; being asked about Chastity Bono when you don’t even like Cher is stressful; not having enough candles is stressful. In short, the entire glamorous life of a lesbian is stressful.

And this, my sensational sisters, is the origination of stress: Expecting male sexist pigs to treat you with respect; forgetting that you’re not 22 anymore; failing to understand that body art can at times give the wrong impression; wishing you had watched “Boys Don’t Cry”; under-appreciating gamblers; stubbornly sticking to the idea that there are some places you can still keep us out of; failing to appreciate that you are a likeable person; not buying a car with fuel injection; not realizing that changing the tire is the source of the stress rather than for whom you are changing it; thinking that Internet dating service profiles are truthful; expecting others to have the same level of awesome awareness that you have; failing to appreciate the real First Noble Truth; refusing to acknowledge it was your decision to accept the job with the lame-assed health plan; allowing yourself to continue to be shocked whenever you encounter ignorance; continuing to allow your self-worth to be determined by others; see previous; not taking it seriously how many people get their information from Fox News; yeah, that’s a tough one to figure out; forgetting that most people – including gays – just don’t get the transgendered thing; yeah, what is it with you grrls and candles? This is how you stress yourself.

And this, my sisters in saintliness, is the noble truth of the cessation of stress. That which is the letting go of the desire to control how others think, the freeing yourself of trying to be someone other than who you truly are, the embracing of the present moment in all its roughness and ambiguity, the understanding that the value of you as a person is not determined by external factors but rather by the generosity in your heart and your willingness to protect Nellie queens from gay-bashing morons, and the abandonment of the condescending mind that drives you to seek fulfillment at Home Depot.

And this, my sardonic scissor sisters, is the path leading to the ending of all that stress, the Noble Queerfold Path which leads to inner peace and multiple orgasms: Right Spending, Right Friends, Right Self-value, Right Sincerity, Right Honor, Right Compassion, Right Love, and Right Restraint.

Of course, the items in the Noble Queerfold Path, while laudable, are not the same as the Noble Eightfold Path. And certainly, anyone serious about following the Buddha’s path should pay more attention to the latter than the former. But whether you’re a pixyish boy with blue hair or a big-boned mamma laying roof shingles, there is value in the Queerfold Path. And peace as well.