Portly Dyke Has Something To Say About PDA

32 thoughts on Portly Dyke Has Something To Say About PDA

1. I am unable to read the link at work (Stupid filtering) but I sure can say a lot on that subject.

   My heterosexual friends will never understand what it’s like to hide their relationships. To not touch and say certain things in public. I’m pretty out, but I still have moments of “Oh god do i really need to come out to the lady waxing my eyebrows cause she just asked if my girlfriend is my sister?”

   That is actually the thing that bugs me the most. People assume because me and my girlfriend are touchy and finish each other’s sentences and go everywhere together, we must be sisters! Well, no. She’s my lesbian lover, thank you very much. My straight friends like to tell me that when someone says this I should french kiss my girlfriend in front of them, to “show them.” Well… yeah. But what if they *hate us?* My hete friends don’t have to worry about getting hate crimed because they kissed their SO in public.

   I live in the South. I’m careful and safe as well as out. And it is slowly killing my self worth and soul.

   Wow. Soapbox. Sorry.

2. Thanks for reposting this. I saw this post several days ago as I was following misc links around cyberspace and then couldn’t find it again. It is so good at illustrating the continual censorship same gender couples must effect in their everyday lives. Most different sex couples don’t have a clue.
   The recent Wells Fargo stockholder proposal aiming to rescind anti discrimination policies used phases such as “sexual interest” and “sexual matters” and “sexual life” to categorize the personal life of gays and lesbians who might even hint at their personal life. Even talking about ones personal life is an extreme of PDA, but some people don’t even want us to mention our lives.
   Read it all and take the challenge.

3. Well… yeah. But what if they *hate us?* My hete friends don’t have to worry about getting hate crimed because they kissed their SO in public.

   I live in the South. I’m careful and safe as well as out. And it is slowly killing my self worth and soul.

   I know I’m going to catch hell for this, but I really feel like I need to get it out so I’ll just say up front that I understand my experience as a big butch bear has a lot to do with how I feel about this. Having to be closeted is wrong and ridiculous. I know, I’ve been there, it tears you up inside and crushes who you believe yourself to be in ways most people can’t understand. You do things you would never believe you’d do just because you need to be safe.

   But it seems your problem answers itself. You’re afraid of violence, you’re afraid of being “hate crimed.” And its a valid fear. But I’d be willing to bet that, living in the south, you live in a state that would allow you the right to protect yourself from that fear. Get a license, buy a gun, learn how to use it, and protect yourself.

   I know its total shit that you’d feel like you had to, but the reality is that we live in a world where bad people do bad things for bad reasons. No one is going to protect you but you, and this life we live has put us in a very difficult position. There is no reason you should live in fear, no reason you should accept being made to feel subhuman because you are who you are, no reason your only recourse should be to hide and hope that no one too useless to keep their backwards opinions to themselves don’t somehow peg you for the “other.” You’re lucky enough to live in a place where you can have the power to be unafraid. Sure, there might be consequences, but look at the alternative.

4. I’ve always known. I can’t imagine the pressure and fear. I’m always happy to see a couple who feel brave and/or comfortable enough to act as a couple and at the same time I am so ashamed (disgusted) of the being a part of the culture that disallows it.

   It really burns me up. Especially when I hear other people talking about “flaunting”.

5. I’m really curious about people’s individual stories and different circumstances around this. I actually know several straight couples who tend to adhere to the “challenge” all the time (and the first comment over at Alas is another example) although for fairly different reasons. In some cases it’s just that some people are very private; in others, one or both members of a straight couple have enough experience being in queer relationships that they’re either subconsciously conditioned not to PDA more then a siblingy peck on the cheek, or aware enough of their privilege that they don’t want to flaunt it when others can’t.

   I grew up in social circles where PDA was heavily frowned on, for whatever reason (class? clique differentiation? nerds? politics?) and even though I spent the first half of my dating life mostly “heterosexually dating” the people I dated were always adamantly against PDA, an attitude that I quickly absorbed. PDA is really only the tip of the iceberg, though, there are all sorts of other semi-invisible privileges. And now I have to quote another Alas commenter because it’s a really good account from two sides of the fence:

   And then I started to transition and started to pass. Suddenly, I’m not a butch woman holding hands with a girl, I’m a young straight guy. In the San Francisco Airport. Preparing to be separated from my beloved for several months. Anybody who looked at us could see this. Just like they could when I’d left from previous visits. But it was completely different. Straight women smiled wistfully at us. I couldn’t believe how much hostility must have been hiding under that ‘tolerance’ that I had taken for granted.

   It’s like when you’re in a female/female couple and you see another such couple and give each other the -oh-cool-you’re-queer-too look. I was getting something like that from the straights. Like they have all this approval and happiness for couples. Which obviously they do, but it’s not something I had EVER experienced before.

   Some couples fit happily under this storybook idea of romance and partnership and relationship, while others don’t, or have to be shoehorned in at best, and others get completely different treatment. feel like the standard reception from the average straight person in public (even in NYC where I live) for a gay female relationship is either disinterest (NYC specialty) or a look of slight puzzlement and consternation, or a prurient leer from some nasty guy. There’s nothing like this approval, except from the occasional queer or queer-friendly person.

   It makes me think about other kinds of couples that don’t quite fit in — for instance, my parents, who got together in the early 70s back when interracial marriage was still against the law in many states. They lived in California, which wasn’t exactly a hotbed of anti-miscegenation laws or bigotry, but they have their fair share of stories about encountering hostility or thinly veiled “tolerance.” And even when I was growing up I remember that there was no way my parents were ever regarded as a totally “normal” couple — the very fact of being an interracial couple made them notable, positive or negative. That’s less and less the case, but still — I wonder what kinds of interracial couples, other kinds of couples are still too “marked” to get that uncomplicated “wistful smile.”

6. Holly, when I was in college I avoided het PDA in queer spaces and crowds. When I was with my (female) partner, I was conscious of the distance it created, and that was hours, not a week.

7. I think about this kind of thing all the time. I tend to be a very private person in general, but I don’t discount that as a bisexual in a male-female relationship, I still have the ability to discuss my boyfriend in public without fear of reaction. Yes, I try to keep my private life private, and yes, I hate PDA in general, but there is still that option, and I still am probably not aware of what kind of privilage I have. While I may try to not engage in PDA (I have always found it tacky and obnoxious for my single friends) I don’t have to worry about touching, looking, or anything like that… at least, at this point, in this relationship.

   The word “flaunting” relating to nonhet relationships drives me up a fucking wall.

8. I’m openly bisexual, and partnered with a man. (We are married, but I use the term “partner” because of my other LGBT friends and family who can’t get married in this country.) But before I was with him, I was engaged to someone else – another bisexual woman. We split up because of significant age and cultural differences, but it is certain that the strain of having to hide the fact that we were fiancees, even from our families, made it even harder to cope with those. I was – we were – very much aware of the hostility we experienced when we were arm in arm, or hand in hand, let alone kissing. Being bisexual, I have experienced both the acceptance that het couples receive in most spaces and the rejection, disgust, and hostility that same-sex couples receive. It’s appalling, and it is little surprise that many same-sex couples feel compelled to hide their love as if it were something to be ashamed of. I will often try to make sure that same-sex couples are aware of my delight and welcoming attitude when they are being affectionate in public; love is love, after all, and to be enjoyed and greeted with delight whether it’s yours or another couple or family’s.

   My family does not approve of PDA at all, even at home between spouses! You can imagine how they would have reacted to my being openly affectionate with J. Like Thomas, I do not push het PDA in queer spaces out of respect, and it’s difficult, as difficult as it was to mask the love I felt for my fiancee.

9. Holly, I was in an interracial relationship in highschool (almost ten years ago!) and I remember I thought a lot about what may be okay or not okay to do (as far as PDA) in public. He didn’t really think about it at all. I think this was b/c I caught a lot more crap from my peers and strangers than he ever experienced.

10. That’s less and less the case, but still — I wonder what kinds of interracial couples, other kinds of couples are still too “marked” to get that uncomplicated “wistful smile.”

    I’m in an interracial couple. The looks we get when we share a PDA (which we don’t do very often. Sometimes, in some places, it’s just a really bad idea.) vary from surprise to disgust. I think the fact that we’re in a less seen coupling (I’m a black woman, he’s a white man) has something to do with it, but sometimes we can tell that people just plain hate that we’re together.

    It’s especially evident when we meet other couples like us, and we share that connection- a smile, a head nod, whatever. Each of us understands what the other has experienced, and those looks, like the one the Alas commenter described, is one of understanding and acceptance. We don’t always get that look.

11. We don’t always get that look.

    Whenever I see a same-sex couple I try to give a little smile-and-nod: I figure some folks appreciate a tiny bit of affirmation.

12. Thomas says:
    May 5th, 2008 at 5:31 pm – Edit
    We don’t always get that look.

    Whenever I see a same-sex couple I try to give a little smile-and-nod: I figure some folks appreciate a tiny bit of affirmation.

    I do this too, except that because I’m a giant fucking marshmallow, it’s more of a misty-eyed, trembling chin type of half-smile, because I’m happy that the couple feels safe enough to be affectionate, but I’m also sad that they have to worry about it, and my face just gets confused with all the various emotions and I end up looking like an idiot.

13. I always smile when I see same-sex couples canoodling around Montreal, that they feel comfortable in public make me feel safe(r). My presentation is sometimes ‘read’ as lesbian, which doesn’t bother me except when I feel unsafe.

14. My ex was always afraid of public affection, while I was completely comfortable with it. It really frustrated me how she would closet herself from so many people, but I tried my best to be patient and not force her.

    At the same time, I vented out that frustration by talking to my (straight) friends so that my head wouldn’t explode from the stress. They really didn’t understand it. They took it as her being shy, but the truth was she was scared of being bashed in public. She would tell me how afraid she was of someone she knows seeing her with me. To my friends, it was a silly thing that would pass and that I was making a big deal out of nothing. However, they never had to date someone who was too afraid to show that affection out of fear of being discriminated against.

    I really wish they would try to look at it from my perspective.

15. living in portland, i love to see gay boys & girls walking down the street holding hands. i squee a little inside and smile at them.

    but as a poly person, i’m never out about multiple boys. i look like i’m in a standard hetero relationship and everyone knows me w/ my partner, but when i show up with another boy or try to talk about another person in my life they’re very confused — or worse, they take an involuntary step backwards.

16. This is definitely something that has crossed my mind. My mom raised me to be pro-gay-rights and all, and by high school I’d picked up on the fact that the closet existed, hate crimes existed, some people were (bafflingly) against the concept of gay marriage, but the first time it really hit me on an empathetic level was tenth grade, when I had a boyfriend and one day the boyfriend and I were holding hands and cuddling (PDA in my social circle had made some eyes roll, but everyone did it when coupled and as long as your tongue stayed in your own mouth and your hands stayed away from the bathing-suit bits a lot of people also thought it was sweet, so there’s my data point on that question).

    And suddenly it hit me, oh, some–hell, most–gay people can’t do this, and I was fifteen and head over heels in the way fifteen year olds get where you send each other embarrassing IMs about how you miss each other over the weekends (oh come now, we all have our shameful admissions) and it almost physically hurt to imagine not being able to hold his hand, to kiss him on the cheek, to sit in our hangout spots talking to our friends with our arms around each other’s waist. It made me so sad to think that some people didn’t feel safe doing something that, to me, was such a natural impulse.

    Same-sex couples always make me smile. Well, couples in general do–I am not-so-secretly a HUGE sap–but same-sex couples that are public about their coupledom always make me feel a little more optimistic, I guess. Maybe in the future I will aim those smiles at them a little bit more.

17. I don’t touch. I don’t like being touched or touching. I do flirt, however. When I ‘click’ with someone, I flirt. Young, old, male, female, gay, straight, red, white, blue, yellow, brown, black, whatever the combination, I click, I flirt. The chatter, the smile that says I’m glad to see you, the body language that says sit a while and talk to me. I’m asexual, so it’s not sexual, even though I find both men and women attractive, merely personal. As individuals, I like people. It makes some people uncomfortable, some flirt right back and some think I’m just overly friendly and a bit dim.

    It’s like being in a closet with a window. I can get away with it, but only because no one knows the truth.

18. Pingback: Ways to End the World › It must hurt a lot.

19. I HATE any super obvious physical carrying on in public in ANY relationship – by that I mean drooling and snogging and carrying on as it you both were truly in the privacy of your own home – and I mean that for HETRO or NOT SO HETRO couples – I just think it vulgar LOL

    as far as light kisses, holding hands, arms arouund shoulders – doesn’t bother me in the least – and I have searched my own soul and find I don’t react differently whether the couple is hetro or same sex … it just doesn’t bother me OR my kids – who have been brought up very open to all the different blendings around today.

    perhaps becuaase I spent teenage years in montreal and have been in toronto for a long time where it is pretty acceptable (I think? Obviously I don’t walk in their shoes) I’ve never thought it was an issue one way or the other and certaintly have NEVER reacted differently WITH my kids or WITHOUT out – but then we have a number of gay family friends.

20. I feel sad for people who don’t feel comfortable/able to express PDA because of their sexuality. Being able to hold hands, hug, kiss lightly in any place is one of the wonderful things about being in a couple.

    As for being in an interracial couple, in this time I don’t see how that compares to what same-sex couples experience. My husband is black, I’m white, and either we are completely oblivious or have been very lucky because we have yet to see any disapproving or otherwise odd looks directed at us. And we don’t live in a large city. We met in small-town CO, where few blacks lived, and now live in a larger Indiana town.

21. OK… to those who expressed distaste for PDAs in general, what harm do they do? When anything consensually sexual is disapproved of, who gets the brunt of the disapproval? That’s right, women (and other females). *gently closes can of worms for now*

    I smile like a loon at every couple kissing etc. in public, because I’m a romantic. I think both straight and gay PDAs add a little cheer to the world – and gay PDAs have the added benefit of reminding folk that, y’know, there is more than one type of couple out there (as do poly PDAs).

    Ugh to the word “flaunting”.

    I am a bisexual transman, in a gay relationship. I look like an incredibly butch woman. I notice that, when I’m with my partner, the “wistful smiles” are DOUBLY approving – they thought I was one of those lesbians, but it turns out I’m a nice straight person like them.
    that’s applicable.

    I want to ask people who go on about “flaunting” the same question that I’d like to ask all homophobes – have you ever been in love? I mean, those people must have married and/or had kids for money or convenience or something, because, otherwise, wouldn’t they have the tiniest bit of empathy towards people who just want to be safe holding hands on the street, like they did?

22. Just went to visit my wife’s great-aunt Sunday, down in Vancouver’s West End. Saw a couple of pretty punk boys holding hands, and yeah. It’s sweet. It’s good that they can get away with it there, bad that I have to use the phrase “get away with it.”

    We still get the bashings and swarmings up here. Sadly, some people even go down to the west end, where they’re far more likely to find openly gay men showing affection, for that express purpose. Hopefully the areas in which it’s reasonably safe only get safer, and grow. ‘Cause as others have pointed out, it’s kinda sweet. It’s nice to see people in love and showing it.

23. When people here say they are against PDAs I think they may be thinking of affection taken to a level that is not considered acceptable in public in our culture, whereas the people who wonder how you can possibly mind are thinking of sweet little kisses and holding hands. I love seeing public-space-appropriate levels of affection shown in public, especially by gay & lesbian couples (being a lesbian myself). Actually, what REALLY brings a smile to my face is affection between elderly G/L couples – challenging heterosexism and ageism all at once, I like to imagine they’ve been together for decades and are still so much in love, plus I just so admire any LGBT folks who lived through times when it was so much harder than it is now and helped pave the way for the rest of us. But I cannot stand people who are all over each other in public spaces, grinding and tonguing and all that, which is pretty much always straight couples. I’ve thought about why I hate it so, and I think it comes down to 2 things:

    1) It makes me uncomfortable because I don’t know how to react. It is rude to stare. But if they’re in your field of vision, it’s hard to avoid it. Pointedly looking elsewhere can be a pain, when your attention needs to be on something (a show, a conversation partner, whatever) in their general direction. It’s distracting as anything. And heaven forbid you need them to move so you can reach your drink on the bar or get to the bathroom or something, because even though they’re in public they’ve lost all awareness and consideration of those around them, and you’re trying to politely(!) get the attention of this couple with her hand in his crotch and his face in her cleavage slurping away.

    2) It is such an obvious display of the heterosexual privilege in our culture, and I just know that if I were to do something like that with my girlfriend I’d certainly get some verbal crap and might be assaulted or arrested. And even though I don’t really want to be *that* demonstrative in public, the fact that they CAN and I CAN’T stokes my anger at the whole f-ing heterosexist world. Of course, I don’t express the anger in any way, but the in-my-face-ness of their heterosexual privilege just pisses me off. (also, I find myself wondering if that couple is composed of people who talk about gays “flaunting.”)

24. I live in the Castro district of SF, and there’s a ton of same-sex PDA going on. It’s a really safe place for both nonhet and het couples to get their public mack on. It’s actually pretty heartwarming, all the love around. I’ve lived here for quite a while, and I guess I’ve kind of lost my sensitivity to the issue, because it really barely is one in my area — thanks for reminding me that things aren’t so open outside of my bubble.

25. OK… to those who expressed distaste for PDAs in general, what harm do they do? When anything consensually sexual is disapproved of, who gets the brunt of the disapproval? That’s right, women (and other females). *gently closes can of worms for now*

    I do want to respond to this. For me, personally, I get irritated with people in relationships when I am single, even though I personally don’t really care about dating and doubt the whole long-term-monogamy-whatever. Hell, I get irritated with people in relationships even when I am seeing someone, because I can always leave that person to the side and talk to the other people I am with who I generally see less often than my lover. To me, it is rude to be setting a pair of people apart from the group by virtue of the fact they are dating. Too often, I see couples who can’t break apart from the night to sit by people they haven’t seen in a month, or who can’t talk about anything but each other when they are apart. I hate especially people who bring along their het sweeties on “Girls Night Out” (or, while I am not there, Boys Night Out). Come on, couples, you are not actually attached at the hip.

    I think our society treats couples differently. For instance, Emily Post says you cannot invite out one member of a married couple without inviting their spouse. Why the fuck not, Emily? Aren’t they two different people?

26. I live in Victoria, BC, and I see a lot of PDA between same-sex couples. It always makes me smile. There’s a lesbian couple at my church who sorta cuddle up and listen to the sermon together. And a straight couple too. I like my city. 🙂

27. OK… to those who expressed distaste for PDAs in general, what harm do they do? When anything consensually sexual is disapproved of, who gets the brunt of the disapproval? That’s right, women (and other females). *gently closes can of worms for now*

    I’m just not comfortable with PDA, straight, gay, or otherwise. It has something to do with how I was raised: my family is not overly physically affectionate, and I’m not used to expressing emotions, in a physical way, so publicly. I’m also a very private person and engaging in PDA myself squicks me out, so seeing others do makes me even more uncomfortable. Of course PDA doesn’t do any real harm, but I just don’t want to see it.

    I’m sure my het privilege is coming through here – after all, if I were afraid of engaging in PDA with my partner because of society’s reactions and such, I might have quite different opinions about it. But as a straight girl, it honestly just bothers me. And I hate it when people treat me like a prude because of that. Just cause I don’t want to see other people kiss in public doesn’t mean I’m afraid of sex or any of that. Nor do I think sex should always be “special.” I would prefer that it didn’t happen right in front of me (unless I’m involved, of course!).

28. While clearly, people’s own comfort level with “PDA,” straight or nonstraight, exists on a range, I think it’s important to see that the original post by PortlyDyke is not just about “PDA” as in snogging in public or being overtly sexually with one another. It about much more than that–it’s about feeling able to acknowledge your partner/lover as your partner/lover in public spaces. Hand-holding, putting your arm around your partner’s waist, and using “we” language instead of “I” language is not going to violate most peoples’ comfort zones in terms of Public Displays of Affection . . . at least if the couple is heterosexual. PortlyDyke’s point is that we don’t, for the most part, even notice these behaviors in straight couples . . . unless we’re aware of not being able to engage in them ourselves without attracting unwanted negative attention.

29. annajcook says: May 7th, 2008 at 7:42 am – Edit

    That is what struck me most about PD’s post. At first I thought the challenge of just not kissing or holding hands in public would be easy. But when I read all the other details she pointed out, no touching in anyway, no “we” language, no wedding ring, it really hit me just how limited gay couples are in public. I shared this with my husband, who is tolerant but not really understanding of LGBT issues, and he just kept saying how sad it is. It was really an eye-opener for me as a heterosexual.

30. I’m not really into huge, personal PDAs, but it’s a disgrace to all of us that not everyone can feel safe enough to so much as touch, kiss or act in any way look like a couple. Even as someone who identifies as heterosexual, growing up I had an element of self-editing in behaviour when I was out with a close friend who is very physically affectionate, in part because I was never the huge hug/kiss person (unless I know people well), but she’s a very hand-holdy, kissy daaahling huggy person who just loves to give and recieve physical affection with everyone. Even though we weren’t an item, and weren’t engaging in anything remotely sexual people reacted to us visibly, assuming we were a lesbian couple. Even though I didn’t feel a hundredth of what lesbian couples face every day, I could see how brave they would have to be to so much as touch in public, and what kind of effect it could have on their lives. To fit in, I’d just have to ask my friend to be a bit less clingy. To fit in, they’d need to deny their relationships, to create a wall between themselves and who they love, in fear of violence and anger. I am ashamed that I can have these privileges, when they can’t. But the very least I can do is to try and be supportive in any way I can.

    It made me sad then, as now, how much the LGBT community has to hide for its safety, how people would react to the tiniest bit of what they would see as homosexuality, and punish them, or at the very least stare disgusted.

31. Wow. Talk about a lesson in “hetero privilege”….gulp.

32. I’m a lover not a hater, superb post.

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