Having Cancer is Worse than Being Gay

Dear Sappho,

I was recently diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer mets to my bones. I was surprised to find out that telling people I have cancer is worse that telling people I am a lesbian. It’s almost like I told them I have leprosy. I am doing well and expect to live a long time with treatment options and sheer determination. My friends and coworkers don’t want to hear that I am ill. One suggested I keep such information to myself. Not that I’m looking for sympathy, and I do appear to be healthy and normal. But I am still in a bit of disbelief that having cancer is now less acceptable than being gay. Is this good or bad news for the lesbian community at large? 

Cancer is Worse than Being Gay

Requirements for Long Term Lesbian Relationships

Dear Sappho,

What do you think is the most important quality in a long-term lesbian relationship?

Love, sex, acceptance, mutual goals & visions and compatibly are very important but so is reliability, and trust. First I followed my heart then my head and now my gut. Lesbian relationships are different from straight relationships. I’m asking you as the High Priestess Lesbian, what is the best requirement for long-term happiness?

Flirting with Impunity

Dear Sappho,

I love to flirt but find it is usually a labor of love to flirt with other lesbians. Some are too politically correct or uptight to return the favor. Others take it the wrong way and act like I’m proposing we spend our lives together. Gay men seem to have fun flirting and they even flirt with straight men as a form of wordplay. Lesbians seem a little heavy handed in the flirting dept. Do you notice this as well and how does one flirt with impunity anyway?

Before the Flowers of Friendship Faded, Friendship Faded

21 

by Gertrude Stein

(from Before the Flowers of Friendship Faded)

I love my love with a v

Because it is like that

I love my love with a b

Because I am beside that

A king.

I love my love with an a

Because she is a queen

I love my love and a a is the best of them

Think well and be a king,

Think more and think again

I love my love with a dress and a hat

I love my love and not with this or with that

I love my love with a y because she is my bride

I love her with a d because she is my love beside

Thank you for being there

Nobody has to care

Thank you for being here

Because you are not there.

And with and without me which is and without she she can be late and then and how and all around we think and found

that it is time to cry she and I.

An Incomplete Portrait of Gertrude Stein

"Paris Was A Woman" - Gertrude Stein & Alice B. Toklas

Famous Married Lesbians?

Dear Sappho,

With so many gay and lesbian people trying to get the right to marry I was hoping that you would mention some famous “married” lesbians. Do you have some good examples of long lasting lesbian relationships?

I support lesbians and want to hear more about the happily married ones.

Supporting Lesbian