Gay Today: People

Are we Really Going to

Not Tonight, Dear

By Barbara Raab

So there I was, sitting in the waiting room of my doctor's office, an all-women's health practice in a large, established teaching hospital in New York City.

Doctor's waiting rooms these days should be renamed waiting-and-waiting-and-waiting-for-fucking-ever rooms. Every doctor I know seems to have an on-time record that rivals LaGuardia Airport's on a foggy day with the air traffic control system on the fritz. What if I showed up at 10:45 for my 9:00 appointment? Just wondering.

Okay, anyway, there I was, and all around me were brochures about menopause, and estrogen therapy, with glossy photos of middle aged women biking and smiling and just generally enjoying their hormone replacement regimes. Being not quite there yet (although looking forward with great anticipation to the day when I can stop buying big boxes of overpriced rayon sticks that never seem to contain quite enough for two months in a row -- what happened, did you just get *tired* of putting 40 in a box, or what?), I passed on the brochures and instead picked up a bright pink flyer.

The headline was, NOT TONIGHT, DEAR. The Women's Health Program was looking for participants for a discussion group, seven sessions lasting 90 minutes apiece (roughly equivalent to the length of time it apparently takes to be called for your scheduled appointment with the doctor).

Below the headline was a question: "Are you looking for a confidential group to discuss your lack of sexual desire?"

No, I'm not looking for a confidential group to discuss my sexual woes. I'm looking for a group to listen to my sexual woes and then go out and blab what I said all over town. Oh, wait; that happens anyway, only, I don't have to join a group. All I have to do is go to dinner with a group of lesbians. Kidding. KIDDING. All it takes is lunch, not dinner.

Actually, I thought, I'm looking to spend seven sessions lasting 90 minutes on a fun, smart, sane, sexy date. Where's *that* flyer? Come to think of it, where's that *person*?

Maybe I will have better luck if I spend seven sessions of 90 minutes in Bogota, Colombia, where the message to men on one recent Friday night was definitely, "Not tonight, dear."

According to the Associated Press, Bogota had its first girls night out -- without men. Last I checked, this was called a lesbian bar, but whatever.

In what is being described as "an appeal for the sexes to 'walk a night in one another's shoes'," the mayor of Bogota cooked up the first "Night Without Men." From 8:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. on a Friday night, he invited all of Bogota's women to hit the streets for a night of partying. No men allowed. They were told to stay home with the kids and the dirty dishes. A poll published in the local newspaper found that 47 percent of men supported the "Night Without Men." If men did go out that night, they were not arrested, but they were asked to carry a "safe conduct" pass, listing their excuse.

I like that. Let's try it in Chelsea, and the Castro. Let's turn every Boy's Town in America into Girl's Town, for one night, anyway.

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Hooters

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Or let's just go to Hooters.

This is one of my long-standing lesbian fantasies--getting the biggest, butchest bunch of dykes, going to a Hooters restaurant, ordering buckets of spicy chicken wings, ruining the day for all those out of town business men on expense accounts, and then rescuing all the cute Hooters Girls in the very short orange shorts and very tight white tops. (Pantyhose and bras are required by company policy.)

It's not that the Hooters gig is exploitative and horrible. Oh no. "Sex is legal and it sells," the company says, and, besides, "Hooters Girls have the same right to use their natural female sex appeal to earn a living as do supermodels Cindy Crawford and Naomi Campbell."

"To Hooters, the women's rights movement is important because it guarantees women have the right to choose their own careers, be it a Supreme Court Justice or Hooters Girl." (I am not making this up.)

So I say, let's show a Hooters Girl a good time, and then escort her to the door of the nearest law school so she can begin working her way up to the highest court in the land, legalize same-sex marriage, reverse the Boy Scout decision, and strike down sodomy laws everywhere.