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| Dyke Drama with Leslie Lange |
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| Written by Anna Pulley | |
| Monday, 12 March 2007 | |
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“What is dyke drama? Any lesbian relationship that last longer than one night. No, wait...any lesbian relationship that lasts long enough to require communication. No...actually, you could blindfold two dykes and put them in separate soundproof booths in separate states and still, somehow, the vibe of drama would be sparked. It’s unstoppable.”--Michelle Sawyer, author of They Say She Tastes Like Honey Dyke drama. We’ve all experienced it. Yet rarely do we go beyond a simple recognition of this inexplicable force in our lives. We accept it as an intrinsic facet of our lesbian lives, something we inherit, like granola and thirty-seven ways to spell wimmin. That is, until Leslie Lange, author of the irreverent and practical, Dyke Drama: Your Guide to Getting Out Alive came along. Leslie is an expert on the topic, a self-avowed dyke drama scholar, which is why I thought I’d put her drama skills to the test and conduct this interview at gunpoint, or actually, since she lives in California, with a gun to the phone receiver. LL: Do you really have a gun? DA: Yes, it’s a WWII musket. LL: (audible shudder) Oh, is it clean? DA: Well, between balancing work, a stilted personal life and corrupting family values, I don’t really have time…hey, who’s asking the questions here?! First off, I want to say kudos to you for writing this book. If Showtime can create a whole series dedicated to dyke drama, and if it yields nearly 1 million hits on Google, it’s way past due for it to receive the respect and humorous anecdotes you bring to the topic. So thank you for that. And thank you also for not being a lesbian mystery writer. I was beginning to think all lesbians were secretly detectives. LL: Actually, all detectives are secretly lesbians. Maybe it all started with Nancy Drew and her butch/femme friends George and Bess. I couldn’t get enough—I’d be reading The Secret in the Old Clock, and there’s this other “secret” inside myself at the same time. Who can’t relate? DA: Why do you think, as you wrote in your preface, that “dyke drama is the single most important facet of lesbian culture ever”? LL: As Sappho said in 400 BC, “Lesbos ergo drama.” We’re dykes, therefore there is drama. However, I do believe it is something lesbians may be reluctant to share outside of our own community—because it’s a stereotype that can be used against us, to discredit our relationships. Humor is a good place to start. Actually, maybe it would’ve been better to start with The L Word because then I’d be rich. DA: Speaking of money, you write, “All forms of dyke drama are exacerbated by the underlying frustrations of being a second-class citizen times two: the isolation of the closet, the toll of self-hatred, and the social and economic disadvantages of being both a woman and gay.” Could you elaborate on how socio-economic status contributes to dyke drama? LL: Maybe I can’t afford to go to a movie but I can turn my life into one. I think a lack of power leads to more manipulative types of behavior, especially when lesbians rely so heavily on cohabitation. In one of my past relationships, my partner had more money than I did and I stayed longer than I should’ve, because I didn’t want to, you know, get a job or anything. DA: You write in the preface that you had some trouble gathering data for this book: “People I considered friends suddenly feigned illness. Some didn’t have to feign illness—they actually became ill.” Why do you think there was such resistance to the topic of dyke drama? LL: Ultimately, nobody wanted to stir up trouble with their exes. People maybe felt they were betraying the community. Some felt it was threatening or too negative, especially the more tense subjects like stalking, which hasn’t generally been acknowledged. DA: I definitely felt better about my stalking habits after reading your book. But that’s…not relevant. Tell me about what your writing process was like. How many people did you brawl with to get fodder for this book? LL: I surveyed about 200 people, a few people I knew and also some lesbian authors published by Alyson books. The accounts were all over the map. I remember reading one survey and thinking, "Oh, my god, this is hilarious! Who is this woman?" Then I realized it was one of my exes and she was talking about me! DA: Did that make it into the book? LL: Oh yeah.  DA: In your “cast of characters” section, you do an amazing job of nailing almost every lesbian stereotype to date, even lesser known, but no less poignant, ones such as: I was curious which ones, if any, reminded you of yourself?- The Foreign Objects Freak: She’s obsessed with putting all kinds of weird objects into your hoo-hoo during sex (bananas, wine bottles, her grandmother’s cane…). Pros: If that’s your thing… Cons: Could damage your thing. Often heard line: “Call 911!”- The $14 Lesbian: She’ll make you pay for everything because she always claims she only has $14 in her checking account. This claim may or may not be true. Pros: You’ll always feel generous around her. Cons: Pretty soon you’ll only have $14 in your checking account. Often heard line: “There’s a three-day hold on my paycheck.” LL: Well, which ones are you? DA: Er…The Competitor, the one who “scatters the tiles when she doesn’t win at Scrabble.” Also, I’m The Googler, which is how I got your information. Listen Leslie, if that’s even your name, do I have to remind you who’s holding the cards here? (Taps receiver with the gun in a gentle but confrontational manner) LL: In my past, I was a Class Issues Lesbian. I would always date women who went to Ivy League schools and then make them feel guilty about everything. Also, I’m a Perpetual PMSer. DA: Clearly this book is supposed to be funny and there is a ton of hilarious advice on things like, “How to Sabotage a Lesbian Wedding” and “How to break up with the MOST drama possible.” Sometimes I found myself cracking up even during the more serious parts, like “Emergency Intervention: when your interviewer, I mean, stalker has a gun.” Have you gotten any flack for making light out of the more serious subject matter, like substance abuse, battering, etc? LL: No, but I wish I had. It would sell more books. If only Curve magazine would run an article titled: “Why We Love to Hate Leslie Lange.” DA: Since we’re discussing serious matters, are you Anna Nicole Smith’s Baby Daddy? LL: Yes. We used parthenogenesis back in the early nineties, and kept it in the freezer all these years. Why do you think the judge has been dragging his feet on those DNA tests? They’re worried about a lesbian population explosion. DA: I knew it, you slut! After everything we’ve been through—the three emails and 1.5 phone conversations! I’ve seen your true colors Leslie, or should I say Les-LIE. Ahem, I want to talk about the lesbian urge to merge. You have some riotous and astute relationship credos (particularly “how demoralizing it is to constantly come home from Old Navy with the same pair of cargo pants as your lover”). Do you think the merge is partially because our networks are often homosocial as well as homosexual? If we were straight, would we be content to just fight over who has to make dinner? LL: I definitely think it’s good to hang out with a mix of people and I’ve been guilty of not doing that. There was a time when my only friends were my exes, and it’s ridiculous how we stay in these little lesbian covens. If we were straight, we might have better boundaries. Sometimes, when I’m processing with my girlfriend, I think, life would be so much easier, if we only understood each other less. DA: You talk a lot about processing, how it “gets you everywhere and nowhere at the same time.” And you rather brilliantly explain “lesbian bed death” as a possible result of too much processing. I loved your term “lesbian sexual rejuvenation phase” as an alternative to bed death and think it should be added to the lesbian lexicon (lezicon?). Do you have any advice for precocious readers on how to prevent over-processing, or at least how to tone it down? LL: There is no escape. NO ESCAPE. But here are some tips.
DA: You describe “unfinished business illness, where a couple has been breaking up for the last seven years.” I think this is one of the big components of lesbian bed death nee "lesbian sexual rejuvenation phase" - that our emotional connections/proclivities supersede our willingness to tolerate unfulfilling relationships way longer than we should. Can you elaborate a little more on the UBI phenomenon and why you think it's a prevalent part of dyke culture (and drama)? LL: My own example of UBI: Every two weeks for about six months following our break-up, my ex wanted me to come fetch my stuff. She’d call and say, “I left a box of your stuff on the back porch. Could you please come a get it?” The last one was, like, three boxes of tampons and some leftover dog food. DA: What are you working on now? LL: A memoir (that may turn into a novel) of my experiences as a volunteer for the Red Cross during Hurricane Katrina. It’s going be funny, even though Katrina itself was not funny at all. The Red Cross didn’t have time to do background checks and the mix of people was fascinating—from conservative Christians to radical gays to people who’d just gotten out of jail—and we were all working together to try to help people. Also, I’m working on a couple of film projects with my girlfriend—one about dyke drama and the other one about dildos. DA: Dildos? That’s right up my…alley. I’m also curious about a line in your bio, about your stint as a parade clown? Tell me it was as glorious as it sounds. LL: I’m so glad you asked that. It was glorious. I was a poop-scooping parade clown, basically walking behind horses and shoveling their excrement into a wheelbarrow. I wore sad-face make-up and really hammed up the misery of the task. The crowd loved it. And I loved the crowd. Shoveling poop was one of the happiest times of my life. And writing about dyke drama is the equivalent of “picking up the poop” of lesbians. DA: The fact that you have written dog haikus on your website leads me to believe that we’re soul mates. Don’t you agree? LL: (Laughter) Well, I could agree with that but you’ll have to elaborate. DA: You can scoop my poop… For more information on Leslie Lange, visit her official web page, Langeworld. Her book, Dyke Drama: Your Guide to Getting Out Alive, is published by Alyson Books and available at all major book retailers (and some not so major). Anna is a post-Creative Writing major and validation junky. In addition to Dramanonymous, she also writes for dykediva.com, centerstagechicago.com and does film reviews for theaspectratio.net. She uses quotation marks unnecessarily and spends entirely too much time justifying the artistic merit of limericks. You can contact her at |
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