Lesbian Love Police

Originally published 7-16-06

Maybe it would save us all some frustration and heartache if there was such thing as lesbian love police. I imagine members of the force looking like Angelina Jolie in “Tomb Raider,” strapping and taut, commanding our attention and our obedience. They’d carry handcuffs dangling from their belts to use in particularly dicey cases. Officers would step in when a wrongful courtship begins and order, “Stop! Back away from each other before somebody gets hurt.”

An intervention from the lesbian police would have halted me years ago from my pursuit of Jamie, a lesbian DJ and promoter with a cache of come-on lines, a closet full of steel-toed cowboy boots and a babe-ready Yamaha V Star. After a spin around the city with me riding bitch and a few fuzzy navels – the drink – we found ourselves arm wrestling in a dark bar. When she wooed me with, “Go on with your bad self girlfriend,” I realized not only were our styles worlds apart, but I needed an interpreter. Nevertheless, next thing I knew, I was in a two-year tumultuous affair that should have never happened.

Same thing with Brenda. She was a burley TV camerawoman who could hoist a 55-pound camera over her shoulder with no sweat. Like the Harley Davidson Dyna Super Glide she rode in on, she was loud and imposing, but she could make me laugh like no one else. My first impression and my first rebuff was, “You’re too butch for me.” But a few jokes and Jell-O shots later, her wisecracking ways were irresistible. Before I knew it, it was two years later, and we were separating because, after all, she was too butch for me. Did I mention I left her for Jamie?

Preceding the dykes on bikes was Mickey, 12 years my senior, who even without a motorcycle had a penchant for leather and roughing it up. After eight months,” I finally threw in my whip, deciding I preferred a kindler, gentler love.

Had a love cop stood between me and these and other doomed dalliances, perhaps I might have sooner met my match. If only someone had read me my rights a long time ago: “You have the right to a relationship that does not require therapy after three months,” “You have the right to a partner who does not flirt shamelessly with other women in front of you,” “You have the right to a lover who does not announce to everyone that you need to work out more when you are in a bikini at a pool party.”

But there is no lesbian police force, as the West Hollywood sheriff’s department doesn’t count. So what do I do, now that I am in love? The kind of love that makes me want to jump on a sofa. She’s beautiful, smart, sexy and sweet, and I want to be with her forever. I have to wonder what a lesbian love cop would be advising me now: “Slow down,” “Put the diamond ring down,” and “Step away from the U-Haul.”

The reality is that lesbian love is a lawless place. The best we can do is to write our own rules and govern ourselves accordingly. So as I plan to move in next month with my soul mate after a three-month romance, I realize the authorities would probably say we should wait; but by now, I’m a repeat offender, a felon with a long rap sheet. I’ve done hard time and learned my lessons. I deserve to be put away for life, with the woman I love.