AGA Roll Call PDA

What does everyone else think? Growing up in a conservative family from the country, I didn't actually have any PDA as a kid, and by college thought it was pretty lewd in straight folks, and dangerous for queer folks. (I'm more accepting now by far than I was then, and it's safer, too!) Is it a phase? Anyone else from the country not get the opportunities Kari describes here?

lol- love the perspective on this- it's not one I would've ever considered. thanks for the post!

Contre tout le monde, je me defendrai...je suis le dernier homme, je le resterai jusqu'au bout! Je ne capitule pas!
- Ionesco, Le Rhinoceros

When I was in school in NYC, i hated fighting my way through the throes of making out couples everywhere, from school hallways to subway platforms. I still don't like PDA, regardless of the context or who is doing it. I wonder if it's just a phase I'm going through, or if I will always feel this way.

My first girlfriend and I were very open about PDA. We would kiss on the subway, on the street corner, wherever. People watched, people said objectifying stuff to us, people were offended. This wasn't a problem for us then. I think we thought it was funny.

Now, my girlfriend and I don't like to do that kind of PDA. Maybe it's because we're serious about each other so we don't want random strangers making comments about it. Maybe it's because we're more mature. Maybe we got the desire to do that out of our systems. Or maybe we're just prudes now. I don't know for sure.

Anyway, I think you were right on when you said, "PDAs play a part in growing up, in learning more about social power and sexuality."

reading these posts made me think of the a poem a mentor-friend of mine wrote about Sakia Gunn, a queer youth who was murdered on her way home with her girlfriend.

a love poem for Sakia Gunn

(by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha)

Sakia looking at your face on the memorial website
I know I could've fallen in love with you
so easy when I was sixteen
You could've met my eyes just once
wearing rainbow rings that were brave, not cheesy
We could've been taking that late train back to Newark
falling sticky stars all over each other in the vinyl seat
my titties poking out pussy humming
stupid fearless

When I was 16 I gave blow jobs behind the high school
I would do anything to feel my breasts buzzing
When I was 18 I rode the N train home at 5 AM
smelling like Night Queen in a bra under a bomber jacket
I acted crazy I stared at the ad in front of me I yelled my head off
Living was risky anyway
so I did what I needed to do
I was horny for the revolution
but I didn't have it

Did your girlfriend have your head in her lap that day?
Were you dancing to somebody's boombox
throwing shade and fixing nail tips
as the water kissed and slapped the piers
as the cops erected fences around bodies
but did not stop the men who asked you home?

Sakia
you were just trying to get home
We
are all trying to get there
with you
to that place where we can suck our breath
all the way down
where they do not end us

in memory and respect, for Sakia Gunn
Black queer youth, born 1987, murdered May 11, 2003

//

(every time i've heard her read this poem, it makes me cry.)

Even if you can't relate to the specifics of my examples, there is something universal about this...we are raised to believe that physical beauty is influential. Beer commercials brainwash us, suggesting that sexual magnetism is a form of girl power. I just wanted to question that. In my experience, sexual freedom and this demented spice girl feminism are two very different things. It took some growing up for me to really learn that lesson.

Oh, no, as I said, I can totally see your point, but until you said it like that I had never considered it from that perspective before, since my background is different. (And I like the way your reformulate that position in your comment a lot, too).

Contre tout le monde, je me defendrai...je suis le dernier homme, je le resterai jusqu'au bout! Je ne capitule pas!
- Ionesco, Le Rhinoceros

Sexuality is a powerful force because in the same way that our society advertises it to us, it also tells us that we shouldn't follow that example. I never really had alot of PDA either, I kept my high school boyfriends a big secret. I guess I am kind of PDAish with my boyfriend now, but were just naturally affectionate to each other, its not about gaining power through sex.

I agree with you, to some extent. I know I've seen PDA used that way when I was in high school. Being the dateless dorks we were, my friends and I always found it pretty amusing, though.

For myself, personally, I know that is not how I would explain PDA. Mainly because I never engaged in it or thought much about it until my current relationship. In fact, neither had my boyfriend. Until friends pointed out to us that we were being pretty disgusting. And lemme tell ya, we're neither teens nor trying to exert power. We're just very affectionate (that, and we tend to need to catch up on months of being on different continents).

Sarah P. so awesome you honored Sakia Gunn here! I love this poem. :(* <3
There's something about being w/a man especially, in public, in a physical way, that I sometimes feel uneasy about -- like I am too perfectly societally accepted by showing my romantic hetero status through PDAs.

There's a whole chapter in feminist author Sonia Johnson's intresting "The Ship that Sailed Into the Livingroom" about this type thing -- about how even saying you have a "boy/girlfriend" (as opposed to just a friend) only exists in this societal set-up so you can societally justify yourself , aka "this is who
services me sexually/this is who I service sexually" -- in her mind there's no need to say what kind of a friend you have.

I think it is this slight instinctive mentality I have (which is why this theory somewhat resonated w/me) that has prevented me from ever feeling free w/PDAs. (Even before I read this book.) Although, I have taken part in PDAs before, for sure, and probably will in the future.
I do find them cute or touching alot of the time for sure.

I think the best PDAs are those between really old people. :) Those really get me. :) My Great Grandma Liz and Great Grandpa Ben were all about the shnooky PDAs, it was completely beautifull/adorable. They were so in love to the end.