AMC: Friday

[Adam]

Agreed which is one of the many reasons I never ever could get into Lianca. Maggie suited Bianca much better.

[All My Shadows]

Well, if it's any consolation whatsoever...I personally never thought Lena was too old.

I just thought the [!@#$%^&*] was too annoying!

[Target Demo]

Thats what I'm talking about! But Binks wasn't naieve. Just young and inexperienced. Too inexperienced to have convinced a het-at-the-time mags to change orientations, for sure. Best to go with the older (but not by much), and more experienced hottie! And best that she was in love with Binks, idealized her, and was redeemed that way.

What I'm saying is, like the het characters (!!!!!) mutual attraction is better ALL the time. No more onscreen confusion .., doubt, etc. ad infinitum for Binks. And please, onscreen for the first time as a real onscreen romance storyline for daytime (and, strangely, also for Bianca!!!) ... with another lesbian!

[Cheap21]

whoops I meant to write Lena when I wrote Olga. Got actress and character's name mixxed up...lol

[alwaysAMC]

So wait - you're trying to say there is a difference in body language between all straight chicks and all lesbians??? No way!

[R Sinclair]

:lol::lol:

That, right there, made me love you for life! I'm not a Carpenter fan as much as I totally get what you mean!

Okay, I'll go back and finish reading your post in its entirety. It's just that line literally made me laugh my ass off.

[R Sinclair]

Frankie was better suited for Bianca. Liz Hendrickson rocked that role and even said she enjoyed Frankie over Maggie. Plus, Liz and Eden had chemistry and she totally wanted to be Eden's romantic interest. But Maggie was useless and blatant back-peddaling by Culliton and Burke after they realized they got rid of a good thing in LH when they killed off Frankie. Maggie was a character that was undeveloped and served absolutely no purpose during her entire run.

And that girl gave Anne Heche a run for her money. Whoosh!

I never wanted Bianca with Maggie. Messing around with closet cases is cute for a minute... but it gets exhausting. Maggie represented what I've come to despise about being in the life. A person who you're interested in is interested in you as well... but they're clueless as to what their sexual orientation is... a little uncomfortable having those feelings for you, and continue to push you away, but keep you close. Then proceed to date the opposite sex, but get jealous if you start dating someone else, too. Ugh! That push/pull, am I/am I not routine is ridiculous. Plus, Maggie cheated on Bianca, so it shows that that annoying little wench is all over the map. Bianca didn't need that. Bianca needs a mature woman who knows how to be in a relationship. Maggie soooo didn't know how. She dated that woman beating lunatic just because she didn't want to accept her feelings about Bianca.

[JER Soaps Fan]

Oh, come, now. How do lesbians and straights hug differently? This is the first I've heard about this phenomenon!

[alwaysAMC]

Exactly - that's what I'm saying...that is beyond ridiculous.

Do they sneeze differently too?

[JER Soaps Fan]

We're waiting, Target -- or anyone else who can prove that lesbians and straights have different body language...

[rsmith2k2]

I don't agree with Target's assessement about Eden's portrayal (I've seen both onscreen from her actually).

However, in answer to your question, it's fairly common knowledge in the lesbian community (at least I thought so) that there are differences(and again, speaking in generalities here) in the way two straight women hug (similarly, I think that a straight woman may hug a gay woman), two gay women hug.

Straight women hug each other in a way as to keep their hips apart and breasts from touching anymore than necessary. There's a sort of bending at the hip to reach over and hug to avoid much torso contact.

Lesbian women or maybe it would be better to say lesbian lovers hug with contact from breasts, torso, and hips together.

Of course, there is also body language that gays and lesbians may, I repeat may pick up on each other in a crowded room, for example. Depends, I think on whether we're talking attraction or not. Just like straight folks or anyone else might recognize signs (woman touching her hair, length of eye direct eye contact, etc) from each other.

There, not commenting on how things are on AMC but just speaking to your general question.

[Juliajms]

^^ Interesting because I've noticed the opposite in my experience. As a straight woman, I give a full hug to other woman alll parts of the body touching because there is no sexuality in it for me. However, when my very close friend (who is a lesbian) hugs me, she is careful to either give me a side hug with her arm around my shoulder or hug me in a way that our breasts do not touch. That's also the way my more respectful guy friends hug me. I don't know, I think this is probably the sort of thing that is particular to the people involved to the point that generalizations are meaningless (jmo).

[rsmith2k2]

I did make many cautions about generalities. But I appreciate your input and you may be more open than most, but I think one of your examples bolsters my point.

I differentiated gay woman-straight woman hug as more likely to be like two straight women hugging, in that there's little torso/breast/hip contact. It may not necessarily be the straight woman being uncomfortable (or just unaware she's avoiding it) with more direct body contact, a gay woman would more likely initiate a less than full body hug on a woman who she knows is straight and wouldn't want to misinterpret the contact as sexual in some manner.

Point is touch is different for different contexts. Mostly in differentiating between sexual partners and whom you are attracted to and whether you care they know it. I mean the body language of attraction been's studied quite a bit, I'm sure there's info out there.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Back to the Show:

I get that they're intriguing. Eden has chemistry with wallpaper and Jeffrey's doing a bang-up job considering the difficulty of this material in general, and in specific, this material in McTravesty's hands.

No disrespect intended and not saying that in this case the stories shown weren't first class as I didn't see them, but I'd rather AMC strive for something a bit higher than Maury, even if it's a soap. And by that I mean, Maury, while telling some great human stories, reaches for the sensational, the shock.

And to your point, why not have a straight man fall for a the inner straight woman of Zarf? Why Bianca, the resident token lesbian? The result is an equating of TG with homosexuality and they are not the same (I say that with the understanding that all variations of TG/gay/straight/bi- couples are possible, but there folks classify themselves in a certain way based on their differences, primarily).

I understand TGs can be straight or gay. I've know lots and lots of TG folks over the years, but I still think the adding the lesbian aspect not only unneccessarily complicates the TG story,it unnecesarrily complicates Bianca's sexuality. Maybe not in the largest, most all-encompassing definition of the word lesbian, but in the most common usage of that word.

TPTB's lumping all "queer" issues/characters together, and intermingling them in a way that makes understanding more difficult for the previously uninitiated viewer, imo. If the story's intent is education as argued, then why obfuscate rather than provide the easiest to understand permutation of the story?

I don't disagree that one construct for lesbian can include transgendered folks at each level of transformation (including simply claiming the label). But what's been lost imo, is context. Like Target said, is they're throwing Bianca's sexuality, a label she even said on the show she embraced, under the bus so they can run a TG storyline. It's the context, that GLAAD and AMC simply does not get or refuses to see, imo. GLAAD supported Bianca's rape storyline without qualification, also. I really have no respect for their organization and haven't for a good while.

While it's up to intepretation whether Bianca's character has been or will be damaged, why leave such up to interpretation? Why risk a legacy character with well-established orientation for a newbie member of LGBT community who's generally accepted (I think) not likely to last in the longterm in PV? Why waste an opportunity to give Bianca a much more common, love story with a bio-woman (and for the record, I am using that term to be specific, as the term "lesbian" and "woman" have become less specific while we're dealing with a TG story, no other reason)...a story Bianca's fans have waited 5 or 6 years to come to fruition, a fully developed and executed love story?

Until they give me the stories that are more organic. a better touchstone and a more common experience of lesbian love...why go to the rarest of the rare? It's not simply a semantic argument over lesbian versus TG-lesbian or even anti-TG, which is how I feel some folks have unfairly, imo characterized anti-Zarf/Zoe couple sentiment.

For me, it's about Bianca's specific character and life experience, about the protrayal of her love life we've seen and not seen since she came out, and it's about giving her equitable treatment to the hetero characters. Remember it took Bianca 3+ years to get her first TV kiss (Lena). It took Bianca and Maggie another year to get one, and until the end of Eden and Hendrickson's run in 2005 to get the second (and neither were mutual).

It took Zarf exactly a few weeks to get two. That's the little things that add up to BS for me. Some others are the vague, have it both ways dialogue, like "the thought of being with him excites me." They're tyring to play it both ways on the show, at least temporarily.

In all sincerity, I am still not quite sure I understand why folks are so ready to let Bianca's lesbianism be compromised, especially in the wake of the recent UnAbortion. I guess it all comes down to your opinion on the definition of words like "lesbian," "woman" and "attraction." And I do recognize that those vagueries leave room for differences in opinion.

I've wondered as I've read around the boards and I ask in all sincerity, is there a line in acceptance of a possible romantic pairing of Zarf/Zoe and Bianca? With straight folks (who accept Zarf in general for example), bi- (which may be a natural fit, not sure) and gay men (though I've seen a divsion of opnion amongst them, not unified, IOW) more open to it and lesbians, more generally against it ( I can't think of but a maybe a few, and a very few lesbians I've seen supporting this aspect of the TG story). If you agree, any ideas why or have you seen different patterns?

[Kylie]

I'm straight, and there is no way I'm going to accept Barf (LMAO I so coined that first, damn MMT steals from me AGAIN). None. I dont' care how groundbreaking etc. the Zarf story is. Once he or she cause it's Zoe I guess, becomes Bianca's love interest, it's just a cop out way to put her with a man. And she (Zoe) is still biologically and phsyically Zarf. He's a man...so Bianca would be kissing, and sleeping with a biological male. I understand that Zarf's soul is female, and I think it's pretty cool, and he can be Zoe, and I'll call him Zoe and see him as a woman. But the biological breakdown, is male. And that, my friends, is the sticky point for me.

He's still a man. Bianca is with a man, who believes he should be a woman, and there for is a lesbian woman...with male anatomy. Something just doesn't seem kosher with all of that. Especially with MMT's pentence for half assing things, making up ideas, and slapping all dignity and history of a storyline in the face.

I just keep hear her saying she made Josh the fetus because she wanted a Kane-Martin spawn. I'd bet money we'll end up hearing something like that out of her mouth at some point. I made Zarf a TG so that Bianca could have her cake and eat it too.

Call me cyncial, and I am...but I have no reason to trust MMT. None. And I don't.

[Juliajms]

Rsmith- My comment about generalities being meaningless wasn't directed at you. I was actually thinking of my own comment about how I hug other woman fully when I wrote that. I meant to acknowledge that just because I do that, it doesn't mean that's how most straight woman hug. I definitely don't discount body language. That's pretty much how I'm selling this story to myself. I don't believe in souls, so I've pretty much figured that Bianca is subconsiously reading Zarf's body language and mannerisms. When Zarf talks about "auras" I just see him as picking up on body language.

To me this story is romantic because Bianca has to overlook the physical for the relationship to have a chance. For me, it could have worked as well if Babe were dating Zarf and he came out to her. But I wonder if people would see that as the ultimate cop out, since it's a bio man hooking up with a bio woman and there's nothing new or groudbreaking about that.

It also would have worked for me if they had had Zarf hook up with a guy. But I think daytime is most afraid of putting two guys together on screen. That's just my perception, but it seems like everytime a gay guy comes out on a soap he disappears or doesn't get a love story. Maybe, part of that is that there are a lot of children watching daytime and a gay or lesbian love scene would leave parents with some explaining to do. I'm not saying that's a right or fair reason (I'm not really sure about that), I just wonder if that's part of the networks reason for not going there.

I sort of wonder if they did a focus group for this story to see which combination of genders and orientations people would be most likely accept. It seems like a very ABCD thing to do. Yeah, I'm a little cynical too.