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| Title | Pointblank Times, Vol. 2, No. 7, December 1976 |
| Date | December 1976 |
| Subject.Topical (LCSH) |
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| Genre (AAT) |
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| Language | English |
| Type (DCMI) |
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| Original Item Location | HQ75 .P64 |
| Original Item URL | http://library.uh.edu/record=b3767189~S11 |
| Digital Collection | Houston and Texas Feminist and Lesbian Newsletters |
| Digital Collection URL | http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/feminist |
| Repository | Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries |
| Repository URL | http://info.lib.uh.edu/about/campus-libraries-collections/special-collections |
| Use and Reproduction | Educational use only, no other permissions given. Copyright to this resource is held by the content creator, author, artist or other entity, and is provided here for educational purposes only. It may not be reproduced or distributed in any format without written permission of the copyright owner. For more information please see UH Digital Library Fair Use policy on the UH Digital Library About page. |
| File Name | index.cpd |
| Title | Page 6 |
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| File Name | femin_201109_421f.jpg |
| Transcript | ^tonships il - Phyllis Yarnold Any opinions I have about monogamy are based only on my own personal experiences. I came out while I was in college, and shortly thereafter I moved to New York and lived in Greenwich Village. I was young and far removed from my family and straight friends I grew up with. I got a job in an art gallery owned by two male homosexuals. For the first time in my life I was free to live openly as a lesbian. And I enjoyed my freedom to the hilt. At that time there were many lesbian bars in the Village, and I made the rounds several times a week. In the summertime I frequented the gay beaches. I made many friends and had a number of lovers during this period of my life. But I only shared an apartment with a lover once, and that was because a fire had destroyed my own apartment. I cherished my independence and did not want to be tied down to just one woman. I allowed my desires to lead me into both meaningful and frustrating relationships. I was constantly "in love," and in the in-between periods, I looked for someone to be "in love" with. This went on for several years. None of my relationships lasted for any great length of time. The longest was two years. When the new wore off, and the fire burned itself out, I drifted off to another stimulating woman adventure. Actually, I took none of these loves lightly. I poured myself completely into each relationship, loving intensely—being wildly happy in the beginning and often full of pain when it ended. I did not view myself as promiscuous, for each love affair was entered into with deep feelings. I simply did not know how to continue a relationship after the flame of passion had burned low. My friends had the same problem. Though we all looked for that permanent relationship we had been conditioned to expect, none of us were able to sustain it. Then I fell in love with a woman who did have this wisdom. To make a long (15-year) story short, she taught me what real love was all about. The romantic love, so filled with physical desire, was only a prelude to the deep love which we built together. That romantic love was selfish, self-centered. Though it was an emotional high, it could not compare to the selfless giving, sharing, caring love that we created. We entered into a state of monogamy. As I think now about the 15 years we have shared, I am finally beginning to understand what monogamy is all about. I have wondered on occasion whether the tie that binds us is not a combination of love, need, and habit. And I guess it is. But it's more than that, it's an investment of ourselves and our time. In my youth, I could let go of relationships, because I had really invested very little of me in them. But after 15 years with someone, the investment of me is tremendous. I could not easily let her go, because now there is so much of me in her and so much of her in me. All the sharing and caring, the time spent relating |