Roads to Safe Places

I'm not even sure where I picked it up, myself honestly. I think it was that year when I was 15 or so, had been out for a good while, and went "You know what? I want to read real lesbian books and feel represented." I looked up all sorts of lists, found links to them all on cheap used-bookstore websites (mostly half.com, an offshoot of ebay) and sent a list of links to my mother, who bought them all for Christmas. I read through them that year and I must say it was a pretty brilliant year, feeling that represented all the time in what I was reading.

Ahaha at the time I think I actually enjoyed the healing sex a bit, just because I had never seen anything like that (not so directly/literally) before, and because as a disabled youth I marvelled at the idea of sex that could heal like that.

I think what really struck me, in that I remember it even now (with no real specifics), is the understanding I got that sex and opening oneself up to intimacy was a gift of giving and receiving. I suppose I was so used to a culture of the concept of 'virginity' being so full of conquest and triumph ("lost" virginity rather than "gave", "took her virginity" rather than "was given her virginity", all of that sort of stuff) that it really stuck with me. The idea that I could disrobe, figuratively and literally, in this powerful and yet vulnerable way to give myself as a gift and to receive someone else as a gift; that sex could, and should, be an act of mutual giving rather than mutual taking. When I read it I started thinking that maybe there was an inner Goddess in me that should be cherished and respected, and that I didn't have to give anyone access to her if I didn't want to but that I could never be blamed when I did choose to, no matter to how many people (including at one time) nor how often.

It may explain why I really never felt compelled by peer pressure to do anything that I didn't explicitly want to do, and why on the rare occasion that I did take a step that I wasn't quite ready for, I didn't blame myself for trying.

I really do want to re-read it. I've got it up over my head on a bookshelf. I've just got so many books that I'm reading now and that are on my to-read lineup...

I also feel best in rooms without visible walls, although I am just as content to have them covered in posters and art.

I will admit that I am more likely to keep books I have paid for myself. I read a number of books from the library; those I obviously have to give back, but on a rare occasion I'll go out and actually buy the book just to have it. Most books I get from bookswaps, from friends, or from very cheap 'pay for a bag of books' type deals. As I work my way through them, I keep the ones that really stick with me and that I think I might open up again (like Gossamer Axe; otherwise I'll donate them, swap them, or pass them along to friends in the hope that they find the home where they will be striking in that manner to someone. Because of that, I end up with a 'to read' collection that is larger than my 'have read' collection, although it always is a rather lot of books in the end, at least given the living space I usually have.

(And that's the other key to it: at this point I only ever have a bedroom and a bit of storage at my parents' home to myself, since I don't ever like to take up space in communal living rooms. Who knows what will happen if I ever end up in a house of my own where I have the room to spread out?)