What exactly is the problem?

Hi, welcome, and may I be the first person to disagree with you on AGA :)

You may have a point when you say that a lot of the frowning upon PDA is directed towards women. But maybe that's because we are inundated with images of 14 year old girls being pressed against lockers by so-called "boyfriends", obviously uncomfortable but unable to express it.

My personal issues with PDA are different. Call me old-fashioned but I think some things between a couple should be kept private. When you feel the need to display your love to the public then you are asking for the public's judgement/approval.

But I am talking about serious displays rather than... acknowledgements of affection

(So glad to see you get started, Betsy!)

One angle on what you've said that I've heard expressed a lot by some younger women I work with, which I can see as perfectly valid, is that when it comes to the sorts of PDA to the extreme that have been brought up in this Roll Call, many young women feel like it puts extra pressures on them to conform to doing same, and makes it even harder for them than it already is in a culture in which their consent still isn't often respected/given weight, to draw boundaries or define their own sexuality by standards that aren't the ones men get off on. I think this ties in a bit to what Kampire is saying.

But yes: yes, yes: I love the spirit of what you've said here (bring on the kisses! Yay, smoohy-love-goodness! Yay, earnest eroticism!) , and I think you are also right on traget to see some of the anti-woman messages implicit in sentiments that ANY PDA just isn't "proper." I think too, in that we can sometimes see, yet again, women be put in charge of sexual policing that by no means in an empowering thing for them. Of course, I think we need to pay attention to who is objecting, why they're objecting, and what place that comes from.

How can we find the middle ground, where every woman can feel empowered by and safe in whatever level of PDA she feels comfortable with? Tough question, especially in a hegemony where women's sexuality, when it IS expressly our own, 100% ours, for us and by us, no matter where we fall on the spectrum, still isn't very supported.

And I really am delighted to see the bookend this provides for some of the other perspectives we've heard so far: it adds an element that rounds out the spectrum so nicely.

Viva diversity!

I agree with Heather's comments, and think this is a really great additional perspective to this Roll Call. I'd like to add the caveat to your last few points, however, Betsy-shane, that not every queer lives in NYC, and that in some places, it can still mean risking grave personal injury (and still sometimes death) to demonstrate PDA in public. Is it a loss? Undoubtedly. Is it (for some, in some locales) still a necessity? Absolutely, and I think we should respect their fight.

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

A new perspective from a new recruit. I like your thinking on this one. "Social convention" is allowed to dictate way more than it should because no one ever stops to think about where it comes from (coughthemainstreamthatnoonelikesinthefirstplacecough).

"A woman for a general, and the soldiers will be women."

I don't live in NYC. And larger cities do have more gay bashings mainly because there are more people. Obviously, there are still places where prejudice still exists-- misegyny, although now fairly accepted, still can cause hate crimes. There needs to be a starting place, in my mind. You shouldn't be scared to walk down the street holding hands with your girlfriend. I agree that grave personal injury is a big risk, but if we lived in fear of what *might* happen, I wouldn't be able to walk anyplace alone, for fear that I might get attacked, wear short skirts for fear that some pig might take it as an invitation, drive for fear that someone might be drunk. I appreciate the argument but I feel like the only way to force change is to act.

We are turning cursive letters into knives.

Again, Betsy-Shane, I totally agree with you. (And pardon me for assuming you lived in NYC- if you look at your comment in your post, the grammar does suggest it.) However, I'd caution you to recognize at the same time, that a number of us on this site Have Been Bashed: physically, often violently, sometimes many more times than once, in more than one state. Does experiencing this kind of violence make me closeted? Not at all- I'm out whereever I am. Does this make me Very aware of the risks to performing various queer behaviors in public? Absolutely, and while I push the envelope where I live every day just as you recommend, I am also wise enough to judge when my immediate environment makes the risks too high for certain behaviors. I have no desire to fight on as a martyr.

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

...is that for some of us, the "what might" is a "has happened." And that changes things a great deal, when something moved from the abstract or concrete, or from the experiences of someone we know or have read about, and we ourselves.

And sometimes, it's just not worth it for any one of us at any time. Sometimes, the desire to be out and feel more safe trumps the desire to be out and be publicly expressive.