Friends don't let friends attack innocent people...

I was talking to one of my best friends who recently returned from a year long teaching gig in South Korea. She had a really great time and we were discussing how common it was for girls to walk arm in arm with girls and guys to walk arm in arm with guys and they weren't gay. It was just something they did, it was apart of their culture and very normal.

She now works with students here in the states and when they come over they are met with culture shock so to speak, that people look at them weird for doing this. She said it isn't uncommon for her students to ask her why Americans act like that. It's weird how even though they didn't grow up here, they know that it is unacceptable behavior to simply hold hands or walk arm in arm with someone of the same gender.

This is what occurred to me when I read an article about two Ecuadoran brothers who were attacked in an apparent hate crime. On their way home from a church party, they stopped off at a local bar and then went on their way. But they couldn't even make it home without being accosted.

Three men came out of the car shouting at the brothers, Jose and Romel Sucuzhanay — something ugly, anti-gay and anti-Latino. Vulgarisms against Hispanics and gay men were heard by witnesses, the police said. One man approached Jose Sucuzhanay, 31, the owner of a real estate agency who has been in New York a decade, and broke a beer bottle over the back of his head. He went down hard.

Romel Sucuzhanay, 38, who is visiting from Ecuador on a two-month visa, bounded over a parked car and ran as the man with the broken bottle came at him. A distance away, he looked back and saw a second assailant beating his prone brother with an aluminum baseball bat, striking him repeatedly on the head and body. The man with the broken bottle turned back and joined the beating and kicking.

In general, I am not a violent person. You know that whole "Thou shall not kill" thing I take pretty seriously. But with groups talking about their not being a need for hate crime legislation, it really infuriates me. This is unacceptable. A man lost his life. How much longer can people go along with this anti-gay movement?

Sex? I'm a virgin...

That's my lie and I am sticking to it. LOL. Since I wrote the post referencing my graduate studies, I remembered I am an expert in something: Lesbian Health!

I mean I studied that thang. I participated in workshops, wrote numerous papers, created an online training for healthcare providers, and really became a "master of the craft" (that's what my girlfriend said). I totally forgot about that part of my studies...It did give me joy.

I got to learn about different types of std prevention, contraceptives, and all the lies straight girls tell about their sex life. One of my classmates and I even contemplated working with "community sex workers" for one of our projects. The health department had a unit that went out and did free HIV tests and another organization even worked with them to get them off drugs and such. It was amazing how many women who participated in this craft for a living actually identified as bi. It was their coping mechanism (that's what the psychologist in me said, but it may be they were actually bi).

I had the idea of starting a non-profit that would distribute safe sex paraphernalia for women. I wanted to do a social marketing campaign encouraging women to use dental dam, gloves, and even condoms (female and traditional). It is amazing how safe people think they are just because they are dealing with the same sex. The scary part was actually the number of women who said they were lesbians, but actually slept with men on a regular basis. We had to rephrase the research to say women who partner with women...because you just never know.

One of my students was famous for that line. "I'm a lesbian, I just happen to have a boyfriend". And she was serious. Maybe I will get back into that line of work one day. A lot of the funding for these types of research and programs have been cut. I actually interviewed with the Lesbian Health Center at the Whitman Walker Clinic last year. Unfortunately, it seems they have lost a lot of staff. So I guess it is kind of good I didn't get that job. Well I know it is...it didn't pay nearly enough to live in DC metro area.

Overall, I do think I want to go back into this field. For me, it was fun, interesting, and I got to meet a lot of people that I wouldn't normally have met. Plus, anytime you get to talk about sex and get paid for it, is a plus!