Yes. She lived without love or sex, giving up finally in her late thirties after my mother and grandmother called up the dignified librarian who was her best friend and lover and humiliating her. It wasn't the first time they had used their right to express... social opprobrium... for the way that was natural to her of loving and having sex.
My aunt was a "brittle" diabetic, an ill woman. She had lived independently in her twenties working as an editor in San Francisco. When she became ill, she had to come live upstairs in her parents' house, and and that's how they were able to keep track of her life.
She was a shy person, awkward, and rather masculine looking. She had been named after my grandfather, being the last child born to a family with four daughters. They dressed her in boys clothing until she went to school.
I have no idea whether it was nature or nurture, but I do know that she tried hard to have a "relationship" with a very nice man. I remember him, and even his first name, "Klaus." It made her miserable. When I grew up, she and I talked about her life a little. She was so ashamed of being a lesbian that even when she figured out that my sister and I felt differently than the others in the family, she was quite reticent. I do know that she was agonizingly lonely, a tragic figure, and that the effort at heterosexuality had been painful and revolting and unnatural to her.
That's what advocating social opprobrium is advocating. My aunt's life.
I know I've talked about Aunt Jean before. Apologies to anyone who's read about her twice. |
