Specifically, I keep hearing misunderstandings about to what repealing DADT means. The core of the issue is this:

Repealing DADT will not allow gay people to serve in a hitherto straight military. Instead, it will merely allow formally closeted gay people to serve openly in the military.

This is a vital distinction, especially in light of some of the bizarre garbage (read at your own risk) that has been written about DADT.

Gay people are serving in the military, and have done so for years. In fact, allowing gays to serve was the entire point of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’s creation. It was a compromise, put in place to slightly shield gay people from discovery while still technically not allowing them to serve. (A ridiculous contradiction, of course). In other words, the military in no way thinks that being gay prevents someone from being a good soldier.

Repealing DADT, then, is not really about gay people. After all, a gay person is still the same person, whether they’re out or not. It’s about straight people’s reaction to gay people. It’s the Department of Defense saying, “We believe that gay people are fine, but we’re not sure about everyone else’s response.” (I’m simplifying here, of course, but that’s the basic issue.)

I’ve heard any number of people, many of them active or former members of the military, who seem to think that DADT is keeping all gay people out of the military, that letting gay people in will somehow make the military weak, or (like in the article linked above) that there are huge numbers of gay people waiting to assault people, and that DADT is the only thing stopping it.

DADT is not any of this. Its repeal would simply allow gay military personnel to be honest and truthful about themselves.

So, if you know someone (especially a member of the military, as the recent bill relies on a DOD study) who might not understand what DADT is really about, please let them know. Surely the sacrifice – lives, identities, and more – of LGBT servicemembers is worth that much.

(Crossposted on Fourth Wave Feminism)

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

I sat down and listened to the “I have a dream” speech today – and realized that I had never actually heard it before! Sure, I’ve read the speech, and others of his perhaps a dozen times, but I never actually listened to it, all the way through, as spoken by the man himself.

It was surprisingly enlightening.

I spent most Martin Luther King holidays during my teenage year angry, not perhaps at MLK himself, but at the importance that people attached to him. It seemed completely justified at the time – he was a plagiarist, a hypocrite in a variety of other ways, etc. (and I was influenced by my moderately racist local culture). After I became a feminist, I added his occasionally poor attitude toward women to the list.

Eventually, of course, I realized that most of his supposed failings were either fabrications or exaggerations made by a rather nasty group of people (there’s a nice write up here, if you’re curious). But even more important, I think, was realizing who Martin Luther King Jr. actually was.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a great speaker. He wasn’t a philosopher or a scientist who single-handedly discovered some great truth. And while he was an excellent leader, I don’t think that’s really why he’s important. Martin Luther King Jr. real impact was that when he spoke, he wasn’t just speaking for himself – he was speaking for an entire community. Even more, perhaps – he spoke for a whole group of people, black, white, women, men, who had one thing in common: they cared about equality.

MLK didn’t just speak about race either, as some would have us think, he spoke about war, about poverty, even about technology. His genius was that he said what the people said; in listening, we can hear the people (including, perhaps, ourselves) speak.

And we would do well to listen.

(Crossposted at Fourth Wave Feminism)

Yet somehow, every time I sit down to write, I can’t come up with anything that’s not half-baked, worthless, or irrelevant. For a time, I thought my problem was lack of knowledge. Perhaps by observing more, by reading more, by increasing my understanding of how the world work, I could begin to really understand the economy.

But I’m not getting it. Things don’t make any more sense now than then. And the more varied economic points of view I read, the more confused I become. Here’s an incomplete list, plus the attendant problems:

Socialists – More government – of the right sort!

So… how do we control it?

Communalists/Ecofeminists – Local Government, and don’t call it that!

Bigger groups always absorb smaller ones.

Neo-Anarchists/Socialists – The government is an evil conspiracy!

And you’re suggesting… what? Anarchy? Really?

Mainstream Liberals – Tax and Spend!

Where’s it coming from? Also, see the next one…

Mainstream Feminists (I’m only talking about economic policy here) – Tax and Spend on the right things!

Who determines that? And how to remove the capitalists without destabilizing everything?

Neo-Conservatives – Spend w/out taxing!

How on earth is that even possible?

Real Conservatives – Status Quo…!

Yes, these people still exist.

Libertarians – Smaller Government! (I still call myself this, by the way.)

What are we going to replace the government with? Private enterprise? My left ear…

All of these groups do have some good ideas. They are all right about some things, even if some are more delusional than others. But none of them really have the answer – not in a way that can be proven, or even truly understood.

But I think I’ve finally decided on the problem (partly inspired by this post): It’s pretty obvious. The world is a powercracy. You can gain an advantage with any of the following:

Capital (In some places)
Intelligence (of the right sort)
Class/Race/Gender/other privilege factors
Physical/Athletic Ability

On the whole, the people who have these things insist on exploiting those who don’t. And no amount of government regulation, philanthropy, or education of the oppressed can change that.

Because the trouble with capitalism is the capitalists.

The trouble with socialism and commualism is the demagogues. (Not lazy people, as some like to say!)

The trouble with anarchy is violence.

And so on. Even if you could somehow remove the capital, the privilege will remain. If some miracle could remove that, the economic intelligence and physical differences remain. Unless you clone all identical people, you can’t get rid of it! (You can’t really regulate it out, either – so long as most people are trying to oppress, regulation just gives those in the government more power, most of whom are also potential oppressors, and so it continues) Some people are simply better at taking advantage than others. That’s the root cause of power, and unless those people decide to stop using their advantage, the world will continue as it is. Unfair, favoring the few.

Here’s what it boils down to: If you’re consuming more than you’re producing, if you’re exploiting more than you’re exploited, you are part of the problem. Not part of the solution. ‘Economics’ doesn’t matter. All that counts is individual influence.

Thus, worrying about ‘money’ is completely pointless.

From an economic point of view, all we need now is a way to correctly measure one’s influence. (And a way to convince the exploiters to stop – but that’s a different subject)

My mother, and many of my relatives, have an obsession with health. They’re into the entire natural foods/the FDA is evil/big-companies-are-out-to-get-us sort of thing. And, they claim that they’re happier and more healthy following X diet or N exercise program. (And that I should do the same.)

It’s not just them. The media bombards us with health products. The government and a million doctors and health clinics tell us how to eat and how much to exercise. According to just about everyone, we’re in an obesity epidemic. What is it now – 65%, 75% percent of adults? Or something like that. And we’re all too stressed, and we have too much unsafe sex, etc.,etc.

Now, some very smart people have good, rational things to say about fat acceptance, legalization of drugs, and other issues. All of this is good. I think it goes farther than that, though.

Think about this for a second:

Exhibit A: We all die eventually.
Exhibit B: Life expectancy in western society is longer than any in recorded history.

Even if you eat crap, drive like an idiot, have sex with everyone you can, are stressed about your family’s disapproval, and are high on drugs the entire time, you will probably live as long (30s) as the average person in many societies, both historical and modern. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that living like that is a good. (As far as I’m concerned, hurting other people is always wrong – the above lifestyle is pretty hard on the rest of society). But while most people would say that such a person is unhappy, that they need help, that there’s something wrong with them.

I’m certain that there were and are plenty of people who knew they would likely die in their thirties who, live perfectly happy, fulfilled lives. So why does it bother us, that some people simply aren’t afraid of death?

I’m simplifying, of course. Something might feel good now, but worse later, it’s a trade-off, blah, blah. But let’s apply this idea to something small. Like eating unhealthily. Or not exercising. Or having sex with a large number of partners. Is it really wrong because it’s potentially unhealthy? It’s wrong if it hurts someone, to be sure. But who’s to say that someone can’t prefer being unhealthy, especially if we’re only considering one unhealthy activity, with minimal impact?

Back to the fat acceptance argument, for a moment. Kate Harding goes into great detail as to why being fat isn’t always unhealthy, and why some people can’t help it. So, let’s say she’s wrong. Being fat really is unhealthy. If you’re fat, you’re going to die sooner. Does that make you a bad person? Really? Even if it makes you happier?

And who defines happiness, anyway? More on that some other time.

(My goodness – I’m in a weird mood at the moment. Oh, well!)

I loved the last episode of the L Word.

Well, maybe not quite loved – really, really, really liked. Lived, perhaps. (Get it? Liked + Loved? I’ll stop now. I usually don’t make horrible puns, but somehow it feels okay here. I think I’m high on L Word juice, or something)

Warning: This going to be super long – I have a lot of feelings at the moment.

Quick summary: I liked the Alice/Tasha/Jamie resolution. Sure, it was a bit artificial in the beginning, but it worked here. And I liked Helena and Dylan’s fight. It never made sense that they would make up so quickly. And I was sure that Jenny had screwed up the impersonation of Nikki’s manager. I felt relieved that Shane found Molly’s letter and the negatives. I loved nearly every scene with Tina and Bette. And I especially liked the last five minutes. (I’ll get to that in a minute.)

Alice/Tasha/Jamie. Threesome waiting to happen. And, I kind of wish it had. But, in real life (so I’m told) those things almost never turn into real relationships. Either the ‘third’ is the third wheel (and is only in it for sex), or one of the original couple gets jealous/falls for the third/both. The only way it can work is if the whole thing consists of nothing but sex, or if the people involved are very, very unusual. I can’t see Tasha “thinking is cheating” even coming close. And, I think she came back for the same reason. She was attracted to Jamie, but she never thought about it. Once she thought about it, she realized that she really wanted to be with Alice. Jamie was just a temporary attraction.

Helena and Dylan. Are one fucked up couple. Full Stop. They were weird back when they were playing ‘power sex’ that got caught on video tape. They were weird when Dylan couldn’t make herself do the right thing regarding the lawsuit, and yet still obviously loved Helena. And they are weird now, what with cutting clothes up with a knife and all. And, I think they still have a bunch of cycles to go before they work it out, or finally give it up. There’s just not time in eight episodes. I think that that’s okay, though. IC showed us just enough to make me happy.

That is one of the things I really liked about the finale, by the way. One of the stupid things about the L Word, has always been the assumption that the audience consists of idiots. The sledgehammer foreshadowing, they endless scenes of talking head exposition, the spelled out references, like this one:

[paraphrasing!]
Bette: “Lez girls. Cute, Jenny.”
Shane: “Like les girls. Nice play on words.”

Yeah…

We were never allowed to assume anything, to guess anything, to figure anything out. But thanks to time constraints in the finale, they allowed us to guess at a few things (the banister rail being an exception). The fate of Tasha/Alice, for example, and the future of Helena/Dylan for another.

!!!INSANE TANGENT WARNING!!!

I really wish the sequel was about Helena. Picture this: Helena, finding herself rather broke (through some unknown means), leverages her prison smarts, and becomes a big shot crime boss. Dylan is her on again, off again, girlfriend who insists on keeping a separate identity through her film-making. Helena would knock people around, sleep with hot cops to keep them quiet (and she’d play blackjack! and eff hookers! [sorry]), blow up Mormon churches (for being anti-gay!) (oooh, and the Mormons would be like the rival mob!) and all the while Helena would rule the criminal underworld with an elegant fist. At the end of the whole thing, Dylan would be killed by the cops by mistake when she stumbles into a big fight, and Helena would go on an insane rampage, and when they finally corner her, she has a bottle of wine in one hand, a detonator in the other, and she’s like, “<British Accent>Bloody Hell. Oh, fuck it all…</British Accent>” and she punches the detonator and blows up a whole city block!

Soooo… that was nuts. Hey, a girl can dream, can’t she?

Back to the L Word.

!!!END INSANE TANGENT WARNING!!!

Where was I? Oh, yes, Shane and Jenny. Shane’s storyline finally came together, for once. I never really cared for Shane, honestly – sure she was interesting (and hot!) the first season, but the whole ‘that’s Shane. She fucks a lot of girls.’ shtick got really old, really fast. Then came Carmen, who Shane dumped, and Paige, who Shane dumped, and probably a bunch of others I’m forgetting. And the whole Shay incident. Ok, we get it now – Shane has commitment issues. She also has no spine, despite her baby butchy demeanor. Why, oh, why, oh why can’t she change? Develop? Just a little bit? Then came Shenny, and the Shenny ’shippers were happy. The rest of us didn’t get it. What – another one for her to dump? What was the point? I think the point is: that Jenny was the first person who wouldn’t let Shane go. Sure, that girl in the first season was clingy, but she didn’t buy Nikki Stevens for 25,000 dollars! Shane is trapped. Will she break out? We assumed she wouldn’t – we didn’t have any reason to. But Shane actually did it! She found Molly’s jacket and decided that enough was enough. She didn’t get a change to actually do it – but her interaction with Alice, both at the party and before (at Alice’s) led me to believe that’s she’d really do it. She finally figured it out. (And by the way – yay for the understatement, again!)

That brings us to Jenny, who wasn’t nearly as despicable as she has been. Jenny’s just… crazy, really. Not clinically insane, but just her own brand of personal crazy. The season 2 acid trips with the circus clowns represent the worst of this. But I don’t mind her obsession that Bette admit to having an affair with Kelly. She honestly feels justified. And, her video project was really sweet and non-creepy.

Finally, Tina and Bette. Who had the sweetest and hottest sex and post-sex scenes ever. I’m so happy they ended up together. I always wished that TiBette hadn’t broken up at the beginning. We needed a strong central couple to hold the crazy together, and their breaking up was the worst thing in the show. Still, I think that there is closure now. And perhaps their new New York lesbian circle will be just as crazy, only they’ll be smart enough to hold it together themselves. Funny, TiBette is my favorite couple, but I can’t seem to find much to say about them here! Still – love, love, loved.

A few random bits: “Bye, Daddy.” Completely unnecessary. After ONE day at the zoo. I expect this show to be stupid, but when did it become hetero-normative? (He was in drag at the time, I suppose…) Also – they completely wasted Lucy Lawless. She’s seriously one of the best living actors, if not THE best. They could have at least put her face on camera more than twice! And Shane’s ‘voice over’ at the beginning was too extended. I felt like I was watching Sugar Rush!

Finale:

But these little nitpicks aren’t the point. Neither is the silliness all this season, or the disappointments seasons past. I think I’ve finally figured it out.

Near the very end of the episode, Jenny (as Ilene Chaikan) is sitting in front of the camera, saying goodbye. At first, of course, I thought, “Oh, great. IC’s finally gone off the deep end. Silly Meglomanaic!” But as the credits began to roll, as the cars drove up, as the women disembarked, walking, no, sashaying across the LA skyline, their bodies standing out like paintings, almost glowing, I realized: We’ve all been so wrong. The L Word isn’t a ‘realistic show’, a drama, a dramady, even a melodrama. It’s epic fantasy, in the tradition of, say, Gilgamesh or Faerie Queene or even Dune or Lord of the Rings.

Because the world is so, well, enormous and different. It’s the L Word, where all the woman are strong and beautiful, the men are mostly idiots, and the children are way, way above average. Goddesses abound. Bette may screw up, but when she does, it’s huge. She falls like a stone, at a pace mere mortals can’t began to follow. We can only worship. Marina’s the Succubus who when she can’t have her victim, tries to kill herself. When Alice outs somebody, she does it on national TV. Shane can’t just sleep with a few dozen girls – she has to sleep with thousands. And when Helena steps in shit, she does it in $40,000 boots.

I think it’s the theme song that fooled us. “The way that we live,” and all that. We said, “that’s not the way we live!” And it wasn’t. So we were angry. We took it at face value, thinking that they were at least trying tell the truth, and we missed the fantasy. Dana was another source of confusion. She was relateable, friendly, identifiable. We made the show about her – and missed that she was everywoman, the one source of real humanity in the whole fantastic mess.

It wasn’t the typical ‘epic struggle’, or course. No ‘Good against Evil’ or ‘Woman against God’. It was about love, friendship, of course, but not in the way we normally expect. Instead, it almost exists in stasis, a series of character portraits who are destined to act in a particular way, rather than let us identify with them.

Which is why we didn’t understand Jenny. Jenny was… us. Us, and IC. Jenny’s the one who dreamed the world into existence, or rather stepped through the looking glass to find it. That’s why she thought it was all about her – she didn’t catch the epic nature of it either. And that’s why she had to die. The world began with her. It could only end with her.

So as the final credits rolled, the characters blowing past the camera, back into that huge storybook called LA, the theme song (which sounded amazing without vocals, by the way), I had chills down my spine. The L Word succeeded, not because of wonderful stories, not because of meaningful human insight, but because the characters, the world, were so big, so different.

Lesbians, Loving, Lying, Laughing…

Then some smart person invented the wax cylinder record and the wire recorder (like a tape recorder, only with a wire). They sounded terrible. Really terrible. From a modern perspective, they are rather hard to listen to.Here are some halfway decent pre-1910, as an example.

But things got better very quickly. Microphones improved dramatically, magnetic tape and vinyl records were invented, all the way to 24 bit DVD audio and $10,000 sound systems. And here’s where it all gets stupid.

Now, recording engineers are obsessed with headroom, with avoiding distortion, with getting the cleanest, ‘hottest’ recording at all costs (it is their job, but still…). Audiophiles, when they’re not buying the latest gadget, are debating the benefits of 24 bit vs 16 bit vs vinyl. And musicians (who were the actual inspiration for this post!) are obsessed with being recorded properly, with getting just the right equipment, and on and on and on.

I’d like to offer a simple solution. It doesn’t matter! Listen to this recording. And this one. Yes, there’s clipping, noise, distortion. Yes, Armstrong’s trumpet sounds strange and muted, significantly different from the true sound. Yes, the tape hiss on the Heifetz is almost as loud as the music at times. But they both are wonderful performances! Would it really make a difference if the recordings were better? Really? Sure, I might listen to the better one if I had it (or not! I’d have to hear it first – I’ve been known to prefer live versions of e.g. the Indigo Girls over studio versions.), but would I enjoy it more? I somehow doubt it.

Maybe all that really matters in music, is, well, the music.

Just a thought.

This ends today’s impassioned rant.

They just published another post about the wonderfulness of immunizations, wherein they do a nice job of steamrollering over any opposing arguments. But I’m not going to write about that.

During the lack of discussion, Roxanne said this;

Vaccinations are a gamble: Will the reduced chance of a future disease outweigh the chance of complications now? Everyone has to make the choice for themselves. No medical procedure – and that includes vaccination – should be required by law. Period. End of sentence.

and then, Giacomo said this:

Roxanne, I’m sorry but you are wrong on “No medical procedure – and that includes vaccination – should be required by law”.

The right of the human race to survive as a whole overrides the right of individuals to be careless. If an epidemic is endangering society as a whole, collective and democratic bodies have the right to impose vaccination. I think this thread made it quite clear.

Is that so?

Say that the population is falling from too few births. Does the ‘right of the human race to survive as a whole’ trump the right of a woman to refuse to have children? Not quite ‘being careless’, I suppose, but still the same principle.

And there is hardly an epidemic that is endangering society as a whole. For the sake of argument, though, let’s say that there is, or say that if a significant number of individuals don’t take some action (preventing themselves from being sterilized by radiation, perhaps) or any other event, human race will become extinct. Is there some moral mandate to preserve the race at all costs?

Another fun example – some people seem to think that it’s extremely important that we place a ‘backup’ of humankind on a planet. That way, if decide to nuke ourselves, human life will be safe! After all, everybody knows that human existence has made such a valuable contribution to the advancement of the universe, that it is imperative we continue existing.

Remind me again: How does the universe determine value? Why do you care what happens after you and those you care about are dead? If humans suddenly, painlessly, ceased existence, why would that bother you? And if we die out naturally, where is the loss? Heck, some ecologist-types believe we deserve to become extinct!

Here’s the point: if it is wrong to not be vaccinated, or if anything else is wrong, it is wrong because it hurts people. Not ‘the human race’, not ’society’, but individual, specific people, whom are hurt by your specific, individual choice. You don’t have proof that anyone beside yourself exists. Humans are not a hive mind. We do not exist collectively. We infer others’ existence, and we act based on that, but we only care because we assume they are like us, that they feel our pain. Even more specifically: I care about you, because you are like me. Nothing more.

More on this later, when I can come up with some counterarguments.

But the self-referencing thing really gets to me sometimes. Someone writes an article, perhaps announcing something, or reporting on something. Sometimes this is a blogger, sometimes it’s an online version of a newspaper, etc. Then, a bunch of people link it, and link it, and link it. For every original article, there’s ten or a hundred links. Now, on one level, this is simply how people find out about things. But it does seem a bit worthless at times to read the same article, with minor commentary, on ten sites!

And then there’s the clearinghouse sites. Slashdot for computer friendly people, Feministing for feminists (for the most part), etc, etc. Someone writes an article, a bunch of people link it, it gets popular, a clearinghouse site picks it up, even more people link it, ad infinitum.

Let’s reduce redundancy! Let’s link to whole sites and blogs as well as articles. And let’s only link to really interesting things, not to everything that moves. Less redundancy == more information consumed. (I don’t know who I think I’m talking too – the few people who read this probably don’t have the problem! It’s the people who run the big site that are really responsible. Oh, well)

Sigh…

I don’t understand this. Is it really true that a person’s enjoyment of a story could be dependent on not knowing what’s going to happen? Look – there’s only one ending to any story: “They died.” It doesn’t matter whether the story goes, “She lived happily ever after in a little house on the coast,” or “He was pushed off the cliff by a pack of wolves,” the end result is the same. “and then they died.” Okay, okay – I suppose, “they lived for eternity,” is a possible ending, but that make… two? You know how the story’s going to end already! This applies to Harry Potter too – guess what! He’s going to die, either now or later.

Get over it.

And the plots in the middle aren’t much better. I once read a Dickens novel (Hard Times, I think it was), which had an introduction containing this sentiment: (paraphrased) “Nobody but a small child would read this book to find out whether the [protagonist] foils the [antagonist]. Instead, we read it for the characters, the emotional meaning.” I think that this is true of everything. Remember Shakespeare? He’s supposed to be a pretty good writer, right? (I happen to think that he’s overrated, but still…) Get an edition of his plays containing plot summaries of each play, and just read the summaries. Than go read the ’soap update’ in TV Guide. Shakespeare’s plots suck! They really do! Now, I suppose you could make an argument that they were fresh and original when they were written, but I doubt it. Fortunately, we don’t watch and read Shakespeare for the plots – in his case, it’s the language that matters. And that goes for most other books. You read Austin and Tolstoy and Alcott for the characters, Asimov for the ideas, etc., etc., etc.

That’s not to say that plot only exists to provide a vehicle for characters and language, of course. I’ll argue all day that the plot is the main feature of The Handmaid’s Tale. (It’s mostly indirectly expository, but still plot) But in order for a plot to be worth caring about, it has to stand up to scrutiny, to bear repeated readings or watchings, not fall apart when you find out the ’secret’!

So please, people, don’t be so crazy about being ’spoiled’. If it was worth seeing in the first place, it won’t hurt anything to know about it beforehand.

Note: Spoilers for games are a legitimate worry – if you know the solution to a puzzle, it’s often not as much fun. But: 1. Puzzles are usually meant to only be solved once, and 2. These sorts of games are not literature!

And now for something completely frivolous!

Xena fans have expended an astonishing amount of effort on analysis of lesbian subtext. Is it really there? How intentional is it? How much of it is there? Let’s make a complete list of every possible subtext moment in every single episode! Let’s make subtext the whole point of the show, and interpret every single phrase out of context! Let’s declare that that scene/line/episode never happened, because we don’t like the implications it has on X&G’s relationship!

Now, don’t get me wrong – there is nothing wrong with any of this. In fact, it’s amazing what we have accomplished – the fan fiction alone is absolutely amazing. And I certainly appreciate the need to re-imagine something in order to identify with it. But in the end, I like to think that the authors’ story is, well, the real story! Call it artistic integrity, if you will. (I’m guessing that my classical music background has a lot to do with my opinions on this subject – ‘composer’s original intent’ and all that.)

Anyway, I’m going to try and write something that I haven’t seen yet – an analysis of Xena subtext that is completely canon. (Excepting, of course, the intentionally out-of-character comic moments.) It will consider all of the relationships, and try and ‘connect the dots’ in a reasonable way. In other words, it’s the story, told as I would have wanted to see it, without ignoring what was actually written. And as a bonus, it’s yet another take on the Xena chronology; I make no claims as to accuracy.

So, here goes!

Part 1: Pre-Gabby Xena

Xena grows up in her little village. She’s a pretty typical kid, blah, blah. Then the evil warlord guy attacks, and she starts out on the warrior princess road. She starts out by simply trying to protect Amphibolis – but pretty soon she gets bored, and starts trying to take over as much of the world as possible. She’s drunk with adventure and power. She uses random men for sex – evil seductress stereotype, anyone? But she’s not evil, not yet. She’s a bit crazy, a bit ambitious, but she’s still happy, still in love with life.

M’lia

Then, she meets Caesar and M’Lila. She falls in love with Caesar, but becomes ‘friends’ with M’Lila. Notice the difference between the two relationships – with Caesar, it’s is all Power and Sex, Sex and Power, the two conflated with each other. But Xena and M’Lila develop a real, if strange, friendship. It starts with M’Lila teaching Xena the Pinch; remember how important is was to Xena to teach Gabrielle the Pinch in Friend In Need? After their exchange of near-death experiences, Xena says, “come on,” and it’s almost as if she’s talking to Gabby. Xena might have the hots for Caesar’s power, but M’Lila is her best friend, in an ‘almost soulmates’ sense. Were they lovers? No. Xena still has the men=power+sex complex. But M’Lila is her first real friend since her brother died. As for M’Lila herself, I think that she was completely in love with Xena. Why else was she hiding on the ship? Why else would she so readily put herself at Xena’s mercy via the pinch? And of course, she cuts Xena off of the cross, takes her to be healed, and dies by taking an arrow that was meant for Xena. All that because it ‘wasn’t Xena’s time to die’? I doubt it. Xena feels it too – she was merely mad at Caesar before – if that, but after M’Lila dies she goes completely I-hate-the-world insane!

And since she’s even more obsessed with power than before, when she meets Borias she jumps at the chance to exploit him. He’s a warlord with a bigger army, and she’s just the right mixture of insane dark power and inexperience and weakness (courtesy of the broken leg) for Borias to fall for her. But Xena doesn’t even pretend to care about him or what he thinks. She just wants his power.

Lao Ma

As a result, she falls for Lao Ma, but can’t stand it. Lao Ma is the first person who’s loved her since M’Lila, and that scares Xena, makes her feel powerless. So she rejects Lao Ma, and runs back to Borias – she wants her power back. In physical terms, I don’t think that the relationship went very much farther than we saw on screen. It was going further, though, and the whole thing scared Xena – Lao Ma was more than her equal, was older, wiser, and truly cared for Xena. Borias was simple and easy to screw over – both literally and figuratively. Xena wasn’t ready for a real relationship, so she took the easy route out.

Akemi

She doesn’t love Borias any more than before, though, and she misses Lao Ma. So when Akemi shows up, Xena goes for the rebound relationship. Akemi is rather similar to Lao Ma in a superficial way – she has a bit of that ‘air of wisdom’ about her. She’s younger, so Xena feels like she can be in charge in the relationship, and Xena likes that. And so when Akemi dies, Xena is even more heartbroken than she was before!

Alti

When Xena meets Alti, she’s pretty much a wreck. She has an unhealthy, partly sexual, relationship with Alti’s apprentice, as a surrogate for Akemi. Also, Xena has the beginnings of a codependency problem with Alti that is reflected with the apprentice. When the apprentice dies, Xena goes to Alti.

I’m not quite sure what to think of Xena’s relationship with Alti. The little that we see seems similar to her relationship with Borias – power, power, power (I’m starting to sound like a Buffy record…). Xena wants Alti’s spiritual power. Alti wants Xena’s physical power. Perfect match, right?

Right.

Back to the subtext – do they sleep together? I can’t decide! I think that they might have once or twice, in a I-miss-;ltAlti’s apprentice;gt-sort of way, but I just can’t see it working very well – they’re both too crazy.

After Alti, Xena doesn’t have any other relationships with women (that we know of). Until…

Season 1- Xena’s revelation

Xena meets Gabby… and it’s just not love at first sight. I know, I know, there are a few subtexty moments, but it’s just not really happening. Xena is Gabby’s hero, her idol, not her lover. Gabby thinks of Xena as a teacher and a mother/older sister figure. Xena, for her part, sees a bit of herself when she was young – brave, idealistic – and perhaps a bit of Akemi, but Gabrielle is more like an annoying kid sister who she can’t bear to send away. The just don’t see each other as equals at this point. But They bond as Xena teaches Gabby about the world, and while they have their little love affairs, nothing seems to stick. The ’soulmates’ concept is introduced.

Gabby meet the Amazons. She learn to fight – she becomes a little more like Xena, and Xena starts to see her differently. She’s distracted, though, by meeting Marcus, and her relationship with Gabby is put on hold for a while. I’m speculating a bit more than I’d like to here, but I think that Xena becomes scared of love after meeting Marcus again. After all, the people she loves have a nasty habit of dying!

By the end of the season, though, Xena has recovered, both from her evil induced funk, and from Marcus. She acknowledges her true feelings (to herself, anyway) in Is There a Doctor In the House. When Gabrielle almost dies, Xena realizes that she really loves her.

Season 2 – Gabby’s revelation

Gabrielle still doesn’t feel it, though! In fact, she’s rather scared by the idea of being with Xena forever, so much so that she marries Pertecus rather suddenly. She decides to marry him right after he gives up fighting – she is obviously reacting to her growing dislike and fear of violence. Xena lets her go – I wonder, if Callisto hadn’t killed Pertecus, did Xena think that Gabrielle would miss her and come back?

Callisto kills Pertecus. Gabby is heartbroken – she can’t bear to think about another relationship anytime soon. When she finally starts to get over her loss, she starts to move closer and closer to Xena, and their relationship becomes more and more romantic. After The Kiss as it’s called (From The Quest 2×13), things heat up even faster. To answer the big question, they make love for the first time sometime before A Day In the Life, which would explain the couply behavior in that episode. From this point, they are definitely together.

So why does Xena fall for Ulysses (temporarily, at least)? It’s simple – she’s a big cheater! Xena is incredibly commitment-phobic, and with good reason – most of her lovers or potential lovers have died! Her relationship with Gabrielle was getting too serious, so Xena tried to reject her. Ulysses was a boring sort of average person (from Xena’s point of view), so he would have been easy to have a fling with and throw away. She couldn’t bear to do that to Gabrielle! To her credit, Xena is improving – she doesn’t reject Gabby like she rejected Lao Ma.

Season 3 – The Rift

Having overcome Xena’s hangups, they appear to be heading toward ‘happily ever after’. Then, disaster strikes, in the form of Dahok. Whatever else we can say about the Rift, it certainly blows Xena and Gabby’s love life in to a million little bits! Their relationship doesn’t recover quickly, either – I don’t think that they were back together by the time Gabrielle pushes Hope into the lava pit. It’s the old story – you fall in love, and they betray you, only this time it goes both ways, at least to some extent.

It’s probably worst for Gabby. She’s already lost one love. To have Xena betray her could almost make her give up on love completely. But since she and Xena are soulmates, she just can’t give up. So she keeps traveling with Xena, trying to convince herself that they can still be together.

Season 4 – Exploring

I would imagine that a near death experience would change one’s views on almost anything, and that seems to be Gabby’s experience after she survives the lava pit. She finally gives up on Hope (her daughter, I mean), completely. She finally grows up – she’s lost the childish innocence of the earlier seasons. She’s having an identity crisis – she’s not sure whether she can keep fighting. And most importantly, over the course of the season, she falls completely and permanently in love with Xena. To be sure, she sometimes toys with the idea of leaving – with Najara, especially, but while Najara obviously wanted a romantic relationship with Gabby, Gabby doesn’t return any of Najara’s advances! Her idea seemed to be that Najara and her would be merely business partners, of a sort – and she really didn’t want Xena to leave. In the end, she stays with Xena despite everything. She just can’t help herself!

Xena, on the other hand, is having the opposite reaction. She’s haunted by the vision of Gabrielle’s death. Her fear that she will kill everyone she loves seems to be inescapable. The whole season for Xena, is like one long breakup. She knows that if she doesn’t leave her, Gabrielle will die – and Gabby won’t leave.

In the end, of course, they both die – and both come back again. Xena’s fears were unfounded.

Season 5 – Confusion

Xena, of course, isn’t convinced. She’s still resisting the notion of a permanent relationship, even as her and Gabby’s lives become even more intertwined. And Gabrielle is resolving her identity crisis – by becoming far more violent than she ever had been before! Baby Eve and the Gods only makes things worse.

They’re both confused. Xena is still attracted to Ares. She contemplates cheating on Gabby with Antony. Gabrielle is still completely committed to Xena – but doesn’t know how to convince Xena that it’s okay to feel the same way in return. Eventually, though, they work through their problems – 25 years frozen and a rebellious daughter doesn’t hurt their relationship any, either!

Season 6 – Together at last

Finally, Xena gets it. Gabby’s over her identity problems. And they are finally are really together – still facing all kinds of external crises, to be sure – but never really confused about their own relationship (at least, when not turned evil or under a spell!) They’re finally able to clean up most of Xena’s remaining messes, and it’s looking like they may live happily ever after…

But, of course, they don’t. I think that the ending can be taken in two ways. Either Xena really was redeemed – the only way she could be was to sacrifice herself. In a way, this could almost be the cumulation of her relationship with Gabrielle. She’s reformed, atoned for her evil, passed on her warrior destiny to Gabby, and finally sacrifices herself for the greater good.

On the other hand, perhaps her sacrifice was really the last expression of her fear of harming Gabby. And, since her spirit will apparently live on at Gabby’s side, she felt like she could leave Gabby, with a good excuse, and still not lose her entirely.

Whew! That was long!

So there it is. I hope you found my little analysis entertaining!