But, as with many political situations, this issue runs deeper than local… there are people all over the world engaged in this same struggle for rights and we have many battles to wage before we can call it a day.

Many links later I read this article and it reminded me how far we have to go. This story is upsetting in so many ways and representative of the varied fights we have to fight and the difficult struggles the LGBT community has ahead of us:

Photo by: Jorge Saenz * News source [Yahoo]

ASUNCION, Paraguay – A couple jailed on suspicion of having a same-sex wedding was freed Monday after a doctor determined that the groom is a hermaphrodite. Prosecutor Jose Planas ordered the couple jailed after their civil wedding Friday, when the priest scheduled to perform the religious ceremony the following day said he received a call saying the groom, Jesus Alejandro Martinez, was actually a woman.

Same-sex marriages are illegal in Paraguay, and news of the arrest became the talk of the nation.

Planas had threatened Martinez with five years in prison for falsification of documents, and said he could charge the bride, Blanca Estigarribia, with complicity.

But the couple was released Monday. A doctor who inspected Martinez in jail ruled that he is a hermaphrodite, with atrophied female genitals and well-developed male genitals, according to the couple’s lawyer, Jorge Cantero.

“Conclusion: He is a man,” Cantero said.

He also said the document in the name of Jesus Alejandro Martinez is legitimate, meaning the forgery charges wouldn’t have held up.

“So this case goes into the archives,” he said. “It will remain as an anecdote for the media and a bad experience for my clients.”

Martinez, who has some feminine traits, said he suspected an ex-girlfriend made the accusation to the priest.

“I always felt like a man, with no feminine inclination,” he said.

Martinez said the couple would continue to live along the border near the Argentine city of Clorinda — “where everybody knows us and loves us.”

And the beat goes on….

Then it came time to pick one.

It’s always a difficult to buy sex toys for another person, but especially so when you know very little about their sex lives – as is the case with my grandmother. All I really knew was that discretion was the primary concern, which narrows the field a bit. There are two possible routes for a discreet vibrator: something small and easy to hide, or something that passes easily for something else.

I considered briefly some of GV’s smaller vibes – maybe a Pulsing Passion to match my cousin’s? But this toy is easily identified as a vibrator.

I decided instead on something much larger, but in fact more discreet because it isn’t actually a vibrator, technically speaking: The Essential Coil, which is produced and marketed as a “massager.”

The images on the packaging of this toy display happy consumers enjoying its many different attachments on various parts of their bodies. (Oh, this feels fantastic on my scalp!) The images mimic the vintage-style women who appear on the boxes in our antique vibrator museum, cheerfully caressing their cheeks with massagers bearing such names as the “Explorer,” “Electreat” and “Kwikway.” The quick way to relax your cheek muscles, that is.

The Essential Coil was perfect for gran-gran! If anyone stumbled upon it, she need only tell the truth: “It’s a massager.” The packaging boasts better still: “7-in-1 home spa!” And though grandpa’s half-deaf, it doesn’t hurt that the toy is virtually silent in spite of the powerful kick for which electric vibrators are celebrated.

So I bought one and got to work on the rum cakes, which were now my cover – the rest of the family was to know nothing of this particular gift, which I would give to grandma privately. That is, with the exception of my cousin, who was also getting a vibrator, also in private – but who nevertheless cautioned, laughingly, against offering one to grandma: “I think it’s a bad idea!”

After the holiday flurry had passed, I made a special visit, hoping to get my grandmother alone. I expected that grandpa would say hi and then retreat to his privacy, as is his habit, allowing the opportunity for grandma and I to have a frank discussion about what the toy really is – in addition to a fantastic scalp massager.

Things didn’t go quite as planned. Grandpa had just begun cooking a meal as I arrived. So it was just me and grandma… with grandpa passing occasionally and unpredictably through the kitchen like a Mack truck at a blind corner. I set the gift at the table, hoping to wait for the right moment.

But grandma would allow no such thing. “What’s that?” she asked almost immediately.

“It’s your Christmas present,” I said, casually.

“Oh, how sweet! But you’re not supposed to get me anything… I’ve already had that delicious rum cake… boy, it was good… put me to sleep!” She allowed herself to be momentarily distracted by this reminiscence, but just as soon she returned to the subject at hand.

“Well, should I open it now?” she asked tentatively.

“Sure!” I answered with enthusiasm. This was no time to act suspiciously!

She unwrapped the paper happily while making playful remarks to my grandfather, standing two feet away, about how he hadn’t gotten anything. After freeing the package, she looked at it uncertainly.

“7-in-1 home spa…?” she read aloud, slowly.

“It’s a massager, gram!”

I held my breath and waited for her to suddenly get it and tactlessly shout, “Zoe! Is this a vibrator?”

But instead, she said, “Hey! This is nice! Wow! I’ve never had one of these! Will it work on my legs too? My legs have been sore lately.”

“Yeah, gram, it’ll work on a lot of places…”

She thanked me and I left it at that.

That evening, I recounted the story to my mother. “Do you think she’ll figure it out?” I asked.

“I doubt it,” she said. “Grandma’s a little sheltered when it comes to these things.”

“Well, I’ll tell her what it is during our next phone conversation. That’ll give her a month or two to experiment. But I think she’ll figure it out.”

After all, even if she’s never used a vibrator, when she removes it from it’s package and plugs it in, she will certainly recognize the function of the appliance as vibration. And surely, she will recall the risqué comments that she has heard about vibrators throughout her life. Then, one private afternoon while she is massaging those sore legs, curiosity will whisper in her ear, and she will tentatively press the toy to her genitals.

I believe that her being sheltered will not prevent this course of discovery from taking place. Indeed, it is in exactly this way that I discovered vibrators: as a sheltered 10-year-old, pressing a Hitachi-style massager against the crotch of my jeans and imagining a lover between my thighs until I shook with the intensity of my first orgasm.

I look up from my book and answer with a smile, “The Many Joys of Sex Toys.”

She recites a monologue of emotion:

Surprise: “What are you reading—a sex book??”
Exasperated disapproval: “Oh, Zoe! Why are you reading that!?”
And finally, curiosity: “Well, what’s in there anyway? What’s it about?”

“Well, gram, it’s a book about sex toys and creative ways of using them.”

“What—sex toy? Like what? What’s a sex toy?” She is flustered and speaks rapidly, loudly, but without anger, as she always does when processing an unfamiliar subject.

“You know, vibrators and—”

“So what does it say about… about sex toy?”

“Well…right now I’m reading about the G-spot—”

“The what-spot? G?”

“The G-spot,” I repeat, and ask sincerely, “Do you know what the G-spot is?”

The shrillness leaves her voice. She has forgotten herself.

“No. What is it?”

I explain to her the anatomy of the G-spot. “It responds well to pressure when you’re aroused. Some women really enjoy it.”

“And, … it’s inside?”

“That’s right”

“And… what do you…how do you… get to it?”

“Well, you could use your fingers, but a toy might work better, although really it depends on your anatomy.”

“Your anatomy?”

“I mean the way that your body is built. Everybody’s different so… some people might do fine with their own fingers, but other’s might need a toy, or someone else’s fingers, to reach their G-spot.”

My grandfather returns to the car, and my grandmother turns away sharply, like a child caught cheating in class: “Shh! Grandpa’s coming!—Don’t talk about it in front of him.”

However, they are largely conservative and occasionally sexist. Sexuality – my favorite subject of intellectual inquiry – is never discussed, unless privately between two people, and even then with hushed voices. In a group of three or more, the only mention of sexuality is the occasional x-rated quip, uttered exclusively by men. These are met with half-hearted disapproval that does not match the more severe disapproval that a sincere attempt at open discussion receives.

One year at Christmas, I gave to the above-mentioned cousin a book entitled Fast Girls: Teenage Tribes and the Myth of the Slut. This book explores the brutal slut labeling of girls that is rampant in high schools today. At age 15, she was old enough to be aware of (and hopefully to question?) this double standard.

“Oh, Zoe!” her father said to me reproachfully after reading the title, as though I had offered her an issue of Hustler magazine. “Did you get her a dirty book??” This is the same uncle who slipped condoms to my male cousins during a summer vacation a year later. My female cousin and I were never given condoms, though we were warned all our lives not to get pregnant.

“A dirty book?” I asked, perplexed. “No. It’s a study of the archetype of the slut as it exists the high school context.” Appeased by my gentle tone, but still disapproving, he muttered quietly along the lines of “Why would you get her that?” Meanwhile, the rest of the family sat silently in obeisance of taboo, neither expressing disapproval nor communicating discomfort.

I wanted, of course, to explain why I thought the book was significant or why it was silly of my uncle to disapprove, but I knew from past experiences that this would be futile. At best, they would avert their eyes and ask me not talk about it. At worst, they would each say the things they expected the others to expect them to say. For some members of my family, conservatism is sincere; for others, it is social protocol.

I believed that my grandmother would be receptive to a vibrator if given one discreetly, because she is, I believe, one of those for whom conservatism is largely protocol. I think this because of a private conversation that she and I once had—about the G-spot.