My First Lesbian Experience

I must have been 6 or 7, maybe 8.  I could have even been 5.   Either my Aunt was visiting from another state or we were at her house.   I was sitting closest to the TV with my mother and aunt behind me.   They were talking and I’m not even sure that they were aware of the program.  

I was very young and recall thinking that the movie wasn’t something that I should have be watching.  I was wondering if my mother knew the plot.   Were they listening?

The movie was very disturbing for me.  It was about a woman who seemed to be romatically in love with her best friend.   The two women were teachers at a boarding school and a mean little girl whispered something about the 2 women to another adult.   The little girl’s “rumor” and its aftermath was the entire focus of the movie.  This unspoken rumor caused the women great distress.  Perhaps the women were even fired from the school, I don’t recall.   I just recall the overwhelming feelings that I had as I watched the movie with my mother and aunt in the same room.

Even though it wasn’t spoken in the movie and even though I was very, very young – I knew exactly what the rumor was.  I didn’t have a name for it but I was already feeling it in my life and I was so scared that my mother and aunt would see it in my face as I watched this movie.  Yet, they seemed to just keep chatting as if nothing was out of the ordinary.  For me, it was huge.  I didn’t know that anyone else ever had those kinds of feelings until I watched this movie. 

How did it end?  The lesbo hangs herself.   

Years later I found out that the movie from 1961 is “The Children’s Hour” with Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine.  Here is a clip with commentary.    By the way – I totally fell in love with Audrey Hepburn while watching the movie and totally “got” why MacLaine ended her life.  Geez, I was young and how weird that people never talked about these types of topics inside or outside of our families.   Things are so different with our son – thank goodness.