Dear Dr. Carroll,
I know this letter will be way too long, but my situation is so confused I'm afraid to leave anything out. If you print this in your column, please feel free to cut all the meaningless babble. I've also enclosed a stamped, self-addressed envelope in case you want to reply directly. But I desperately need your advice.
I grew up in San Francisco, a third-generation Chinese American with very traditional parents. I have two brothers who are both much older. In fact, my second brother left for college while I was still in grade school. Since both brothers attended college and grad school on the East Coast, I felt like an only child.
My parents were very strict, very Chinese, so I was pushed to excel in school and music. Luckily, my mother believed in physical fitness or I would have spent my whole life playing violin and studying. Volleyball was my sport and I always loved the teamwork and the intensity of a close game. By now you may have guessed that I'm tall. In fact, I'm freakishly tall for a Chinese girl ... 5-feet-9.
My looks are not much to brag about. When they're being kind, people call me "cute." Objectively I think I'm attractive when I smile, plain otherwise.
Physically there's not much to say once you get past "tall." I do have long, athletic legs that I've caught people checking out. And my butt is hard from years of competitive volleyball. Up top, well, I've heard descriptions like "slender," and "long-waisted," but nobody ever looks at my chest because I don't have one. Thirty-two, B-cup, that's me. The only reason I bother with a bra is my nipples are very dark against fairly pale skin.
My problem is sexual, obviously, since I'm writing to sex columnist. Please bear with me.
Thanks to my protective parents, I went to an all-girls school and never had a date until I was 17. Even then the occasion was arranged by my parents and their old friends the Changs.
Eddie Chang was okay at first, despite the thick glasses and the fact that I was taller. We ate pizza and went to a movie, but Dr. Jekyll turned into Mr. Hyde on the way home. He parked on the street in full view of anybody passing by and suddenly his hands and mouth were all over me.
I had rarely been alone with a boy before and I was shocked as only the truly naive can be. I barely even touched my OWN breasts and there I was being mauled by a semi-stranger. My first kiss was anything but romantic. I was totally disgusted when Eddie tried to push his tongue in my mouth. When he shoved a hand up my skirt and tried to poke a finger into my panties, I jumped from the car and ran. Luckily I was only a mile from home. I refused to answer my mother's questions about my date, and made sure I was never alone with Eddie again.
No biggie, of course. Lots of girls have lousy first dates. Unfortunately my second date followed the same lines. The only difference was Robert Fong made his play while we were still at the movies. And I bailed out before he got around to lifting my skirt. It turned out that Eddie had told a bunch of guys I was "loose," which is the only reason Robert asked me out.
Where was the romance I was reading about in books? What was it about boys that was supposed to set me on fire? As far as I could tell, they were more animal than human, and not very appealing animals at that!
I DID have one more date in high school, for the big annual cotillion when I was a senior. My mother insisted on me going and arranged for my escort. He was another friend of the family ... three years older ... clearly bored with me AND attending a high school cotillion. I suspect he was humoring his parents like I was, and he never laid a finger on me aside from a couple of slow dances. I was home in bed by midnight.
So (you're thinking) she had a lousy time dating in high school ... just like 90 percent of the girls in America. What's the big deal?
The big deal was college ... and that's were things got REALLY confusing!
I had four scholarship offers, so naturally I took the one farthest from my parents. I knew instinctively that I had to get far, far away from them if I ever wanted to be my own person. That's how I landed at a small, but well-known liberal arts college in the upper Midwest.
On my first day of college I was unpacking in my dorm room when I heard a quick knock on the door. I opened it and met the 100-watt smile of Dannielle "Dannie" Bales, a sophomore with personality enough for 10 people.
Dannie was a resident assistant in my dorm, notifying freshmen about orientation activities. To my delight, she stayed and talked for half an hour. By the time she left, I was glowing with pleasure at her attention. She has the knack of making you feel you're special with a smile and a few words.
Dannie told me later that she fell for me during those first 30 minutes in my room. The feeling was completely mutual, though I really had no idea WHAT I was feeling. I just know I was flushed from head to toe by the time she breezed out with a wave and a promise to come back soon.
Well, Dannie and I were inseparable after that, though it was a long time before our relationship became physical. You won't believe this, but I honestly had the vague idea that lesbians lived only in San Francisco because I had seen them there all my life. It never occurred to me that lesbians could also be feminine little extroverts from Chicago.
I was in the middle of my first relationship and I didn't even know it!
It also never occurred to me that I was a lesbian. I had never been sexually aroused by man or woman, though I was familiar with a warm feeling that spread through my body during certain movies and while reading certain books. I was quite familiar with my inadequate breasts, and once I had taken the advice of a book and squatted naked over a mirror to look between my legs.
"Eeewwh!" I thought, "I'm obviously deformed."
I decided nobody could ever be aroused by the sparse black hair and dark, crinkly lips of my vagina, though it was interesting to see such a vibrant shade of pink when I pulled myself open. At least my asshole was not as ugly as I expected, considering its function. Actually, it was kind of cute.
Dannie was very touchy, which was completely outside my experience. She was always touching my hands and arms, and occasionally my face and legs. And she began giving me neck and shoulder rubs that left me flushed and shaking. I had no idea, but she was prepping me for something much more intimate.
Finally she started giving me back rubs after we finished studying each night that left me in a state of total -- but uncomprehending -- arousal. You wanna know how naive I was? I was wishing I could find a guy who made me feel the way Dannie did!
Despite many offers, Dannie never let me give her more than a token neck rub in return for the hour-long sessions she spent taking the kinks out of my back. But she finally relented one night in her room after a grueling study session.
