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| Clocks were really something back in the 1970s, huh? |
NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Ed Wood's When the Topic is Sex (BearManor Media, 2021).
The article: "Test of Time." Originally published in Two + Two (Pendulum Publishing), vol. 4, no. 1, January/February 1972. Credited to "Ann Gora."
Excerpt: "The butch may or may not be the truck driver type which is depicted in so many pictures and cartoons. There are just as many butch types who are more feminine than the fluff types and one would not know the difference, on the street, from any other girl. And it may be just the opposite for the fluff. Then again an affair may really be accomplished by two fluffs, both ultra feminine and each will take turns at being one or the other."
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| The Bible doesn't condemn lesbians. |
Reflections: Back when I reviewed Blood Splatters Quickly in 2014, I noted that "time" was one of Ed Wood's most-used keywords. In fact, he uses it 252 times throughout that collection. Evidently, Eddie thought about the concept of time an awful lot... and not just in his later, sadder years either. Remember that his debut film, Glen or Glenda (1953), starts with Bela Lugosi's Spirit character delivering this speech:
Man's constant groping of things unknown, drawing from the endless reaches of time brings to light many startling things. Startling? Because they seem new... sudden! But most are not new... to the signs of the ages.
That bit of cosmic wisdom sets the scene extremely well for "Test of Time," the second Ed Wood article in When the Topic is Sex with "time" in the title. (I reviewed the first, "Time Out for Pleasure," just two days ago.)
In this article, Ed Wood's thesis is that lesbianism has certainly withstood the test of time—an uncontroversial claim, I'd say. Ed argues that, over the centuries, lesbians have largely survived by flying below the radar. Since they don't really stand out in society that much, neither the government nor the church has bothered to persecute them. Or at least, not as much as they've persecuted gay men. I remember reading in Ken Smith's book, Ken's Guide to the Bible (1995), that the Bible condemns male homosexuality but doesn't specifically forbid lesbianism. Eddie makes a similar observation here, saying that the church largely ignores lesbians, hoping they'll go away, rather than damning them.
I don't know if this qualifies as a feminist statement, but "Test of Time" espouses the viewpoint that lesbianism is womankind's attempt to escape or overthrow the patriarchy. For too long, woman has been the victim of male vanity and the male ego. Her own pleasures and desires have been ignored because the man's needs have always taken precedence. "Down through the ages," Ed writes, "the male has been the dominating factor in all history. And the woman was his thing . . . his plaything." Thus, when a woman enters a same-sex relationship, she is throwing off the shackles of male oppression.
Again, though, let's not be too hasty in calling Ed a proto-feminist hero or anything. "Test of Time" contains his usual, stereotype-ridden schtick about "butch" and "fluff" lesbians. And, just as in "The Divorcee's Dilemma," Eddie describes lesbians as predatory, fickle, and promiscuous. According to Ed, these women are constantly "cruising" the cocktail lounges and beer bars in search of new bed partners with no thought toward long-term relationships.
But, just like Walt Whitman and Bob Dylan, Ed Wood contains multitudes. In its final passages, "Test of Time" becomes quasi-philosophical. As he has demonstrated throughout this entire book, Eddie is dazed and dazzled by the sweeping changes the Sexual Revolution has wrought in a relatively short amount of time. Above all, people now have more information about sex than they ever had before, and this information is no longer couched in the obscure technical language used by "medical men." No, we can now read about lesbianism (and other sensitive topics) in plain English. Eddie suggests that this will eventually lead to greater understanding and acceptance. He puts it this way:
There is no one so superior as to be able to look down upon another because he or she is different . . . and that goes for the difference in their own sex life. Sex lives are as different as any personality. And the lesbian is part of the personality phase of life. They are with life and they are living it the way it pleases them. What most lesbians want to learn is the truth about themselves . . . what makes them tick . . . and what makes others tick. Happiness sometimes must be learned. Sometimes it is not born in all of us. And learning ones own shortcomings or long comings, as the case may be, is all part of the search for happiness.
Almost makes you misty-eyed, doesn't it?
Next: "Sappho Revisited" (1973)