/une 2.2000 * Just o u t 4 ]
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1 2 3 2 SlAf 1 2 t h a v e
2 2 3 -1 8 4 6
profiles
m ultiple photos
e xte n d e d interest profiles
one tim e flin g s
Why? “Because lesbians aren’t funny.”
Well, this one is. Since the only photos I’ve
seen are of her as her alter ego, I ask what she
looks like in real life.
“Well, let 's see, I’m wearing a black shirt
and jeans.... Hey, this is beginning to sound
like phone sex,” she quips.
W hen pressed for more details, she confess
es to being about 68 percent a lipstick lesbian,
“which means l have a lipstick in my pocket at
all times, but I don’t carry a purse.”
I decide to get even more personal.... So,
does an advice columnist have a fabulous,
healthy, well-adjusted personal life? “No, 1 have
as much angst as the next person,” she con
fides, “but I do try to take my own advice.”
W hen I ask her age, she retorts: “Should I
turn the clock back or tell the truth? Dan Sav
age and I used to be the same age, but lately
I’ve noticed he’s gotten younger.” Finally, she
states her age as 38, which seems way too
young to start fudging.
O ther projects on C o h n ’s desk include a
collection of more serious essays she hopes to
publish under her own name, a play, and a
compilation of her best columns. She says she
intends to continue writing her column “as
long as I still have fun and I keep getting new
questions.”
T h at’s where you come in. Yes, all her ques
tions really do come from actual readers of the
dozen newspapers in which her column
appears. A nd she does read all her own mail—
curiously, though, she admits to having “an
imaginary assistant named Harriet who is
exactly my size and tries on clothes for me.”
T hat aside, Ms. Behavior eagerly awaits
your quandaries. I promised her that we’ll send
some authentically peculiar, only-in-the-
Northwest questions for her perusal. Don’t dis
appoint her!
find a penpal
■ Send your dilemmas and desperate cries for help
to MsBehavior@aol.com.
£
CD
m ovie date com patibility m atching
uppose two dyke pals asked your advice
on this conundrum: Seems they had
joked about a sexual fantasy involving
letting a man watch them have sex. It
also seems that one of the women was more
eager than her partner and went ahead and
sent out the invitation. Her more reticent part
ner sought help, wondering how to keep the
man under control and if they should hire a
lesbian bouncer to officiate. W hat would you
advise?
This bizarre scenario was in fact a real ques
tion sent to Ms. Behavior, and one she says she
“had the most fun answering.” Her reply? “Yes,
hire the bouncer, then hire a dog to watch the
bouncer, then invite Ms. Behavior to come and
watch the dog.”
Though this was one of the more outra
geous questions she has received, Ms. Behavior
does not recoil from a challenge. More typical
are questions about relationships, family inter
actions and other sticky issues of etiquette.
W ith this edition, Just O ut begins running
in each issue “Ms. Behavior,” an advice column
for lesbians and gay men th at aims to answer
your toughest questions and solve most of your
dilemmas. As Ms. Behavior says in her book,
Do What I Say, “She would like to be the salve
for your pain and the balm you spread on your
wounds.” (Ms. Behavior also likes to speak
about herself in the third person.)
Thankfully, the woman behind the column
does not. Meryl C o h n is a native New Yorker,
though you’d never know it speaking to her by
phone.
As a former New Yorker myself, 1 have a
keen ear for any whiff of the Apple, and C ohn
is pleased that her efforts have paid off.
“Losing an accent is sort of like an exor
cism," she says, ironically from New York,
where she is spending a few days away from her
home in Provincetown, Mass.
Actually, she spends several months a year
in New York, because, she admits, “I find
Provincetown in w inter really desolate, and I’d
get sad if 1 stayed there.... I need more stimula
tion.”
A full-time writer whose work has appeared
in The Village Voice and the Boston Phoenix, she
started the column about nine years ago when
she was writing for Boston’s gay paper, Bay
Windows. W ith a bachelor’s degree in psychol
ogy and a master’s degree in playwriting and
screenwriting, she claims “both are just as use
ful in writing this colum n.”
She thought about becoming a psycholo
gist but confesses "what I really wanted was to
tell people what to do and be done with it!"
Did she always w ant to grow up to be
Dear Abby, only queer? "No, I always wanted
to write an advice column, but I wanted to
give more useful advice— while also being
funny,” she answers.
Indeed, as the colum n has evolved over
the years, C ohn has focused more on truly
helpful advice, though she’s never stopped
leavening her pointers with humor.
Early on she did some comedy perfor
mances in her Ms. Behavior drag getup,
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