Jenny Block wonders why we all can’t get along more
I wasn’t expecting any sort of profundity last weekend. I was asked to be a guest performer at the second Plezzure Island, an LGBT women-centered resort takeover. The only one in
Texas, in fact. But I had no expectations.
The event is produced by the Wolf Pack, an amazing group of women who create and enhance events like dance parties and takeovers and Prides to give LGBTQ women a place to gather. At a time when so many cities are without a true gay-girl bar, it’s a welcome gap filler.
I had been asked to write a funny, sexy skit that I was to perform with musician Elle G, burlesque dancer Nikki DaVaughn and former Real L Word celesbian Sada Bettencourt, which I did. The skit was funny. People laughed and the Sleepover dance party ensued. Just as planned.
Everything went as planned, actually. The sun shown on us for four days straight on South Padre Island at the Isla Grand Resort, despite forecasts of rain throughout the weekend.
In fact, it was pouring down in torrents on Thursday morning when I flew in to Harlingen. But by the time we reached the island, it was all sunshine and unicorns.
The DJs — Citizen Jane, Snow White, GIIQ, Mo and DJ2AM — were great. Lady Cultura sang and danced and rapped at the Glow Party, all around mesmerizing the crowd. Girls were literally swooning, and there wasn’t a dry… well you know, in the house.
There was speed-dating and pool games and more floaties in the pool — from unicorns to peacocks to rainbows to poop emojis — than you can imagine. It was like big girl summer camp heaven. With alcohol.
It was great. It was fun and rowdy and super sexy at times too, including during an impromptu “fake an orgasm” contest that I couldn’t help but instigate. It was everything one could hope for at an event like that.
In fact, it was much more.
The event drew women from all over geographically, but more than that, it drew women from across every demographic. Women in their 20s and in their 60s. Women of every fabulous shade and color. Women with cheeky bobs and floaty locks and boi-ish close-cuts. There were high femmes and classic studs and andro lookers and boi babes. There were transgender women among the ranks as well as those who identify as polyamorous or bi … or whatever they choose, for that matter.
But it wasn’t even just that it seemed as if we represented, if not all, than at least so many of the different shapes and colors and sizes and varieties that LGBTQ women come in. It was that those things were merely individual characteristics. They were in no way divides. There were no cliques of color, no closed circles of femmes or roped-off ranks of butches.
There weren’t young eschewing the old. There were just all of these … humans, with no time or need for division and nothing but space and openness for diversity.
Pardon me for sounding so “free to be you and me,” so “I love you, you love me”, so “I’m OK, you’re OK.” But I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t so blindingly, awesomely true. And for that vision, for that hope, for that sense of peace and possibility, I am, and will remain forever grateful.
The Wolfpack should run the world. They did what so many of our “leaders” today only cannot, but more frighteningly will not, do: They led by example and left their egos at the door. They looked at their community and asked, “How can we serve you?” And then delivered without hesitation. They asked themselves, “What would the world look like if it were by my design, if kindness were queen and play was valued, and if being generous of heart were valued above all else?”
And what looks to be a weekend long Party was born. But a promise was also formed. The Wolf Pack proved that it can be done. We can all get along. We can be totally different and still find what is the same and treasure both of those things all in the same moment. They promised that if what we want is a community, it can be delivered, and they will be the ones to deliver it.
So, yes, Plezzure Island was a lot of fun — so much, I required a daily recovery routine. I danced past when my stilettos cried uncle. I drank past when my mama would have advised. And I soaked in the pool past the hours that the sun could reach us. I also teared up watching 20something girls kiss and hold hands and giggle in the pool without fear or shame. I also felt proud seeing some of the Hurricane Harvey heroes — like Pearl bar owner Julie Mabry, who arrived a day late having spent so many countless hours fundraising and volunteering after Harvey. And I also felt unified seeing people see one another instead of the colors and religions and genders and the like that the rest of our country is so sadly and confusedly obsessed with.
It was a silly and sappy and moving weekend. It was a romantic escape for my fiancée and me. And it was a weekend of connection under no guise. It just was. We just were. It was simple. Makes a girl wonder why so many people instead make it so hard.
I am grateful to everyone who was at Plezzure Island 2017. Peace is possible. I know. It’s not really as simple as planning a bunch of pool games and dance parties. Except, maybe in a way, when you pull the curtain back and the little man at the controls is revealed — it is.
Have a question about sex, relationships or life you want Jenny to address? Email it to GirlOnGirlsJenny@gmail.com.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition October 6, 2017.
