What the Catholic-run private schools would not want you to read.
I went to an all-girls high school run by nuns. It was not a convent though the strict rules of piety and near-asceticism could confuse anybody into believing so. I went there after 7-years from an all-girls elementary school run by the same nuns. My parents were not trying to punish me; in fact just the opposite. Where I came from, Catholic-run private elementary and secondary schools were some of the best, if not so, in the country. So parents were almost assured of a quality education, with the virtues of Catholicism considered as an added incentive.
We had our staple of queens, sluts, and outcasts. The fourth type is somewhat the great social leveller--much like how death is to all of us. The queens, the sluts and even the outcasts, at some point, belonged to the fourth group, the homosexuals.
Ironically, homosexuality thrived at my Catholic all-girls high school. Ironic because Catholicism is much opposed to homosexuality and does not recognize ( even condone) same-sex relationships. Even the present Pope was recently quoted metaphorically exhorting the holy flock to save (fast vanishing heterosexual) men like they would, erm, trees.
Ostensibly lacking male-jocks, our school bred female ones. And almost invariably, they formed the core of the Sapphic culture. They were members of the school varsity basketball and volleyball teams. In effect, they were the "rock stars" or the "football jocks" of the school. The girls every other girl wanted to be with. Girls across the social hierarchy (the queens, the sluts and the outcasts) had "crushes" on an all-girl school's equivalent of heartthrobs. Girls squealed at the sight of their crushes; the bold ones openly pursued the object of affection, unabashedly showered them with attention and flowers. Chocolates. Teddy Bears.
Bolstered by all the attention, the jocks swaggered around the campus like the hot shots that they were. They were the epitome of coolness, well at least to those who agreed to play along. The stratospheric rise in the social ladder of a freshman attracting a senior lesbian was not unheard of. The coolness factor undoubtedly attracted the dregs of high school hoping to have a semblance of an interesting life while in school. They dressed like boys and reviled the mere idea of wearing a skirt--forget ribbons in their hair. Their hair was shorn as near to their skulls as possible to look as close to a boy they will never become.
The hair style became "the chicken or the egg" issue with the nuns. Did these girls cut their hair very short and then became lesbians? Or vice versa? Apparently, the nuns subscribed to the former persuasion and they imposed rules to curb the hirsute transformation. And so, it became illegal to cut one's hair shorter than two inches above the neck. A girl who had dermatitis had to secure a medical certificate so she could keep her hair boyishly short. Those without a justifiable excuse (being a lesbian obviously not acceptable) were suspended. Might have been until their hair grew back.
In the end, it did little to impede, well, anything. Girls of all hair lengths, short, medium long were, at some point, all involved with another girl. Parents who assumed that lesbians had a singular portrait of buzz cuts, loose shirts and baggy jeans missed the romance their long-haired, skirt-wearing daughter was having with another girl. As long as their little girl did not balk at the sight of a frilly dress and the idea of looking feminine, then their girl must be into boys.
I never witnessed it personally, but rumours abound of girl A and girl B making out in the cafeteria during recess or lunch break. I wouldn't know if any of them went all the way but if there were, very few of them did (it would have been known in lurid detail, otherwise). Most were content with spending the break, walking along the corridors of the school, holding hands and displaying their mutual admiration for each other. Others were satiated with the attention and collected a string of admirers. They wrote letters everyday (some had notebooks with which they recorded everything that was happening with their relationship) and celebrated milestones in their relationship every month dubbing it Monthsaries. The customary greeting card and gift exchange, grand romantic gestures inspired by the hit rom-com at the time dotted their togetherness.
Courtship between girls was simple enough and was as close as possible to the heterosexual prototype. In my day, it started with being penpals, exchanging correspondences chronicling their daily lives. This was the route typically followed by the "admirers" who wished to pursue the "admiree." The daily liaisons would progress to "dates" during recess and lunch. So for 30 mins and an hour (respectively) per school day, the two would spend the time together. At this point, if the "admirer" believed that she had a shot, it would then enter the next stage. The next stage was marked with the showering of gifts. If say the "admiree" was fond of Mickey Mouse (we were teenagers, after all) the "admirer" would then gift anything under the sun that has Mickey Mouse on it: a magnet, a pen, a wallet, a trash can, etc. If the "admiree" was fond of the color blue, then she will be showered with everything blue: blue socks, blue notebook, blue shirt, etc. Considering we were depending on our lunch money for funds, courtship was undeniably very costly. For most others, all the expense took them to the next and final stage: the proposal and the MU (mutual understanding) stage.
There were girls in my school who unashamedly tried to be the Casanovas. One proposed to the other girl outside of her class just as the lunch break was over. She knelt down on one knee and declared her love for the girl with a rose (or whatever was the favorite flower of the girl, down to the favorite color) and everybody else gawking at the sight. It was as contrived as it sounded. Of course, some found it bone-chillingly romantic.
And so the three words would be spoken. If everything goes as planned, three (or even four) words would be spoken back. And then, they would officially share a mutual understanding (which is the ultimate goal of the courtship, by the way). Here they would choose their relationship theme (official) song, the (official) date with which to celebrate the aforementioned "monthsaries" and their (official) pet name for each other. Babykins, munchkin, sweet, coffee, sugar and other nauseatingly saccharine epitaphs were the popular choices. It was similar to having an official uhm BFF, only you kiss your BFF passionately with tongue and call her sugar.
The strange thing was (although it was normal to us back then) even the nerds and the "good girls" had crushes or lesbian inclinations. Our class topper was illicitly involved with another girl, our official class nerd had an incurable crush on another and other girls who seemingly knew better, were one of them. We even had a woman teacher who carried on a homosexual affair with another student. I do not know how much of an "affair" it was, but being the children that we were, our version accepted frequent phone calls and mail exchanges as an "affair." The point was, everybody seemed to break the stereotype and subsequently established a new one: nobody was straight.
By senior year, most of the attention shifted from the local school jocks to boys from other all-boys school. The sluts came out of their closets where the gays ironically shuffled back in. The most-awaited event was the class interaction with the boys. It was a school-sanctioned group first-date as it were. From here, many lesbian relationships ended up in the bifurcated road of homosexuality and heterosexuality. Some were caught in the middle, prompting a boy to famously opine "Does she realize she'll never grow a dick?" about a girl he was competing against for the affection of the class beauty.
Most of these girls are now girlfriends, fiancee, mums, and wives (in a more traditional sense) and in all appearances a woman. But the road that led to their femininity was certainly paved with less-than-good intentions. Along the way, they redefined the portrait of Sapphists and introduced a Pavlovian effect into homosexuality.
It was an "all-girls school" in every sense of the word.
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