Jhoanna Lynn B. Cruz

Abi Nako, Or So i Thought

anthology of Pinay lesbian writing

Tingle

Most of the forty-nine works in the book were specifically solicited from the writers I know in response to the question, “What makes you tingle as a lesbian?” Literally, the sensation of “slight prickles, stings, or tremors,” the excitement. I purposely didn’t give any more qualifiers to that prompts. I wanted the writers themselves to define the terms and enact them on the page. And while the word “tingle” is a homonym for the Tagalog word for “clitoris,” many of the pieces submitted were not about sex at all. But all the pieces are about a spark of recognition, whether at the beginning, the middle, or the end, that one loves a woman as a woman. Tingle is the flint. Here we are taking our stories of women loving women in our own hands and making ourselves visible on our own terms. When the initial thrill of desire is past, the tingle is ultimately the recognition that what we have found cannot remain in the dark—we must love and be loved in the light.

Jhoanna Lynn B. Cruz

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