Arts :: Arts And Culture
Beach blanket lesbo by Brian Jewell
contributing writerThursday Jul 10, 2008 A women’s week in the summer - finally!
For lesbian party queen Lynette Molnar, it’s all about the endorphins. The Provincetown promoter, whose Girl Power Productions produces Single Women’s Weekend and Women of Color Weekend, is also a philosopher of fun. She theorizes that feeling good is the beginning of social change.
"When you get together with people in a group," she says, "you get energized, endorphinized. You change biochemically. Laughing produces endorphins, just like sex and dancing. And when you’re endorphinized, that’s when change can take place and you act from your best self.
"The more we can raise people’s spirits, the better off we are as a community."
Molnar has been making the world a better place one party at a time since arriving in Provincetown in 1995. Now she’s preparing for her biggest bash yet: Girl Splash, a nine day long event that will bring thousands of women to Provincetown for the summer’s biggest party for queer women on the East coast. Girl Splash’s long roster of events includes appearances by reality tv star Dani Campbell, (last lesbian standing on A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila), a Lori Michaels concert, comedians Kate Clinton and Lea Delaria, golf, volleyball, clambakes, pool parties, and more.
The event fills a long standing gap in Provincetown’s season, which is bracketed with big women’s events like Women’s Week in the fall and the de facto "lesbian spring break" of Memorial Day weekend, but has no women’s event during summer’s height.
"There’s circuit week for men," enumerates Molnar, "and bear week, and carnival week which is primarily for men, and there’s family week. But there’s nothing for women in the summer. Not only here, but nationally. Now we can pack the beach, we can have clambakes outside, we can sail on the Bay. It’s too cold for those things in October."
A savvy promoter, Molnar first extols the fun she anticipates, waxing downright poetic as she describes the euphoria on the dancdfloor at The Pied. But talk of endorphins soon leads into another of her favorite words: community. Noting that Provincetown is the safest place to be gay she knows (significant praise from a former resident of San Francisco), Molnar says the seaside town gives people opportunities to see their peers that they may not get at home. "These events give people the opportunity to be part of the majority," she observes.
"There’s so much empowerment in that. I know the bears feel the same way during bear week, when they walk down the street and see each other. At women of color weekend, some of the women are practically in tears. One said to me, "I never see people like me unless I look in a mirror."
Even for those from cities or gay friendly places, Provincetown offers a new freedom and new opportunities to find community. Molnar hopes that her own Girl Power events can help the need once filled by more permanent community groups.
"A lot of the women’s communities and gay bookstores that allowed people to connect don’t really exist anymore," she explains. "So Girl Power is about people making connections with their community and their own happiness. The energy is so different when you make it simple for people to meet each other."
Molnar makes it simple by scheduling events that encourage conversation, including "speed friending." Using the same techniques as speed dating, speed friending is a structured way to make connections amongst strangers.
"Get a hundred gay men together," Molnar quips, "and 96 of them will hook up. Get a hundred lesbians together, and maybe a few Leos will talk to each other.
"I’m a community organizer at heart," she chuckles. "That’s what these events are all about."
Girl Splash shakes up Provincetown from July 19-27. For more information and reservations, visit www.girlpowerevents.com.
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