"Checking Out"
T H E S U I C I D E O F A R A D I C A L H E D O N I S T
Photograph by I got Sally Binford's letter the day after her body was found. She had planned for many years to "check out" before her 70th birthday, and when that day came, I got a phone call in the afternoon, from my ex, Honey, telling me that Sally had really gone and done it. She cleaned her house, put all her affairs in order and gave herself and her beloved poodle, Jake, some perfect good-bye cocktail of drugs. She died peacefully, and exactly as she had designed. I cried like a baby on the phone, "I just saw her a couple days ago, and she said nothing to me, nothing." Honey told me that Sally had sent out letters. The next day, there mine was, lying on the floor under the mail slot. No return address. I opened the envelope and found a typewritten note Sally had photocopied for her long-time friends, lovers and those family members with whom she was still on speaking terms. In the letter, she sounded just as confident, determined and funny as ever. "Toujours Soixante-Neuf!" ("Forever 69!") she wrote in a boldface double-entendre at the end, "Love, Good-bye, Sally". Sally Binford, as anyone who knew her will tell you, was an astonishing person. A pioneering anthropologist and archeologist, her writings on prehistory are required reading for most college courses in those disciplines. A passionate antiwar activist who dropped out of academia at the height of her career in the 1960s, she was one of the founding mothers of the modern feminist movement, a charter member of N.O.W. But beyond that, she was the first woman ever (if you don't count Emma Goldman) who I'd call the very model of a sex-positive feminist. Sally was the living embodiment of radical sexual liberation -- free from the tyranny of arbitrary gender roles, chauvinism, sexual "preferences" and -- most intensely -- from the bonds of jealousy, monogamy and any and all love arrangements based on the idea of private property. She was the female "star" of the only movie ever made about the sex lives of old people, "A Ripple in Time," which she made with her dear friend Ed Brecher when she was in her late 50s. Sally was a one-of-a-kind sex educator and a trail blazer to the very end, the only bisexual member of the very first Old Lesbian Conference steering committee. Sometimes she'd end a phone call with me, saying she had to go to a Gray Panthers meeting, and I'd wonder how the rest of them could possibly keep up with her. Ms. Binford could convert anyone to the cause of erotic camaraderie and social insurrection. She was so smart, so witty, an intellectual's delight, a revolutionary's inspiration and above all, a hell of a lot of fun. She made her homes in Maui, San Francisco and southern France, near the caves at Lascaux. Her poker parties, which brought some of the finest minds in town to the table, were notorious. Her Thanksgiving and Christmas suppers were legendary. She loved me to pieces, and I guess that's the thing that gets to me the most. Forget famous Sally, or notorious Sally, and you'd still find someone who would do anything for the people she loved -- except live past her prime. A year after Sally's death -- and months after everyone who'd ever loved her had met at the enormous wake she requested -- her longtime lover and companion Jeremy Slate wrote to each of us, asking what we made of Sally's choice to die. In Jeremy's questions, he spelled out what had been on everyone's minds.
I wrote him a long reply, filled with all my mixed-up feelings. Yes, Sally had told me about her plan to "check out" according to her own design, and I hadn't liked it, although I wouldn't dream of trying to talk her out of it. She was the first person to ever force me to consider what I myself am going to do when my life is at its end. Sally, I miss you so much. Just writing this article for Salon has had me crying again, and the last time I wept this way for you, you visited me in my dreams. But then you're always with me, always Sally, toujours in bold. If you do come to me tonight, I hope you'll tell me more of what has been so hard to understand. Susie Bright is a Bay Area author and editor. Her most recent book is "Nothing But the Girl: the Blatant Lesbian Image." Would you consider planning your own "artful suicide"? Tell us in Table Talk. |
By SUSIE BRIGHT