“On a Saturday” is a story which is narrated by woman who has two male friends whom she had been together for at least three years. These three friends went to school together. The woman had even dated and flirted with the two men.
The woman had recently broken up with someone and she felt tired of the idea of meeting a new person because it would mean going through the same routine—saying the same phrases, big statements, grand revelations about her childhood and character. So she thought they will have to learn it from each other some other way. And it all happened on one Saturday afternoon when she had invited the two men in her apartment and drank beers. The two men said that they would do what the woman asks them to. And the woman held to that thought. Right there and then, she had asked the two men to touch each other’s hands and arms and later the two men kissed and kept kissing by her request. The two drunken men got naked while the woman kept watching them in that situation.
Later, the woman left the two men who were now sleeping. She went to her room and stayed there standing with the furniture of her dark room. It is only then that she feels the coldness of watching, the interminable loneliness. She realized that things among them will possibly never be the same again after that Saturday afternoon.
The text does not tell us what later happens to their friendship after that Saturday afternoon. It does not say to us what have become of the two men. It does not let us know whether the woman has asked for an apology or not. Does she even become more mischievous to the point that she teases the two men? The text does not acquaint us what are exactly in the minds of the two men when they were making love to each other. What have they felt for the woman afterwards? And what changes take place in their lives and personalities?
By using queer approach, we consider that the writer’s gender is female. Bender has written a woman perspective of two men kissing, touching every part of each other’s body and naked, sleeping side by side.
Basically, the women of Bender’s stories often engage in behavioral transformations that can be construed as both self-empowering and self destructive. Such contradictions are ubiquitous in Bender’s work, and they reveal Bender’s willingness to explore the complexity of the female psyche.
The characters in the story have different gender and sexual identity. Since there are two men in the story, they are normally males and having masculine identity. The gender of the woman is of course female and she exhibits feminine behavior. But the two men did something that deviate from the norms of the society. The two men kissed and were naked while snuggling each other’s body. The two men were real men but they took pleasure with having touched the body of their same sex. They were even both aroused. The two characters were not gays but they have done something that only gays do. They were not gays because they actually have had crushes on the woman they were with during the time they have done it. The two men have masculine behaviors as they have had first kiss with their first girlfriends. They play soccer, a sport only men can do for it requires agility and masculinity.
The text challenges the notion of “straight” ideology. The heterosexual in the story is the woman who narrates the events which took place on that Saturday afternoon. But in her stream-of-consciousness narration, she makes her own identity blurry as she made mention about women kissing each other. Is it not this woman a lesbian or having the inclination of having sexual desire towards her same sex since she is tired of meeting a new person and be in a relationship with the opposite sex? But when she showed her breast to the two naked, drunken men, she was conscious of her female identity that she is a woman capable of satisfying pleasure of men. She is aware of their biological made up of their bodies.
The two men continued kissing and were taking pleasure in what they were doing as if they were not intoxicated. They were subconscious. According to Freud, we have hidden desires and we continue conceal them because we are conscious of the norms which are socially constructed. Might be these two men have held of the fantasies having sexual activity with that of the same sex? Although, they were intoxicated, they knew a little of what they were doing. They even felt tension and fright while they do whatever the woman tells them to do. One thing is that they obviously took pleasure with what they were doing.
The woman’s objective in letting the two men continue kissing in front of her is that she found the two men beautiful, naked and she says their kissing was familiar to her. At first, the two men were unsure and were even reluctant. But they have made a deal. Like normal men, men of deeds, they did the things by the command of the woman. In this standpoint, feminist view is dramatic. A woman is giving orders to men. Men have nothing to do but follow as they are told.
It is obvious that in this text non-normative activity among the characters is within the text. The characters’ activity may have been the alternative form of their desire. The female character seems to take on a different perspective in watching her two male friends kissing intimately. She is unlike those girls who find it obscene and despicable. Instead, she is likely to have found an entertaining show. Her way of thinking is odd. That makes her queer.
Bender skillfully plots the characters in the story. First, she made a woman who is weary of the hassles of breaking up in a relationship. And then, she introduces two men, real men, who are half in love with this damsel in distress. Now, to please the woman, they had to do whatever the woman wants to them to do.
Understanding her personality means to discover her psychological condition. We can comprehend from the text that the two men serve as sort of the woman’s escape of reality. The reality is that the woman is now alone after breaking up lately with his boyfriend. With the two men beside her, she is at ease and does not feel the “interminable loneliness” which she suffered later as mentioned in the latter part of the text. By the presence of her two male friends, she feels reassurance.
Back to her emotional and psychological condition, the woman we have is going through pain by falling apart from the man she loves. Hence, the woman tries to solve her dilemma. Naturally, a human has a tendency to look for a solution for his trouble just like the woman in the text. She has a distinguishing personality of a fine female who espouses life circumstances. Consequently, her break up leads her to be indifferent with opposite relationship. She resolves to explore something different to beat her despair. She is then curious to same sex relationship. If she finds more gratification in it, then maybe she will be interested in it and indulge into it.
This writing of Bender somehow enlightens readers how people may undergo psychological changes in their minds as they face different trouble and endeavors in their lives which in a way or another affect the development of their personality. An individual naturally respond to his instincts and desires either positively or negatively. Their responses may be acceptable to the society or not. But who are we to judge? Nonetheless, everyone has the gift to make differences in his own life and in others.
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