Give me an L.

• Author: Clinton, Kate
• Position: Unplugged

The same week The L Word premiered on Showtime, the W announced that he was going to press for $1.5 billion for his so-called Healthy Marriage Initiative for poor people. Like red meat thrown before the Atkins crowd in the Republican Party, the initiative would teach problem solving, negotiating, and listening skills, which might then trickle up to the Bush Administration. Advertising campaigns will publicize the value of marriage, augmented by the fine work of The Bachelorette and My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance. A mentoring program will use married couples as role models of healthy marriage. Britney and Jason, Liza and David, and Jacko and Lisa will not be among them.

Speaking of Neverland, most of us older Ls never thought we'd see The L Word on television. Our household signed up for Showtime, no doubt sinking me and my cultural war bride in a Homeland Security counterinsurgency data mine somewhere. I have every confidence that given more of a chance than Ellen ever got, the show will develop character and story lines to rival any long-running soap opera.

We enjoyed the first episode. It's been a very cold winter in the Northeast so we appreciate the heat potential of the weekly series and the savings on our gas bill. I also liked the foreplay of the previews and the postcoital cigarette reviews. Some said the show was a soft-porn "Lesbian Thigh for the Straight Guy." Others opined that the show was not reflective of lesbian life. Repeat after me: Tel-e-vi-sion.

For a few days after the first episode I viewed my own life through an L Word lens. Me at the dry cleaners: "This would be a great scene," I thought, as I fantasized that the character of the young Shane, the sexual rouee, was based on my life. Finally, my domestic partner kindly pointed out that I am an actual lesbian.

Still, there are a few episodes I would like to see:

"What the L?"

During an intake exam when she finally goes to the sperm bank, Jennifer Beals discovers through a background DNA check that she is the great-great-granddaughter of Strom Thurmond. Should she come out about it? She tells one L...