Margaret Cho's L Word Love
January 25, 2008 - 4:55pm — Caroline Ryder

Comedian Margaret Cho is an L Word aficionado who describes her own personality as “Bette sun with Alice rising.” Currently, she’s juggling crushes between Shane, Papi and “Helena’s hot prison butch.” She thinks the Shane/Cherie Jaffe poolside sex scene was the hottest thing on TV ever. Oh, and she still hasn’t gotten over Dana dying.

So Margaret, I hear you’re an L Word fan?
I love it! I have been watching it from the very beginning. I love watching the characters change, although I am kinda upset about Jenny because she is such a monster now. I love Mia and I hate having to hate her. She’s so mean and crazy. And then I never got over Dana dying. I am still upset about her leaving.

Which character do you relate to the most?
I think I probably am most like Alice – but I also really relate a lot to Bette. Astrologically, I am a Bette sun with an Alice rising.

In what ways do you relate to Bette?
Bette is really controlling, but she tries to be nice about it. And she doesn’t really know she is controlling. She reminds me of my work self. I want everything to be perfect. And Alice is like my play self. Alice defines herself more as bisexual, and I define myself more as queer. Alice is sexually open and adventurous and she is willing to try fun things. Like when she slept with Papi. That was so hot. I love Papi.

What did you love about the Papi character?
I know girls like that. There’s a whole bunch of girls like Papi in L.A. Beautiful untamable creatures that everybody has done it with. You don’t really want to lose your heart to her.

If you were going to fall for anyone on the show, who would it be?
I would be dumb enough to fall in love with Shane. She’s this stunning creature who is so animal. Like Papi, she cannot be tamed and you don’t want to be dumb enough to think you can change her. Although I think I would be able to change her.

What to you was the hottest sex scene you’ve seen so far?
Shane and Cherie Jaffe by the pool. I think the director for that was Kimberly Peirce (director of Boys Don’t Cry), who is ultra hot and my newest crush.* She is doing a new movie called Stop Loss all about the Iraq war. Another one was the weird affair that Jenny had with Carmen. They were both sitting on the toilet and peeing – that was really hot. I am not a pee person but it was really sexy and pervy and cute and hot.

What do you think of Season Five so far?
I loved Helena in jail, and that hot butch she is in the cell with. And I am upset about Tasha. The military should be so fucking grateful for anybody who would be willing to serve. How dare they be homophobic? It is very, very upsetting.

So, you’re about to announce the dates for your new stand-up show, your first since Assassin. What’s the theme?
The whole show is about the nature of being beautiful. I went on this radio show a couple years ago and the DJ asked me, “What would you do if you woke up tomorrow and you were beautiful? If you were blonde and had blue eyes and were 5’11.” I felt sad for him. I said, “If that is the only kind of person you think is beautiful, you must never see anything beautiful.” I think everybody is beautiful. When I was younger though, I thought I was so ugly I had to have sex with everybody. I wasn’t able to say no. The whole show is about sluttiness and also feeling beautiful and how political beauty is. Feeling beautiful brings you political power. I think when you feel beautiful you can do anything. I don’t think this is a trivial vanity issue. The show is also devoted to the vagina. It’s a big vagina show.

What are the best things about a vagina, in your opinion?
I think it is a really gorgeous, beautiful thing. When I see them I want to put my ear up to them, and you can hear the ocean. To me they are stunning, they are different, there is so much meaning to them, they are so hard to understand. I think penises are much easier, much more uniform. Men are in general easier to please. Women are very complicated and that’s what I love about them.

Who are the most beautiful women to you?
In the lesbian community – for me, I love butch women. They are the beauty queens. Butches and transguys, especially, because there seem to be so many emerging from the lesbian community. That’s a really exciting thing. There are so many beautiful beautiful transguys. I love the opening up of ideas of beauty and taking gender and recreating it into our own thing. With butches and transmen you have the dreamy guy look but then you have the female sensitivity—depending on how much T they are shooting.

Have a lot of your friends transitioned?
Yes, lots. But some chose actually not to do T because it affects their personalities too much. It’s weird how it can affect you chemically.

So I hear you are going to be performing on an Olivia cruise very soon?
Yes, I am going to bring my friend Diana Yanez and we are going to perform our song “My Puss.” It’s our big internet thing. I am also doing a big gospel tribute to cunnilingus called “Eat Me Out.”

Can you share one of the lyrics with us?
Sure. “Send me into outer space, when I am straddling your face.”

Awesome.

*Shane and Cherie poolside (Episode 305) was indeed directed by the fabulous Kimberly Peirce.