I went to blogher and all I really got was a dominatrix for a friend.

Well, and I made friends with a gangster too. Actually, it was she who introduced me to Dead Cow Girl, the dominatrix. I’m not making any of this up.

The second day as we were all chatting over lovely hor d’oeurves and mojitos, Blogher does things up well, the subject turned to how uncomfortable I felt at first when blogher featured my post about spanking.

“You wrote a post about spanking?” She asked. “It’s so interesting that you would say that because my husband and I were just talking about that today. I’ve felt so bad about it [the thought of spanking] that I thought I was going to have to be the dominatrix who is in the closet about spanking her son.”

They had been having discipline issues with their 2 year old. She was going to turn to my post for advice. The humor of this conversation, considering the fact that you could call her a professional spanker, was not lost on us. In fact, we laughed a long time about it.

We spent a lot of the weekend together, going to parties, sitting and chatting, and stalking Ricki Lake. When stalking celebrities it helps to have a stroller, people get out of the way for you. Then I tried to plant an idea, because in the whole of The Business of Being Born, I waited for them to say something I consider crucial to the discussion. They come close, but never outright seem to state that a woman’s right to information and to give birth how she chooses, in a way that is best for her, not best for doctors, lawyers and insurance companies, is a feminist issue, and perhaps the last frontier of women’s rights here in the west. So I grasped Rikki’s hand as we skooched our way past her, leaned close, and said, “Thank-you for highlighting birth choice as a feminist issue because it’s so important that woman recognize it as such.”

Then we collapsed in giggles in the elevator.

She told me about her childhood getting bussed to Sunday school and the mean “church ladies”, as she called them, who badmouthed her parents right in front of her. We talked about being moms, and her repeated attempts to have another baby, our shared experiences with miscarriage. We talked about eating real food, a passion we both share, her vegetable garden and grass fed beef. We helped each other dress for the final parties Saturday night. We have more in common than not.

She was surprised to discover that I would be heading to church the next morning to teach Sunday school. I guess she figured a Sunday school teacher wouldn’t want to hang with her knowing what she does for a living.

It seems to me that to not befriend someone because they have different values and norms from me would be to miss out on a friend, and have a poorer, meaner life because of it. I would have sure missed out on a fun few days anyway.

It was Gandhi who said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

That was all I could think to say after she told me the horrible stories of churches she attended as a child. She nodded in agreement.

I’m pretty sure some of my readers could be offended by this story, if you choose to, for taking offense is a choice. That’s fine with me though. I know who I would rather resemble, and I have a feeling I know who he’d be hanging with at blogher. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have been the church ladies. He would have probably offended them too.