So we've entered taint week. The time of the year between Christmas and new year that seems to exist purely for overthinking and anxiety.
For those of you that don't know the term, the taint is the part of the body between the vagina and the butthole, officially known as the perineum. It would seem to be a pretty innocuous piece of anatomy, but I googled it. And it's not.
According to the Cleveland Clinic
“The perineum's primary function is to support pelvic organs and the pelvic floor, and to control the muscles involved in urination, defecation, and sexual function. It also plays a vital role in childbirth”.
So this is your queue to do the basics, do the bare minimum. That's it. Use this week to recharge so you don't inadvertently shit the bed later in the year because you didn't give yourself any downtime.
A very important part of this is to rewatch the same three films you've already seen seventeen times, and then reassess every emotional choice they have ever made.
This is not a planned event, there are no tickets and there is certainly no group chat announcement. It simply happens, like tides or flu season, like suddenly remembering something embarrassing you said in 2011 while brushing your teeth.
One minute you are eating leftovers straight out of a tub, the next you are half way through a film you could quote verbatim, thinking, why does this feel so important again, and what does this say about me now, at 45, wearing a jumper I hate but am emotionally attached to.
This is the week lesbians rewatch films, and accidentally conduct a full inventory of their identity, their relationships, their past selves, and their taste in sofas.
Comfort films are not just films, they are emotional furniture
Lesbians have comfort films, these films are not chosen, they are returned to, like a place where your nervous system knows the layout.
You do not watch a comfort film, you settle into it. You know when the good bit is coming. You know when to make tea and you know when to stare at the screen slightly too intently because something about this scene still feels personal.
For my wife, that film is Home Alone. Every year, without fail, she watches it like a ritual, the same way some people light candles or argue with relatives. It is familiar, safe, full of booby traps and mildly unhinged adults (of which my wife is one), and apparently essential to her sense of seasonal wellbeing.
For me, it is National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, which I insist on calling by its full name every time, because it reminds me of watching it on the telly with my dad in the 90s, adverts and all, when christmas felt infinite and the biggest problem in my life at that time was whether my pens had enough I know my Spirograph the next day.
Neither of these films are lesbian films. This is important. Lesbian comfort films do not have to be about lesbians. They just have to have been there at the right moment.
Nostalgia is a powerful drug and we are taking it without reading the leaflet
There is something about Christmas that loosens the seal on memory. The food is familiar, the music is repetitive, the smells trigger something stirring deep in your soul, and suddenly you are remembering who you were the first time you watched this film.
This is where the spiral begins.
You remember your childhood living room, or the flat you lived in at twenty four, or the house share where the heating barely worked but you watched films anyway because what else were you going to do, and you start comparing that version of yourself to the one currently holding a mug that says something ironic on it.
You notice what has changed, what has stayed the same, what feels tender, what feels resolved, and what you have absolutely not processed despite claiming you are fine now.
This is not dramatic, it's just quiet and subtle. And happens while someone on screen says a line you have heard a hundred times, and you laugh, but slightly differently than you used to.
Why lesbians, specifically, do this
Everyone rewatches things. This is not queer exclusive. But lesbians do it with a particular intensity, because many of us grew up reading between the lines, finding ourselves in places we were not explicitly invited.
Before there was representation that felt accurate, we learnt how to project. We learnt how to claim characters, scenes, moods, even if the text itself did not technically belong to us.
That habit does not disappear just because more lesbian stories exist now. It becomes part of how we relate to art, film, and memory. We revisit, we reinterpret, we find new meanings, we notice things we did not have language for at the time.
The comfort film rewatch is also a relationship check-in
Watching the same films year after year becomes a shared language in long term relationships. You know who cries at what. You know who falls asleep and you know which lines you are allowed to quote and which ones will get you told off (in my case any line quote will get me an exasperated look).
There is something deeply lesbian about sitting next to your wife while she watches Home Alone again, knowing exactly which bits she loves, and her sitting through Christmas Vacation because she knows it matters to you, and because somewhere in the background of that ridiculous film is your dad, your childhood, and a version of you she never met but now carries anyway.
This is where the life rethinking sneaks in. You think about who you used to watch films with, who you do now, who you wish had been there, and who you are grateful is not anymore.
It’s not sad, it's not joyful, it's just honest.
Identity does not stay still, even when the film does
Rewatching films at different ages is a very effective way to track your own development, whether you like it or not.
You notice which characters annoy you now and which ones you suddenly empathise with. You notice that the thing you thought was romantic now looks exhausting, and the thing you thought was boring now looks like a good time.
This is particularly true for queer people, because many of us did not get to live out certain phases in real time. We circle back, reassess and catch up emotionally.
The between Christmas and new year effect
This particular week deserves its own mention, because it exists outside normal rules. You are not fully working. You are not fully resting. You are eating things you would not normally eat at that hour. You are watching films at times that feel morally questionable.
This creates the perfect conditions for reflection, because you are not distracted by urgency. Your brain has space. Unfortunately, it uses that space to start asking questions.
Am I happy. Yes. I think so. Am I fulfilled. Probably. Why am I thinking about that conversation from eight years ago. Why does this scene still make me cry. Why do I want to text someone I absolutely should not.
The film keeps playing. You keep watching. You keep thinking.
This is why many queer artists describe their work as coming from moments of stillness rather than big events. The real processing happens when nothing is demanding your attention, when you are half watching something familiar and half somewhere else entirely.
Humour is how we survive the spiral
It is important to say that this is not a crisis. It is funny, if you let it be.
There is something objectively amusing about sitting down to watch a film you have seen countless times, only to suddenly decide it represents something significant about your personal growth, while wearing pyjamas with a hole in them.
Lesbians are very good at noticing the absurdity of their own emotional depth. We will analyse everything, and then make a joke about how much we are analysing everything, and then analyse that too.
This tone shows up strongly in queer art spaces, where humour often sits right next to sincerity. A sapphic artist might draw something deeply tender, and then title it in a way that gently takes the edge off, because earnestness is easier to handle when it knows it is being earnest.
I try to keep that balance in my own work, acknowledging the weight of these moments without pretending they are bigger than they need to be. Sometimes a sofa is just a sofa. Sometimes it is where you realised you were fine actually.
Why this matters, even if it feels small
Rewatching films is not productive. It does not count towards personal development. It does not improve your brand. You cannot put it on a vision board without lying. That is precisely why it matters.
In a world that is constantly asking you to optimise yourself, streamline your habits, and become a calmer, more efficient version of whoever you already are, there is something quietly rebellious about choosing to return. To say, yes, I have seen this before, yes, I know exactly what happens, and no, I am not interested in replacing it with a podcast.
For lesbians, and for queer people more broadly, this returning has often been a way to build continuity in lives that did not always come with clear instructions or reliable mirrors. When the outside world felt vague, dismissive, or mildly hostile, we kept our own references. We memorised scenes, jokes, and moments that felt like clues, even if they were technically about something else entirely.
Through art, film, and shared rituals, we end up building our own archives. Not official ones. Nothing organised. Just a loose collection of emotional files stored directly in the body, where a theme tune can trigger a response faster than logic, and a familiar line can send you into a full internal monologue while everyone else is still laughing.
This is why LGBTQ art is not just about visibility. It is about recognition. It is about seeing your interior life reflected back at you and thinking, oh, so this is a thing, even if the reflection is slightly skewed, faintly ridiculous, and a bit too specific to ignore, which is usually how you know it is working.
A final thought, before the film ends again
If you find yourself this week, or any week, rewatching something familiar and feeling a quiet swell of emotion you were not expecting, try not to rush past it.
You do not need to solve anything or make a plan. You can just notice it, laugh at yourself gently, and carry on eating whatever snack you have inexplicably chosen.
Now if you will excuse me, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation is probably on somewhere, and my wife is definitely already watching Home Alone again.
If, at some point, you find yourself wanting to sit with that feeling a little longer, maybe through art rather than another rewatch, you are very welcome to wander through my work, which exists largely because of moments exactly like this.