Source: hairstylesolution.net via Katy on Pinterest

There is something about turning 50 that just fills you with so much sass and “I-don’t-give-a-rat’s-ass” that it is downright empowering.

That was on display last night at the Golden Globes when Jodie Foster, all 80 pounds of her, took the stage to receive a lifetime achievement award. Standing tall, and trembling with rage and indignation, she practically screamed that she had a secret that she finally wanted to get out of the closet.

Yes, she’s single.

In a time when the cool clubs on campus are the L.G.B.T., when those initials are spread across the top of the New York Times Sunday sections, when it is far more advantageous to say you are sexually something, Jodie Foster says this instead:

It’s nobody’s business.

“After 47 years of service to this industry,” she said, “I ask you, does a person deserve some privacy?” M.Y.O.B., or mind your own business, may be a new movement afoot.

For those who identify as L.G.B.T., or Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender, the world is finally a safer place to say what you are, if you want to. I am not going to be so stupid as to say it’s “okay.” Because what is okay anyway? For any of us?

Believe me, being a middle-aged mostly heterosexual soccer mom has not helped me in yoga (I put the “mostly” in there to shamelessly self-promote). I would be much better off, and sell way more books, if I had a tattoo of Shakti having sex on my arm. But when you have kids, work and busy life the truth is nobody is having much sex at all.

Now back to Jodie.

I don’t doubt that she has had years of pressure to “come out,” to state exactly what she is and what she does behind closed doors. But “behind closed doors,” is not the same thing as “in the closet.” No sir.

Jodie Foster has a right to privacy. Just because there is an epic battle for civil rights in this country, just because the battle is not yet won for equal rights in marriage and the law, just because there are people who suffer every day at the hands of injustice and prejudice, does not mean that Jodie Foster has to fight it. She gets to choose.

The choice she made years ago was for privacy. Furthermore, I’m willing to bet her choice wasn’t about her at all. It was more likely for her children.

When you have children, nothing is about you anymore. Not your money, not your dreams, not even most of your waking hours. But the very last thing that is your choice anymore is where you talk about sex.

Your kids don’t want to hear it!

Most of all, they don’t want their friends to hear it either. Isn’t middle school hard enough? It’s a cluster without having your parents on the front page of a gossip magazine talking about sex!

So here’s to Jodie Foster, a little spit-fire of a woman who chose to blaze a trail in film. Perhaps there will be other battles for her in the future, but now her dharma is to make dinner for her children, in the privacy of her home where it’s nobody’s business what she does behind closed doors.

Like equal rights for all on Facebook.

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Ed: Kate Bartolotta