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Saturday, February 12, 2005

One of my biggest pet peeves

Pseudo-Adrienne has a good post today about one of my two biggest pet peeves, at least for today--lesbianism as a party trick. Or a ratings sweep tactic on TV shows. (For the record, my other big pet peeve right now is women fighting each other over men.) Good god, but does fake lesbianism bug me. And it's hard for me to pin down why. I mean, I know why it bugs, but it's hard to explain why it bugs me out of all proportion.

It's probably because fake lesbianism, like cat fighting, is just such insipid pandering. I mean, here is a sexual orientation and behavior that has absolutely nothing to do with men being mimicked by straight women in order to please men. It's insulting all around--to men, for falling for it, to lesbians, whose sexual identity is reduced to a frat boy pleasing party trick, and to straight women, for having our sexuality defined as wanting to please men more than wanting to fuck men for its own sake.

From the perspective of a straight woman, I can say that I do not take this insult lightly. It's difficult enough for straight women to claim ownership of our sexuality to begin with, to make it clear to ourselves and everyone else that we sleep with men out of sexual desire, not just as a means of gaining male approval. But to play-act at lesbianism, to kiss or fool around with someone you're not attracted to to get male approval is reverting back to the older understanding of female sexuality--sexual acts performed for men and not for any intrinsic pleasure.

But what of the straight girls who experiment with other women out of desire and curiosity? Well, it's the same story--putting on a show to demonstrate that you're doing it not because you want to, oh no, because a man wants you to sends out the same message, that the main female sexual desire is to please men.

So, I really, really wish straight girls who fool around with other girls in front of the guys would just cut that shit out. It makes me bananas and if I see it, I want to throw a bucket of water on them. Except that would probably make the whole thing worse. And it would be nice if the novelty act on TV of straight women kissing each other would just go away. That's not increasing lesbian visibility so much as it's reinforcing the cultural message that women's sexuality is about men rather than about our own feelings.

63 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Holy shit I had no idea that you posted this! Thanks!

2/12/2005

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Pseudo-Adrienne and Amanda, I couldn't agree more. On more than one occasion, I've actually had to explain to straight friends that NO, Madonna kissing Britney on live TV does not increase lesbian visibility or break down barriers. I've had to defend my annoyance at the constant stream of lesbian porn jokes on shows like "Friends" to people who told me I was taking it too seriously. And I've attempted to tell people that, just as you say, this kind of thing is as great an insult to straight women's sexuality as it is to that of lesbians. Not only does the "Girls Gone Wild" pseudo-lesbianism feed into the myth that women's sexuality is driven by men's desires, it also reinforces the notion of lesbianism and female bisexuality as little more than a kind of decadent kink.

2/12/2005

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Try running up to them and saying, in your best horrified Mom Voice, "Don't DO that! Your sexual orientation might freeze that way!"

2/13/2005

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't watch most mainstream TV, (in fact I'm down to 2 shows at this point) so I've missed most of this pseudo-lesbian hype. Sounds like that's a good thing. I've only seen a handful of "lesbian" moments on TV recently -- in fact, aside from the Willow/Tara relationship in Buffy, I think it's a grand total of one. And that one was well-handled, I thought. (ST: Deep Space Nine, episode called "Rejoined", aired in 1995. Basically a couple of women who had been heteosexually married in past lives met again and were struggling with attraction, complicated by the fact that their society has rules against resuming past-life relationships.)

I'm confused by what you say about straight women experimenting. You seem to be suggesting that they do so publically in order to get the attention of men. Certainly I've seen that happen, but aren't there also "straight" women who are honestly experimenting? Should they then feel that they need to hide these experiments? Probably I'm misreading you; it's late. But it strikes me as somewhat... hypocritical is probably too strong a word... to say that girls can't experiment in public lest guys like watching.

2/13/2005

 
Blogger Laurel said...

Anonymous 2: I think what Amanda is saying is that it sucks when women who want to experiment use consumer lesbianism as cover. You want to experiment? Great, just don't pretend you're doing it to turn the guys on.

I also hate consumer lesbianism. Part of my annoyance comes from the implication that two women getting it on isn't sex, because for sex you need a dick. Thus, two guys can have sex (which makes them the bad, threatening kind of gay) but two girls together are obviously just fooling around and waiting for a dick to show up (which makes them the good, fetishized kind of gay). Of course, I can't really think of much that I like about mainstream sexual culture, so....

(Also, Amanda, I like your blog. I read it a lot. Thanks for being clever and interesting.)

2/13/2005

 
Blogger Amanda Marcotte said...

North's got it. I don't want anyone to feel like they have to hide themselves, just the opposite. If you're with a woman because you like her, don't use the cover of male approval to hide that fact.

2/13/2005

 
Blogger Andygrrl said...

Mythago: ROTFLMAO. I'll have to remember that one.

Amanda: THANK YOU!

I hate this whole lesbian chic thing. It reduces it to a fad. My brother is convinced I'm "doing this" because it's just so cool to be a lesbian these days. Whatever.

And personally, I don't like being someone's "experiment." It fucking sucks to get your heart stepped on because someone thought she'd play at being bisexual for a while. I'm all for being sexually open and curious, as long as you're upfront about your intentions.

Blah. Sexuality is messy and confusing, and the media sure doesn't help any.

2/13/2005

 
Blogger FoolishOwl said...

If I hadn't already come to doubt that any portrayal of gay life on TV was intrinsically progressive, Will and Grace pretty much proved that it isn't necessarily so.

2/13/2005

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Amanda:

I want to take a moment here to stick up for decadent kink ;-) (I'm only joking in part -- I circle back to decadent kink below.)

I agree with you that phony or commercial lesbianism is harmful in several ways. It reduces the real thing to a parlor trick, reduces lesbians to the sum of their sexual acts, etc., reduces the real visibility of lesbian and bisexual women, and as you pointed out, reduces the meaning of sex between women to a thing that exists for the male gaze. I agree that all those things are real problems.

But it's hard to do anything about it, in part because it's hard to disaggregate the elements of what's going on.

In the real world, if two women are kissing at a party with men watching, I can't tell what's going on. (1) one of them might be straight, and doing it just for the approval of men, which is what I understand you to have a problem with. However, it is also possible that (2) one of them is exploring, and might be lesbian or bisexual, and either indifferent to the audience or more comfortable with a public location that tends to impose limits on how far it goes. I'm not going to criticize that. It's also possible that that woman is using the audience as cover so they, or even she, is partly shielded from the consequences of abandoning heterosexuality. You can criticize that, but I won't. Maybe I think it's not my place because I'm a straight guy, but I just don't want to tell gays and lesbians that when coming out they have to dive in head first. Lots of people have excuses when they have sexual experiences they are not comfortable with -- as excuses go, I'm more comfortable with "I just did it because we had an audience" than getting shitfaced, which is another popular choice. It is also possible that (3) one or both of the women is an exhibitionist, and that the audience is not important because she seeks male approval, but is rather a tool to her own fulfullment -- she is using them, not the other way around. Now, this might be rare, but not very rare. And I won't criticize this either, mostly because encouraging sexual self-actualization is my core agenda.

In fiction, it's easier to criticize consumer lesbianism, because we generally know what the characters' motivations are. That's where it is possible to make a point about the problem.

But to circle back to decadent kink:

There's a big difference between sexual behavior and affectional orientation. Lots of people who feel romantic love for partners on only one sex can be active to a certain extent with both. Now, I think our mainstream sexual culture is miles away from understanding this, which is one of the reasons consumer lesbianism is bad for lesbian visibility.

Two women kissing who do not love women is not lesbian at all. It's two women kissing. While I wish that everyone understood the difference, however, I'm completely for people having sex outside orientation lines. Straight men have sexual experiences with men. Straight women have sexual experiences with women. Gay men have experiences with women, and lesbian women with men (any readers about to heap denial on this -- save your breath. I'm not talking about bisexual women, I really mean lesbians, who don't have relationships with men at all, but have occasionally had sexual contact with men, just for kicks. I'm not speaking second hand.)

Patrick Califia, the trans-man and BDSM writer, tells a few stories about playing with gay leather-men -- guys he says had so thoroughly immersed themselves in sex with men that their identity as gay leathermen was not at all threatened by playing with a woman.

What I'm saying is, I'm for that. I'm for freeing sexual behavior, and sex partner selection, from one's selection of potential life-partner. While two straight women kissing where men can see it does not advance the ball for lesbian women, it does advance the ball for women having sex with whomever they want. Now, we need a lot more of men kissing men where everyone can see, until sexual combinations of pretty much any consenting adults are so common as to evade social censure.

Thomas

2/14/2005

 
Blogger Amanda Marcotte said...

I see what you're saying, but still it bugs. I have an exhibitionist streak, though not like a huge one, and it seems to me that it's important that I take responsibility to express myself in ways that are not hurtful. There are ways to get the boys' attention that do not involve degrading yourself by having sexual experiences that you wouldn't choose otherwise.

2/14/2005

 
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