The InterActivist
Es mejor morir de pie que vivir de rodillas.-Emiliano Zapata
This Blog Brought To You By The Letter...
L is for Lesbian
Welcome to the first post in my highly educational blog on sexuality and gender. I hope you’re ready for some learning, because we’re kicking it into overdrive right from the start.
LGBT is an acronym often used to refer to anyone who doesn’t identify as straight. The problem here is that four little letters cannot possibly accommodate the huge range of sexualities and gender identities to which people can classify themselves. Like all those jeans in the back of my closet that I can’t bring myself to take to Goodwill, it’s too small and narrow for some to fit into.
Furthermore, it’s difficult to try to define a specific sexuality or gender identity because only you can define yourself. Well, maybe you and Merriam-Webster, but they get a free pass. Either way, when you or I start trying to put labels on other people for our own convenience, things tend to get offensive. So, while I will try to provide a very broad definition of the L or the G or the B or the T, it’s easier to lay out what each of those isn’t, and why you shouldn’t believe stereotypes.
My intentions with each post are to present you with not only the reality of what it means to be, for instance, a lesbian or a gay man or a transperson, but also the alternate reality some people have established in our culture and tried to pass off as truth. If you can separate fact from fiction, there’s less of a chance you’re going to embarrass yourself or offend someone unintentionally with your own ignorance. But I make no guarantees; there’s only so much I can do for people who are just that dumb.
But let’s get started. Today’s letter is L for lesbian. So what is a lesbian? The most honest definition I can give is “anyone who truly feels they are one.” Theoretically if my brother decides he identifies as a lesbian, and isn’t just trying to be funny and failing miserably, I should respect that. But in the real world, and for the true purpose of this blog, a lesbian is usually a woman who is sexually attracted to other women. These are the people who are going to be commonly accepted as lesbians and, in our oftentimes homophobic society, the ones who are going to be ostracized, judged and attacked for it.
So other than sexual attraction, what makes a lesbian? Really, nothing. That’s the one thing they all have in common. Anything else, like a penchant for plaid, owning all six seasons of The L Word on DVD or having more than a dozen feminist blogs bookmarked (wait a minute… hey!) is all just circumstantial and the result of socialization. Some lesbians love Tegan and Sara, but it isn’t because they have to in order to be proper lesbians. It’s because Tegan and Sara rule.
Now then, let’s discuss some more of these assumptions made regarding lesbians and discuss why they’re not true for everyone, and sometimes not true for anyone.
In a lesbian relationship, there is a “man” and a “woman.” Obviously when someone assumes this they don’t mean “man” in the penis-having sense. They mean that there is a masculine lesbian and a feminine lesbian. Certainly this can be the case in some relationships, but definitely not all of them. What it means to be masculine and feminine differs from culture to culture because it’s just learned behavior. And really, if you can wrap your head around two biological females getting together, is it so hard to imagine two “girly girls” or “tomboys” doing so? Heck, even some straight relationships don’t follow the masculine + feminine pattern.
Lesbians are going to hit on you if you’re a woman. If there’s one thing I don’t understand about some straight people, it’s how full of themselves they can be. They’re terrified that their radiant beauty or Adonis-like features are just too much for the gays to handle and they won’t be able to resist. In a nutshell: get over yourself. You may find a lesbian flirting with you someday, but there’s no way every gay woman that crosses your path is going to be on you like white on rice.
It’s totally cool for you to make jokes about lesbians even if you aren’t one. You know that episode of The Office where they have a seminar on racial tolerance because Michael doesn’t understand why it’s offensive for him to reenact a Chris Rock sketch? Yeah, same idea here. It’s really easy to laugh and make jokes at a lesbian’s expense when you’ve never experienced how heartbreaking and abusive homophobia can be. Always be aware of your straight privilege. Even if you’re a gay man or some other sexuality, you don’t know exactly what it’s like to be a gay woman. So be smart and just don’t do it.
Lesbians are more than willing to make out for a guy’s entertainment. It’s hard enough to be non-straight in a homophobic world, but add being a woman in a sexist world to the mix and you’ve got a recipe for one heaping batch of oppression. Women are often objectified and treated like tools to be used to satisfy a man’s lust. Enough men think they have a right to a woman and her body that one in six women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime, according to RAINN.org. With that in mind, consider how entitled to sex a man must be to ask two lesbians to do something to each other just for his enjoyment. Women as a whole don’t exist to serve a man’s desire, but to assume someone who isn’t even attracted to men is? Come on.
A lesbian’s sexuality constitutes her whole being. This is a more subtle myth with roots in the very language we use to label non-straight men and women. A man who is homosexual is described as gay, an adjective. It is a descriptive word tacked on to what he is: a man. A woman who is homosexual is labeled a lesbian. Her entire identity is replaced with this noun. While women are sometimes described as gay too, it is for the most part a word owned by men. Why are gay men still men, but lesbians just lesbians? Maybe I should ask a linguistics professor.
Lesbians are always angry and have no sense of humor. This may be the most personally offensive assumption you could make about lesbians to me. I’m the funniest person I know! But then I’m only half gay, so maybe that’s why? I doubt it though. Just don’t judge an entire group of women on the Ellen DeGeneres stand-up special you saw on Comedy Central. It’s not our fault she sucks.
Lesbians want to be men. It can be said that transitioning transmen want to be men, but this is tricky territory that will be better covered in T for Transgender (also, contrary to what you might have thought, it IS possible to be both transgendered and gay. In fact, many of these sexualities overlap. The more you know!) But for the most part, cisgendered lesbians are perfectly happy being women, or disowning gender period. Abandoning traditional gender roles for women doesn’t mean you want to accept those of men. I’ve worn make-up maybe three times since I came to OU and it isn’t because of penis envy. It’s because that’s not what defines me as a woman. Plus, it’s expensive and time consuming to apply. And if I look this good without it, why bother?
That’s all for this entry. Tune in next time when we discuss G for Gay, and I’ll pretend I don’t find Will & Grace to be hilarious
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