just dyking around

If this little book should see the light after its 100 years of entombment, I would like its readers to know that the author was a lover of her own sex and devoted the best years of her life in striving for the political equality and social and moral elevation of women.

Women can talk about patriarchy, how we’re brainwashed into actions, our choices are not made in a vacuum, how we fear violence, how no one listens to our voices, everything that’s expected from women… and yet also somehow believe that every single lesbian has the privilege of realising that she’s a lesbian in a safe, supportive place when she’s young and never goes anywhere near a man?

That if that doesn’t happen for her, she’s bisexual and evil?

Lesbians are women who are only attracted to other women.

A lesbian can:

Try sex with a man because she’s unsure, then realises she hates it

Have so much internalised homophobia that she forces her way through sex with men to try and “fix” herself

Be in relationships with men because she’s terrified of coming out

Marry and have children with a man because she feels trapped into doing so

Convince herself that a love of friendship and companionship with a man is “romantic love” to keep herself closeted

Only have the courage to be who she really is much later in life, when she feels free enough to do so and has enough tools around her to realise the truth

In cases of rape, women can be physically “aroused” because the body often does nothing but react to stimulus. That doesn’t mean they want it. Lesbians will suffer through the same thing through sex with men, even as they’re repulsed and force their way through it, or disassociate through it.

Some of that is similar to bisexuality, but bisexual women in those situations will enjoy the sex, can fall in actual, romantic love with men, and only realise the truth of their attraction to women later in life after so much internalised biphobia.

Those kinds of women are not the same.

Ironically, this visceral hatred of bisexuals is actively harming lesbians.

This way of thinking ends up confusing lesbians who were already hurt and confused to suck up more male attention and possibly force their way through yet another relationship with a man, which would only traumatise them even more.

If you’re a gold star lesbian, then that’s amazing, please be happy, but you also have to understand the privilege you have as a lesbian to be able to be secure enough to know the truth yourself, and also have the strength and support around you to not have to go through what other lesbians have gone through.

The obsession in “weeding out the nasty bisexuals” to the detriment of other lesbians is obscene.

We know that homophobia is still a huge problem. We talk about it regularly, about how lesbians are still very much oppressed. And yet, this huge part of oppression and direct harm that so many lesbians face is struck from the record to pretend that we’re living in a world where lesbians automatically have the space and safety to admit the truth to themselves, and will never again be in a situation where she’s - at the very least - heavily pressured to “try being with a man”? Especially when women are still expected to marry and have children as her top priority?

It would be wonderful for lesbians to all have the safety and security and knowledge and trust in themselves so that they can one day all be “gold stars.” It really would be. Pretending that we’re in a space to do that right now, even in places like the UK, US and Canada, is patently false.