Terri Strange

I’m bisexual. When younger I always thought that everyone was ‘a little bit bi’ but as I’ve got older and actually listened to non-bi people regarding their own sexuality I’m generally of the opinion that some people really ARE exclusively attracted to one sex on a very visceral, primal level...and that’s ok. I sometimes think there’s a danger of seeing bisexuality/fluidity/political lesbianism (although I hate the latter term) as a kind of ‘correct’ open minded position. But sexual orientation is perhaps the one area in life where there should be zero pressure to be equal opportunities.
It’s a complicated topic and I think many people oversimplify and confuse theoretical positions with demanding that people fancy them (looking at you, Riley )

Call me naive, but someone starting up saying bitchy rant puts my back up to start with

thearcticfeminist.wordpress.com/2013/11/27/male-violence-effects-us-all/

Terri is fab.
I probably don't agree with her on everything
I'm very much a fence sitter on mother privilege but I do see how I access it especially as a lesbian

I think she was writing in a different time when gender was more roles than innate identity and most lesbians (unless previously in a straight relationship) did not have children.

I struggle with her a bit but she's good for thought experiments including looking at language.

Aaw I love that there is a thread on here referencing Monique wittig!

I think that sexuality/sexual orientation is possibly an emergent property. Our genetics/neonatal environment can set up propensities, that are influenced by our social and devlopmental environment. It's not like simple stuff like blue eyes, or hair texture. It's a complicated human behaviour. And I'm frankly slightly confused by the current almost absolutist position that many seem to hold that it is innate (and homophobic to question it). Personally, I think that was a political choice made to improve lesbian and gay rights here and in the US. But I think now it is stifling debate and thinking somewhat.

I think I'll just have to reread my Celia Kitzinger (The Social Construction of Lesbianism), but I'll leave tackling Monique Wittig for the moment unless anyone has any particular insights!

Are you willing to concede that lesbian sexuality is so flexible and that they could also find males attractive? Why is it only people with heterosexual attraction who need to open up to the idea of "fluid sexuality"?

And how this is deiffenre from the right wing evangelical view that people can be 'cured' of being gay? Surely if sexuality is that fluid, gay men and lesbians would be able to be heterosexual if they put their mind to it.

FWIW I have grown up in social and political circles that would make lesbianism the easy not only positive choice. However I have never fancied a woman sexually. (Bizarrely, no woman has ever fancied me either).

I don't think it's possible to change which sex you are sexually attracted to. Even political lesbians who make a conscious choice to "resist heterosexuality" aren't lesbians since if they were lesbians there would be no need to "resist" it, as it wouldn't be present!

A female who is in a relationship with a male due to the hetero pressure/culture, but who doesn't feel real attraction to males, is still a lesbian imo. It's how you feel that makes your sexuality, not logic or who you happen to be dating.

Making a decision (essentially a choice) on your sexuality, implies there was another viable option (e.g. you felt attraction for both sexes).

Just my opinion of course.

I don't think it is fair to compare somedyke to riley dennis at all. Riley tries to guilt trip women for not wanting to have sex with him. Somedyke has only said that our sexuality can be influenced by the society we live in and that we should be able to talk and think about that. She hasn't tried to bully anyone into having sex with her!

I'm a feminist and a heterosexual and have given this quite a lot of thought over the past few years. I'm fairly sure that if I had grown up in a different environment, where being straight, gay, lesbian or bi were genuinely considered to be equally valid and acceptable, and were equally visible to me, that I would have been (at least a little bit) bi.

Compulsory heterosexuality is a real thing.

I don't see anything in common between SomeDyke's perspective and Riley's. They're coming from different places and arguing for different things.

But then, I think it's perfectly reasonable for a lesbian to ask me to consider how my sexuality influences and is influenced by my feminism, especially if I have relationships with men. That's not telling me what to think, it's asking me to notice things I might not have noticed.

I don't usually like comparisons, but I see this as similar to women of colour asking me as a white feminist to examine how my whiteness influences my feminism. And yes, it's arrogant to dismiss the problem.

But comparing me to Riley Lass, that's a low blow (as well as obviously false.). Gender and sexual orientation is behaviour and complicated and mutable, whereas sex is biology and not. A past based on sex is also immutable, which are two reasons Riley isn't and can never be a lesbian, however Riley may wish the future to be. I won't adjust my sexuality to include Riley not because my sexuality is fixed, but because their sex is. And since sex is I'm glad my sexuality which sees sex and history based on sex as important, is as it is and I see no reason to interrogate it.

You have been moderate on this thread. The quotes are posts by you. I don't think they are moderate.

I don't see any difference between what you said and what Riley Dennis said- which I find very interesting- both of you telling women what to do and what to think.

Riley calls woman bigoted- you say heterosexual women are arrogant and have their head in the sand.

I'm actually quite moderate Lass, but interesting to see how small a step I need to take to be considered as berating! Which in itself tells us something interesting I think.
And I still don't quite understand Monique Wittig though...........

What's so scary about wondering if sexuality was possibly more flexible, who does it currently serve believing it is not?

That is basically what Riley Dennis says.

SomeDyke has posted on this before, including on occasion berating heterosexual woman that she thinks it is very arrogant of straight women who claim to be feminist to not be willing to give a little consideration to why they are heterosexual, or at least wonder if it could have been otherwise.

And that the 'I'd be straight even if it wasn't for the patriarchy' line, or I'm just not attracted to women (and I have no real interest in thinking about why that is) line a bit of a case of head in the sand

No difference really from what Riley says.

There are some strange views out there. A lot of them are interesting and make you think, like the experimental thinking of "all piv is rape" which no one actually believes but it helps you look at a things from a certain perspective.
A radical feminist view that not all RFs agree with is that IVF and other assisted forms of conception is wrong, because it puts control of reproduction in the hands of a patriarchal medical profession set up to convenience men and what they want. I think the alternative of adoption or just not having children is "approved". This reminds me of the Terri view around centering procreation.

So it's always interesting to hear ppls pov.
Curiously what somedyke said about sexual orientation reminds me of what the gender ideologues try to say. Look at the person themselves and not their sex because sexual orientation is not fixed.

I disagree just from personal experience. I can love women and can appreciate a woman's beauty, but I'm only ever sexually attracted to men. Even men I don't particularly like or love. Which is annoying.

For me it is a matter of people who refuse to take no for an answer are not safe to be around.

What's so scary about wondering if sexuality was possibly more flexible, who does it currently serve believing it is not?

You do your sexuality and I'll do mine. The problem arises when you want to examine mine because it isn't flexible enough to suit you.

Where's my confidence and integrity!?

At 2am? Listening to someone extremely confident and uncompromising? Go easy on yourself

What's so scary about wondering if sexuality was possibly more flexible, who does it currently serve believing it is not?

That’s not the scary bit. It’s all the stuff about “breeding” (or not) that’s mad/despotic/unrealistic.

It must be very irritating to them that so many gay women embrace motherhood. And there they are doing lesbianism properly.

I can’t help being grudgingly indulgent towards warriors for lossy causes, tbough. Even the woolly, deluded ones.

It’s not about a competition between childfree women and mothers.
Both Terri and Bev Jo frame it as a competition, and an unfair one at that, between women with children and those who call themselves child free.

I just wanted to see how popular/mainstream the ideas on resisting heterosexuality and not having children/not prioritising women with children (in situations where that is warranted such as homelessness) really is.

It is radical lesbianism, I think, not Radical Feminism. They argue like the men do that we need to relearn our sexual orientation in their image. They have a small core group of followers on FB but have been booted off most mainstream Feminist and Radical Feminist pages for bullying women.
I know this because I was a mod who booted Terri off two Feminist FB pages for unrelenting verbal abuse of other members.

She is part of the Bev Jo woman hating club on Facebook. Men are not the only authoritarian misogynists women have to contend with.