BuzzFeed article on the oppressive roots of lesbianism

[Twogoats]

I wish I was joking!

BuzzFeed have just done an article all about those silly TERF lesbians who don't want to date men...

Thankfully, the comments are ripping the article to shreds! Yay!

Still, BuzzFeed is a very influential website, so this shouldn't be taken lightly!

It's more ageism, isn't it? Boring old women, what would they know? It seems to be an acceptable prejudice like no other.

Some years ago, a close friend and I developed a not-so-subtle code for queer women too basic for our tastes: We’d make an “L” with our thumbs and forefingers against our foreheads, like the loser sign that was popular when we were in middle school. In this case,^ the “L” stood for lesbian^.

We, too, were lesbians—generally speaking. But the women my friend and I mocked (and trust, I am duly shamed by this memory) were what we’d call “capital-L lesbians.” We were urban-dwelling and queer-identified and in our 20s; the other women came from the suburbs, skewed older, and were, we presumed, unversed in queer politics. We traveled in circles of dapper butches and subversive femmes; the other women either easily passed as straight or dressed generically sporty in cargo shorts and flip-flips. A woman in this category was clearly down with the assimilationist, trans-exclusive politics of the likes of the Human Rights Campaign. She was the kind of dyke for whom the laughably niche Cosmopolitan lesbian-sex tip “tug on her ponytaill^” might actually apply.

Err, doesn't this actually make you and your friend utterly massive wankers? I'm not sure why the need for all the navel gazing that follows.

And those older lesbians that they mock...maybe their lives are too full of work and family and real genuine activism, to be "immersed in queer politics", y'know like ADULTS.

Wankers, yes, but as the rest of the article shows, also not actually lesbians. So lesbian culture and history isn't about them because they're not lesbians.

As pointed out many times in the comments, thank god.

But WTF is going on with the blatant homophobia? What is driving it? Yes, ageism but it is beyond that.

(Typo I meant "not to be unversed")

No they aren't lesbians, but they want to "reclaim" the word lesbian and make it something it isn't. They feel they can redefine it.

Although the article is mostly gibberish so I may have misunderstood something.

I find these articles more upsetting than perhaps I should.

Me too. I think of my friend from school who's one of those boring "assimilated" lesbians they laugh at -a happy 40something with a wife and kids and who lives in jeans and looks like everyone else. That normality was very bloody hard-won. She went through the experience of being a gay teenager in a provincial town in 80s Ireland and could only really be herself when she left. It took years before her family really accepted her. How dare those little shits think she's not worthwhile because she's "unversed in queer politics"? They aren't fit to clean her shoes.

Err, doesn't this actually make you and your friend utterly massive wankers? I'm not sure why the need for all the navel gazing that follows

I have almost no idea what she was on about other than she runs tea dances which are for everyone except cis men.

Except they are not. Inasmuch as I could make anything of what she was on about I am definitely by her definition a cis, heterosexual woman and I'm not interested either.

I wonder (genuinely, not being goady) why Lesbians come into so much criticism in this regard?

I don't see much (any?) criticism for men who choose not to sleep with Transwomen.

I certainly haven't personally received any criticism because I'm not interested in sleeping with Transmen.

Why are Lesbians singled out? One might posit that it's still a case of men being abusive to women.

Well yes, Lochan, that's exactly it. It shows that lesbians are at the bottom of the hierarchy, being women who can be bullied and harassed. The TRAs wouldn't dare tell straight men they need to sleep with transwomen or gay men with transmen. Because they might get punched or at the very least, told where to get off.

I think lesbians come in for so much stick because they are the only figures in the great sexuality paradigm who don't require men. Their sexual rejection of transwomen brings this into sharp focus, and inspires TRA rage.

Women who don't need men are incredibly dangerous for the patriarchy.

Good point, Cao. And I think your new self-definition is a good one, words need to mean something, especially when man and woman seem to not always mean adult human male/female!

Lesbians get the stick (!) because they're the sexual target market for many TTF. They're straight men obsessed with female sexuality so much they want to be women and sleep with men. And the lesbians are not playing the ball(s).

Yes, if it was gay men, the gay community would be much more vocal and they'd (quite rightly) have support from straight people and the media too.

I'm not in any way suggesting that asa straight woman I have any clue what it's like to be a lesbian in a mainly straight society, however my single female friend and I have noticed that if you're not "owned" by a man, then certain men feel entitled to attempt to police your behaviour and let you know if they find it unacceptable 😡. So I imagine that the way lesbians are treated is an extension of this, and they are more heavily policed because it's clear that they don't really need men for anything at all, and certain men just can't stand that 😡

On another forum there was a link to a surgeon who had a page to boast about his best work. At first glance the vulvas actually looked pretty good, pretty realistic, then, a bit of unease set in, and as I continued to look, I realised that for some reason, the vagina wasn't within the vulva, but about an inch below it - it was really bizarre, and would fool no one who was actually looking at or touching the business end.

I know what you mean Choc. The neo vaginas that I have seen look like a sphincterless anus. Some are just a gaping hole.

"Of course, there’s nothing more inherently radical about lesbianism than any other queer identity, especially since it has some deeply oppressive roots. "
I couldn't face trying to read the article again, but the supposedly 'deeply oppressive' roots of lesbianism! Boggle beyond boggle........ then again, it kind of makes sense when you think that what lesbian means is females who prefer females. Females only, and not any males, not even males who think they are women, or who want to be women, or who say they are women. For which lesbians have been villified since the beginning of patriarchy, even amongst societies like ancient greece that quite happily included male homosexual activity into its social structure.

Lesbians are the ultimate threat to the new trans world order, because unless they can redefine us out of meaningfulness, lesbians say no to males, and say that bodies and genitalia matter and we can tell the difference, thank you very much.................(All these lies about you can't tell a surgically constructed fuck-hole from a vagina. Why does the clitoris in all her internal and external glory never get mentioned? Well, the thing that so many males supposedly have trouble finding, and from threads elsewhere, many transwomen have a very sketchy idea of actual (transphobic) female anatomy anyway. And if your supposed gynaecologist can't spot the lack of an actual cervix, you've got an imposter inspecting your innie! All of this frankly just displays the usual male contempt and fear of actual female anatomy, and they'll either tidy it up via surgery, or create a neo-vag in their own image -- hole that can be fucked, job done, isn't that just what we are anyway? Same attitude as FGM, totally.)

All of this frankly just displays the usual male contempt and fear of actual female anatomy, and they'll either tidy it up via surgery, or create a neo-vag in their own image -- hole that can be fucked, job done, isn't that just what we are anyway? Same attitude as FGM, totally.)

Yeah. I assume that there is, indeed, little difference between a vulva that is surgically altered to look like the porn ideal, and one that is artificially constructed.
Also, one can probably construct something resembling female genitals after FGM with the remains of a penis.

There must be some connection between the male desire for mutilated female genitals and the desire to construct fake female genitals from penises.

The latter will only be convincing if the former is the standard.

"Ugly" female genitals, with the small labia hanging out, etc. cannot so easily be faked.

But the scars left by complete mutilation, where only a small hole for menstrual blood is left? Yeah, that can be imitated in a male.

"But the scars left by complete mutilation, where only a small hole for menstrual blood is left? Yeah, that can be imitated in a male."

I think I was aiming at the thinking behind the surgery mutilation was similar in both cases. That it's just a fuck-hole, and that female pleasure and the details of female pleasure (i.e. the detailed external and internal anatomy of the clitoris) are irrelevant, or unknown, or should be suppressed. That if you imitate the fuck-hole aspect and make it pornified pretty, who cares about anything else? Indeed, you could argue that neo-vaginas are the ultimate expression of the male conception of what female genitalia should be -- the messy biology of bleeding and birthing irrelevant, the flesh equivalant of those vibrating rubber sex toys, just lube and fuck! The perfect fuckable female that the males either want to have or want to be.

The fetishists who watch forced feminization, chicks with dicks and sissy porn are the group least likely to have surgery. They wank themselves silly over lesbian porn. Are they going to give up their cocks? I don't think so.

This group doesn't suffer from dysphoria. It's all about sex with them. First they say they're women, then they announce that this means they're lesbian. It's so creepy and insulting. I imagine a lot of these guys think the world is full of lesbians who behave just like the ones in porn. They feel entitled to all the hot action and they are enraged when it's not coming their way.

It's a very extreme form of misogyny. These guys haven't ever thought about how their potential partners might see them. They have no understanding of consent: they think they can self identify as a woman and that this gives them the right to sexual attention from lesbians. Then, when they don't get it, the full blown narcissistic rage pours out.

The fetishists who watch forced feminization, chicks with dicks and sissy porn

Slightly off on a tangent but what is "sissy porn" and "forced feminisation"?

twitter.com/blanchardphd/status/831590978658172929

A tweet I saw today from Ray Blanchard regarding forced feminisation

The link is to the original tweet