"Why didn't you say something sooner?" - Something to bear in mind when reading the responses from "lesbian" media

[Iseveryusernamealreadytaken]

www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/why-didnt-you-say-something-sooneryoure-asking_us_59d560dee4b085c51090ad64?

Sick, isn’t it?
I’ve got to the point now where I can’t trust any lesbian media, and I feel afraid to discuss it with other lesbians. Divide and rule.
When I came out five years ago I was under the misapprehension it would be easier now. How wrong I was.

What a superb article. I'm going to go and read her novel now, thanks OP

This article was really difficult to find on google (I'd read it before so was searching for it) and I only managed to find it because someone had posted a link on reddit and the reddit page came up on google - not the original article. I'm not sure how google works so I don't know if I'm being paranoid about this.

I don't understand the bit about the penny. Wouldn't you need to be a psychopath to do that to a child of either sex? That man would find another way to humiliate a boy, I suspect.

I don't want to be all NAMALT but I'm constantly shocked when I read, here and elsewhere, about the conditioning of girls. I had the vague idea, growing up, that girls and women were the superior sex, men had a bit of a rough ride. Partly, perhaps, because I went to an all-girls school? I can't see the advantage, for girls, of mixed schools. They seem to acclimatise girls to being harrassed by males.

Sorry for going off-topic.

You're right about women and girls being the superior sex because they don't harass others. Men having a bit of a rough ride, well, at whose hands do they get that? It's other men and boys. Masculinity in this country, and in many others, is very toxic.

I've just been watching girls in a mixed school being constantly bothered by the boys. Just constantly being touched. The boys joke about not being able to keep their hands off and it is supposed to be funny. This is what girls have to live with.

try searching with a different search engine.

What’s a 40-something, het woman to do to help push back against this particular facet of the problem? I simply cannot believe this article needed to be written. I am so angry.

I'm with hipster. I am getting really fucking angry now.

I am so fucking sick of seeing people pretend this is not happening. What a fantastic and also at the same time, quite sad article about the reality lesbians, and other women too face. Rather than the fluffy version and burying heads in the sand to pretend straight men have it much worse.

When I came out five years ago I was under the misapprehension it would be easier now.

According to friends who are lesbian, it was a lot better for lesbians, until the past few years when everything started sliding backwards at an alarming rate.

From that article:

Among other things, throughout the interview, where I said “lesbian” the word lesbian was changed to “queer.” I was rebranded. I became the mythological “if the situation was right” lesbian. The appropriated slur “queer,” has become the popular descriptor of choice for a “yes” girl or a “maybe” girl— An “I’m not going to rule anything out because I’m open-minded” girl. It doesn’t carry the sting of lesbian. The stigma of lesbian. The boundaries of lesbian. Lesbian is a solid “No.” ”Not even if...” And that unwillingness to bend is the very reason lesbians are targeted with insidious psychological warfare.

I have to admit I don't know many lesbians but the two I do know would also never describe themselves as 'queer'. They are married women, have children, have regular boring jobs, and live run of the mill lives in which they are happy. They are no more 'queer' than I am, they are no more open minded sexually than I am, their sexuality is no more ambiguous than mine, its no more 'up for discussion' than mine is. Its just that I am attracted to the opposite sex and they are attracted to the same sex.

That article is really good.

I have to say that, having listened to lesbians, I feel more confident as an ally defending them. I may be het but I'm a feminist and they're under fucking siege. I'll speak up whenever I get the chance

Was interested in this passage particularly: And often times it isn’t even men tearing us down. It’s other women. Because we’re conditioned to do that too. To compete with each other. To tear one another down. We’re taught. From the time we can walk.

Now I know I've been very much affected by female socialization - well, we all are. But that was one element that I didn't internalise. Sisterhood is fundamental to me.

I do wonder whether this is because I always wanted a sister, and whether I might have felt different if I had one. Reminds me of the poem my DF used to recite (? Ogden Nash):

If only I hadn't had sisters
What a much nicer person I'd be
But my sisters were such little blisters
That all women are sisters to me.

He hasn't got any sisters either.

That is quite a nasty little poem, Prawn.

I'm horrified that this is happening. No-one is telling straight people that their 'preferences' are wrong. Maybe that's still to come.

No-one has the right to dictate someone else's sexual preference or behaviour.

What can be done about this?

It's not a nasty poem, it's funny. At least that's how I (and my dad) have always seen it.

If only I hadn't had brothers
What a much nicer person I'd be
But my brothers were such little buggers
That all men are buggers to me

How can you take offence at Ogden Nash?!

To keep your marriage brimming
With love in the loving cup
Whenever you're wrong, admit it
Whenever you're right shut up.

I found that quote interesting too Prawn, just like this whole older famous feminists telling younger feminists that "in their day they just bloody well said no and meant it" shows the patriarchy is still alive and well, even in those who set themselves as beacons of feminism. The debate is changing.

Ah, yes, the loving cup one.. We're great poetry lovers in my family.

On babies:

A bit of talcum
Is always welcome

Though of course talcum isn't popular anymore.

If I went back in time and told the young activist I was in the 1970s that practically nothing had changed and in some ways things had for worse I wouldn't have believed myself. It's fucking heartbreaking.

Things have I believe actually got considerably worse because now:

• We say this stuff and get hounded for it
• We have to pretend to be thankful if we stay at home with kids, or thankful if we get to work all hours and then look after the kids.
• porn is now a fucking massive problem and is eating away at normal sex and relationships I believe to the detriment of all women
• men think they are feminists until they are asked for, you know, equality
• a lot of women are still totally is disengaged by feminism.

+ And of course men have done the final tablecloth trick and stolen the words woman and lesbian.

I got an article about gardening published in Diva many years ago. The woman who commissioned it said she wanted to make it a regular thing.

Then she contacted me to say the magazine had changed management, her immediate boss was now a gay man, and he had informed her that dull subjects like gardening don't sell magazines.

She was told to cancel the gardening stories and find someone who'd write an article on lesbian "cottaging" instead. For those who are lucky enough not to know what that means, cottaging is anonymous, gay sex in public toilets.

I came out in the early 1980's, and in all that time I've never heard of lesbians cruising public toilets in search of anonymous sex. I've known shedloads of lesbians who are into gardening, but never heard of a single one getting turned on by hanging around in smelly public bogs hoping a woman they'd never seen before and would never see again would happen by and give them a rodgering.

I cancelled my subscription so I don't know if they found someone to write the cottaging article, perhaps they found a gay man to do it and changed the pronouns? I'm sure if they did it made great wank fodder for the new target audience, and brought in new advertisers in droves.