Political lesbianism /*choosing* to be a lesbian

[SoulofanAggron]

Have any of you ever decided to become a lesbian for political reasons? How successful were you?

NRatched, it's only become really annoying when the definition of lesbian became sucha loosey-goosey thing that I'm now very reluctant to join any lesbian groups (if I could find them) in case there's a bloke lesbian there.

I mean, I've said before that I am all for being a lesbian to be regarded as such a positive thing that it's no wonder a woman would want to be one. I think that's be a fabulous thing to happen culturally so that young lesbians don't feel inhibited in the slightest about who they are.

But I accept I am an oddity. A currently very celibate oddity who has more cuddles with my dog than a woman.

I have found that as time has went on, I don't have much of an attraction to men. I always thought I was probably straight, but I don't think that anymore considering I've gotten my eyes opened at male nature. I'm not saying sexuality is a choice, but when your eyes are opened and you're not a handmaiden/pickme it's very hard to muster any attraction to males. I'm glad I've realised this at 23. I'd class myself as bisexual even though I know there's a lot of hatred geared towards bi women. It's unfortunate, but things rarely change anyway. I know I won't bother having a serious relationship with a male and I'm very happy about that.

16SerendipitousDreams

That's interesting, so it was more about creating a safe matriarchal micro society, which I can imagine would have been wonderful for many women

It's a shame they decided to appropriate the word 'Lesbian' because that's not the right word for a non lesbian woman who chooses to live in a matriarchal society

This.

@ErrolTheDragon

I'm not sure about this, and may not put it well, but my perception re bisexuality is that while many heterosexual men are personally repulsed by the idea of having sex with a man, the same doesn't apply nearly so much to women - are functionally heterosexual women quite likely to find the idea of intimacy with a woman erotic, for instance?

If that's broadly true I can see how if some women prefer for non-sexual reasons to associate and form emotional relationships with women rather than men, then I can see how they could choose to be functionally lesbian. They'd still be bisexual - their inherent sexuality might mean they were instinctively more attracted to men than women - but their behaviour would be indistinguishable from a single-sex attracted true lesbian.

No idea if any of that makes sense.

Yes, I think this is true. It seems not at all uncommon for some women to enjoy sexual encounters with women with no particular romantic interest in women, for one thing.

I've also heard of both men and women who weren't really gay in the conventional sense who became interested in sex clubs or group encounters, and simply learned to enjoy being sexually stimulated by almost anyone in that kind of setting, and then maybe in other settings too. Like a sex toy, I suppose.

There are also plenty of examples of cultures where there is normative male homosexual encounters in certain settings, but we have no reason to think those culture have more gay men in the sense that we understand them - most also had sexual encounters with women, for pleasure or procreation.

The other thing I wonder about with men in particular is fetish. Almost any weird thing can be a fetish, and I've encountered a few instances where I thought a man was not gay in the normal sense but had a fetish fixation on males or particular male bodyparts.

Human sexuality is has a lot of facets, I don't think it's accurate to say it's all learned, or none of it, or that culture of individual experience are everything/nothing.

Sexual touch can be stimulating without a person needing to have any kind of intimate identifcation with the person doing the

The Leeds Collective wrote a book pamphlet on the arguments for political lesbianism called Love your enemy" and I read it and was seriously considering making this very radical change in my https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=but+madam,+im+adam+leeds+collectivd+political+lesbian&client=safari&hl=en-gb&prmd=nvsi&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjCeqpn6zsAhWHiFwKHV8RDb4QQAUoBHoECA8QBA&biw=375&bih=537#imgrc=rxi4OqxpLVGGM

Whoops the paste pasted over what I said. I was seriously considering, as a political act, giving up sexual relationships with men as a result of rape, assault on me and because of the general atmosphere at the time. This was in 1984. J still have that book. But I never took the full step. I'm still a radical feminist though.

It's very interesting to think about. I know a lesbian couple that are clear they made a decision to be lesbian. I take the argument that this means they are bisexuals choosing not to sleep with men but it is only a necessary argument if we think the base of sexually sits somewhere outside of cultural forces and that base is completely beyond conditioning. I suppose for that to hold we would have to find a bodily basis for sexuality. This isn't unthinkable in that iirc correctly there is something about index and ring finger length that strongly predicts homosexuality in men but it isn't a complete overlap.

I myself feel irredeemably heterosexual, though I am just leaving a relationship and have no plans ever to have a male partner again. When I look at the shape of my heterosexuality though, what I want and don't want sexually, it does strongly resemble patriarchal masculinity, it's almost like a fetishism for the markers of manly men both in general and in terms of the men of my childhood - distant, silent, emotionally unknowable figures who had a minor crack to allow access to one woman. All very hegemonic romancey.

So I can't say for sure that I am innately heterosexual - it could just be that my conditioning runs very deep and is so entangled with whatever is innate that you couldn't pull them apart?

In a way it sort of doesn't matter how innate or constructed an individuals sexuality is. What matters is they are entitled to withold their consent from sexual activity based on their own sexuality. People are entitled to never accept penises in their sexuality and since there is a history of trying to "correct" or change that, it is right to organise politically around that choice and for people to have a term that identifies them as never up for fucking men. So I do wonder if it's right for people in homosexual couples for now but potentially up for sex with men later to call themselves lesbians. Because it does rather muddy the water for all the rapey bastards

You cannot choose your sexuality. If you could I'd be a lesbian. 🤣

Well some people obviously feel they can, they don't speak for you, but you also can't speak for them

I think in the current climate 'political lesbian' needs a new name, which is why I use WGTOW.

No issue with straight and bi women choosing not to have relationships with men and with bi women choosing to be febfems (female exclusive bisexual females) - Massive issue with them calling themselves lesbians (and most of them have dropped the 'political' now - like transwomen are now just "women").

Lesbians need our own word to be able to discuss our specific experiences, ensure that our experiences and needs are taken into account (as we will be in the minority and the non-default option in any group) and to address lesbophobia - which comes from both men and women.

Feminists who argue that it is really important for men not to be able to do identify as lesbians but it doesn't matter if straight and bi women identify as lesbians are only seeing and prioritising sexism - but lesbophobia and the experiences of lesbians are just as important to me - and many lesbians - as the power differentials in male-female relationships.

I spent a couple of years involved in radical feminism and on the surface it looked great for lesbians but, to cut a long story short, I kept seeing lesbophobic comments, the prioritisation of straight women's issues over lesbians and ignorance about lesbians' experiences. I also increasingly noticed that, although they absolutely passionately and loudly went on about lesbian rights, it was always stuff that conveniently fitted in with their agenda ie male violence against lesbians, transwomen preying on young lesbians (which is only a very partial view of what is going on with the Queer movement). I've spent many years in the LGB community - including working with young lesbians - and the issues that feminists are discussing in relation to lesbians only marginally reflect what I've seen.

IMO, bisexual/heterosexual women identifying as lesbians are the reason that this is the case and, although I tried to stay in the movement and raise lesbian issues and address lesbophobia in a way which didn't challenge their identity, they are the reason that I don't believe things can be improved. How do you challenge someone's lesbophobia when the opposite-sex-attracted person making the comment identifies as a lesbian? How can you genuinely prioritise lesbians when "lesbians" say that any girl who grew up knowing she was a lesbian must have had an easy life to have become a lesbian at such a young age and we need to prioritise the experiences of lesbians who were attracted to men as they are the real victims of "compulsory heterosexuality" (a term which takes homophobia and lesbophobia and makes it about straight women).

And just to clarify before the political lesbians try to twist things: A lesbian is a woman who is only able to feel attraction towards women. A lesbian may have been pressured to have sex with a man, she may have been sexually assaulted by a man. Bisexual/heterosexual so-called "feminists" who try to use rape victims to justify appropriating lesbians' identity are disgusting.

@Butterer

Bisexual/heterosexual so-called "feminists" who try to use rape victims to justify appropriating lesbians' identity are disgusting Can you expand on that please? I'm not being arsey, I'm just not clear what justification or argument you're specifically referring to.

Lesbians says that women with attraction for men aren't lesbians. There will be a discussion where lesbians will make it very clear that it is about attraction to men, not experience with men . Political lesbians will always try to twist it to say that it is about having had sex with a man and then say that we are arguing that no woman who has had sex with a man can be a lesbian and, therefore, we are excluding all rape victims from our group. I have seen this many times.

Yes, I can understand that, NonMum, it's a good point and and important distinction.

the issues that feminists are discussing in relation to lesbians only marginally reflect what I've seen.

@NonMumInterloper They mightn't be as well known as the other subjects she's covered, but Sheila Jeffrreys has covered a lot of stuff such as the LGBT movement mainly reflecting the interests of gay men rather than lesbians, S&M in the gay/lesbian scene which she was really against, butch and femme, etc. And now radfems (including some lesbians who were born that way, maybe even 'gold star lesbians,' which are fairly rare, at least among middle aged/older women) are highlighting that there's very little lesbian-only space. I suppose what political lesbians are doing might count towards that diminishment though.

I don't think it's as cut and dried as that, as most lesbians have had previous relationships/sex with men. Also there's a lot of biphobia on the lesbian scene. As a bi woman it may be a lot harder to find a partner, not that that justifies anything.

You all make good points. Maybe it's better to call/consider oneself a lesbian ally.

I'm genuinely interested in what you say about the issues in the lesbian scene. What sort of things have you seen? PM if you prefer.

I think Jeffreys was really disappointed because to some radfems lesbianism/a female only world as much as possible sounds like a Utopia. Linda Bellos (even she was 'straight') even left her children to live in a female-only house where they wouldn't allow boy children. Then they discovered all these issues encroaching in the 80s such as the S&M which they didn't think was a good thing etc.

I get what you mean about radfems being more concerned with straight women, because their analysis centres on the female body being a big part of our oppression, so it can include stuff like men using us to breed, exploiting us as a means of production, which are not quite as much of an issue as they were in the western world, except maybe in some religions etc. When it comes to lesbian's bodies, Radfems are now highlighting stuff like lesbians transitioning which might be for complex reasons etc, and the damage that does to women's bodies, which is arguably a result of misogyny/lesbophobia.

And just to clarify before the political lesbians try to twist things: A lesbian is a woman who is only able to feel attraction towards women. A lesbian may have been pressured to have sex with a man, she may have been sexually assaulted by a man. Bisexual/heterosexual so-called "feminists" who try to use rape victims to justify appropriating lesbians' identity are disgusting.

As you know, lots of lesbians have had previous relationships with men. They have children etc. They weren't necessarily raped although they tried to live a heterosexual life due to societal pressure. Then at one point they stopped doing that and came out (some of us also go back in again for a while- a friend of mine did as she feared the social stigma for her children of having a lesbian mum, along with the other stigmas they faced of being mixed race and having a single mum who'd been a victim of DV.)

Political lesbians will always try to twist it to say that it is about having had sex with a man and then say that we are arguing that no woman who has had sex with a man can be a lesbian and, therefore, we are excluding all rape victims from our group. I have seen this many times.

That's the sort of annoying straw man logic we see from Social Justice Warriors and Radfems shouldn't be being as annoying as that.

Is there any point as which women who a bit more consciously decide to live a lesbian life become accepted as lesbians BTW? For instance women such as Jeffreys and Bellos, who've each spent more than forty years as lesbians or something.

I'm genuinely interested in what you say about the issues in the lesbian scene. What sort of things have you seen?

One of the issues which is related to what is going on now but is part of an ongoing problem is young lesbians being bullied and excluded by other girls, told they don't belong in female changing rooms etc - This is not something that has just happened in the last few years with trans, it goes back decades - only there wasn't this way of identifying out of being female back then. I've seen young detransitioners talk about this but a lot of feminists only pick up on the parts of what they say that resonates with their view so sexualisation and objectification of pubescent girls is focused on (despite the fact that I think this affects heterosexual girls at least as much so wouldn't explain why so many lesbians transition) but the way other girls treat lesbians isn't discussed. In fact, I see lesbians who transition described as having "not like other girl" syndrome, assuming they must think they are better than other girls and even being traitors to their sex rather than having been bullied and told they don't belong. Also issues like the broader queer agenda (lesbian being an identity that anyone can choose, sexuality is fluid etc).

Feminists talk about men having previously wanted access to lesbians and now being able to gain access but that is only one issue. Eg if you go back pre the trans/queer era you had:

• Straight women becoming "fag hags", frequenting the lesbian and gay scene because they loved gay men and it being all alternative and different but often thinking lesbians were gross and making lesbophobic jokes and comments (encouraged by some gay men). This made it difficult because the one space we had suddenly had loads of lesbophobic straight women - It looked like it was more mixed sex and inclusive of women but it was actually more hostile towards lesbians.
• Women identifying as bisexual and kissing each other in bars to turn on men
• Opposite-sex couples coming to the gay scene because they viewed gays as intrinsically perverted and kinky and saw it as quite risque. (Eg one night at a perfectly regular gay nightclub where both gay men and lesbians went and just danced, drank, bit of snogging, nothing more, an opposite sex couple turned up and performed oral sex in full public view presumably because they viewed us as kinky deviants so that was fine.)

As well as males using trans as a cover to access lesbians, you have all these other groups who want to be part of the alphabet soup, be part of the "rainbow community", have an alternative, oppressed or transgressive identity and because of the queering of language they can - but just because they are desperate to be part of it and to use our words, doesn't mean they actually like or accept lesbians. So again lesbians are swamped by other groups, increasingly marginalised in our own community but don't have the language to describe it because how dare we gatekeep words?

Is there any point as which women who a bit more consciously decide to live a lesbian life become accepted as lesbians BTW?

What is a lesbian life though? I've been told by lesbian feminists that I'm not a proper lesbian - not because they think I'm attracted to men, not because they think I've had sex with men but because I have a few male friends and am, therefore, not a "woman-identified woman". I've seen other lesbians having this argument online with radfems - basically saying "I was excluded by other women because of my sexuality, I found people who accepted me (who might, for example, have been gay men because it can be difficult to find other lesbians) and now that makes me not a proper lesbian?". By definitions such as this used in lesbian feminist circles, most female homosexuals I've ever met wouldn't qualify as lesbians - including all the female homosexuals who are transitioning to live as men. IMO, a lesbian life is any life lived by a female homosexual.

@Thelnebriati

I think in the current climate 'political lesbian' needs a new name, which is why I use WGTOW.

I can go with that.

Something to consider is that the idea of sexuality as a sort of internal way of being, or an identity, is fairly recent and even into the 20th century it often wasn't conceptualised that way. That's not to say people did not know that most people preferred the idea of sex with one sex rather than the other, but it wasn't seen as a kind.

So to talk about a lesbian or gay person from that perspective wasn't about talking about an internal essence or orientation, it was about what people did more than anything. People feel a lot of things but deeds were seen as constituting who you were.

That's a simplification in some ways obviously, but the way we now think of people having a core sort of being that is their "true self" hasn't always been so prominent and I think it affects the way people talk about a lot of these things, how we phrase them and use language around them.

I totally agree with Goosefoot.

The idea that sexual orientation is innate has been a political one to argue against discrimination against and conversion therapy of lesbians and gay men.

But this same idea is now used to normalise paedophilia and other predatory fetishes. Some argue that paedophilia is innate and also a sexual orientation and sexual identity and therefore should be protected. These are very similar arguments as are used to justify the 'beliefs' of transgenderism. (Born feminine, born masculine.. as opposed to born female, born male.)

From a feminist perspective it seems odd that we wouldn't consider the role of social construction in who or what we desire. The rise of BDSM as part of what individuals consider to be their 'sexuality', and recent increase in the number of young people who declare themselves bisexual illustrate social construction.

@NonMumInterloper Yes, all of that is stuff that happens.

As you say, radfems tend to have a thing of being ideologically 'pure' and very few people measure up. Some are cult-like.

I think in the current climate 'political lesbian' needs a new name, which is why I use WGTOW.

@TheInebriate Maybe if the person is celibate? But if they're in a relationship with a woman arguably it's not the same.

I agree that maybe there should be a different term for it.

So to talk about a lesbian or gay person from that perspective wasn't about talking about an internal essence or orientation, it was about what people did more than anything. People feel a lot of things but deeds were seen as constituting who you were.

@Goosefoot Exactly.

The idea that sexual orientation is innate has been a political one to argue against discrimination against and conversion therapy of lesbians and gay men.

@MouseandCat Yes- a 'gay gene' hasn't been found.

From a feminist perspective it seems odd that we wouldn't consider the role of social construction in who or what we desire. The rise of BDSM as part of what individuals consider to be their 'sexuality', and recent increase in the number of young people who declare themselves bisexual illustrate social construction.

of course there's some social influence on our sexuality.

BDSM / being a 'sub' is something I got into. It's so obviously problematic for het (and lesbian?) relationships. It's the height of eroticisation of power difference/our oppression. I know 'choosy-choice' liberal feminism might say it's just good fun, but I don't think so.

How many women would choose heterosexuality if it wasn’t thrust upon upon us? I thank all the women who came before and of my generation who questioned and fought to enable us to live our lives as lesbians. In our complicated communities, fighting against the courts who would remove our children, loving each other and getting on somehow or other, lesbians made it all possible. I dislike these attacks on women who have done so much to make it possible for us to be. 40 years is a long time..can barely remember what came before.

Sorry it's an old thread, but this is an interesting question..

I don't really follow what you say : if someone enjoys having sex with the same, surely they have some degree of same-sex attraction (so are bisexual to some degree)?
I don't see how someone could enjoy sex with women without being attracted to them.

Old post I know but interesting points. I don't think the rise in bisexuality proves much since most are shown by surveys to be women who only date men. It's most likely they're falsely identifying as bi to seem 'queer' or woke.

As to paedophilia- I don't agree that it being innate means it should be protected, obviously. But I do think ur could be at least partly innate for some people.

There seem to be common signs linking some paedophiles: more likely to be left-handed, shorter, lower IQ often, & other features. There is some scientific theories that it could be related to prenatal things.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34858350&ved=2ahUKEwjNrarD1YqQAxXGWEEAHZtoH2sQFnoECCwQAQ&usg=AOvVaw30yeQC_hj6EEAp6ny1F4G1

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=psycnet.apa.org/record/2020-80780-019&ved=2ahUKEwjCsvXn1YqQAxX5QEEAHe0-GpAQFnoECEsQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1g7bQbPo_OWbu2OwkWWY76

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/mind-shift/202106/are-pedophiles-born-or-made/amp

I don't think that evidence of it being partially innate woyld mean that people destigmatise it at all (which would be very dangerous & wrong). It might help us in preventative measures.