Wednesday, January 7, 2009 at 1:37:00 PM EST
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Incidental lesbianism was on a rampage in 2008. Blame Katy Perry. Blame Lindsay Lohan. I blame barsexuals. For the uninitiated, barsexuals are straight-identified women who: a.) kiss other women in the bar for men’s sexual arousal and the promise of free booze; b) tease lesbians by dangling potential experimenting before them, but who really just like to taste other’s women’s cherry Chapstick; c.) egotistical, self-indulgent broads who could care less about Sappho crushes or the fantasies of beer-guzzling slugs whose voyeuristic visions of full-on hot lezzie action will never get realized in-person, at least not beyond the cheap thrills of a bar kiss. I’m with the conservatives when I say the collapse of these women’s inhibitions for situational homosexuality is nothing less than an act of terror on American womanhood…uh, lesbian womanhood that is.
If only Katy Perry’s smash hit, “I Kissed A Girl” weren’t so darn catchy, that women felt compelled to heed it’s seductively urgent call. If only “Girls Gone Wild” hadn’t proved such an effective fast track to five of a fulfilled life’s 15 minutes of fame. If only Tyra Banks hadn’t upped the cultural ante by having barsexuals on one of her highest-rated shows ever, coquettishly batting their lashes and spouting coy questions like “what’s the big deal” and making declarative statements about their self-conscious acts of “sexual liberation.” I had no idea that Gloria Steinhem, Betty Friedman, Bell Hooks and Michelle Wallace had worked so hard so women could french each other for male “enhancements” and lesbian heartbreak. Iron-Jawed Angels are rolling in their graves.
However, interestingly enough, many contemporary lesbians are not outraged; with several seeing barsexuals as an opportunity for free feels and hetero cocktails. When Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl” was named number two on Logo’s Top Five Fake Lesbians of 2008, lesbian commentators expressed no knowledge of their victimhood. Instead, the women proved as thirsty for barsexuals as the men who were dousing them in vodka tonics. Proving as welcome as a 24 hr. Krispy Kreme to Oprah, several talked about being very open to making out with beautiful straight women exploiting their taboo, exoticized sexuality for freebies. Apparently, identity politics and pop culture aside, these drooling ladies were clued into the lyrics of the Casabalanca theme, “As Time Goes By,” in a way many of us political advocates were not: “A kiss—even an un-PC, dubiously motivated kiss—is still a kiss.” And a lesbian act for kicks and profit, no lesbian makes.
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by GarrettMize
by AFY_Samantha
by AFY_Samantha
by AFY_Samantha
by AFY_Samantha
I will be using phrases like "incidental lesbianism" and "situational homosexuality" to describe what we college students call "experimentation until graduation" or "sorority girls." Though we saw a rise in the expression of sapphic desire in 2009 fueled by pop-culture, I remember being a senior in 2005 watching a curious batch of sophomore girls delight in the taste of each others Lancome juciy tubes to garner attention from senior boys ---cherry chapstick is far too pedestrian for this crowd.
And so I wonder now, just as I did then, what is it about women, sex, and desire that makes it so easy for women's sexual expressions to be co-opted to serve the whims and desires of male onlookers? Even Sappho's girl on girl kisses on the Isle of Lesbos could not escape this determined gaze. Classic scholars are quick to point out that, despite their name, the women of the Isle of Lesbos are famous for their fellatio skills. And Sappho's lesbianism is continually called into question--she left Lesbos to be married and she did compose wedding songs and one of her most famous surviving fragments (a love poem) --fragment 31--appears to be written about a man.
And while it is important to be clear that means-to-an-end girl on girl action as you articulated "does not a lesbian make," when are we going to start pointing to these experiences as proof of the plasticity/spectrum of sexuality? When will we see lesbianism as not some thing that some (butch/feminist) women do over there and away from "mainstream society" but as something that exists within, in between, and throughout spaces that have been deemed strictly hetero?