Bisexual women and the threat to lesbian space: Or what if all the lesbians leave?

Frontiers

Volumn 16, Issue 1, 1996, Pages 101-116

  Stone, Sharon Dale ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0041357169     PISSN: 01609009     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3346927     Document Type: Review

References (34)

1. Marilyn Murphy, "Thinking About Bisexuality," Resources for Feminist Research 19:3/4 (1990): 87-88.
2. See, e.g., Vern Bullough and Bonnie Bullough, "Lesbianism in the 1920s and 1930s: A New Found Study," Signs 2:4 (Summer 1977): 895-904; Lillian Faderman, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991); Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeline D. Davis, Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community (New York: Routledge, Inc., 1993).
3. See, e.g., Vern Bullough and Bonnie Bullough, "Lesbianism in the 1920s and 1930s: A New Found Study," Signs 2:4 (Summer 1977): 895-904; Lillian Faderman, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991); Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeline D. Davis, Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community (New York: Routledge, Inc., 1993).
4. See, e.g., Vern Bullough and Bonnie Bullough, "Lesbianism in the 1920s and 1930s: A New Found Study," Signs 2:4 (Summer 1977): 895-904; Lillian Faderman, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991); Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeline D. Davis, Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community (New York: Routledge, Inc., 1993).
5. Bonnie Zimmerman, The Safe Sea of Women: Lesbian Fiction 1969-1989 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1990), 11.
6. Zimmerman, The Safe Sea of Women, 128.
7. The issue of political correctness and how lesbians hide parts of their lives is one that needs to be addressed at greater length than is possible here. For a discussion of this issue as having implications for all feminists, see my essay, "Notes Towards a Unified Diversity," in The More We Get Together: Women and disAbility, ed. Houston Stewart, Beth Percival, and Elizabeth R. Epperly (Charlottetown, P.E.I.: gynergy books, 1992), 21-28.
8. LOOT [Lesbian Organization of Toronto] Bi-national Lesbian Conference Committee, Program (1979).
9. Maureen Fitzgerald and Daphne Morrison, "Lesbian Conference: Agony and Audacity," Broadside 2:9 (July 1981): 4-5.
10. It's interesting to compare Broadside's report on that 1981 lesbian conference with the myriad reports about the 1991 National Lesbian Conference in Atlanta, in which it is widely agreed that contention was the main feature. The change can be partially accounted for by considering the increased visibility of lesbians who are marginalized by rhetoric that refuses to admit the existence of significant differences among lesbians and the presence of these lesbians at the conference in Atlanta. In 1981 in Vancouver, conference participants presented themselves as much more homogeneous. Thus, whether one is inclined to see the Atlanta spectacle as unfortunate or as progressive, there is no doubt that in their manifest lack of unity, lesbians have come a long way.
11. Lilith Finkler, "Lesbians Who Sleep With Men," Broadside 5:2 (November 1983): 4.
12. Joanne Kates, "Once More With Feeling: Heterosexuality and Feminist Consciousness," in Still Ain't Satisfied! Canadian Feminism Today, ed. Maureen Fitzgerald, Connie Guberman, and Margie Wolfe (Toronto: The Women's Press, 1982), 76-84.
13. Eve Zaremba, "Shades of Lavender: Lesbian Sex and Sexuality," in Fitzgerald, Guberman, and Wolfe, 85-92.
14. Amy Gottlieb, "Mothers, Sisters, Lovers, Listen," in Fitzgerald, Guberman, and Wolfe, 234-242.
15. Curiously, even while talking about lesbianism as a choice, many of us were busy rewriting the past to show that we had really always been lesbians. As Amanda Udis-Kessler points out in "Present Tense: Biphobia as a Crisis of Meaning" (in Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out, ed. Loraine Hutchins and Lani Kaahumanu [Boston: Alyson Publications, 1991], 352): "Thus, a woman who came out at forty had really been a lesbian all along but had not been in touch with her true sexuality."
16. Shane Phelan, Identity Politics: Lesbian Feminism and the Limits of Community (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989), 49.
17. In "Loving Whom We Choose" (in Hutchins and Kaahumanu, 223-232), Lisa Orlando has written an excellent summary and analysis of lesbian feminist ideas about bisexual women. See also other women's contributions in Hutchins and Kaahumanu, and the collection Closer to Home: Bisexuality & Feminism, ed. Elizabeth Reba Weise (Seattle: The Seal Press, 1992). These writings may sound as though they address attitudes prevalent only in the 1970s and early 1980s, but they are actually addressing attitudes that remain prevalent in many contemporary lesbian communities. Over the past decade, the literature addressing questions of identity and consciousness has expanded tremendously, and essentialist notions of sexuality have come under attack. In particular, there has been the development of a new scholarship under the rubric of queer theory. This academic writing, however, does not appear to have influenced the attitudes of most lesbians who are not interested in academic theorizing.
18. In "Loving Whom We Choose" (in Hutchins and Kaahumanu, 223-232), Lisa Orlando has written an excellent summary and analysis of lesbian feminist ideas about bisexual women. See also other women's contributions in Hutchins and Kaahumanu, and the collection Closer to Home: Bisexuality & Feminism, ed. Elizabeth Reba Weise (Seattle: The Seal Press, 1992). These writings may sound as though they address attitudes prevalent only in the 1970s and early 1980s, but they are actually addressing attitudes that remain prevalent in many contemporary lesbian communities. Over the past decade, the literature addressing questions of identity and consciousness has expanded tremendously, and essentialist notions of sexuality have come under attack. In particular, there has been the development of a new scholarship under the rubric of queer theory. This academic writing, however, does not appear to have influenced the attitudes of most lesbians who are not interested in academic theorizing.
19. Orlando, 229.
20. Actually, bisexual activists are saying that no woman should have to give up men if she doesn't want to. This is quite different.
21. Quoted in Stacey Young, "Breaking Silence About the 'B-Word': Bisexual Identity and Lesbian-Feminist Discourse," in Weise, 79.
22. There are still those who believe that lesbian separatism involves living in lesbian-only communes, talking to lesbians only, listening only to music created by lesbians (I'm not sure whether this still includes Holly Near), reading only books written by lesbians, and possibly writing letters to off our backs (a radical feminist news journal) to say that we don't want to read about bisexuals. Most lesbian separatists, however, are much more sophisticated than this. See, for example, Sarah Lucia Hoagland's vision in Lesbian Ethics: Toward New Value (Palo Alto, Calif.: Institute of Lesbian Studies, 1988). I am encouraged when Hoagland refuses to define "lesbian" and says that to do so would be "to succumb to a context of heterosexualism. . . . If we define 'lesbianism,' we invoke a context in which it is not the norm" (8). And I can only nod in agreement when she says: Neither subculture nor community has ever protected lesbians. Lesbian community does not exist to protect us either from an outside threat or from ourselves. Nor do we need to focus on community as an entity or an institution whose boundaries must be protected; for then it becomes defined by virtue of the outside force, and our interactions are directed toward its preservation rather than toward creation. (290)
23. See, e.g., Paula C. Rust, "The Politics of Sexual Identity: Sexual Attraction and Behavior Among Lesbian and Bisexual Women," Social Problems 39:4 (November 1992): 366-386.
24. See, e.g., those collected in Hutchins and Kaahumanu; also those collected in Weise.
25. Rust, 373, 376. The women in Rust's sample were responding to questions about participation in a "sexual-romantic relationship." This suggests that in saying they had had a heterosexual relationship since coming out as a lesbian, Rust's respondents were indicating involvement in something more than a simple sexual encounter.
26. Patricia Roth Schwartz, "On the Hasbian Phenomenon," off our backs (June 1989): 11, 21.
27. Young, 79.
28. Schwartz, 11.
29. See Larry Gross, Contested Closets: The Politics and Ethics of Outing (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1993).
30. Beth Elliott, "Holly Near and Yet So Far," in Weise, 235, 233-234, 251.
31. Jan Clausen, "My Interesting Condition," Out/Look 7 (Winter 1990): 10-21.
32. Lucia M. Conforti, letter to the editor, Out/Look 9 (Summer 1990): 78.
33. Becki Ross, "Whatever Happened to 'A Is for Amazon?': The High-Wire Performance of Lesbian Subjectivity in the 1990s," Resources for Feminist Research 20:3/4 (1991): 126-127.
34. "Bi & Out: Discussing the Les/Bi Divide on Queer Radio, & Fireweed 36 (Summer 1992): 62-67.