Lesbianism

A lesbian is a woman who is romantically and sexually attracted only to other women. Women who are attracted to both women and men are more often referred to as bisexual. An individual's self-identification might not correspond with her behaviour, and may be expressed with either, both, or neither of these words.

History

The earliest known written references to same-sex love between women come from ancient Greece. Sappho (the eponym of "sapphism"), who lived on the island of Lesbos, wrote poems which apparently expressed her sexual attraction to other females but some ancient accounts also describe her as having had love affairs with men. Moreover, Maximus of Tyre wrote that Sappho's relationships with the girls in her school were platonic^{[citation needed]}. Modern scholarship suggests a parallel between the ancient Greek constructs of love between men and boys and the friendships between Sappho and her students in which "both pedagogy and pederasty may have played a role." Lesbian relationships have also been cited in ancient Sparta. Plutarch, writing about the Lacedaemonians, reports that "love was so esteemed among them that girls also became the erotic objects of noble women." Accounts of lesbian relationships are also found in poetry and stories from ancient China, but are not documented with the detail given to male homosexuality. Research by anthropologist Liza Dalby, based mostly on erotic poems exchanged between women, has suggested lesbian relationships were commonplace and socially accepted in Japan during the Heian Period. During medieval times in Arabia there were reports of relations between harem residents, although these were sometimes suppressed. For example, Caliph Musa al-Hadi ordered the beheading of two girls who were surprised during lovemaking.

Public policy

In Western societies, explicit prohibitions on women's homosexual behavior have been markedly weaker than those on men's homosexual behavior.

In the United Kingdom, lesbianism has never been illegal. In contrast, sexual activity between males was not made legal in England and Wales until 1967. It is said that lesbianism was left out of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 because Queen Victoria did not believe sex between women was possible, but this story may be apocryphal. A 1921 proposal, put forward by Frederick Macquisten MP to criminalize lesbianism was rejected by the House of Lords; during the debate, Lord Birkenhead, the then Lord Chancellor argued that 999 women out of a thousand had "never even heard a whisper of these practices." In 1928, the lesbian novel The Well of Loneliness was banned for obscenity in a highly publicized trial, not for any explicit sexual content but because it made an argument for acceptance. Meanwhile other, less political novels with lesbian themes continued to circulate freely.

Jewish religious teachings condemn male homosexual behavior but say little about lesbian behavior. However, the approach in the modern State of Israel, with its largely secular Jewish majority, does not outlaw or persecute gay sexual orientation; marriage between gay couples is not sanctioned but common law status and official adoption of a gay person's child by his or her partner have been approved in precedent court rulings (after numerous high court appeals). There is also an annual Gay parade, usually held in Tel-Aviv; in 2006, the "World Pride" parade was slated to be held in Jerusalem.

Western-style homosexuality is rarely tolerated elsewhere in the Muslim world, with the possible exception of Turkey. It is punishable by imprisonment, lashings, or death in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Though the law against lesbianism in Iran has reportedly been revoked or eased, prohibition of male homosexuality remains.

Reproduction and parenting rights

In some countries access to assisted birth technologies by lesbians has been the subject of debate. In Australia the High Court rejected a Roman Catholic Church move to ban access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments for lesbian and single women. However, immediately after this High Court decision, Prime Minister John Howard amended legislation in order to prevent access to IVF for these groups, effectively overruling the High Court decision and enforcing the Roman Catholic position, which raised indignation from the gay and lesbian community as well as groups representing the rights of single women. Many lesbian couples seek to have children through adoption, but this is not legal in every country.

Sexuality

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, In Bed

Sexual activity between women is as diverse as sex between heterosexuals or gay men. Some women in same-sex relationships do not identify as lesbian, but as bisexual, queer, or another label. As with any interpersonal activity, sexual expression depends on the context of the relationship.

Recent cultural changes in western and a few other societies have enabled lesbians to express their sexuality more freely, which has resulted in new studies on the nature of female sexuality. Research undertaken by the U.S. Government's National Center for Health Research in 2002 was released in a 2005 report called 'Sexual Behavior and Selected Health Measures: Men and Women 15-44 Years of Age, United States, 2002'. The results indicated that among women aged 15-44, 4.4 percent reported having had a sexual experience with another woman during the previous 12 months. When women aged 15–44 years of age were asked, "Have you ever had any sexual experience of any kind with another female?" 11 percent answered "yes."

There is a growing body of research and writing on lesbian sexuality, which has brought some debate about the control women have over their sexual lives, the fluidity of woman-to-woman sexuality, the redefinition of female sexual pleasure and the debunking of negative sexual stereotypes. One example of the latter is lesbian bed death, a term invented by sex researcher Pepper Schwartz to describe the supposedly inevitable diminution of sexual passion in long term lesbian relationships; this notion is rejected by many lesbians, who point out that passion tends to diminish in almost any relationship and many lesbian couples report happy and satisfying sex lives.

Culture

The Black Triangle was used to identify "socially unacceptable" women in concentration camps by the Nazis. Lesbians were included in this classification. Since then lesbians have appropriated the black triangle as a symbol of defiance against repression and discrimination as gay men have similarly appropriated the pink triangle.

Throughout history hundreds of lesbians have been well-known figures in the arts and culture.

Before the influence of European sexology emerged at the turn of the Twentieth Century, in cultural terms female homosexuality remained almost invisible as compared to male homosexuality, which was subject to the law and thus more regulated and reported by the press. However with the publication of works by sexologists like Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Havelock Ellis, Edward Carpenter, and Magnus Hirschfeld, the concept of active female homosexuality became better known.

As female homosexuality became more visible it was described as a medical condition. In Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), Sigmund Freud referred to female homosexuality as inversion or inverts and characterised female inverts as possessing male characteristics. Freud drew on the "third sex" ideas popularized by Magnus Hirschfeld and others. While Freud admitted he had not personally studied any such "aberrant" patients he placed a strong emphasis on psychological rather than biological causes. Freud's writings did not become well-known in English-speaking countries until the late 1920s.

This combination of sexology and psychoanalysis eventually had a lasting impact on the general tone of most lesbian cultural productions. A notable example is the 1928 novel The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall, in which these sexologists are mentioned along with the term invert, which later fell out of favour in common usage. Freud's interpretation of lesbian behavior has since been rejected by most psychiatrists and scholars, although recent biological research has provided findings that may bolster a Hirschfeld-ian "third sex" interpretation of same-sex attraction.

During the twentieth century lesbians such as Gertrude Stein and Barbara Hammer were noted in the US avant-garde art movements, along with figures such as Leontine Sagan in German pre-war cinema. Since the 1890s the underground classic The Songs of Bilitis has been influential on lesbian culture. This book provided a name for the first campaigning and cultural organization in the United States, the Daughters of Bilitis.

During the 1950s and 1960s lesbian pulp fiction was published in the US and UK, often under "coded" titles such as Odd Girl Out, The Evil Friendship by Vin Packer and the Beebo Brinker-series by Ann Bannon. British school stories also provided a haven for "coded" and sometimes outright lesbian fiction.

During the 1970s the second wave of feminist era lesbian novels became more politically oriented. Works often carried the explicit ideological messages of separatist feminism and the trend carried over to other lesbian arts. Rita Mae Brown's debut novel Rubyfruit Jungle was a milestone of this period. By the early 1990s lesbian culture was being influenced by a younger generation who had not taken part in the "Feminist Sex Wars" and this strongly informed post-feminist queer theory along with the new queer culture.

In 1972 the Berkeley, California lesbian journal Libera published a paper entitled Heterosexuality in Women: its Causes and Cure. Written in deadpan, academic prose, closely paralleling previous psychiatry-journal articles on homosexuality among women, this paper inverted prevailing assumptions about what is normal and deviant or pathological and was widely read by lesbian feminists.

Since the 1980s lesbians have been increasingly visible in mainstream cultural fields such as music (Melissa Etheridge, K.D. Lang and the Indigo Girls), sports (Martina Navrátilová and Billie Jean King) and in comic books (Alison Bechdel and Diane DiMassa). More recently lesbian eroticism has flowered in fine art photography and the writing of authors such as Pat Califia, Jeanette Winterson and Sarah Waters. There is an increasing body of lesbian films such as Desert Hearts, Go Fish, Loving Annabelle, Watermelon Woman, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, Everything Relative, and Better than Chocolate (see List of lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender-related films). Classic novels such as those by Jane Rule have been reprinted. Moreover, prominent and controverisal academic writers such as Camille Paglia and Germaine Greer also identify with lesbianism.

Media depictions

Lesbians often attract media attention, particularly in relation to feminism, love and sexual relationships, marriage, and parenting.

Cinema

(Germany, 1931), the first lesbian feature film. It was immediately banned in the United States but then released in a heavily cut version. It was later banned in Nazi Germany, after which director Leontine Sagan and many of the cast fled the country (scriptwriter Christa Winsloe eventually joined the French resistance and was executed by the Nazis in 1944).]]

The first lesbian-themed feature film was Mädchen in Uniform (1931), based on a novel by Christa Winsloe and directed by Leontine Sagan, tracing the story of a schoolgirl called Manuela von Meinhardis and her passionate love for a teacher, Fräulein von Nordeck zur Nidden. It was written and mostly directed by women. The impact of the film in Germany's lesbian clubs was overshadowed, however, by the cult following for The Blue Angel (1930).

Until the early 1990s, any notion of lesbian love in a film almost always required audiences to infer the relationships. The lesbian aesthetic of Queen Christina (1933) with Greta Garbo has been widely noted, even though the film is not about lesbians. Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940), based on the novel by Daphne du Maurier, referred more or less overtly to lesbianism, but the two characters involved were not presented positively: Mrs. Danvers was portrayed as obsessed, neurotic and murderous, while the never-seen Rebecca was described as having been selfish, spiteful and doomed to die. All About Eve (1950) was originally written with the title character as a lesbian but this was very subtle in the final version, with the hint and message apparent to alert viewers.

Playwright Lillian Hellman's first play, The Children's Hour (1934) was produced on Broadway. Set in a private girls' boarding school, the headmistress and a teacher are the targets of a malicious whispering campaign of insinuation by a disgruntled schoolgirl. They soon face public accusations of having a lesbian relationship. The play was nominated for a Pulitzer prize, banned in Boston, London, and Chicago and had a record-breaking run of 691 consecutive performances in New York. A 1961 screen adaptation starred Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine. The play's deep and pervasively dark themes and lesbian undertones have been widely noted.

Mainstream films with openly lesbian content, sympathetic lesbian characters and lesbian leads began appearing during the 1990s. By 2000 some films portrayed characters exploring issues beyond their sexual orientation, reflecting a wider sense that lesbianism has to do with more than sexual desire. Notable mainstream theatrical releases included Bound (1996), Chasing Amy (1997), Kissing Jessica Stein (2001), Boys Don't Cry, Mulholland Drive, Monster, Rent (2005, based on the Jonathan Larson musical) and Loving Annabelle (2006). There have also been many non-English language lesbian films such as Fire (India, 1996), Fucking Åmål (Sweden, 1998), Blue (Japan, 2002), and Blue Gate Crossing (Taiwan, 2004).

Mainstream broadcast media

The 1980s television series L.A. Law included a lesbian relationship which stirred much more controversy than lesbian TV characters would a decade later. The 1989 BBC mini series Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit was based on lesbian writer Jeanette Winterson's novel of the same title. Russian pop-duo t.A.T.u were popular in Europe during the early 2000s, gaining wide attention and TV airplay for their pop videos because they were marketed as lesbians even though they weren't.

Many SciFi series have featured lesbian characters. An episode of Babylon 5 featured an implied lesbian relationship between characters Talia Winters and Commander Susan Ivanova. Star Trek: Deep Space 9 featured several episodes with elements of lesbianism and made it clear that in Star Trek's 24th century such relationships are accepted without a second thought.

Actress and comedian Ellen DeGeneres came out publicly as a lesbian in 1997 and her character on the sitcom Ellen did likewise soon after during its fourth season. This was the first American sitcom with a lesbian lead character. The coming-out episode won an Emmy Award but the series was cancelled after one more season. In 2000 the ABC Daytime Drama Series All My Children character Bianca Montgomery (Eden Riegel) was revealed to be lesbian. While many praised the character's prominent storyline, others criticised the almost perpetual trauma and Bianca's lack of a successful long-running relationship with another woman. In 2004's popular television show on Showtime, The L Word is focused on a group of lesbian friends living in L.A., and Ellen DeGeneres had a popular daytime talk show. In 2005 an episode of The Simpsons ("There's Something About Marrying") depicted Marge's sister Patty coming out as a lesbian. Also that year on Law & Order the final appearance of assistant district attorney Serena Southerlyn included the revelation she was a lesbian, although some viewers claimed there had been hints of this in previous episodes. Chris Rock on Saturday Night Live commented that the Peanuts character Peppermint Patty is a lesbian (Peppermint Patties is a sometimes perjorative slang word for lesbians).

Notable lesbian characters and appearances in the mainstream media have included:

• Kim Daniels in the UK TV series Sugar Rush
• Liz Cruz in Nip/Tuck
• Willow Rosenberg, Tara Maclay and Kennedy in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Lindsay Peterson and Melanie Marcus in Queer as Folk
• Maia Jefferies and Jay Copeland in Shortland Street
• Lana Crawford and Georgina Harris in Neighbours
• Amanda Donohoe (as C.J.Lamb) and Michelle Green (as Abbey Perkins) in LA Law
• Dr. Kerry Weaver and Sandy López in ER
• Helen Stewart and Nikki Wade in Bad Girls
• Paige Michalchuk and Alex Núñez in Degrassi:The Next Generation
• Dorothy's college friend Jean in The Golden Girls
• Alice Pieszecki, Dana Fairbanks, Bette Porter, Shane McCutcheon, Tina Kennard, Jodi Lerner, Helena Peabody, Phyllis Kroll, Jennifer Schecter, and several others in The L Word
• Anna Friel and Nicola Stephenson on the UK series Brookside
• Spencer Carlin and Ashley Davies in South of Nowhere
• Carol, Ross' ex-wife and her life partner Susan on Friends
• Sharon Stone and Ellen Degeneres in If These Walls Could Talk 2
• Jennifer K. Buckmeyer in the made for TV special Coming Out
• Marissa Cooper and Alex Kelly on The OC
• Patty Bouvier, sister of Marge Simpson, on The Simpsons
• Naomi Julien, Della Alexander and Binnie Roberts in EastEnders
• Thelma Bates in Hex
• Jessica Sammler and Katie Singer on Once and Again
• Jasmine Thomas and Debbie Dingle, and Zoe Tate in Emmerdale
• Maggie Sawyer and Toby Raines (implied) in Superman: The Animated Series
• Beverly Harris, Nancy Bartlett and Jackie Harris in Roseanne
• Maxine Proctor (implied) in In Diana Jones
• Frankie Doyle, Angela Jeffries, Sharon Gilmore, Judy Bryant, Joan Ferguson, Audrey Forbes, Terri Malone in Prisoner: Cell Block H (TV series - 1979-1986)
• Serena Southerlyn on Law And Order
• Christina Ricci and Charlize Theron in Monster
• Xena and Gabrielle (implied) in Xena: Warrior Princess
• Penelope Cruz and Charlize Theron in "Head in the Clouds"
• Piper Perabo and Jessica Paré in "Lost and Delirious"

Comics

Until 1989 the Comics Code Authority, which imposed de facto censorship on comics sold through newsstands in the United States, forbade any suggestion of homosexuality. Overt lesbian themes were first found in underground and alternative titles which did not carry the Authority's seal of approval. The first comic with an openly lesbian character was "Sandy Comes Out" by Trina Robbins, published in the anthology Wimmen's Comix #1 in 1972. Gay Comix (1980) included stories by and about lesbians and by 1985 the influential alternative title Love and Rockets had revealed a relationship between two major characters, Maggie and Hopey. Meanwhile mainstream publishers were more reticent. A relationship between the female Marvel comics characters Mystique and Destiny was only implied at first, then cryptically confirmed in 1990 through the use of the archaic word leman, meaning a lover or sweetheart. Only in 2001 was Destiny referred to in plain language as Mystique's lover. In 2006 DC Comics could still draw widespread media attention by announcing a new, lesbian incarnation of the well-known character Batwoman even while openly lesbian characters such as Gotham City police officer Renee Montoya already existed in DC Comics.

In 2006, the graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel, was lauded by many media as among the best books of the year. Bechdel is the author of Dykes to Watch Out For, one of the best-known and longest-running LGBT comic strips.

In manga and anime, lesbian content is called shoujo-ai (literally: girl-love) whereas lesbian sex is called yuri, which may have a derogatory meaning. A main theme of the Japanese graphic novel Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō is the developing romance between characters Alpha and Kokone.

Anime

The third season of the anime series Sailor Moon, Sailor Moon S features a lesbian relationship between the two heroines Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune. However the season was heavily censored when dubbed and shown on TV in the United States. All the scenes which would suggest this particular relationship were cut away and the two characters were depicted as cousins (this led to further controversy as many fans noticed the editing). In the Azumanga Daioh series, the girl Kaorin is depicted as having a deep love (though not necessarily a sexual one) for Miss Sakaki, the tall, strong, fast, "cool" girl of the bunch. Kaorin adores her, loves being in her presence and feels jealous of anything that might stop her from being with Sakaki. Kaorin says she "could die right now" when she dances with Sakaki after being shifted to the boys' side of a folk-dance circle to help even out the dancers. In many of the mangaka group Clamp's series such as Alice In Wonderland or Card Captor Sakura , some characters (like Alice) are clearly lesbians and fans speculate about others (like Tomoyo in CCS).

Games

SaGa Frontier (a PlayStation title produced by Squaresoft) has a lesbian character named Asellus. Another character named Gina is a young girl who tailors Asellus' outfits, often discusses her deep attraction to Asellus and becomes her bride in one of the game's many endings. However, much related dialogue and some content has been edited out of the English language version. The Playstation title Fear Effect 2: Retro Helix (a prequel to Fear Effect) reveals that Hana Tsu Vachel, a main character in both games, had a sexual relationship with a female character named Rain Qin.

Feminism

Same-sex married couple at San Francisco Pride 2004.

Historically, many lesbians have been involved in women's rights. Late in the 19th century, the term Boston marriage was used to describe romantic unions between women living together while contributing to the suffrage movement. Continuing a tradition of inclusive acceptance, in 2004 Massachusetts became the first American state to legalize same-sex marriages.

During the 1970s and 80s, with the emergence of modern feminism and the radical feminism movement, lesbian separatism became popular and groups of lesbian women gathered together to live in communal societies. Women such as Kathy Rudy in Radical Feminism, Lesbian Separatism, and Queer Theory remarked that in her experience, stereotypes and the hierarchies to reinforce them developed in the lesbian separatist collective she lived in, ultimately leading her to leave the group.

During the 1990s, dozens of chapters of Lesbian Avengers were formed to press for lesbian visibility and rights.

Transwomen and trans-inclusion

The relationship between lesbianism and lesbian-identified transgender or transsexual women has been a turbulent one, with historically negative attitudes, but this seemed to be changing by the close of the twentieth century.

Some lesbian groups openly welcome transsexual women and may even welcome any member who identifies as lesbian, but a few groups still do not welcome transwomen. The Lesbian Avengers have historically had a very inclusive policy.

Disputes in defining the term lesbian along with enforced exclusions from lesbian events and spaces have been numerous. Some who hold a non-inclusionist attitude often make reference to strong, typically second-wave feminist ideas such as those of Mary Daly, who has described post-operative male-to-female (MTF) transsexuals as constructed women. They may attribute transsexualism to mechanisms of patriarchy or do not recognize a MTF transsexual's identification as female and lesbian. By defining lesbian through these views, they subsequently defend the non-inclusion of women with transsexual or transgender-backgrounds.

Inclusionists claim these attitudes are inaccurate and derive from fear and distrust, or that the motivations and attitudes of transgender or transsexual lesbians are not well understood, and so they defend the inclusion of transwomen into lesbianism and lesbian spaces.

Both views are common. One incident due to this divisiveness arose during the early 1990s in Australia, when the wider lesbian community raised money to purchase a building devoted to lesbian women called The Lesbian Space Project. Before the organisation bought the building, a debate over inclusion of transwomen polarised the lesbian community, the building was later closed, the funds were invested and now generate money for an annual Australian lesbian grants program called LInc (Lesbians Incorporated).

An example often cited among the transgender and transsexual communities is the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, a well-known and primarily lesbian event restricted to womyn-born womyn. Camp Trans, an organization oriented towards transwomen, was started as a result. ]

Notes

<references>

External links

• Criticism of Lesbian Bed Death
• Australia backs lesbian IVF treatment - BBC News Online
• Lesbians protest IVF ban plan - BBC News Online
• Lesbian couples raise teenagers just as decent as heterosexuals
• The National Center for Lesbian Rights
• Old Lesbians Organizing for Change (OLOC)
• An article on World Pride 2006, to be held in Jerusalem, Israel
• World Pride 2006 Site
• Gay and Lesbian Widow Support Site
• All Things Lesbian
• Your Gay and Lesbian Community Center
• The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society
• SHOE Leading Lesbian Online Community
• Upton United Reformed Gay Church
• Sayoni - An organisation for Asian Queer Women

Media depictions

• AfterEllen.Com Lesbian and Bisexual Women in Entertainment and the Media
• The Encyclopedia of Lesbian Movie Scenes Warning: contains explicit pornographic content
• It's February; Pucker Up, TV Actresses The New York Times, February 10 2005.

Magazines

• Curve Magazine
• On Our Backs
• Diva

Credits

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