Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers

by Lillian Faderman

  13. “A Man is a Man,” Pearl Diver, May 1977, p. 19; Dlugacz.

  14. Bonnie Zimmerman, “Exiting from the Patriarchy: The Lesbian Novel of Development,” in Elizabeth Abel et al., eds., The Voyage In: Fictions of Female Development (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1983), pp. 244–57. Elana Nachman, Riverfinger Woman (Plainfield, VT.: Daughters, 1975). See also my discussion in Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present (New York: William Morrow, 1981), pp. 405–10.

  15. “Creating a Women’s World,” New York Times, January 2, 1977.

  16. Lesbian Food Conspiracy in Furies (March/ April 1972), 1(3). Women’s credit unions discussed in Pearl Diver, May 1977. Lesbian Clinic reference in Lesbian Tide, June 1974, p. 18. Workshop on what lesbians should do to protect personal and property rights, Women in the Law Conference, Wisconsin, 1977, discussed in Pearl Diver, May 1977.

  17. Riki, “Aging,” in Karla Jay and Allen Young, eds., After You’re Out: Personal Experiences of Gay Men and Lesbian Women (1975; reprint, New York: Pyramid Books, 1977), pp. 216–17.

  18. Barbara Love and Elizabeth Shanklin, “The Answer Is Matriarchy,” Our Right To Love, pp. 183–87. Toni McNaron, “Political and Palliative Implications of Women’s Spirituality,” So’s Your Old Lady (May 1977), 17:7–8. Shannon, “A Non-Linear Conversation on Spirituality and Politics,” WomanSpirit (Summer 1978), 4(16):5–9. Not all lesbian-feminists accepted such views. See, e.g., Sally Binford’s attempt to explode what she regarded as “the New Feminist Fundamentalism” and the myth of matriarchy in “Myths and Matriarchies,” WomanSpirit (Fall 1979), 6(21). “Building the Lesbian Nation,” Bloomington, Ind. conference discussed in Lesbian Connections (March 1976), 2(1).

  19. Elizabeth Gould Davis, The First Sex (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1971).

  20. Max Xarai, “A Witch Dream Presentation,” Matriarchal Comix (Oakland, Calif.: Women’s Press Collective, 1974). The Matriarchists are discussed in Charovla, “Matriarchists, Queens and the Star System,” Tribad: A Lesbian Separatist Newsjournal (September/ October 1978), 2(3): 1–4. Merlin Stone, When God Was a Woman (London: Virago, 1976). Stone’s proposal for a new system of time reckoning was made at the Great Goddess ReEmerging conference, University of California, Santa Cruz, 1978.

  21. Personal interview with Z. Budapest, age 48, Oakland, Calif, August 1, 1988.

  22. Jane Chambers, Burning (New York: JH Press, 1978). Z. Budapest, The Feminist Book of Lights and Shadows (Venice, Calif.: Susan B. Anthony Coven #1, 1975). Personal interview with Z. Budapest, cited above. Oak, “The Vision of a Coven,” Womanspirit (Fall 1976), 3(9).

  23. Personal interview with Nan, age 36, Syracuse, N.Y., June 2, 1987 (in Fresno). Women’s spirituality remained a vital topic in the 1980s: see Charlene Spretnak, ed., The Politics of Women’s Spirituality: Essays on the Rise of Spiritual Power Within the Feminist Movement (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1982) and women’s spirituality magazines (often implicitly or explicitly lesbian), e.g., Sage Woman: A Quarterly Magazine of Women’s Spirituality (Santa Cruz, Calif.); Of a Like Mind: An International Newspaper and Network for Spiritual Women (Madison, Wis.); Spiritual Women Times: Women Learning from Women (Seattle, Wash.); Women of Power (Cambridge, Mass.).

  24. Rita Mae Brown complained about the phenomenon in her speech “The Crab that Got Away,” quoted in Lesbian Tide (September/ October 1976), 6(2). Charoula, “Matriarchies, Queens, and the Star System,” op. cit.

  25. Laurel Galana, “Distinctions: The Circle Game,” Amazon Quarterly (February 1973), 1(2): 26–33.

  26. Personal interview with Nan, cited above.

  27. Barbara Lipschutz, “Nobody Needs to Get Fucked,” Lesbian Voices (September 1975), 1(4): 57. See also Nina Sabaroff, “Lesbian Sexuality: An Unfinished Saga,” in Karla Jay and Allen Young, eds., After You’re Out: Personal Experiences of Gay Men and Lesbian Women (1975; reprint, New York: Pyramid Books, 1977). Boston Women’s Health Course Collective, Our Bodies, Ourselves: A Course by and for Women (Boston: New England Free Press, 1971), p. 20.

  28. Susan Helenius, “Returning the Dykes to the Dutch,” Every woman (July 9, 1971), 2(10). But see also Evan Paxton, “Notes on Lesbianism, Individualism, and Other Forbidden Practices.” Paxton presents the butch as a culture hero—a critical forerunner to Stonewall and lesbian-feminism. “Shit games” quotation in interview with Charlene and Linda, Sisters (January 1972), 3(1): 6–11.

  29. Rosalie Nichols, letter to the editor, Albatross, Spring 1976, p. 34.

  30. Julie Lee, “Some Thoughts on Monogamy,” in Jay and Young, After You’re Out, pp. 46–47; Ginny Berson, “Freest Fancy,” Furies (June/July 1972), 1(5): 9; Martha Shelley, “On Marriage,” in The Lavender Herring: Essays from the Ladder, Barbara Grier and Coletta Reid, eds. (Baltimore: Diana Press, 1976); Donna Martin, “The Lesbian Love Ethic,” in Covina and Garland, pp. 41–42. In smaller cities the fashion for nonmonogamy seldom caught on. One lesbian-feminist who had been in women’s communities in Oklahoma, North Texas, and Missouri throughout the 1970s claims never to have seen a “smash monogamy” button: “Monogamy remained the culture of those geographical areas even then,” she says. “Even the radical women couldn’t escape it if they stayed here. It was a goal to find one person and settle down;” personal interview with Frederika, age 37, Kansas City, Mo., Oct. 14, 1988.

  31. Sheila’s lover quoted in Jeri Dilno, “Monogamy and Alternate LifeStyles,” Our Right to Love, p. 59. Personal interview with Beverly, age 36, San Francisco, August 14, 1987. See also poem by Jean Fowler, “Outside the One to One,” The Rock, and song by Marilyn Gayle on the complications of nonmonogamy, “Let’s Do a Three Way,” Dyke Music (Portland, Ore.: Godiva Records, 1977).

  32. Jill Johnston, Lesbian Nation: The Feminist Solution (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973), p. 179. Loretta Ulmschneider, “Bisexuality,” in Nancy Myron and Charlotte Bunch, eds., Lesbianism and the Women’s Movement (Baltimore: Diana Press, 1975), pp. 85–88. Debbie Willis, “Bisexuality: A Personal View/’ Women: A Journal of Liberation (Winter 1974), 14(1):10–11. Sally Gearhart, “A Kiss Does Not a Revolution Make,” Lesbian Tide, July 1974, pp. 10–11 +.

  33. Rita Mae Brown, A Plain Brown Rapper (Oakland, Calif: Diana Press, 1976), pp. 16–17.

  34. For examples of minority complaints and factions within the community see Sinister Wisdom (issue on aging) (1979) 10; on fat oppression, Letter from Marisa, WomanSpirit (March 1975) 1(3): 62, and “Fat as a Lesbian-Feminist Issue,” Albatross, Fall 1978; on teenage lesbian oppression, Shelley Ettinger, “The Bottom Rung: Ageism in the Gay Movement,” Growing Up Gay: A Youth Liberation Pamphlet (Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1978) and Lee Schwing and Helaine Harris, “I Was a Teenage Lesbian,” Furies (August 1972), 1 (6).2–4; on the socialist versus nonsocialist issue see Marilyn Gayle, “Sacred Bull,” Pearl Diver, Fall 1977, pp. 34–39, and Beth Elliott, Book Review essay, Sisters (November 1971), 2(11): 20; for complaints from working-class lesbians, lesbians of color, and lesbian separatists see notes below. Los Angeles Gay Women’s Intergroup Council discussed in Lesbian Tide, December 1971.

  35. Class issues discussed in Rita Mae Brown, “The Last Straw,” Motive (1972) 32(1); Charlotte Bunch and Coletta Reid, “Revolution Begins at Home,” Furies (May 1972), 1(4): 2–4; Dolores Bargowski and Coletta Reid, “Garbage Among the Trash,” Furies (August 1972), 1(6): 8–9; Ginny Berson, “Class Revisited: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back,” Furies (May/June 1973), 2(3): 8–9.

  36. Nancy Myron, “Class Beginnings,” Furies (March/April 1972), 1(3): 2–3. Laurel Galana, “Conversation,” in Gina Covina and Laurel Galana, eds., The Lesbian Reader (Guerneville, Calif: Amazon Press, 1975), p. 86. All studies I am familiar with that consider the question have shown that statistically lesbians tend to be far better educated than heterosexual women, but there is evidence to suggest that among lesbian-feminists the educational levels were extremely high, perhaps because the movement had considerable intellectual appeal:
e.g., an Amazon Quarterly (1973), 1(4/2): 30–34, statistical analysis of lesbian-feminists included in a nationwide series of interviews showed that 88 per cent had at least some college education. The study also showed that over 60 per cent had fathers who were in business or the professions. Upper class women who became radical lesbian feminists had an easier time with regard to the class problem than middleclass women, perhaps partly because of their generosity in many cases, influenced by their socialist idealism, and partly because they were perceived as invulnerable. An Austin woman who inherited money from her grandfather, who had been one of the ten wealthiest oil men in Texas, declassed herself in terms of dress and lifestyle in the community but made no secret of her wealth: “I didn’t really get a hard time from people,” she remembers about the 1970s. “There were a group of us who had inherited money. If some person or some organization needed something they would come talk to us. We would always sponsor things. We would be billed as ‘your host committee’”; personal interview with Carla, age 41, Austin, Tex., March 31, 1988.

  37. “Separatist Symposium,” Dyke: A Quarterly (Summer 1978), 6: 31–41. Gearhart, “A Kiss Does Not a Revolution Make.” “Dyke/Amazon” quoted in Laurel Galana, “Distinctions: The Circle Game.” Galana, like many other women in the lesbian-feminist community of the 1970s, was at odds with such militancy. She scoffs in this article: “As of this writing it is no longer enough to be a feminist, lower class, and funkily male dressed in order to be a dyke. It is necessary to hate men with a passion and to want above all else to kill them.”

  38. Charlotte Bunch, “Learning from Lesbian Separatism,” Ms. (November 1976), 5. A. J. Loeson, “America and Women,” Sisters (November 1971), 2(ii):1–7. Red Dykes, “To Revolutionary Dykes,” Lesbian Connections (March 1976), 2(1): 14. Personal interview with Naomi, member of a Northampton, Mass, separatist community in the 1970s (interview in Berkeley), July 30, 1988.

  39. Sally Gearhart, The Wanderground (Watertown, Mass. F: Persephone Press, 1978); Rochelle Singer, The Demeter Flower (New York: St. Martin’s, 1980).

  40. Country separatism discussed in Flying Thunderwoman, “Notes of a Native Woman,” WomanSpirit (Spring 1976), 2(7): 24–26; Womanshare Collective, Country Lesbians: The Story of the Womanshare Collective (Grants Pass, Ore.: Womanshare, 1977); Womanshare Collective, “Communal Living,” Our Right to Love, pp. 66–69; advertisement for Oregon Women’s Land Trust, Albatross, Summer 1976, p. 10; personal interview with Carla, cited above. Joyce Cheney, ed., Lesbian Land (Minneapolis, Minn.: Word Weavers, 1985), looks at many of the communes that were flourishing during the 1970s and reveals an assortment of reasons for their demise by the 1980s.

  41. Personal interview with Suzanne, age 39, Boston, July 3, 1987.

  42. Bunch. Personal interview with Paula, age 34, member of Woman-Space Collective in the 1970s, Omaha, Neb., October 10, 1988.

  43. Ann Allen Shockley, “The Black Lesbian in American Literature: An Overview,” Conditions: Five, The Black Women’s Issue (Autumn 1979), 2(2):133–42.

  44. Zulma Rivera, “Written Testimony,” Our Right to Love, pp. 225–27. The Combahee River Collective, “A Black Feminist Statement,” in Zillah Eisenstein, ed., Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1978).

  45. Personal interview with Leslie, age 41, San Diego, July 31, 1987.

  46. Pat Parker, Pit Stop (Oakland, Calif: Women’s Press Collective, 1973).

  47. Eleanor Hunter, “Double Indemnity: The Negro Lesbian in the Straight White World,” quoted in Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, Lesbian/Woman (New York: Bantam, 1972), pp. 123–25. Gente discussed in “We Have to be Our Own Spark: An Interview with Gente,” Lesbian Tide, July 1974. See also “Open Letter from a Filipina/ Indian Dyke,” Off Our Backs (December 1978), 8(11): and Flying Cloud’s response to “Racism in the Women’s Movement,” Tribad (July/August 1978), 2(2): 5–6: Flying Cloud calls for lesbians of color to unite, complaining that at that time, “a fight for feminism is really a fight for white women’s supremacy.” Few Asian lesbians had developed bonds within either the Asian community or the lesbians of color community during the 1970s. Those who were lesbian-feminists tended to agree with writers such as Liza May Chan (“A Lesbian-Feminist Assesses Her Heritage,” Albatross, Summer 1976, pp. 24–25), who observes: “The entire Chinese culture has denied me my human rights, specifically, my right to choose ‘the kind of woman’ I want to be. … I identify myself with sisters of every race who are being ‘fucked over’ in the male dominated world with male dominated issues. … In dealing with our true foe—sexism, our real suppressors—we may be able to reconcile with and accept each other disregarding race, class background, and cults.” See also Willyce Kim, Eating Artichokes (Oakland, Calif: Women’s Press Collective, 1972), and Yee Lin, “Written Testimony,” Our Right to Love, pp. 227–29. Barbara Cameron, a Native American lesbian, organized a Gay American Indian group in 1974 in the conviction that Third World gay people’s needs and struggles were different from those of the gay white community; personal interview with Barbara Cameron, San Francisco, August 12, 1988. Formation of Latin American Lesbians of Los Angeles discussed in Lesbian Tide, July 1974. See also discussion of formation of the San Francisco Latina Lesbian Alliance in Lesbian Tide, July/August 1978, and the New York La Luz de la Lucha in Tribad (New York) (July/ August 1978), 2(2): 8.

  48. Cherrie Moraga Lawrence, “La Guera,” in Susan J. Wolf and Julie Penelope Stanley, eds., Coming Out Stories (Watertown, Mass.: Persephone Press, 1980), pp. 187–94. Moraga dropped the patronymic Lawrence shortly after the publication of this essay. Editorial on the need to broaden the base of the movement in Women: A Journal of Liberation (1972), 2(4): inside front cover. See also “National Lesbian Feminist Organization Spotlights Civil Rights,” Lesbian Tide, July/ August 1978, p. 23, regarding NLFO’s plan for a campaign to “increase the participation of women of color as planners, members and endorsers” of the organization. Personal interview with Suzanne cited above.

  49. Written communication from Eliza, age 44, San Francisco, May 11, 1988.

  10. Lesbian Sex Wars in the 1980s

  1. Colette, The Pure and the Impure, trans. Herman Briffault (1930; reprint. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1967), p. in.

  2. Alex Comfort, The Joy of Sex (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972). Helen Singer Kaplan, The New Sex Therapy: Active Treatment of Sexual Dysjunctions (New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1974). How-To books on lesbian sexuality such as Emily Sisley and Bertha Harris, The Joy of Lesbian Sex (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1977), created little stir among lesbians. John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexualtiy in America (New York: Harper and Row, 1988), ch. 14, “The Sexualized Society.”

  3. Philip Blumstein and Pepper Schwartz, American Couples: Money, Work, Sex (New York: William Morrow, 1983), p. 196.

  4. Letitia Anne Peplau, “Research on Homosexual Couples: An Overview, “Journal of Homosexuality (Winter 1982), 8; Beverly Burch, “Barriers to Intimacy: Conflicts over Power, Dependency, and Nurturing in Lesbian Relationships,” in Boston Lesbian Psychologies Collective, eds., Lesbian Psychologies: Explorations and Challenges, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), pp. 126–41. Regarding the sexual barrier theory see C. A. Tripp, The Homosexual Matrix (New York: McGraw Hill, 1975). On fusion and bed death see JoAnn Loulan, Lesbian Sex (San Francisco: Spinster’s Ink, 1985); Jo-Ann Krestan and Claudia Bepko, “The Problem of Fusion in Lesbian Relationships,” Family Process, (September 1980), 19:277–89; and Margaret Nichols, “Lesbian Sexuality: Issues and Developing Therapy,” in Boston Lesbian Psychologies Collective, pp. 97–125.

  5. Personal interview with Pam, age 51, Fresno, March 5, 1988.

  6. Robin Morgan, “Goodbye to All That,” (1970; reprinted in Wendy Martin, ed., The American Sisterhood (New York: Harper and Row), p. 361. Robin Morgan, Going Too Far (New York: Random House, 1976), p. 169. Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (New York: Simo
n and Schuster, 1975). For works arguing that the Court ignored available evidence regarding the link between pornography and sexual violence see Irene Diamond, “Pornography and Repression: A Reconsideration of ‘Who’ and ‘What’” in Laura Lederer, ed., Take Back the Night: Women on Pornography (New York: William Morrow, 1980), pp. 187–203, and Neil M. Malamuth and Edward Donnerstein, eds., Pornography and Sexual Aggression (Orlando, Fla.: Academic Press, 1984), passim. While these works show a significant correlation between pornography and violence, others show that the evidence is still unclear: e.g., a 1983 study that concludes that pornography “stimulates sexual activity and sexual fantasy but does not alter established sexual practices,” cited in Thelma McCormak, “Making Sense of the Research on Pornography,” in Varda Burstyn, ed., Women Against Censorship (Vancouver: Douglas and Mclntyre, 1985), pp. 181–205.

  7. Sally Roesch Wagner, “Pornography and the Sexual Revolution: The Backlash of Sadomasochism,” in Against Sadomasochism: A Radical Feminist Analysis (Palo Alto, Calif: Frog in the Well Press, 1987), pp. 23–44.

  8. Sheila Jeffreys, “SadoMasochism: The Erotic Cult of Fascism,” Lesbian Ethics (Spring 1986), 2(1): 64–82. Kris Drumm, in “Sex: A Readers’ Forum,” Lesbian Ethics (Summer 1987), 2(3): 58–60.

  9. Jesse Meredith, “A Response to Samois,” Plexus, November 1980, p. 8. Jeanette Nichols et al., “Is Sadomasochism Feminist?,” in Against Sadomasochism, pp. 137–46. Julia Penelope, “Whose Past Are We Reclaiming?” Common Lives/Lesbian Lives (Autumn 1984), 13: 16–36.

  10. Leaflet, “We Protest,” distributed by the Coalition for a Feminist Sexuality at Barnard College Conference “The Scholar and the Feminist.”

  11. Sharon Page, “The Festival Sex Debates,” On Our Backs (Spring 1985), 1(4): 13 +. Jeanne F. Neath, “Let’s Discuss Dyke S/M and Quit the Name Calling: A Response to Sheila Jeffreys,” Lesbian Ethics (Summer 1987), 2(3): 95–99. Personal interview with Monarch, age 54, Kansas City, Mo., October 15, 1988.