February 16th, 2008
Lesbians, sex and violence
I wanted to expand on a comment I left on this post (warning: explicit sexual/violent images) which refers to comments made in this thread. The bits from that latter-linked thread to which I’m responding, specifically:
- “the prevalence of domestic violence in the LGBT community [is] NO DIFFERENT than that in the heterosexual community”
- “domestic violence in LESBIAN relationships, [is] quite common”
- “the patriarchal system of hierarchies (no woman, no matter what, is immune to our sexist culture) … unfortunately becomes a part of many lesbian relationships”
- “there have been recent studies in America showing that the incidence of violence within lesbian relationships is actually higher than male violence in heterosexual relationships”
In this same thread, there is also an excellent response to these vague comments:
“Being lesbians only make up 4% of the population, you’ve got to be really grasping for straws to pretend lesbians are as violent as men. In this country, there is a woman battered every 9 seconds, raped every minute and murdered every 15 minutes by a man that supposedly loved her. Key word there: man.
Now do you really believe lesbians are being battered every 9 seconds, raped every minute and murdered every 15 minutes by their lesbian lovers? If they are, I sure missed the headlines.”
Well, yeah. I’ll add to that, that in my 38 years I have known one lesbian whose lover was violent and destructive towards her possessions and verbally abusive to her–contrasted with probably dozens of women I’ve known personally who were brutally beaten, sexually assaulted and violated, minutely controlled and abused in every way imaginable by men–and dozens of lesbian-feminists who have worked consciously over time to base their relationships and sexuality on values other than those of the dominant culture. So forgive me if I am unwilling to concede that lesbians are “more violent” than men based on an unnamed, unlinked “study.” Point me to the study, and we’ll talk (probably about its flawed methodology). Until you do, I’m going to hold on to my opinion that this is yet ANOTHER instance of excusing and minimizing the violence perpetrated regularly by men, on a vast scale and in grand numbers, by trying to inflate violence perpetrated by women–be that in fighting back against domestic violence, street harassment, in sadomasochistic lesbian relationships, or what have you. Particularly if you’re straight, please be very, very careful in criticizing what goes on among lesbians; there’s every chance your analysis will be flawed due to the heterosexism and lesbian-hating that is still rampant in mainstream culture, Ellen Degeneres, Rosie O’Donnell, and Suze Orman notwithstanding.
Now, to my actual point, which is NOT to excuse or dismiss pornography, violent sexuality, or misogynist exploitation among lesbians. At all. My point is, this is not a new thing. Lesbian-feminists have been speaking out against pornified, violent sexuality among lesbians for almost 30 years now. The “lesbian” pornography magazine “On Our Backs” came out in the 1980s. There are two anthologies in the US critiquing pornified sexuality among lesbians: Against Sadomasochism: A Radical Feminist Analysis published in 1982, and Unleashing Feminism: Critiquing Lesbian Sadomasochism in the Gay Nineties (available for a donation via the “info” link above), written in 1993. Selected articles from both of these books are in the site archive; click the link in the menu bar at the top of the page. You’ll also find a great article by Pinko Lesbo, “Hot Hypothalami,” written in 2000, addressing arguments about the “hard-wired” nature of sexual desire and providing suggestions for change.
So this is not a generational phenomenon. Rebecca Whisnant (who is the same age as me) has a priceless anecdote as part of this great article:
I had visited the Gender Studies senior seminar course to talk with the students about feminist politics and pornography. At one point in the discussion, a young woman raised her hand, and here is what she said: “Well, these days things are different. People in my generation want sexuality to be an important part of their lives; they want to be free and open with their sexuality. So that’s why they want to make and use pornography.” There’s a sweet kind of humor here: every generation thinks it invented sex!
Lesbians from the “second wave” of the feminist movement, and earlier, of course wanted “sexuality to be an important part of their lives.” Who was more about fucking, in every possible permutation thereof, than the Boomers and their “sexual revolution”? So let’s get real–many lesbians in the 1970s and earlier enthusiastically endorsed porn, sadomasochism, and other forms of fucked-up sexuality (there, I said it) as much as do young “queer” women today. And many young lesbians have radical feminist politics and are continuing to animate the tradition of resistance exemplified by the resources indicated in the above paragraph. This kind of resistance is, I believe, also the purpose of this post. The difference is not age-based; it is value-based. Suggesting that the narrow range of sexual behaviors that are emphasized as cool and cutting-edge in queer circles are really anything new makes invisible the long history of women, both lesbian and straight, that have worked hard on analyzing the way these behaviors completely support the patriarchal sexual status quo, and on creating relationships based on other values. There’s no crisis here–this is ho-hum yawn business as usual for white capitalist male supremacy, and those of us who want something different, whether we’re straight or lesbian, young or old or in between, would do well to know our history, so that we can ground our resistance in those who’ve come before, whose strong foundation is there for us to build upon.
