Julie Bindel has an interesting post on CiF today, advocating “political lesbianism”. Obviously this is a… controversial concept:
The feminist writer Bea Campbell was one of LYE’s many detractors, arguing that it was far more important to challenge men’s behaviour in heterosexual relationships than to insist that women abandon hope altogether. “The notion of political lesbianism is crazy,” she says. “It erased desire. It was founded, therefore, not on love of women but fear of men.” Another feminist critic was the academic Lynne Segal, who has written in celebration of heterosexuality. “For me, coming into feminism at the beginning of the 70s, ‘political lesbianism’ was the main position advanced by a tiny band of vanguardist women,” she says. “Its stance was tragic, because no, all men were not the enemy.” She adds that the media used LYE to “trash” feminism in general. “That inevitably added to the bitterness we felt, both then, and ever since.”
For all those who bridled at its message though, there were women who took the arguments in LYE to heart. The booklet described lesbianism in glowing terms, which was quite something back in the 70s - after all, out women still face prejudice and exclusion (just yesterday, the Sun used the pejorative “lesbo” in a headline about Iceland’s interim PM). Some women threw out boyfriends and husbands after taking note of claims such as this: “Being a heterosexual feminist is like being in the resistance in Nazi-occupied Europe where in the daytime you blow up a bridge, in the evening you rush to repair it.”
Ultimately I agree with Bea Campbell; the concept that otherwise straight women should chose to sleep with women, rather than the men they are attracted to, sort of makes me wonder how much the idea of “political lesbianism” is intertangled with the strong cultural messages that women have no autonymous sexual desires. I think the concept of sexuality as a choice, rather than something innate, as liberating in a heteronormative, homophobic society does make sense - I can see the perspective of rejecting those negative messages (”who would choose to be gay?” etc); but is ultimately flawed, and I don’t think it reflects people’s experience of their own sexuality (not that it’s fixed and immovable, but that it’s not a choice like being a meat-eater or vegetarian, wearing a t-shirt or a shirt, which is unfortunately how this idea does come across).
Even Julie in her article, says that these ideas resonated for her - but after she’d already come out. It’s possible for things to be innate, or learnt and fully integrated into our sense of self, and for us to fully accept and embrace them. Things don’t have to be an active choice to be good. Also, the flip side is of course the creepy and horrific attempts to brainwash LGB people into being straight.
But at the same time, it’s interesting to see how these ideas came about, and to read about the liberating impact on women at the time - and probably later as well.
Interestingly enough, I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while, since reading Jennifer Baumgardner’s book, Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics. It actually advocates political bisexuality, rather than political lesbianism, but is just as interesting and just as flawed. I’m attracted to men and women. My sexuality influences my politics, by not the other way around! And I certainly wouldn’t want to find out someone I was sleeping with was doing so for political reasons, and I’m sure the same applies to the majority of other people too.