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Political Lesbianism is not forced lesbianism/fake lesbianism.

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[–]Innisfree 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

it’s just impossible to parse same-sex attracted women apart from how they say they identify, and that has been proven wrong over and over by the women themselves.

The main thing we can and should do is insist on the current definitions of woman, lesbian and bisexual as rooted in material reality.

The solution to the bisexuals coming and going from the lesbian community is not policing them (realistically we can't) - but helping them own their experiences.

Say a bisexual woman who several years into a relationship with a lesbian, for whatever reason feels incomplete and sort of peels away and goes on to have a relationship with a man. We can see how the public can misread the situation as one of a lesbian peeling away and going on to have a thing with a man.

Well the TV series "The Bisexual" tried to correct the misconception by clearly describing such a narrative as part of a bisexual woman's experiences while representing lesbians as exclusively lesbian. And I welcome such representation. So yeah material reality all the way!

And as was said elswhere, the main thrust of the attack on the definitions comes from men and their desire to have all women be sexually available to them.

[–][deleted] 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Our experiences are so fundamentally different from women who primarily date men, that it’s hard to imagine lesbians NOT policing our communities, although it would be helpful to be able to be less freaked out. I just don’t see it happening when women can’t stomach even the idea of febfems (who are similar to political lesbians minus the framework).

But yes, the attack is from patriarchy and gets displaced on to women who try different ways to combat those attacks and liberate women. Which is essentially what depresses me because women’s efforts, though imperfect, don’t deserve to be flattened completely.

[–]Innisfree 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

although it would be helpful to be able to be less freaked out.

Absolutely :). In the context of this forum it is understandable why women are on edge(the TRA debacle). Plus my guess is the people who misunderstood you are people who also said that they are not political and don't want to be. Now if this big thread at least nudged them to question their position, that's already a big win.

And I hope you will keep posting here. I only joined and warmed up to staying because your comments absolutely crack me up!

[–][deleted] 6 insightful - 3 fun6 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

I am thrilled with this thread and don’t care about people liking me as much as I care about trying to shit less on entire generations of women who were trying things to help other women break free from extremely oppressive norms. The fact is, lesbians find lesbians and stay. That’s who stays, same-sex attracted women, the ones who were “born that way” or born MOSTLY that way. Lesbians will never stop existing. It’s not going to happen. But we sure like making it hard for them to get to us when we feel like the best analysis we can come up with about political lesbianism as a whole is by saying “fuck them, they are not lesbians!” when liberal feminism thinks being a prostitute or pornographer is empowering. Are we really trying to hate good old Sheila when at least she figured we could choose away from all of that? I don’t agree with her exact stance on orientation but I’ll be damned if I can’t admit she cares about women more than the majority who claim to.

And thank you