to preface this ask: im not trying to be rude or disrespectful, im just trying to learn/see where youโre coming from.
how can someone identify as a mspec lesbian? the definition of lesbian is non-men loving non-men? if someone is mspec, it implies that they are attracted to men. the whole point of lesbianism is to not include men. someone canโt be a lesbian if they are a man or attracted to men, can they? i understand that sexuality is fluid, but if a person is currently at a point where they are a non-man loving only non-men, then that person could identify as a lesbian. is it not lesbiphobic to imply that lesbianism has anything to do with men, when the entire point of it is that it doesnโt involve men?
I'm not an mspec lesbian, but I've been researching and involved in discourse for about a year now, so I'll give it a shot. @bi-lesbian has a lot of good information on faer blog if you want to check that out.
(1) The non-men loving non-men definition is... not something I'm a fan of. That throws the complexity of gender out the window and comes off as equating nonbinary lesbians to Basically Women. This definition leaves out multigender lesbians (like me!), nonbinary lesbians with a partial connection to maleness, or genderfluid lesbians who are sometimes men. The definitions I like that are more inclusive are "queer attraction to women" or "women, or those with some connection to womanhood, who love women (or those with some connection to womanhood)."
(2) The "whole point" of lesbianism is NOT to not include men. The "whole point" of lesbianism is โจwomenโจ. I don't want to define myself around men, full stop. I'm a lesbian because I love women and whether I'm attracted to men or not has nothing to do with it. Not everything has to be about men, jfc tumblr. (Anger is not necessarily directed at you, anon, just the partriarchy that taught us we have to talk about men all the time constantly).
(3) See point (1) for someone identifying as both a man and a lesbian, and as far as being unable to identify as a lesbian and also being attracted to men... pre-1970s, the term lesbian included all women (and transmasc/nonbinary people though the terminology wasn't quite there yet) who loved women. Bisexuals and other mspecs, totally included. Then, radfems- because it's always radfems- decided "eww man icky" and pushed anyone associated with men out of their community. Bisexuals were excluded from lesbian spaces and had to form their own community, but lesbian used to include all WLW (functionally how we might use sapphic now) and some people want to reclaim the historical definition.
(4) Sexuality is fluid, and complex. Much like dividing gender into "men" and "non-men" doesn't work, dividing attraction into "attracted to men" and "not attracted to men" doesn't really work either. The split attraction model (different romantic and sexual orientations) allows for the possibility of someone being biromantic homosexual or bisexual homoromantic- both bi and a lesbian. There are also forms of alterous attraction- sensual, aesthetic, queerplatonic, etc. Orientation is typically defined around sexual/romantic attraction, so if someone is a lesbian in those attractions but is alterously attracted to men and other genders, they could fall under mspec lesbian. It's also possible to be unsure if you're attracted to men and include yourself with both communities, or feel attraction to men so little the lesbian experience resonates with you, or feel attraction to men but only form relationships with women. Like I said, you really can't divide it into attracted to men or not.
(5) Mspec doesn't necessarily mean attracted to men, either. Polysexuality is being attracted to many but not all genders. So by your definition, non-men attracted to non-men, lesbians can be attracted to all genders that are not men. Which is a lot of genders, if you're not transphobic and think nonbinary is Basically Woman. A woman who loves women and nonbinary people is attracted to multiple genders (mspec) and attracted to non-men (lesbianism), so your own ask already confirmed that this is possible.
(6) It's not lesbophobic. It's just people living their lives and describing themself in the terms they think fit best. No one's saying all lesbians have to be attracted to men. The entire point isn't that it doesn't involve men, the entire point doesn't surround men at all. The entire point is loving women, regardless of the inclusion or lack thereof of other genders. It's much more lesbophobic to force lesbians to talk about men in every aspect of our identity than to let lesbians like men or not like men or just live our lives loving women.
Hope this helps, and taught you something
jacobvanloon
blakekathryn
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