basically basically basically a lot of people (white in particular since u refuse to learn the histories of black community organizing) act as though they are speaking intracommunally when they tweet or whatever, which for obvious reasons is not true. like everyone can see that shit. but because they have no concept of the outward-facing nature of their discourse, they will say shit like “there are lesbians that have sex with men” which, if you give it the benefittttt of the doubt and add a bunch of qualifiers, is like okay whatever yeah all attempts to categorize human behavior will fail, and sexuality is fluid, and certain behaviors will always slip through the cracks blablablabla.
but the main statement they are making, “there are lesbians who have sex with men,” is, again, not being spoken across the table at a gay bar, is not being written down in a journal, but is being made in a public online space, meaning it has a potential impact on the outside world. and what lgbt kids of this decade have oh so stupidly forgotten (what we have been able to forget bc of the blessings of our predecessors) is that the shit we put out in the world is not just theoretical, is not just academic, is not just personal, but is strategically designed to make an appeal to and to reckon with mainstream narratives. (the very alliance of “lgbt” is not naturally occuring, of course, though for young people it may seem so. it is, in fact, a tactical alliance.)
SO, if we think for even a moment about mainstream narratives, the sentence “lesbians can have sex with men” does not bring to mind the failure of the social construct, the fluidity of sexuality, the decolonization of sexual roles. it brings to mind, quite obviously, the historically prevalent oppressive role that a heteronormative society, its heterosexual men in particular, has played in “turning out” lesbians, often to the extent of corrective rape. it is myopic to think that fighting for a prioritization of fluid sexuality in conversation is at all more urgent than combatting the still very prescient narrative of lesbian women possessing an innate biological urge for heterosexual sex that can be “unlocked” via certain means.
in our current climate, insisting that lesbians can have sex with men keeps lesbians in danger of homophobic sexual abuse, misogynistic harassment and kidnappings, and all the other historical accoutrements of that narrative. insisting that lesbians do not have sex with men, on the other hand, puts certain members of our community— say, women who identify wholly with lesbianism while still having one particular man they enjoy sex with— at risk of being called “problematic” by gay 20-somethings online.
