this paper was originally addressed to women who call themselves “lesbians.” there is probably a moral in the fact that it’s in a book about women who call themselves “bisexual.”
i don’t know anyone who talks about “sexual preference” in daily life, which is just as well. it’s too weak of a phrase to describe dykehood. it conjures up images of “soup or salad?” not of passion — and not of anything worth fighting for. however, i read an interview with a “lesbian” who likes “sleeping with men” and who gives the comparison that she usually prefers chocolate, but once in a while she orders cheesecake. perhaps for her, sex with women really is no more than a preference.
a self-named lesbian, when she’s fighting with her lover, has sex with men because “that isn’t cheating.” a self-named bisexual has been faithful to one woman for twenty years. a woman who does s/m with women says she is sexually a “pervert”; only incidentally a lesbian. another says that having sex with women is so “perverse” that s/m is only incidental.
obviously, more than one kind of sexuality exists among those who share the label “lesbian.” at the very least there are two: what i will here call dyke sexuality, which is about women, and bisexuality, which is about both sexes. if these two groups of “lesbians” have anything in common, it’s an emotional orientation — falling in love with women — not a sexual orientation.
for a dyke, be she butch, femme, both or neither — men don’t have what counts. sex with women isn’t preference; it’s sex — the only kind. that describes me accurately as “chocolate or cheesecake” describes the woman in the interview. her identity as lesbian may be based on emotional, cultural, and/or political orientation. mine is based on all the rest plus sexual desire. each of us bases her practical definition of “lesbian” on herself. this, on a wider scale, leads to a lot of problems.
neither of us could change to fit the other’s definition even if she wanted to. if sexuality and identity could be changed by effort of will, psychiatry would have “cured” our gay and bi forerunners, no one would have started the gay liberation movement and we (as a community) wouldn’t be here now. if feelings could be changed at will, straight women would become lesbians out of political conviction. that was tried in the 1970s. it flopped, as will be discussed later in this essay.
neither of us can change her sexuality, but both are capable of loving a woman, and both have the same social identity: we are a part of the lesbian community. to much of the straight world we are the same — both perverts. but there’s a difference. a lot of dykes feel betrayed by bis, and a lot of bis feel excluded by dykes. too many sexualities, too many definitions are competing for the only available word.
the adjective “lesbian” means female sexual desire that is about women. the noun “lesbian” has no single meaning. a quick survey of what self-named lesbian mean by “lesbian” shows what a vague word it is. definitions include any woman who calls herself one; a woman who wants or fantasizes about sex with women; a woman who forcibly suppresses sexual fantasies about women; a woman who has women lovers; a woman who had only women lovers; a woman who currently has only women lovers, regardless of what she calls herself; a castrated man who has women lovers.
the categories get blurred in daily life. how about women who go with men but only for money? how about a woman who goes with women in prison and men on the outside? or a woman who was straight for forty years and then switched? or a woman who went with women as a teenager and then got married? one who pays lots of attention to women and little to men? one too freaked out to have any sexuality but who wants to be with women? one who has given up on men because they don’t contribute and makes a nonsexual life with her women friends? one who likes men only if they are planning on having a transsexual operation? one who has sex with women and fantasizes hot sex with both sexes but can’t find a real man with whom it works out? one who obsesses sexually about both sexes without successfully relating to either? how important is love, rather than sex, in determining who we call a lesbian? we don’t all have the same answers, and straight society has none at all.
english does not provide any word for “woman whose sexual desire is for women only.” “dyke” comes close, but it also means “cross-dresser” and “stone butch.” english certainly provides no word for a political orientation based on total, including sexual, dedication to women. when a noun is needed, “lesbian” is available.
“bisexual” means at least as many different things as “lesbian.” it can mean having a primary lover of one sex and occasional flings with the other; or falling in love with people of both sexes, serially or at once; or monogamy in practice but feelings that swing both ways; or anything in between. someone who falls in love only with women but enjoys sex with men too is bi only in the sexual sense (homoromantic bisexual). this is hugely different from being bi-emotional (biromantic). it makes sense that bisexual women who fall in love with women only would want their own particular name. again, english provides “lesbian.”
— closer to home: bisexuality and feminism (edited by elizabeth reba weise) | the language of desire: sexuality, identity, and language (rebecca ripley, p. 91) (1992)
