Looking lesbian
- Reading: Tales of the Lavender Menace by Karla Jay
About her outings at Kooky’s, a lesbian bar:
“But no matter what I said, I just didn’t look as if I fit in. I had given up wearing a “flip”, along with the hair spray that held it in place, and instead had grown my hair down below my shoulders in a thick wavy mass, under which dangled silver earrings. I often wore pants with boots, but I also like loose A-line dresses or mu-mus with a pair of sandals, attire that clearly had “flower child” or “hippie” written all over it. This was not traditional femme-wear, which in those days consisted of dresses or tailored outfits. The femmes teased their hair, wore lots of makeup, and carried purses that matched their shoes. Some of them looked as if they had escaped from a bad beach blanket movie starring Annette Funicello. Since I looked so different, the first question I was often asked in Kooky’s—sometimes with hostility and sometimes with simple curiosity—was, “What are you—butch or femme?” I wished they would ask my name first! To fend off these undesirable suitors, I would answer: “Gee, I’m butch Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and femme Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. On Sundays, I’m kiki [a woman who played both roles]. What day is this?” That would send most scurrying off for another drink as well. The more I looked around the bar, the more I thought that maybe I really was straight. There were few people I could identify with there. I never got the hang of the rules”. p. 25
Is there a lesbian look? What gives you up instantaneously? A universal lesbian style? Practical clothes, flannels, men’s shirts, boots, unshaved legs and underarms, short hair, these are recurring themes. But how do you look lesbian? I mean, short of wearing a t-shirt stating “I’m a lesbian”, you could be heterosexual or bisexual wearing those exact same clothes. By its very definition, a lesbian look is an ensemble of clothing and accessories worn by a lesbian. That’s all, the bar is pretty low.
So why do we aspire to look lesbian? Because we feel invisible? Because we feel like one of a kind? Because unless explicitly stated we are the last lesbian on earth and so, so lonely? Because we want other lesbians to see us and gather round? Because we want to communicate to men “leave us alone”? Because we are proud of being lesbians? Because we just are rebellious and “lesbian fashion” is despised by the world (unless it’s coopted and emptied of its substance)?
What draws us in, in those stereotypes? Why do we try to fit some lesbian archetype? Are we still oppressed by sexist and lesbophobic expectations? Are we expressing ourselves? Qui tire les ficelles?
Two posts that also came to mind when reading this extract: on “gay culture” and what we can recognise ourselves into, and on self-doubt when it comes to recognising your own sexual orientation.
