What is a lesbian?

You may think that there is a fairly easy answer to that question: a lesbian is a woman who sleeps with women. Case closed, let’s get on with life. Yeah, well, what if I told you that is not true, or only half true? Would you raise a brow at me, exclaim that I am crazy, turn and walk away? Or would you slowly nod your head, make an apologizing gesture with your hand and admit: yeah, I know, it is not that easy?

I hope you belong to the second category (wish you would, otherwise you would have turned away by now and walked away, right?). I myself am a lesbian (though it is not all that simple these days), and I guess, that qualifies me to say a few things about this (mind you, I am not calling myself an expert, there are certainly things I know more about than lesbianism, and there are certainly people who know more about lesbianism than I do, but bear with me).

I find it easiest to define a lesbian as a woman who says she is a lesbian. I think that is a good start especially in Western culture where every female celebrity is at one point “accused” of being a lesbian. I mean, certainly, we can all go around and say: “She’s wearing comfortable shoes, she must be a lesbian.” But again: not that easy, ’cause let’s face it, straight women have been seen wearing comfortable shoes and sometimes gay women wear high heels and this is messing with that theory (not to mention that some women even claim that high heels are comfortable shoes, but let’s not got there).

I am currently reading “Female Masculinity” by Judith “Jack” Halberstam and she is working with a methodology that she calls “perverse presentism” which I understand to mean that we should not equal every past term that has been used for a woman-loving woman to lesbian. She discusses some differences among “masculine women” and reintroduces such wonderful terms as “female husband” (and puts Anne Lister as example), or “mannish lesbian” (you remember Stephen Gordon from “The Well of Loneliness”?), and “the classical invert,” a term I especially like because it is to textbook-y while totally constructed. I think, this is all very interesting, though I don’t agree with Halberstam on everything she writes.

For me it is to the same degree fascinating as to what makes a lesbian as to how much energy we put into coming up with new categories among ourselves. I do agree that it is necessary to do so but I also think we are overdoing it a little (as with probably everything that has to do with identity).

We are all very fascinated by the question of who is a lesbian. Female celebrities are our preferred aim but who hasn’t had some suspicion about a co-worker, teacher, fellow student. Is it the walk? The clothes? The ring on her left thumb? Or simply the women she associates with? There are certainly ways to find out (stalking shouldn’t be one of them!) but the best way to make sure is to ask. You may think: “are you crazy? I am not asking her, that is way rude!” I would think it was way more rude to assume and maybe spread rumors than to ask and be sure and thereby killing the pink elephant in the room.

Yesterday I looked at some pictures of female actors (two Oscar-winners among them) and I thought: what would happen if any of these women came out as lesbian? Would it change anything (I am sure it would change something but what I am not sure)?  Let’s say Jennifer Aniston came out as a lesbian (I am using her here because I don’t think she is a lesbian, although I entertain hopeful fantasies of her playing one in a serious, yet witty movie one day). Whoa, Rachel Green is a dyke?, would that be what people thought? Would they blame it all on Angelina Jolie (which they usually do, though I would love to see the headline “Angelina made her gay!”)? Would they cheer her on and wish her more luck with the “fairer sex”? How would they react if she was dating a butch instead of the expected long-haired, long-legged model type? All interesting yet highly rhetorical questions.

Where am I going with this, you may ask. Well, hopefully toward an understanding that it doesn’t so much matter that you neighbors are a bunch of women-loving women who just want to bring up their kids in peace and quite. Or maybe toward an understanding that we are everywhere and you cannot escape knowing some of us. But mainly to tell you: we come in all sizes, shapes, heights, and weights. You may recognize us or you may not but don’t assume, don’t gossip, we tell you when we are ready and you can only be sure if /when we tell you.

And here’s some pictures:

Angie Harmon – not a lesbian.

Michelle Rodriguez – not a lesbian (as she likes to tell us, probably because she is asked the question over and over again).

Ellen DeGeneres – a lesbian (rmb: yep, I’m gay).

Angelina Jolie – a bisexual woman.

Kate Winslet – … (has anyone dared asking her yet?)

RMB: Lesbians-that-wasn’t

I have already said that I spend a lot of time on afterellen.com. I like the articles, the way it is presented, the snap of it (I have actually written an essay about it… maybe I will put it up on the essay page… I’ll think about it). So, is what I do every morning I read and this morning came across this article:

http://www.afterellen.com/TV/2009/11/characters-were-thankful-for

For those too lazy to follow the link: some of the bloggers of the page came up with a list of lesbian and bisexual character they are thankful for (since it is Thanksgiving and we all have to be thankful for something). The list was not what I thought it would be, some of the characters surprised me, most of all Nancy Bartlett (Sandra Bernhard) from “Roseanne.” I remember her, of course, since I watched that sitcom and still watch it’s reruns because I love the show.

Well, I started thinking abou the question myself but must have lost track because I thought of another character on “Roseanne” that was one of my favorite “lesbians”: Jackie Harris (Laurie Metcalf). Those of you who know the show may now say, but she wasn’t a lesbian. Yet she was. Strangely enough, in the last episode of the show Roseanne reveals that it was not her mother but her sister who had come out that last year of the show – she just changed it in her story, which was the show (it got complicated, but I thought it was well done). And I was not surprised. I guess, in a way I had always seen Jackie as lesbian, and her horrible track-record with men had little to do with it. She was just so… so gay.

And she wasn’t the only one on the show:

Darlene (Sarah Connor) to me became a sort of stereotype for lesbians-that-wasn’t. This is to say, they were character that should have been lesbians but the story-tellers, conventions, the invisible God that is society did not allow them to be lesbians. They were smart to a fault, arrogant because of it, had poor social skills and would say the seemingly meanest things – but not be aware of the meanness. Here are those I remember:

Remember “Growing Pains”? If I remember correctly it was the show, Leonardo di Caprio came out of (that’s not him in the picture, though). Tracy Gold’s character Carol Seavers was edgy, intelligent and usually the most grown up of the Seaver-kids. The constant reference toward her weight on the show brought on eating disorders for Gold and she had to resign… maybe she would have been happier if the writers had made her come out and tell her brother to finally shut up!

Andrea Zuckerman (Gabrielle Carteris). You cannot believe how much in love with her I was (without even knowing it). She was the main reason I watched “Beverly Hills 90210.” She was the oldest in a cast full of actors who were too old to play high-school-kids but, man, she could pull it off. Her character was the one who would hint at the controversial stuff discussed early in the show (remember the discussion about condom-dispensers in the school’s bathroom, the fact that she was probably the first teen on a tv show that had an African-American boyfriend…). Unfortunately, she was also the one with sexual missteps such as sleeping with her college professor, and the first of the girls who got pregnant (the only one?). I think, the writer’s never know what they are supposed to do with intelligent girls, so they make them sexually inexperienced and dumb in the respect of birth control.

Paris Gellar (Liza Weil). She’s classy, ambitious, an impossible character to love but I did that. And when you think about it: her first love-interest on the show was a boy she couldn’t have, then a boy she hardly ever saw, then an elderly – or rather “old” – man (what is it with would-be-lesbians and their professors?)… a closeted lesbian, if you ask me. The relationship with that editor-dude (whom I still blame in part for the death of Tara on “Buffy” – hate ‘em all!!!) was a mistake, clearly, they should have just given her a girlfriend and be done with it.

And last but not least (and she’s still on, even though they try to change her character and fit it into their little cake pan for heterosexual women):

Yes, Bones. And let me tell you, I get the goosebumps when Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and Cam Saroyan (Tamara Taylor) are leaning closely over a dead body… and not because of the dead body. What can I say, I am twisted…

Just to come around, the lesbian / bisexual characters I am most thankful for (and I guess they are obvious answers, but I am an obvious kind-a-gal):

Ellen and…

Xena, of course!