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?)

Feminist Alert: Angelina Jolie, a threat to American manhood?

I have been a fan of Angelina Jolie for many years now. I remember seeing her (consciously) for the first time at the Oscars in 2001 with her brother James Haven and I thought: Who is that witch? (I was actually appalled by her looks back then, it may have been the dress or the long black hair, or the combination of both… I still think it was an unfortunate choice of wardrobe, but it was her choice to make) Then came the “Tomb Raider”-Trailer and it took my breath away – and she has done that many times since.

I like Angelina Jolie for her amazing talent, her brutal honesty, and her incredible hotness (yes, I can be shallow, too). She is both an incredibly beautiful woman and an androgynous creature who makes it absolutely impossible to resist her. She has something that few women before her possessed – as far as I remember Garbo was the first actress who had it – an attractiveness that  is both masculine and feminine and I would almost say that a greater number of women answers to this kind of appeal than men (I know a couple of – straight – men who are really not into her but I know fewer women that are not).

And this brings me to a poll the “Playboy” did a couple of years ago, asking the girlfriends of Playboy-readers which celebrity they would cheat on said boyfriends with. The winner: Angelina Jolie (who else?). They did not ask for women with which to cheat on their boyfriends, they ask for a celebrity… well, I was surprised back then, then again even before that I changed the popular tagline “Sex sells” into “Angelina sells” when I noted how many tv guides in Germany had Angelina Jolie on it – repeatedly. Not, because there was a movie coming out featuring her but just because…

So, I guess we all agree (us women, I will come to the men in a second): Angelina Jolie is hot.

Men think so too, of course (well, many do, but there are also many who do not; then again, there are also women who would not want to share a hot… fudge sundae with her). But I guess, not many would like to be cheated on by their girlfriends or wives with her – unless they were allowed to watch or participate. And there’s the rub, so to speak. As much as men want Angelina Jolie, she is a competition they had not seen coming in the heterosexual realms of their lives.

Back in the thirties there had been an anecdote about Garbo’s appeal that emphasizes this attraction: As a couple of newly weds go to bed he turns to her and says: “Honey, I would never cheat on you… unless Greta Garbo asked me to. I could never resist her.” “Neither could I,” answers she.

Angelina Jolie is not the only woman who attracts – even straight – women but she is one of a few who hold a collective spell over the lesbian wet dream, as did Garbo in the 30s – which is why I call it the “Garbo-effect.”

And this brings us to something I have noticed a couple of weeks ago: Angelina Jolie on every other tabloid, being blamed (still) for the breakup between Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, being made out as a bad mother, a liar, a cheater… It’s all Angelina’s fault. And I wondered: where does this aggression come from? Why do the tabloids hate her so much?

I am not sure, but I think it started when she started “dating” Brad. They blamed her for breaking up Brannifer (I hate those name-symbioseses, but they sure help cutting to the chase). Though I don’t know anything about it, for good reason (I am an Angelina-fan, after all) I decided to believe that Brad and Jennifer’s marriage was over with before he met Angelina. And even if it was not, he was the one who cheated, yet it never occured to the tabloids to blame him – since manhood is always miraculously excused when it comes to matters of the… pants.

So, we have Angelina who “stole” a man. But it was not just any man. It was the husband of Jennifer Aniston. Who is Jennifer Aniston? Oh, just the woman that ever since the first episode of “Friends” screened most straight women identify with. And who would want to sleep with the woman who stole one’s own boyfriend, husband, fill-in-the-blanks?

Am I suggesting that this whole renewed campaign of articles in the tabloids against Angelina Jolie is conducted by men who saw their manhood threatened by the woman most of their girlsfriends and wives would like to sleep with? Yeah, why not. More outrageous things have been suggested – often by the tabloids themselves.