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From: saquigley@watmath.UUCP (Sophie Quigley)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: re: answers to sophie's questions
Message-ID: <8188@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 1-Jul-84 18:23:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: watmath.8188
Posted: Sun Jul  1 18:23:46 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 2-Jul-84 00:37:27 EDT
References: <2150@decwrl.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 43

Thanks for answering my questions, Ellen.  As I said in my last message, I
mistook you for Trish, and at the time had only read one article from each of
you, which made it easy.  Since then, you have posted more (and I also have
heard from Trish) so I do know that you are two different people.  I guess I
should have posted a little correction note when I figured out my mistake.
(but I DID get your attention that way!)

I don't know whether I am reading only separatist litterature or not.  My
view of lesbians comes mainly from feminist litterature, whose authors'
sexual orientations and attitudes vary greatly.  I am aware that the 
lesbian separatists are a minority and that the men I was talking about
(I am not sure what would be the most appropriate way to describe them,
so I will call them minority A (as in first letter of the alphabet)) are
also a minority within the gay men.
How little a minority they are is what I do not know since I am not part
of the gay community and only get my information second hand.  I also do
not have enough gay friends (whose sexual orientations I know about) to
be able to clarify this.

I did not invent the term "political lesbian".  I read it a while ago in
an article by a lesbian who called herself this;  It was not used to refer to
lesbians who are interested in politics, but rather lesbians who CHOOSE
to be lesbians for political reasons (and here "political" is not meant
to refer to the usual partisan politics, but to the more general sense of
"anything related to the exercise of power in a society" ).  I thought this
term was more appropriate than "lesbian separatist" because political lesbianism
does not imply separatism:  it is more concerned with a redefinition of sexual
attitudes and sexual practices and a "rediscovery of female sexuality" than in
hating.  However, I can see now that the term "political" just like "feminist" 
(my second choice) is just too vague and could very well be interpreted any
old way.  So to rephrase my question, what I was more interested in was hearing
how different gay groups with very fundamentally different sexual philosophies
got along rather than how men-hating lesbians and women-hating-gays got along.

As I had never seen any criticism of minority A from "political lesbians", I
was wondering whether it was because they were much more concerned with 
keeping a united front than in arguing philosophical or political points,
or whether it was because I was just very unnaware of what is going on in
gay circles.  It seems that the latter is the case, so thanks for telling me
so - I will try to become more aware of what is going on.

Sophie Quigley
...!{clyde,ihnp4,decvax}!watmath!saquigley