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From: brenner@aruba.DEC
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: re: answers to sophie's questions
Message-ID: <2150@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 29-Jun-84 17:07:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: decwrl.2150
Posted: Fri Jun 29 17:07:44 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 1-Jul-84 06:40:22 EDT
Organization: DEC Engineering Network
Lines: 109

Sophie's article had so many questions to be answered in it that I didn't know 
where to begin. I've concentrated mostly on the things that touch me 
personally, mainly her assuming I'm a separatist. 

>MY understanding of the lesbian community is that there is a subgroup of
>lesbians who choose to be lesbians for "political" reasons.  These are
>usually women like Ellen who consciously choose to be lesbians because they
>think that men are creeps (to put it lightly).  From the litterature I've
>read by some of these women, the point (or reason or whatever) of this
>switch is to rediscover female sexuality which has been buried under male
>propaganda of what sex should be like: foreplay + intercourse (+ washing
>oneself (-:).
>This view of sexuality is usually accompanied by a different philosophy of
>how the world should be, a place where caring and emotions are important,
>etc.....

Clarification--I think I've been extremely clear that I *like* men and women 
equally, in terms of friendship. In fact, I distinctly recall saying in an 
article that I go against the stereotype of lesbians being man-haters, and that
I did not "choose" to be a gay person. In fact, I have a lot of trouble dealing 
with the lesbian separatists precisely for that reason.

"Separatist" is the term used by the women whose point of view you describe. I
think you have indeed described their philosophy acurately; I never subscribed
to that philosophy, and in fact have gotten in fights with women who hold that
point of view. Militant lesbian separatists are an extremely small group
numerically, but being very vocal, they attract a lot of attention. There are 
many other lesbians who, like me, resent the separatists' attempts to speak for 
all lesbians; most of us are just living our lives, and don't ascribe any 
especially transcendent virtues to being "women-identified". I have caring and 
sharing as ideals in all my relationships--with women, with friends male or 
female, with my parents. 

Personally, separatism troubles me because it perpetuates the myth that 
lesbians are all man-haters, and that homosexuality is a conscious choice (only 
dressing it it political rhetoric instead of psychological jargon). 

I fear you hit a sore point with me. I'm still trying to figure out how you 
misread *me* as a separatist! Not by anything I said, that I can figure out!

>It also seems (and here I am not as aware of the actual reality as I am
>in the case of lesbians, so correct me if I am wrong) that there is a
>subculture in the gay culture which is the complete antithesis of this
>lesbian ideal: power is the basis of sex and a great emphasis is put on
>anonymousness, sex for sex' sake with no place for feelings, promiscuity
>etc (i.e the image that most "straights" have of gays), in other words
>everything that political lesbians loathe in "straight" men pushed to its
>extreme.  

This is strictly my own observation: the number of gay men who fall into the 
subculture you describe appears to be numerically very small. Because this
small group attracts a lot of sensational coverage by the straight media (as
when a truck stop or bar or some such is raided), they get visibility very
disproportionate to their numbers. 

And "political lesbians" are not synonymous with "lesbian separatists". Maybe 
that's how you mistook me for a separatist--I have a strong political 
sensibility, therefore I must be a separatist? Ann Maguire, Boston's mayoral 
liason to the gay community, is obviously political, but obviously not a 
separatist--she purports to speak for everybody, so I imagine she can't afford 
to feel loathing for any part of her constituency! :-)

>Obviously lesbians and gay men do have common interests since they are
>both discriminated against by society at large, so as there is power
>in numbers it is in their interest to join forces to try to achieve 
>better rights in society.  However the philosophies of these two 
>subgroups seem to be so irreconciliable (that of the political lesbians
>and of the "promiscuous" (let's say) gay men, not of lesbians and
>gay men in general) that I wonder how they manage to work together when
>their ideals are so different.  I was just curious as to whether this produces
>a rift into the gay culture, whether these two subcultures just ignore
>themselves except to join forces to get things accomplished, or whether
>there is hatred or debating going on about ideals etc....  I have never
>seen any mention of this problem anywhere in the lesbian litterature I
>have read and I am wondering why.  Can anybody enlighten me?

Well, yes; there are serious rifts, especially between the militant separatists 
and the mainstream political groups working on gay/lesbian rights. These are 
not unlike the rifts in, say, the Democratic party between the 
middle-of-the-road Mondale supporters and Jackson's Rainbow Coalition (in terms 
of the mechanics of the rift, only; the analogy doesn't carry over to 
comparisons of their respective philosophies). What usually happens can be 
typically seen in any of the Gay Pride rallies that have just taken place. The 
gay/lesbian mainstream does their thing and plans the march and it happens; the 
separatists sometimes totally ignore it, sometimes fire off salvoes of protest 
in the local gay newspaper. 

This last sometimes has positive results. For instance, over the years, these
"gay pride" celebrations have pretty much been renamed "gay/lesbian pride"
celebrations. The separatists pointed out, quite rightly, that "gay" was
beginning to signify gay men only, and put out a feeling that gay women were
overlooked. Then the women working in the mainstream effort said, "Yeah, that's
right, how about letting everyone know we're here too?" And there was a lot of
arguing, and eventually the name change would take place. So you see, gay 
extremist groups serve very much the same function as straight extremist 
groups--by always questioning, they sometimes hit the right question and cause 
an improvement in the mainstream. I guess that's why, even though separatists 
give me the willies, I'm sort of glad they're there. I disagree with them like 
crazy, but they keep people on their toes.

If you haven't seen this in the literature you've been reading, I suggest 
reading one of the big gay/lesbian newsweeklies. In Gay Community News, you can 
count on a diatribe on such topics in almost every issue's letters page. I 
imagine it is the same for the others. If you keep on reading only 
lesbian-separatist literature, you're only going to get a small part of the 
picture.
					Ellen Brenner
	
					...decvax!decwrl!rhea!aruba!brenner