Being a lesbian is essentially performing drag every day of our lives, in the context that we are everything that society tells us women shouldn’t be, and yet, here we are.
In our refusal to conform to the patriarchy, we are, in the eyes of a heteronormative society, ‘wrong.’
We are ‘difficult.’
We are ‘awkward for the sake of being awkward.’
In our refusal to conform, we are ‘not real women.’
A lot of men believe that a woman can only be defined as such if she is attracted to men. This is a notion rooted in the patriarchy where women are seen as ‘lesser than’, ‘weaker than’, and subordinate to men, the ‘holy grail’ of humanity.
The funny thing about this is that the same men who consider us weak and worthless without them wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for women bringing them into the world.
The scary thing about this, however, is that it is men who are more likely to take us out of the world…
It’s a sad truth that queer women are more likely to be the victims of sexual assault simply because they are queer.
Around 44% of lesbians and 61% of bisexual women in the US have experienced forms of rape and physical violence compared to 35% of straight women.
To circle back around to the patriarchy again, where men are socialised into thinking that they have the right to all women, a woman who chooses not to be with them is, in their eyes, denying them their right as a man.
‘How dare she not choose me…’
And so, if she doesn’t give, they take. If not her body, then her mind.
‘Can I watch?’ The answer is still no.
The ways in which queer women are harmed by men isn’t just physically but also psychologically. Whether it be through wolf whistles in the street or comments that reduce us to nothing more than objects, the double standards are stark when it comes to queer relationships VS straight relationships.
No man would ever go up to a straight couple and make sexual comments in the way that they go up to lesbian couples, and that’s because they know that, if they did, they’d get punched.
And so, they do it to us instead. The ‘weaker’ sex.
Sexist power relies on sexual control, and for a woman not to be subject to that control is repulsive, backwards, disgusting, a ‘true upset of the natural order.’
It is for this reason that straight men fetishise lesbians, but only if they’re stereotypically feminine. Add a butch to the mix and suddenly they’re not interested. The reason for this is likely due to the overt masculinity that butch lesbians portray, something which is the exact opposite of a straight man’s fantasy.
Butches, in the eyes of backward thinking straight men, exist to subvert and corrupt society, turning ‘available’ women into feminists who don’t shave their body hair and demand human rights all the time.
Bringing forth their insecurities, “Even a literal woman is more of a man than I am”, straight men don’t fetishise butches because their presence poses a threat to the social order, of which they [men] reside at the centre.
Alas, it shouldn’t be so hard for men to get their heads around the fact that women do not exist for them. And nor do women ‘need’ them. One must only read up on the orgasm gap to realise this for themselves…
Reading material: Click HERE.
If you don’t have time to click on the link, it’s worth noting the headline:
Here’s How to Give Women Orgasms, According to Lesbians.
‘What sort of woman wouldn’t want a man?’, you ask.
I think the article says it all.
Portfolio of Hope 