Bogeymen and Bogeywomen

by Judy (1971). How the straight male dominated culture defines people according to sexual stereotypes. by Judy from Womankind (1971)

(Editor's Note: This article explores the myths about lesbianism spread by the male dominated culture of the time.)

Any forms of behavior that don't fit into the image that television and Reader's Digest believe the American people should be like is usually categorized as either subnatural or supernatural. The myths about homosexuals fall into both categories, depending on how close it is to being you. Lesbians are subnatural when they live next door and supernatural when they live in Paris and write books.

Most people's ideas about lesbianism come from pornographic films and magazines, all of which are produced by and for men. It's a very strange thing to find your existence defined as a part of somebody's pornographic fantasy library - sex episode No. 93.

One night at my regular women's liberation group meeting, one of the women said, "You know, the first night you told us you were a lesbian, I sat in terror the rest of the meeting, waiting for you to attack me or something".

Men who are obsessed with sex are convinced that lesbians are obsessed with sex. Actually, like a lot of other women, lesbians are obsessed with love and fidelity. They are also strongly interested in independence and in having a lifework to do, but other than that, lesbians are not extraordinary.

I once met a lesbian who had built her own house, with her own hands, to her own specifications. (She was about 4' 11l" tall.) But I have no doubt that any woman probably could -except that she probably married an architect or a builder instead. Homosexuality and other "bizarre" characteristics are associated with art and artiness partly so that artists can be considered that much more supernatural. This keeps people in general from considering themselves as artists; if you can't cut off an ear, you can't paint.

It wasn't because she was a lesbian that Gertrude Stein wrote well; she wrote because she wanted to, and she had a disciplined, sensitive mind, and she didn't have to work in a dimestore eight hours a day.

The women in history who were the less fortunate counterparts of Gertrude Stein, unable to retire on Papa’s money, cut off their hair and joined the merchant marine; or sneaked out West and had a life of adventure as cowboys. Some were never discovered until the local mortician ...all astonished... came running out of the funeral parlor. "My God, guess what I just found out about Harry Willets...."

As a matter of fact, old Harry may never have thought of loving another woman in her life, but she still goes down in history as a lesbian. Every woman who steps out of line gets assigned a sexual definition - lesbian, whore, nymphomaniac, castigator, adulteress.

Lesbians who dress and act in a particular manner do so as a means of mutual recognition -that's how they know who's eligible to fall in love with, since you're not allowed to just ask. If anybody was allowed to fall in love with anybody, the word "homosexual" wouldn't be needed. It's used now only to set people off in separate categories, artificially; so they'll know who to be afraid of - each other.

Bogeymen and bogeywomen function to keep people off of the streets, and home watching television and reading Reader's Digest.

Lesbianism isn't something you are - it's something you do. Specifically, it's the love you give somebody who happens, also, to be female. 

Gertrude Stein was a well-known, American-born writer. She lived in Paris in the early twentieth century with Alice B. Toklas, who was her companion, secretary, and lover. Stein, who was supported by her father's money, was influential as a writer and a patron of the arts. 

-original editor's note

A Daughter and Mother Talk about Sexuality

(1971-72) A CWLU member writes about her coming out and her mother responds. by Elaine and her Mom (1971-72)

(In November of 1971, a Women's Union member wrote in the CWLU newspaper Womankind about her gradual self-realization that she was gay. In the January 1972 issue of Womankind, her mother answered with a letter.)

LOVING WOMEN by Elaine

I was walking down the road holding hands with the woman I love. It was late at night, very dark, so no one could see us. I didn’t really care whether anyone saw me or what people would think, but she was embarrassed about showing our love when straight people were around. I didn’t care what they know; for me it was a great act of courage to openly show affection for another woman.

I haven’t always been like that. Most of my life, I couldn’t bring myself to show affection for women, for fear of being thought a Lesbian. In high school, the boys teased girls who were involved in close friendships with other girls. Ironically, I generally wasn’t teased because I kept away from such friendships. But at the same time, I was reluctant to get involved in “normal” relationships with boys.

When I was 20, I was a camp counselor for teen-age girls. I held myself aloof from the girls — even when they were going through some crisis, I couldn’t touch them or show any affection. Somehow it just didn’t seem quite right.

Even after I became involved in the Women’s Liberation Movement, I was disturbed when I saw women acting affectionate toward each other. Once when I saw two of my friends with their arms around each other, the only way I could justify that in my mind was to think,”at least, they aren’t Lesbians!” (That was a year and a half ago. They may not have been gay then, but they are now.) And when women talked of the beauty of other women, I hid behind my camera and told myself that the only reason why I admired women’s beauty was that I was a photographer and had a purely esthetic interest in it.

But gradually things changed. I developed friendships with women of a sort that I hadn’t had since before high school: close, trusting, loving relationships. I found that being a Lesbian is not as bad as I thought, to love another woman can be a beautiful and enjoyable experience.

And the change is not only within me; it is among a great many women I know. Within the last year or two, many women have become freer in their manner of relating to women. These are women who don’t necessarily define themselves as gay, but they feel free to show their love for women. Not too long ago, I again saw two women I know with their arms around each other. These two probably consider themselves straight —— at any rate, one is married and has children and the other is living with a man. I didn’t think that they were or were not Lesbians, because it doesn’t matter to me anymore.

your mother should know... by the mother of Elaine

Dear Daughter,

A few weeks ago you wrote an article for WOMANKIND on Gay Liberation. I read it and enjoyed reading it because I’ve read a lot of your writing and like it. Ever since your first story appeared in a nursery school bulletin—— “I saw a bird and another bird” —— I loved reading your writing. As much as I loved reading, I haven’t ever stooped to reading anything you haven’t permitted me to read.

In the same way I have always permitted you to read some of my letters, but not all.

I really have no comments on anyone’s sex life which may be part of my growing up with all the taboos or an enlightened idea that sex is not the single most important issue in the world that interests me.

In watching and helping you grow up, I followed a basic rule. Whenever you told me you were ready to do something on your own —— you did it, but as long as you wanted help it was given. So, in your growing up I came across A.S. Neil’s Summerhill which reinforced my ideas of children being allowed to develop at their own speed. Gibran’s The Prophet with the advice to parents that they can’t control their children’s thoughts or lives in their own images.

The pill came into existence during your teen years. I was appalled at a few parents of your friends who supplied their daughters with the pill. - It seemed to me that they were encouraging their daughters to enter relationships with boy friends earlier than they were prepared for emotionally. I was appalled because it seemed to be license and parental approval, but I knew that these parents also feared raising babies of their babies. But I never openly judged the parents too harshly.

On the other hand, interracial marriages were more close and I had to think out an answer of what I really thought. So, my answer that a man and woman can mate as a natural law whether their skin colors coordinate or their languages do, has nothing to do with the man-made laws of civil marriages.

So I’ve read a lot of writing on gay and not so gay liberation and my ideas are still pretty much unformed, but like any other union, it’s a decision between two people and needs no approval or disapproval from me.

You may have been born from my body (with a little help from Daddy) but you grew up outside of my body and you are not mine in a selfishly possessive sense. You are you.

Do you think I am avoiding the discussion of sex? I am not. Our whole relationship is just that. A whole. I really trust your judgment on what you want to do. When you want to do it. With whom you do it. This goes for the books you read, the food you eat, the clothes you wear, the people you know, the liquors you drink and your sleeping partners. And the mistakes, too. The whole shit. I love you very much.

Mama

That Old Problem-Sex

by Lorna (1972) An article from Womankind that explodes the myths created by our male dominated culture. by Lorna (1972)

(Editor's Note: This article from Womankind explodes the myths surrounding female sexuality that have been created by our male dominated culture.)

No one knows as women do what a problem sex can be. Many of us have heard of orgasms but never had them. We have been afraid to let our excitement carry us away because the movements and sounds we might make may not be appreciated by our partners. Yet we have been blamed for not accepting our bodies and our "womanly destinies” by Freud and his followers. They insist we must not only have vaginal orgasms to be women but also must accept their opinions of what all of our actions should be (loving babies, letting men win arguments, liking men better than women, typing well, and baking whole wheat bread).

But we are not necessarily all these things, and who knows it better than we do! We have known all along that we do not have vaginal orgasms, and recent studies by Masters and Johnson prove that the vagina is not the most sensitive sex organ, and certainly incapable of orgasm. Like nearly all organs within the body, the vagina is poorly supplied with endorgans of touch, in this way similar to the rectum and other parts of the digestive tract. The vagina is so insensitive that among women tested by Kinsey in a gynecological sample, only 14% were aware of being touched.

It is the clitoris that is the one area for sexual climax, and though we may be aroused elsewhere, the orgasm originates there. The clitoris is almost like the penis on a smaller scale, except for the fact that the urethra does not go through it as in a man's penis. It's erection is similar to the male erection, and the head of the clitoris has the same type of function and structure as the head of the penis. Our capacity for orgasm is greater than men's and we are able to have multiple clitoral orgasms to a man's one. A woman can reach orgasm far more frequently quaintly than a man can, so it can be said that her sexual power, if she is attracted to her partner, is stronger than a man's. There is no truth to the myth that we are either sexless or less sexy than men!

While the vagina functions as the birth passage, holder of semen and the penis, the menstruation passage, and some pleasure, the clitoris is purely for fun. There is no other purpose for it. People have known this for a long time. In the U S. in the 1890's and in Mid-Eastern countries, women who masturbated or strayed from their husbands were forced to have their clitorises removed. The Germans know about it called it the "ecstasy organ." Freud recognized its importance to women, but expected women to somehow shift the clitoral sensitivity to the vagina. If not, they were not "real women." It was even suggested in Freud's time that the clitoris be moved closer to the vagina so a woman could have her "vaginal orgasms." Changing women's anatomy to fit their theories!

Why, with all we know, are women still having the same problems? Partly because everyone does not know about the clitoris, and partly (mainly) because use men get the most pleasure from penetration into the vagina, an ideal way for them to gratify their needs. The usual sex positions do not provide for the clitoral stimulation women need. Men will still disagree with the fact that what pleases them most does not satisfy us. Is it too much to ask for the satisfaction men demand? Man still considers sex a "victory" over women, some women are still called "pushovers," and many men still consider "having a woman" a military strategy. Men who hurry to "get it over with" and "conquer" a lot of women show their guilt which they have tried to project on women. Heterosexual women can make demands, for a change, for less of a battle and more of a mutually satisfying love-making which takes both people's needs into account.

Many women have discovered that the most natural form of sex for them is loving other women. The lesbian has the advantage of understanding her partner sexually and emotionally better than a man could. Gay women do not have some of the problems "straight" women have with their men, who may not take their sexual and emotional needs seriously, or respect their thoughts. Despite the joys of lesbian relationships, lesbians do not always get along perfectly naturally. This can be dealt with, but the persecution the lesbian has to face is sometimes almost too much to bear. She has problems ranging from losing her job if she is "found out" losing her "friends," persecution from her family (parents and/or husband - yes, some lesbians are married). Perhaps the worst reaction is that of the straight male liberal who accepts her lesbianism, even encourages it, but insists she must "look into men" and not "limit herself to women." Any lesbian knows what a ridiculous statement that is. This pushing bi-sexuality or heterosexuality on the lesbian shows her the reality of her "second sex" position in a society which refuses to take her sexual life seriously unless she has a man. She is supposed to be a doll that the liberal male can fantasize as having this incredible lifestyle of jumping from one bedroom to another, "trying" a woman here, a man there, and so on. Most gay women just want to live their lives without criticism from all sides.

Even through the "sexual revolution", we have still not lost our guilt over sex, and have we accepted it as natural and necessary to the peace of mind and health of each person. This could be because men have not changed, only some women have: we may "give in" where we wouldn't have before. We may need and want sex as much as men do, but we are still punished for our "sins." Clearly we need a more basic sexual revolution than this has been. The "pill" has not freed us mentally and will not as long as men are as insensitive to our needs as we are sensitive to theirs. When heterosexual sex ceases to become a “conquest” and an upsetting struggle, and finally becomes the source of mutual guiltless joy it could be, we will be freer to solve our other concerns with clearer heads.

Sex or Hey, I Thought This Was Supposed To Be Fun!

by Cathy (1972) In this article written for Womankind, a CWLU member talks about women's changing ideas about sexuality. by Cathy (1972)

(Editor's Note: In a February 1972 issue of Womankind, Cathy wrote about the contradictory feelings that many women have toward sex.)

One or the realities illuminated by the Women’s Liberation Movement has been the appalling lack of knowledge we as women have about our own bodies and how uncomfortable we often feel with them and in them. This is bound to have an effect on our having good sexual and sensual relationships. Heterosexual relationships provide a special problem because we are learning that relationships between the sexes have historically been unequal, more often than not oppressive to women, and clearly favoring men’s sexuality and well being.

Ironically, the female body, while a source of real and fantasy pleasure to men, is often itself left frustrated, unpleased, cold. Accepting the fact that heterosexual relationships will probably not change significantly for large numbers of women until the social and economic relationships between the sexes have been radically changed, perhaps it would be useful to consider a few of the things that block our having pleasurable relationships with men now.

Today, in accord with the sexual revolution, it is more socially acceptable for women to enjoy sex. Some magazines encourage this notion to the point of assuming women should always love sex and have multiple orgasms every time. This idea has created some problems because though we are all in favor of women enjoying sex, it will take more than cheering articles in Cosmopolitan to make this possible.

In the first place this new attitude can become a new means of oppressing women. We all recognize that part in ourselves that lives up to what is expected of us — it is a common psychological attitude of any group of people who is oppressed. So now instead of being the good wife and mother (post—war through early 60’s expectation), we have to be the sexually alive and enjoying it woman (later 60’s, 7O’s expectation.) The catch is that we weren’t consulted as to our desires in either case. Particularly in the counter culture and youth movements, there has developed a new image of women which tends to look down on women who aren’t eager to go to bed with every man who approaches them and don’t enjoy sex a lot. How can we enjoy our own body just like that overnight? It isn’t as though we are all potentially sexually eager and are just waiting for the social word to start enjoying ourselves. Centuries of definition hove kept us from experiencing (or admitting feeling guilty about being a poor wife and mother), we now feel guilty about not enjoying sex. We must learn about what is pleasurable to us at our own speed, with our own rhythms, in our own terms.

There are many reasons that we can’t change overnight with regard to sexual pleasure, and these reasons are neither mystifying or complex, they are just ignored, not dealt with. They also tend to be historical and social rather than immediate and personal.

1. Until recently social mores trained men to enjoy sex and women to endure it. There is still a lot of this Puritan feeling around. Recently there has been a new slant which might be characterized as “men are trained to enjoy sex and women are trained to enjoy men enjoying sex.” Check out any best selling sex manual and see if the attitude isn’t something like: “Women have as much right to sexual pleasure as do men. However, many women admit that even though they do not often reach orgasm, they take great pleasure in seeing their lover reach climax and are emotionally content with his pleasure.” Says who! To fully appreciate this absurdity, reword it with the man being emotionally content, though not reaching orgasm.

2. What pleases men does not please women. Traditional heterosexual activity has centered around the male orgasm and how to achieve it. It was just assumed that a woman would be pleased by the same activity. Thanks to Masters and Johnson, what many women have long known has been given legitimacy; a woman’s sexual pleasure centers around her clitoris and not her vagina. Even this does not give us smooth sailing, however. Many men are loath to admit that the basic traditional sex act (penis in the vagina) does not directly give pleasure to women.

3. Women get pregnant; men do not. It seems too simple to be worth mentioning but the heterosexual relationship involves for the woman the risk of getting pregnant. If that doesn’t cut down on the pleasure threshold of women, it’s hard to imagine what will. A word should be said here for the attitude that all real women want to be pregnant and have children so this risk shouldn’t deter pleasure. Not only is this not true, but even if it were, it should not be hard to see the difference between a woman wanting X number of children in X number of years and in certain circumstances and a woman’s risking a conception every time she has intercourse.
I think this is a valid point even with the pill because the number of women on the pill is large but the number not on it is larger (not even considering whether for reasons of health any of us should be on it) and the same women for whom the pill is often inaccessible are those for whom pregnancy is often socially unwelcome (underage women, unmarried women, poor women). The other birth control devices combine a high failure rate with often unaesthetic preparations to further detract from woman’s potential pleasure.

4. Areas of sexual pleasure are defined. That is, in concentrating on the genital area as the legitimate source of pleasure, the body as a total sensual being is ignored. Expressions of affection, often very pleasurable and necessary for women, are considered valid only if they lead to specific genital sexual activity. We might add that men suffer from this ignoring of the affective element too, but because women are socialized to be more affective and emotional than men, they suffer doubly. Men are trained to think of affection for affection’s sake as unnecessary if not downright suspicious.

5. There is a whole range of experience related to women’s sexuality which is not even a potential source of pleasure, but always at the least frightening and at the worst, fatal. I refer of course to assault — from mental assault ( the uninvited whistle or catcall), which few women escape, to real assault - rape, and often murder, which not only happens directly to hideously large numbers of women, but is never very far from the consciousness of the rest of us. This fact cannot help but give us incredibly ambivalent feelings vis a vis our bodies and sexuality, whether they are a source of pleasure or pain for us.

6. Finally, I wonder how many of us realize that our position as a sexual object gives us a certain amount of power. A perverse power, granted, and no substitute for real control of our lives, but power just the same. It represents our bargaining power with men. Since there is no weapon to take its place, sex must be kept in its place. We cannot make use of our own sexuality for purposes of pleasure while it remains the most effective weapon in our arsenal for survival.

Are there any answers? We can band together on the job, unite to confront the welfare bureaucrats, join forces to boycott sexist companies, but we can hardly get together to challenge the men we are involved with individually. This is an area which challenges the whole male power structure. Each of us has to judge how far we can go in demanding that men pay attention to our sexual needs as we do to theirs, that men give up their ideas of women’s place and needs and substitute these misconceptions with the truth. Together, we cam learn with each other about our bodies, about how social indoctrination has led us to consider our needs unimportant, and in many cases, to dislike ourselves. We can talk with each other and learn that it’s not just “my problem”, but is universal. Each new thing we learn and each good feeling we have about ourselves makes us less oppressible. It's not a solution, but at least a start.

It Just Happened

from Womankind (1972) How one woman's lesbian consciousness slowly evolved. by Cathy (1972)

(Editor's Note: In a February 1972 issue of Womankind, Cathy wrote about the contradictory feelings that many women have toward sex.)

One or the realities illuminated by the Women’s Liberation Movement has been the appalling lack of knowledge we as women have about our own bodies and how uncomfortable we often feel with them and in them. This is bound to have an effect on our having good sexual and sensual relationships. Heterosexual relationships provide a special problem because we are learning that relationships between the sexes have historically been unequal, more often than not oppressive to women, and clearly favoring men’s sexuality and well being.

Ironically, the female body, while a source of real and fantasy pleasure to men, is often itself left frustrated, unpleased, cold. Accepting the fact that heterosexual relationships will probably not change significantly for large numbers of women until the social and economic relationships between the sexes have been radically changed, perhaps it would be useful to consider a few of the things that block our having pleasurable relationships with men now.

Today, in accord with the sexual revolution, it is more socially acceptable for women to enjoy sex. Some magazines encourage this notion to the point of assuming women should always love sex and have multiple orgasms every time. This idea has created some problems because though we are all in favor of women enjoying sex, it will take more than cheering articles in Cosmopolitan to make this possible.

In the first place this new attitude can become a new means of oppressing women. We all recognize that part in ourselves that lives up to what is expected of us — it is a common psychological attitude of any group of people who is oppressed. So now instead of being the good wife and mother (post—war through early 60’s expectation), we have to be the sexually alive and enjoying it woman (later 60’s, 7O’s expectation.) The catch is that we weren’t consulted as to our desires in either case. Particularly in the counter culture and youth movements, there has developed a new image of women which tends to look down on women who aren’t eager to go to bed with every man who approaches them and don’t enjoy sex a lot. How can we enjoy our own body just like that overnight? It isn’t as though we are all potentially sexually eager and are just waiting for the social word to start enjoying ourselves. Centuries of definition hove kept us from experiencing (or admitting feeling guilty about being a poor wife and mother), we now feel guilty about not enjoying sex. We must learn about what is pleasurable to us at our own speed, with our own rhythms, in our own terms.

There are many reasons that we can’t change overnight with regard to sexual pleasure, and these reasons are neither mystifying or complex, they are just ignored, not dealt with. They also tend to be historical and social rather than immediate and personal.

1. Until recently social mores trained men to enjoy sex and women to endure it. There is still a lot of this Puritan feeling around. Recently there has been a new slant which might be characterized as “men are trained to enjoy sex and women are trained to enjoy men enjoying sex.” Check out any best selling sex manual and see if the attitude isn’t something like: “Women have as much right to sexual pleasure as do men. However, many women admit that even though they do not often reach orgasm, they take great pleasure in seeing their lover reach climax and are emotionally content with his pleasure.” Says who! To fully appreciate this absurdity, reword it with the man being emotionally content, though not reaching orgasm.

2. What pleases men does not please women. Traditional heterosexual activity has centered around the male orgasm and how to achieve it. It was just assumed that a woman would be pleased by the same activity. Thanks to Masters and Johnson, what many women have long known has been given legitimacy; a woman’s sexual pleasure centers around her clitoris and not her vagina. Even this does not give us smooth sailing, however. Many men are loath to admit that the basic traditional sex act (penis in the vagina) does not directly give pleasure to women.

3. Women get pregnant; men do not. It seems too simple to be worth mentioning but the heterosexual relationship involves for the woman the risk of getting pregnant. If that doesn’t cut down on the pleasure threshold of women, it’s hard to imagine what will. A word should be said here for the attitude that all real women want to be pregnant and have children so this risk shouldn’t deter pleasure. Not only is this not true, but even if it were, it should not be hard to see the difference between a woman wanting X number of children in X number of years and in certain circumstances and a woman’s risking a conception every time she has intercourse.
I think this is a valid point even with the pill because the number of women on the pill is large but the number not on it is larger (not even considering whether for reasons of health any of us should be on it) and the same women for whom the pill is often inaccessible are those for whom pregnancy is often socially unwelcome (underage women, unmarried women, poor women). The other birth control devices combine a high failure rate with often unaesthetic preparations to further detract from woman’s potential pleasure.

4. Areas of sexual pleasure are defined. That is, in concentrating on the genital area as the legitimate source of pleasure, the body as a total sensual being is ignored. Expressions of affection, often very pleasurable and necessary for women, are considered valid only if they lead to specific genital sexual activity. We might add that men suffer from this ignoring of the affective element too, but because women are socialized to be more affective and emotional than men, they suffer doubly. Men are trained to think of affection for affection’s sake as unnecessary if not downright suspicious.

5. There is a whole range of experience related to women’s sexuality which is not even a potential source of pleasure, but always at the least frightening and at the worst, fatal. I refer of course to assault — from mental assault ( the uninvited whistle or catcall), which few women escape, to real assault - rape, and often murder, which not only happens directly to hideously large numbers of women, but is never very far from the consciousness of the rest of us. This fact cannot help but give us incredibly ambivalent feelings vis a vis our bodies and sexuality, whether they are a source of pleasure or pain for us.

6. Finally, I wonder how many of us realize that our position as a sexual object gives us a certain amount of power. A perverse power, granted, and no substitute for real control of our lives, but power just the same. It represents our bargaining power with men. Since there is no weapon to take its place, sex must be kept in its place. We cannot make use of our own sexuality for purposes of pleasure while it remains the most effective weapon in our arsenal for survival.

Are there any answers? We can band together on the job, unite to confront the welfare bureaucrats, join forces to boycott sexist companies, but we can hardly get together to challenge the men we are involved with individually. This is an area which challenges the whole male power structure. Each of us has to judge how far we can go in demanding that men pay attention to our sexual needs as we do to theirs, that men give up their ideas of women’s place and needs and substitute these misconceptions with the truth. Together, we cam learn with each other about our bodies, about how social indoctrination has led us to consider our needs unimportant, and in many cases, to dislike ourselves. We can talk with each other and learn that it’s not just “my problem”, but is universal. Each new thing we learn and each good feeling we have about ourselves makes us less oppressible. It's not a solution, but at least a start.

Blazing Star Vol 2 No 1 July 1976

Blazing Star was the newsletter of the Lesbian Group of the Chicago Women's Liberation Union. As lesbians who were active in the womwn'sliberation movement, they sought to educate all women. heterosexual and lesbian alike, about the oppression of lesbians, as well as keep their lesbian sisters informed about their own community.  [pdf]  Download PDF  10.89 Mb

Blazing Star Vol 2 No 3 Oct 1976

Blazing Star was the newsletter of the Lesbian Group of the Chicago Women's Liberation Union. As lesbians who were active in the womwn'sliberation movement, they sought to educate all women. heterosexual and lesbian alike, about the oppression of lesbians, as well as keep their lesbian sisters informed about their own community.  [pdf]  Download PDF 8.46 Mb