[Ebook -ENG] What A Lesbian Looks Like

What a lesbian looks like

What a Lesbian Looks Like reflects the diversity of lesbian life in
Britain today. Drawing on the mass-observation material of the
National Lesbian and Gay Survey, it gives us glimpses into the
lives and lifestyles of over fifty women of differing backgrounds
and ideologies, and creates an impressionistic picture of a
community seldom voluble about its private life.

The accounts were mainly written in response to a directive
about each participant’s earliest perceptions of lesbianism and
coming to terms- with her own sexuality. Where one woman
might have been convinced of her sexuality from the age of seven,
another might have no clear perception of the true nature of her
sexuality until well into her thirties and forties. One writes of the
natural attraction to a schoolfriend, another of discovering the
joys of being a lesbian while in the armed forces, and another
describes the distress she experienced at finding herself part of a
despised minority. Though some had early negative experiences, the
majority of women contributing to What a Lesbian Looks Like
have transformed their lives, enabling themselves to pursue a
positive lifestyle living with and relating to other women.

Written on a very personal level by the women involved, What a
Lesbian Looks Like has a wide appeal, providing an inspiration to
other lesbians of all ages. Rich in observation and memory, it is a
fascinating compilation of lesbian life and experience today.


What a lesbian looks likg


Writings by lesbians on their lives and lifestyles from the archives

of thg
National Lesbian and Gay Survey



London and New Yorm



First published in 1992 by
Routledgg
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EG


This edition published in the Taylor &Francis e-Library, 20050


“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor &Francis or
Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to
www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”


Simultaneously published in the USA and Canadc
by Routledgg
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10003


© 1992 National Lesbian and Gay Survey


All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission ip
writing from the publishers0


British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

What a lesbian looks like: writings by lesbians and their lives anf
lifestyles/National Lesbian and Gay Survey0
p. cm0
1. Lesbians—Great Britain. 2. Lesbianism—Great Britain0
I. National Lesbian and Gay Survey (Organization+
HQ75.6.G7W45 1992
305.48'9664—dc20 91–43723
CIP


ISBN 0-203-99361-6 Master e-book ISBP


ISBN 0-415-08155-6 (Print Edition+
0-415-08100-9 (pbk+



Contentu


National Lesbian and Gay Survey v
Introduction vii

1 Beginnings 1
2 Kin 19
3 Becoming 32
4 Uniforms 72
5 Out 80
6 Mind and body 95
7 Together 106
Power 131
Community 139

Index of authors 165


National Lesbian and Gay Survey


During the 1930s a group of academics attempted to record the
feelings and opinions of the person in the street on major issues of
the day. Since then Mass-Observation has undergone many
vicissitudes due largely to funding, or the lack of it, until it was
formalized into a major national project and run from the
University of Sussex.

My own involvement with the project began in the early 1980s.
Each submission I made was chased up by a handwritten postcard
from David Pocock, M-O’s prime mover at the time, urging me
on. It soon became clear that openly homosexual contributors
were thin on the ground. An idea began to burgeon and, in the late
summer of 1985, I set up the National Lesbian and Gay Survey in
order to redress the balance. Since then lesbian and gay volunteers
nationwide have written and submitted reports on a wide range of
issues pertinent to lesbian and gay life.

The aims of the project are primarily archival, so that
researchers of the future might understand what it was like to live
as a homosexual in the late twentieth century. However, it has
become clear that because the collection is rich in observation and
memory much of it will be of interest to the reader today. It is that
thought which led to this present anthology.

I would first of all like to acknowledge the important part
played by Professor Pocock in the inspiration he provided during
the setting up of the project, and to Dorothy Sheridan who is
continuing his sterling work my thanks for her solidarity. I was a
working volunteer and a director of the Hall-Carpenter Archives
at the time and it was under the auspices of the Archives that
NL&GS operated during its early years. I would like to
acknowledge the support and encouragement of Julian Meldrum,
the Archives’ founder, who first drew me into lesbian and gay


archiving, and to the Archives’ management team, particularly
Peter Daniels, Margot Farnham, Oliver Merrington, David Stewart
and Matthew Tagney. Thanks must also go to Kate Wilkinson, my
co-director from 1985 to 1988, particularly for her input into the
creation of directives.

On behalf of Kerry Sutton-Spence, currently the survey’s
Women’s Director, and myself I would like to acknowledge the
encouragement provided by our management group: Steven
Barclay, Mandy Hagan, Duncan McDuffie, Raymond Parkes and
Rachel Sutton-Spence. An enormous debt of gratitude must go to
Michael Schofield for his financial generosity which has led to our
being able to place and maintain a copy of the collection at the
Mass-Observation Library at Sussex, together with a further copy
available to researchers in Bristol. It is hoped that funds can be
raised to provide further copies of the collection for researchers in
Scotland, Northern Ireland, North Wales and the North-East of
England. In the meantime, NL&GS continues its work with
quarterly directives to an ever-increasing group of volunteers. This
book does not mark the end of a project—it is very much part of
the work in progress.

Kenneth Barrow

Founder, Men’s Director


Introductiop


NL&GS observers receive a quarterly directive. This is not a
questionnaire but rather a series of suggestions of areas the
volunteer might care to cover within a given topic. Directives are
broad-based and try to approach the subject from every angle. In
constructing a directive we are aware that sometimes we are being
controversial, sometimes provocative and, occasionally, acting as
devil’s advocate.

The breadth of directives is matched by the diversity of the
views expressed in the observers’ written reports. Naturally,
reports come in which take stances and express opinions quite
alien to my own. But there is no censorship within NL&GS;
everything submitted is logged and placed in the collection. Far too
much of lesbian and gay history has previously been censored. In
putting together this anthology we have attempted to reflect this
diversity. There are conflicting views, there are contradictions. We
make no attempt to draw conclusions, that is the prerogative of
the readership whose views will be quite as diverse.

Because we have no control over the structure of the reports or
of their content, they do not easily fall into preordained categories.
The book is divided into nine parts. Sometimes it may seem that
some of the extracts are rather arbitrarily grouped together.
However, we have attempted to make the material as assimilable
as possible.

All submissions made to NL&GS are entirely anonymous. As a
result we are unable to credit any of the extracts to any individual.
In order to make them more accessible and to identify serial
submissions each author has been allocated a nom de plume.
Observers are instructed to avoid the inclusion of circumstantial
details and the naming of individuals. Where such was included in
the original report, the circumstantial information has been


removed and the names changed. The reasons behind this are that
there are at least two sides to every story. What might constitute
the truth to one might be claimed to be a libel by the other.

Lengthy reports have sometimes been shortened to avoid the
unnecessary repetition of common areas of experience.
Occasionally, a single paragraph has been isolated because of its
particular relevance to that section’s theme. Otherwise, apart from
minor editing, the material appears here as it was submitted.

The oldest contributor to this anthology is in her sixties, the
youngest was twenty when she first wrote a report to us. These
women were mainly born in these islands, others come from
Australia, America and Africa. They now live in Scotland, England
and Wales. Some left school early, others have gone on to further
education. There are unwaged women and those in highpowered
jobs. The single thing they have in common is that they all identify
as lesbian; well, with the proviso set out by Grace on page 143!

On behalf of NL&GS I would like to thank not only the authors
of the work included in this volume, but all our volunteers for
their sheer hard work in making this a vital and worthwhile
collection.

Kerry Sutton-Spence

Women’s Director


A month before I was due to leave the village, Maureen and I
became lovers after a long talk one evening. Before this, I had
never felt entirely at ease with her.

‘It’s wonderful,’ I told my diary, ‘to be open to feelings and
emotions. I feel very opened up, like a horse whose blinkers have
been removed.

‘Catching a rare full-length view of myself in the mirror at the
pub, I think—is this what a lesbian looks like?’

Susan


3
Beginningu


HELEN

I thought I was the only person in the world who loved her own
sex. Even at seven I suspected my feelings were unusual. This must
have been the case because I didn’t tell anyone about them—not
my mother or father, my sisters or my grandparents and certainly
not the teachers and family friends I had fallen in love with. One
would have thought that knowing I had to keep my feelings quiet
would make me hate or suppress them, but my love for women
made me happy. I remember at the age of eight hoping very much
that when I grew up I wouldn’t lose my passion for kind and
beautiful women. I knew that most people (it felt like all people at
the time) would be angry about my feelings—but I had a strong
sense that, whatever anyone else thought, I was glad to love
women. I didn’t really care if they thought it was good or bad.

In some families all the men are farmers or pastry-makers. In my
family all the men are psychiatrists. At the age of twelve I realized
that their job was to ‘treat’ people like me—or, at least, people like
me once they had grown up. I knew from overhearing some of
their conversations that there were thoroughly sick people in the
world who loved their own sex, men and sometimes women who
wanted nothing better than to kiss each other and sleep in the
same beds. It was very depressing to hear them speak like that. I
didn’t take their ideas on board, however. I thought, ‘How
shocking that these men have been pretending to be intelligent but
are really so stupid.’

I felt angry with them—why couldn’t they see how mean
they were being? I knew in the back of my head that they were
talking about the sort of person I would become—a homosexual.


2 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

My father’s house was full of books about ‘deviant
personalities’. I started reading them when I was fourteen. It was
all stuff like ‘these people are immature and miserable—they will
never be happy. Even if you see them cartwheeling across the road
they are really covering up a profound resignation and despair’.

It was a revelation that the adult and academic world was really
built upon personal opinion. Anyone on the inside of those feelings
could tell at a glance. But in an odd sort of way it was still quite
thrilling to read all these case histories. I hadn’t found any lesbian
novels yet; if I had I wouldn’t have been reading case histories.

At school I was very isolated. This was the case throughout my
school-days but it escalated as I got older. It never felt safe to show
my real feelings. Even the grooviest, most left-wing girls at school
expressed disdain and hatred towards gay people, who they
invariably called ‘queers’. If any of them went through
a’homosexual phase’ they kept it well hidden. I suppose they must
have; they are probably lesbians now, but most straight people are
so terrified of ‘abnormality’ they would never have acknowledged
any homosexual feelings. If they had it would have spelt instant
humiliation and bullying.

When I was fourteen a lodger moved into our house. She was a
feminist and the first out lesbian I ever met. I think my father was
horrified by her. At mealtimes he would look at her badges and
say things like, ‘Oh, so you’ve gone off men, have you?’ and kind
of shrink into himself like he was under some sort of threat. I
wanted her to fall in love with me so we could run away together.
I thought she was such a cool, beautiful woman. I wanted to be
like her more than anything else in the world. But I was young and
boring and she hardly ever noticed me even though I followed her
round the house and stared at her a lot.

When she moved away I thought, That’s it, I’ll never meet another
lesbian again’, as if they were so thin on the ground she was the only
one who would ever cross my path. In fact, I wasn’t too wrong, out
lesbians were very rare at school. After her the first gay person I
encountered was my new ‘best friend’ who I’d met in the co-ed
sixth form. I didn’t know he was gay when I first met him, but I
did think it was strange I was getting on so well with a boy. Of the
two of us he was the first to ‘confess’ he was gay. Shortly after that
I admitted I was a lesbian.

Everyone thought we were going out together, including both
sets of parents. This was quite flattering for me because loads of


BEGINNINGS 3

girls had crushes on him, but at the same time I didn’t really like
people thinking I was straight.

When I was sixteen I fell into a deep depression. A woman who
I thought was clever and wonderful took me under her wing and
started counselling me. I’d been in love with her for a couple of
years before then. Maybe she knew it; maybe it gave her power. I
think she was probably a lesbian, but she was also a Christian
fundamentalist. I overlooked her religious extremism, which was a
very bad move, but she was the only person who offered me any
kind of support.

I never told her I was a lesbian. I thought she would just
somehow know. I wanted her to say, ‘It’s fine—I am, too!’ but one
day she let it slip that her notion of counselling success would be if
I could ‘get married and have children’, as if that was the summit
of human happiness. I winced as she said those words. I thought,

‘Well, you have done none of these things yourself—why are you
telling me to do them?’

In retrospect I can see that no heterosexual ever helped me to
come to terms with my sexuality. Ninety per cent of them tried to
hinder it—not always directly (because they didn’t necessarily
know I was a lesbian) but their attitudes always implied a hatred
of homosexuality. The media didn’t help much either. When I was
quite young an MP was ‘exposed’ and hounded by the press for
her lesbianism. My stepmother said, ‘It’s disgusting, she lives with
another woman as if they were married and everything.’ I saw this
woman’s face on television. She looked like a perfectly pleasant
person. I hated the way she was being treated, as if she were a
murderer or something. I cannot remember her name, but I have
never forgotten her face, which is interesting because I really was
very young at the time. I have a photographic memory for faces,
maybe because as a young lesbian homosexuality was very rarely
spoken about. Their faces expressed more than their words. I had
to look very carefully at them to see how they really felt.

My best friend and I started to go to gay clubs together. I would
have preferred to visit women-only places, but I was shy and I
liked what’s-his-face. During one of our forays into the gay world
I did eventually make friends with another woman. I was eighteen,
she was about five years older than me. I was profoundly amazed
that she was interested in me and, without much thought, fell into
a relationship with her.


4 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

The first time we slept together I was overwhelmed. Physical
closeness to another person, any other person, was completely
outside my experience. I think I had a sort of small breakdown. I
felt as if I was disintegrating. This was, in some part, due to my
lover’s sudden revelation of her Catholicism. In her opinion our
relationship was evil. She said she had told a priest about it and he
had warned her it was a cardinal sin. After that she announced we
had to split up.

This was 1983 in inner London at the height of the GLC’s so-
called campaign to ‘promote homosexuality’. Where were the

‘positive images’, the ‘pro-gay propaganda’? If it ever existed I
never saw any and my first lover certainly didn’t. She could have
done with it—she tried to commit suicide more than once.

I think I was luckier than her. My parents are both atheists and
they never pushed any notions of ‘sin’ or ‘evil’ upon their children,
though they both have their fair share of secular bigotry and
dogmatism. At least I escaped religious guilt. I came out to my
parents when I was eighteen. I didn’t stand up in the middle of
their sitting-room and shout, ‘Listen here, everybody—I’m a
lesbian!’ I just never told any lies or covered anything up. I let them
know the woman I was living with was my lover. I think they
probably knew I was a lesbian before that, though. When I was
fourteen I’d cropped my hair and announced I was a feminist. I was
always going on about how superior I thought women were. Their
reaction to my lesbianism was very bland and reticent. At least
they didn’t say ‘you are disgusting and a pervert’, but by then I’d
been thrown out of home for other reasons and they knew I didn’t
care what straight people thought.

CATHY

My middle school in Leeds was rough and the kids largely working
class and it was common for the words ‘lez’ or ‘lezzie to be used
as terms of abuse by both girls and boys. I knew this meant some
female who had a dirty attitude towards, or involvement with,
other women. It was a really contemptuous word to use and I
remember feeling sorry for a girl called Lesley because someone
might realize that she could be nicknamed ‘Les’ and start teasing
her. I couldn’t understand how parents could choose such a name!
I can’t remember anyone ever explaining homosexuality to me at
that stage but have some vague memories of seeing Tom Brown’s


BEGINNINGS 5

Schooldays on television and associating boys’ schools with odd
behaviour in bedrooms. But it certainly wasn’t as bad as being
called a ‘lezzie ’. That attitude to lesbians remained right through
until my first year in the sixth form when I was stung and
humiliated by a drunken lad suggesting that my best friend and I
were ‘lesbians’ because I insisted on waiting for her to go home
with. But by then the feeling of having been insulted had little
connection with my inner and more positively developing ideas
about my attraction to women.

TANYA

I remember being on a school holiday at the age of thirteen and
chasing a schoolfriend around the hotel room when she had only her
underwear on. This was a very embarrassing memory for me for a
long time, although she never mentioned it again and we were
friends for a long time afterwards.

At the time I didn’t feel homosexual. It was more that I
perceived myself as male. I dressed in boys’ clothes and was
brought up very much with boys, including my brother, until I
went to an all-girl convent school at the age of eight. I didn’t begin
to perceive myself as a girl until I was about fourteen. I remember
looking at myself in the mirror and realizing that I had been seeing
myself as something I wasn’t.

My brother once asked my mother how she would feel if one of
her children was gay (this must have been when I was about
seventeen). She said, ‘Don’t be silly’ but when pressed she said that
it would be very sad. I remember feeling uncomfortable and
wishing the conversation would end. Homosexuality was often
talked about in the family in a jokey sort of way. I don’t remember
it being talked about at school. I imagine that I was presented with
negative images since it is only now, at the age of twentyfour, with
four years of more or less conscious lesbianism behind me, that I
have made some headway about feeling positive about it.

JESSICA

There was a programme on television one evening. I must have
been about eight. In it a woman declared herself a lesbian and
spoke of her feelings for women. I didn’t understand most of the
discussion, but I remember knowing.—somehow—that this


6 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

‘lesbian’, whatever it was, somehow related to the way I felt. I
remember being a bit scared. However unintelligible the language,
the tone of the programme was very clear in its disapproval. I
determined to keep this moment of self-discovery to myself until I
felt sure of my ground.

So, at the age of eight or nine, I had the terminology; certainly
by the time I was eleven words like ‘poof’ and ‘lez’ were bandied
about the playground as general terms of abuse for anyone who
didn’t fit the accepted criteria, but I doubt if anyone truly knew
what they meant.

Somewhere along the line between then and meeting the first
openly gay person I knew, I gleaned a little more information, but
from where I cannot recall. The subject was never discussed at
home; there were no visibly gay characters in the books I read and
I don’t remember any other television programmes devoted to the
subject. In retrospect I think I was a little afraid to find out. If
you’re tentative about who you are, anyway, you don’t make
waves by aligning yourself with ‘unacceptable’ minorities.

I’d always felt quite ‘different’ as a child, although I could never
pinpoint for why. For a long time I believed I should have been
born a boy because I felt very uneasy in typically feminine roles.
Being made to wear a dress and ‘play nicely’ was torture; I was
happiest up a tree with dirty knees and holes in my shorts. Not that
I was actively discouraged from being a boisterous girl child, I
simply felt an unspoken expectation for me to grow out of it and
an innate knowledge that I couldn’t.

I’d also always had strong feelings towards women. Again, in
retrospect, I feel that this was the root of my belief I should really
have been a boy. Had I been male I could have expressed my
interest in the girls around me. As it was, I knew I should keep
quiet about it. I felt there was something ‘wrong’ about these
feelings, but could never quite fathom quite what, because it felt so
natural. There were girls who were my friends and there were girls
for whom I had ‘special’ feelings. As a child this was simply a
desire for a closeness beyond that of our usual friendship, but as I
grew older these feelings did not abate; instead they grew more
intense. While not overtly sexual, they nevertheless craved a
greater intimacy than simple friendship permitted.

Throughout this time I never once considered the possibility I
might be gay. I think I was scared to—I still hadn’t truly fathomed
out what being gay was, except it was something no one wanted to


BEGINNINGS 7

be. The feelings I had for women were something secret and so
long as they remained so I didn’t need to deal with them. But I did
become quite solitary as I went into my teens, afraid they might
escape and expose me as something horrific. I remember being
quite afraid of fortune-tellers or anyone vaguely mystic, for fear
they would be able to recognize the Real Me. I was also afraid of
getting too close to any of the women I liked in case I revealed an
interest in them that they’d recognize. (I never considered what
their recognition might reveal about them!)

Ironically enough, in the midst of all this hiding, from myself
and everyone else, I also came out, to everyone except myself, in
that my best friend and I had a huge and very public crush on our
biology teacher, so all our class-mates began to think of us and
refer to us as ‘the lesbians’, but without rancour. Still, I didn’t
relate this to my other secret feelings about women. It was a bit of
a joke to have the hots for Ms Baker. To reveal you also fancy the
girl in the next desk was a bit too much like real life, and might
not have been received as well.

I trundled along in this confused fashion until I was sixteen.
About that time I met Tony, a friend of a friend. He was the first
openly gay man I’d met, and he scared me to death! He was
extremely camp, very loud and shrill and, while I was fascinated
by the entertainment value of his performance, I found his tales of
cottaging and doing drag depressing. I wanted to be able to talk to
him, to lay my emerging doubts about my own sexuality before
him and find reassurance, but I didn’t trust him to be sensible. I
continued to see him, because I had a vague hope he might
recognize my homosexuality and point me in the right direction,
but I think he was having too much trouble dealing with his own
to be able to help anyone else.

Daunted by this, and by trips I’d made with Tony and my friend
to gay clubs, where everyone was intent on scoring to the detriment
of anything else, I retreated back to the closet to lick my wounds. I
still did not acknowledge I might be gay, I was just showing an
interest in alternative lifestyles. It amazes me now how steadfastly
I clung to this idea, even though the odds were mounting against
me.

It took another year before I came out. I went to see a play
called Cloud Nine which had several gay characters in it.
Moreover, gay actors were playing the roles, so I felt more inclined
to believe in the truth of their performance. The gay men and


8 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

lesbians they portrayed were very real characters, not caricatures
or perverse or miserable, just ordinary people with real lives that
didn’t revolve around toilets or clubs. I saw the show four or five
times. Each time I felt better, safer for having spent that time in the
company of characters I knew to be real. Finally, from that nest of
security, I felt able to look inward and acknowledge my own
homosexuality.

RUTH

Right from the age of seven, at primary school, I got crushes on
older girls. I can even remember the names of two girls (older than
me) who I liked or perhaps hero-worshipped at that age. I
remember my mother telling me it was natural to have crushes on
older girls and how she’d experienced that as a schoolgirl. Having
a secure and loving family I didn’t worry too much about my
attachments to other girls. I never felt any hostility or antagonism
towards boys; indeed, I was the proverbial tomboy in shorts and T-
shirts, joining in with the boys in their games and gangs. It was
just that my emotional attachments always seemed to be directed
towards other girls. I think I was probably aware from a very early
age of the strength of my feelings for members of the same sex. At
the age of eight I was friendly with a girl of eleven. One day at her
house she suggested we both take all our clothes off and pretend to
be grown-ups who were married. I did as she suggested but didn’t
enjoy the feeling very much. I remember thinking what we were
doing wasn’t ‘normal’ and she was much more enthusiastic about
it than I was. She didn’t assault me and nothing horrible happened
but I felt guilty afterwards. She moved up to senior school and we
rarely saw each other afterwards.

At the age of ten or eleven I developed a particularly strong
crush on one of the girls in my class. We became best friends and
would sometimes kiss each other on the mouth. I remember liking
the feeling of her being so close to me. It was always incorporated
somehow in a game we played but I gradually became bored with
the game and felt I’d like to get straight to the part where I touched
her and kissed her. That stopped after about a year.

As I became an adolescent and more aware of what my sexuality
meant, I tended to ignore it. I started going out with boys at
fourteen and continued to do so on a fairly serious basis until I
was about nineteen. All the time I was aware that my attraction to


BEGINNINGS 9

women was not diminishing and indeed was becoming stronger.
But I felt isolated. I was growing up surrounded by heterosexuals
and knew no other lesbians or gay men.

At seventeen I got a Saturday job and one of my fellow workers
was a gay man about two years older than me. He was quite open
about his sexuality and I felt thrilled to have at least met someone
the same as me—even if he was the wrong sex! We never discussed
my sexuality; I probably would have denied it if he’d asked me.
Not having had a physical encounter with a member of my own
sex since the age of eleven, I hardly felt I was a lesbian.
Emotionally, I still felt attracted to women but physically I was a
practising heterosexual.

Then another girl started working there. I was attracted to her
and suspected she might be a lesbian. We became friendly and
started to see each other outside work. For about two months we
skirted around the issue until one night she admitted she was gay.
God, I felt so happy! Here at last was a fellow spirit. It took
another two weeks until one night I kissed her. This was
confirmation of everything I’d ever felt—it felt so right to kiss
another woman.

Unfortunately, the relationship floundered after about four
months. I was paranoid about anyone finding out about us. I felt
racked with guilt at someone bursting in through the door every
time she so much as touched my arm. We never progressed beyond
kissing, hugging and minor groping. I was too frightened to sleep
with her—fear of my and her inexperience as much as fear of being
discovered as a lesbian. Outside of her I knew no other lesbians.
Everywhere I turned heterosexuality was the norm. My brother
suspected my relationship and made some homophobic comments
which made me even more scared and paranoid. I’m sure it’s
because, seeing no other manifestation of gay life or relationships,
I didn’t know where to look for help or encouragement. The sad
thing is, how right it felt to hold her, and how that was mainly
destroyed by fear and paranoia about other people’s reactions and
rejection.

DOROTHY

By the time I was thirteen, I thought I might be a lesbian. My
strongest feelings were towards other women. I had been a heroine
worshipper from an early age. (I recall, with a smile, my five-year-


10 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

old fantasy of rescuing my teacher from a frozen death by
clutching her to my chest and marching across the wastes of
Antarctica to warmth and safety.) With the onset of puberty I
started feeling lustful rather than admiringly awed. I knew of
Freud’s theory of the latent homosexual phase, so figured it might
be something I would grow out of. I was, after all, incarcerated in
an all-girls’ school. But, at gut level, I felt it was for keeps, not
merely the emotional equivalent of a training bra.

I first expressed my lesbian self at fifteen when I made a pass at
one of my teachers. This didn’t go down well. On finding out, my
mother used her professional connections to get our family into
therapy very fast with a shrink who was, without doubt, a dyke.
Some irony there. Since I didn’t want to be involved I did my
damnedest to block it all out, and consequently lack memories of
that period.

ISLA

I never connected either the medical descriptions I found in the
text books and encyclopaedias in the library or the playground
whispers with the feelings I had which I’d been aware of for some
time. I didn’t connect it with myself until whispers started at school
that my best friend and I were lesbians. I was appalled at the
suggestion. When people began to say it to our faces and to be
abusive, threatening and finally violent, I went back to the library
and read in earnest, but nothing seemed to describe me. I heard of
a book called The Well of Loneliness and tried to borrow it from
the library. I never succeeded. It was always out and I was afraid
to request it as that meant giving my name and address and I was
frightened the librarian would inform my parents.

My friend and I had known each other all our lives and had
progressed from giving each other massages to sexual intimacy. I
never thought of this as homosexual or us as homosexuals until
other people labelled us with the term. Although my first
homosexual sexual experience was satisfying physically it was
otherwise very oppressive. My lover insisted on dead secrecy; no
one was to know. She would never kiss me, although we made
love. Eventually, I tentatively suggested to her that we might be
lesbians. She hit me hard and told me never to use that word to
her again. We were unique friends. Other people were
homosexuals.


BEGINNINGS 11

I still wasn’t sure what a homosexual was. I loved women and I
got a guilty thrill when homosexuality was mentioned or I read
about it. But did that make me one? I didn’t know where to turn.

The school informed my parents that they thought I was having
an ‘unnatural friendship’ but they didn’t take it seriously. The
school suggested an educational psychologist and a care order but
my parents refused to consider it. Not knowing that the reason I
truanted from school was to escape harassment, they said all I
needed was to be forced to attend. My lover left me as she couldn’t
stand the pressure at school.

Eventually, due to all this, I left school, home, town. My parents
were still in blissful ignorance and couldn’t understand why I
wanted to leave. Once in the big city things improved. I met people
who had no negative views about homosexuality, and met gay
people through them. I told no one of my own feelings and
experiences but I began to get positive images of gays and lesbians.
I made gay and lesbian friends and through these friendships was
introduced to the gay scene and to gay books and movies. I still
refused to accept my own lesbianism but I began to confide in
other gays who were supportive, sympathetic and patient. I shared
a flat with a gay man who was wonderful. At the age of twenty-
three I finally felt happy with my identity as a lesbian and came
out and, for the first time, felt happy about sex.

MEG

When I was thirteen our family moved towns. I remember very
clearly my first day at my new school. While the Principal was
showing my parents and me round the school and singing its
praises, a tall dark-haired girl interrupted him, carrying another
girl who had just overdosed on tranquillizers. It was a great advert
for a school for me, but my parents were a little put out to say the
least!

I didn’t even have the usual trauma of breaking into the scene of
the new school. Kelly, the dark-haired beauty, who was the most
popular girl in the school for her sporting abilities, her great
practical jokes and her open rebelliousness, for some reason really
took a shine to me and I was immediately made a member of the

‘inner clique’. Kelly and I became inseparable. We spent all day
together at school, even getting there earlier than necessary in
order to have more time together. After school, we spent hours


12 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

together until we would have to part reluctantly to go to our
homes. What did we find to talk about for all those hours?
Weekends we used to spend at each other’s homes.

Neither of us could articulate it (not even to each other then)
but we knew that the physical attraction and the over-the-top
liking for each other was more than ‘just friends’. At the time there
used to be a put-down which went ‘Lez-be-friends’. We were called
this all the time, but it didn’t sound so bad to me. Eventually, after
months of faking falls and faints, pretending to sleep and dropping
my arm out of bed so that she would gently have to put it back, we
kissed. Wow, what a kiss! Talk about the earth moving! It was
electrifying, and from that moment on we were hot lovers, positively
rampant! We used to go into the girls’ loos and get it off, but all in
absolute silence. We became masters of the Silent Fuck. Of course,
we told no one at school for fear of persecution.

My mum and dad used to work until about six o’clock, so that
meant we had a couple of hours’ privacy to go to bed (after I’d
gotten rid of my little brother). A couple of times we got so carried
away we didn’t hear mum come home and she walked in on us,
hard at it! Horror!! She reacted like her daughter was being raped
by the devil, banned Kelly from the house for ever, and tried to
make me feel vile, repulsive and sick. She did make me feel
terrible, mainly because I could see that this split between us was
irreparable, but I always knew deep down that the love and care
Kelly and I had for each other could never be an evil thing, and
that the badness was in my mother’s head and in society’s attitude.
However, we had no one else to turn to for support and
affirmation, we only had each other. In fact, my mother always
regarded me with suspicion from then on and I never forgave her
for her bigotry and narrow-mindedness, until the moment before
she died, when I allowed myself to forgive, for, after all, she was
only the product of her background and conditioning.

I left home shortly after that, at the age of fifteen, on the pretext
that it was too difficult for me to find work in a small country
town. My real reason was to be with Kelly. We set up house
together, with other friends (mixed) and Kelly and I lived together
for a further six years in total subterfuge. Even though we were all
supposedly liberated, seventies drug-taking, political rebels, Kelly
and I still didn’t feel safe enough to tell our friends about our
relationship. We had a room together but with separate, single beds.


BEGINNINGS 13

I’m talking about the years 1969 to 1975 in Queensland,
Australia, when we were still in the dark ages.

STEPH

I was aware of my feelings for a long time before I knew there was
a name for them. In fact, long before I knew there was a name for
anything! I was passionately in love with Julie Rogers when I was
nine (she was a singer—of The Wedding’ fame). These days I
deplore my early taste, but then she was my dream. I had pin-up
posters of her all over my half of the bedroom and I spent a
considerable amount of time indulging in day-dreams, fantasizing
how I would rescue her from some peril—kidnapping or terrorists
or something—and she would faint gratefully in my arms, and then
we’d live happily ever after. I was much too young and innocent to
know what came between the fainting and the ‘happy-ever-after’
but whatever it was I was sure it was wonderful.

The next clear memory I have of any kind of emotions was some
time between eleven and twelve in my first year of high school. I
started getting the same feelings about a girl in my class, and
putting her into the same kind of day-dreams. I knew enough by
then to add a couple of kisses (no tongues!) before the happy-ever-
after bit. I found myself trying to get her attention, to like me,
showing off if I knew she was watching. I discovered I could make
her laugh, so I became court jester for a while. Looking back, I’m
sure she was having the same kind of feelings but didn’t know
what to do with them either. She’s an actress now, and I know for
a fact that she’s bisexual. But, back then, I didn’t know how she
felt. I didn’t care as long as I could be with her. It must’ve been
fairly obvious that I had a crush on her. When I was twelve, right
at the beginning of my second year, a couple of classmates passed
by and one of them said, ‘You know, if I was a lez, I’d go for
Geraldine as well.’ I didn’t have any feelings about the phrase
except curiosity; I’d never heard the word. I couldn’t find ‘lez’ in
the dictionary either. I went to Frankie, the class know-all, to see if
she knew. After careful checking that no one was listening, she
explained that ‘lez’ was short for lesbian and it meant women who
went to bed with other women. I mulled over this for a while.

‘What? You mean girls fall in love with girls like boys?’ ‘Yes,’ she
said. I said ‘Thanks’ and went away to digest this information. I
couldn’t see anything wrong with it. It seemed perfectly natural. I


14 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

thought, ‘Fine, I’ve got a name. I’m a lez.’ It didn’t bother me in
the slightest and I promptly dismissed it from my mind, and
carried on having crushes for the next couple of years on three or
four more girls and a couple of teachers (French and Maths, to be
precise. Our gym teacher was a vicious drill-sergeant who looked
like the loser in a head-butting contest with a steam train!).

At fifteen the word was brought to my attention again. By this
time my best friend, and subject of my current crush, was Felicity—
masses of wavy auburn hair, blue eyes—and I thought she was
marvellous. I had my own room now, not shared with my sister,
and Janis Joplin and Joan Baez had replaced Julie Rogers on the
wall. Felicity and I would often lock ourselves in and talk for
hours after school about pop stars and films. In spite of being
underaged we’d sneaked in to see both The Graduate and
Rosemary’s Baby during our afternoon ‘playing hooky’ sessions.
Felicity thought Dustin Hoffman was the living ‘It’—absolutely
groovy—and we’d talk about boyfriends, not that either of us had
ever had one, but it was expected that we would talk about them,
and make an effort to acquire one soon. Personally, I wasn’t
bothered. I had absolutely no interest whatsoever in boys.

One afternoon—for some reason I remember quite clearly that it
was a Wednesday—we were lying on the bed, as usual, propped up
on our elbows when Felicity asked me if I’d ever been kissed.
When I said I hadn’t she confessed that neither had she, and then
suggested that perhaps we ought to get some practice. After all,
boys would think we were silly if we’d no idea how to kiss them.
Being unbelievably thick I asked how we were supposed to do
that. She said we could practise with each other, and promptly
suited the action with words. My God, did she know how to kiss.
Every afternoon from then on we’d go home and practise kissing
for hours. I discovered tongues! This went on for about three
months, nothing more than kissing, though I discovered that,
sometimes, kissing started feelings in other places. I didn’t quite
know what to do with that.

Then we got careless. A quick kiss snatched in the loo while
sneaking a cigarette, or in the changing-room at the gym—sooner
or later we were bound to get caught. Not that I knew why we
were hiding or why I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. It all seemed
perfectly natural to me. The crunch came when my mother
received an anonymous letter, as did Felicity’s, from someone at
school, calling us perverts and so on. It was quite a nasty, sick


BEGINNINGS 15

letter from what little I remember. Mum flipped, asked if it was
true, and then blew her top. I was grounded for a couple of weeks,
and kept away from school. When I returned I found that Felicity’s
parents had taken her away from the school completely. I went
round to see her. She wouldn’t take the door off the chain. She told
me I was a filthy pervert, sick, that I’d corrupted her, that it was
all my fault, that I was a nasty lezzie, and that she never wanted to
see me again. At which point her mother came home, said roughly
the same things and threatened to call the police. Her mother
called my mother on a neighbour’s phone, as we didn’t have one
of our own. By the time I got home my mother was on the
warpath. She told me she was going to tell my dad when he came
back at the weekend. I knew what the reaction would be and I
didn’t fancy getting the living daylights beaten out of me. I ran
away from home. The police brought me back four days later.

When I got back to school the fun really started. There had
always been whispers about me, but mostly good-natured jokes
about keeping my hands in sight or who was sharing my room on
school trips. The good-natured jokes stopped and things got nasty.
No one would sit near me, and at recess and lunch-breaks and my
other free time before and after school, the gang of girls who
considered themselves the toughest, about ten or twelve of them,
would follow me everywhere I went, chanting ‘lezzie, lezzie’ or
asking questions about what I did and who with. (They had some
fairly bizarre ideas of lesbian sex!) There would be messages in my
desk; my coat and books mysteriously disappeared regularly,
turning up in a puddle, or smothered in ink and the like. I stuck it
out for a year, then I dropped out of school. I’d thoroughly got the
message though. I was sick, perverted, disgusting and no decent
person would associate with me. I started to acquire a deep self-
hatred and a sense of shame. I withdrew totally into myself. I had
always been a bit of a tomboy, but now I had got the message—
lesbians were imitation men. I became very butch.

My mother took me to the doctor when I was sixteen after
collapsing with asthma. He took her aside to discuss my ‘problem’
and suggested hormone shots! My mother became very indignant,
and we all changed our doctor. She had never told my father. I
didn’t realize it then, but she probably knew all about me and
accepted me, but didn’t know how to tell me it was okay.

Just before my fourteenth birthday I saw my first ever lesbian in
the media—Shirley Maclaine in a movie called The Loudest


16 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

Whisper.* It was on as the late-night movie on BBC2. In the end
she commits suicide. After it, to my complete surprise, I burst into
tears. I’m not sure why—the previous two years of hell, shame and
guilt, I expect. Over the next couple of years I saw a couple more
movies and television shows, and I found The Well of Loneliness.
The message was the same each time. There was a ‘real’ lesbian,
generally mannish, though not always, and a ‘real’ woman who
eventually left the lesbian, usually for a man. The lesbian then
committed suicide, conveniently. She was always a sad, pathetic
figure, or totally despised and unlikeable. I was getting the message
loud and clear by now. That year my family left London to live in
the West Country. That large cathedral city proved to be just as
forward-thinking and tolerant as I expected. It was 1972, there
was a gay movement, things were happening, but it might as well
have been on the dark side of the moon for all the information I
had. Then I discovered alcohol. It didn’t make anything better, but
sometimes it could make you forget the hurt.

Then something good happened, for a change. I discovered a real
lesbian—another one She was thirty-four and married with two
sons. I was seventeen and ignorant. It was only a one-night stand,
but what a night. I learned an incredible amount, almost enough to
show me how ignorant I really was. But, at last, I finally knew,
yes, sex with a woman was fantastic. It was right. It was natural.
There was no alternative. This was who I was. It was an action-
packed year. I became fairly promiscuous (when I could find other
dykes!), my father died, and I was rapidly disappearing into a
bottle.

The year 1974 came. I was nineteen and another great thing
happened. I discovered Gay News and Sappho. They rapidly
became my lifeline. There were loads of others out there and they
weren’t unhappy, they were glad and proud. By now I’d had so
much practice at self-hating that this seemed like a revolutionary
concept. Then I fell in love. She was straight. She didn’t believe
me, but we stayed friends. I decided to tell my mother. It was
hardly a proud coming out. I got drunk and cried a lot and told
her I was ‘queer’. She said—and I remember her words exactly
—‘Yes, of course you are, dear. Now pop the kettle on and let’s

*

British title of The Children’s Hour (1961) from Lillian Hellman’s play
of the same name.


BEGINNINGS 17

have a nice cup of tea.’ I have never sobered up so fast in my life.
She completely and totally accepted it and always has. She invited
me home for Christmas with my girlfriend, referred to herself as
my friend’s ‘mother-in-law’ and accepts any change in partner or
lifestyle with a completely unruffled attitude that still sometimes
leaves me gasping, especially when I see the trouble some others
have with their parents.

In early 1975 my friend finally believed me and decided she
might be in love with me too, although she was still certain she
wasn’t gay, and we moved in together. She pulled me firmly out of
the bottle. The only real problem with our relationship was that I
spent our entire time together just waiting for her to run off with a
man. She got totally fed up with this expectation and did.

I had now decided I was gay and proud of it. I started wearing
badges, going on marches and talking about it to anyone who would
listen. I was twenty, but I wasn’t really ‘proud’. I hadn’t really
accepted it myself. Oh, I don’t mean I thought there was any
alternative. There wasn’t. I couldn’t be anything other than gay,
but I still wasn’t (for want of a better word) comfortable with it. I
was loud, pushy, aggressive and defensive.

My lover had returned. Throughout our time together she
would, infrequently, get involved with a man before returning to
me. She had a lot of parent trouble and took a long time to come
to terms with her sexuality. She wasn’t as lucky as me; she did
have the alternative and it confused her.

Some time, around age twenty-six or seven, I started to realize I
didn’t need to be pushy any more. If somebody asked, I would tell
them, or if it came up in conversation, or if I needed to correct any
anti-gay remark or joke, but I wasn’t being aggressive any more.
The defensiveness has gone. I seem to have developed what I call

‘quiet acceptance’. I think that I have finally come to terms with
my sexuality properly.

My feelings now are that I love being a woman. I love being a
lesbian; I wouldn’t change it if I could. I love women and making
love with women. I’m back to being fairly promiscuous again. I
find that if I’m in a serious relationship I’m faithful, and I work
hard at it, but if I’m not in a ‘proper’ relationship I tend to have a
few, three or four continuing but casual affairs. I don’t go in for
one-night stands much, but I wouldn’t object if someone I liked
really wanted one! If people can’t handle that—too bad, but life’s
too short to worry about them. I give all my energy to the people I


18 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

care about. I don’t have any time for people who disapprove or
think I’m sick. There are still people like that.

To borrow a Kylie Minogue song title—yes, we play some tacky
music at our discos too!—‘I wouldn’t change a thing’. My
adolescence was no picnic, but if I hadn’t gone through that then,
maybe, I wouldn’t be as happy now.


2
Kip


SARA

I grew up in the very liberal setting of an artists’ community in
Cornwall. There was a great deal of tolerance of homosexuality,
on the whole, and I have memories of there always being gay men
around. My mother had, and still has, many gay men friends and,
as a teenager, I stayed with them in London, and they stayed with
us at home. My father wasn’t at all happy about Mum’s friends
and blamed the break-up of their marriage on a woman friend of
my mother’s. In fact, he was having a lot of affairs and leaving all
the bringing up of my brother and me to my mother. He left to live
in London when I was about fourteen. My mother’s friend lived
with us and shared her bedroom. However, it wasn’t until I was
around thirty and thinking about my own sexuality, that I realized
that this was a lesbian relationship. I have been able to talk to my
mother and her friend about this as they are still friends, spending
each Sunday together. She was like an older sister to me and is in
Mum’s will, the same as my brother and I. This is fine by me. She
must have been so supportive to my mother at a very difficult time
in my mother’s life. She has relationships with men now. As far as
I know my mother has not had any other relationships since with
either sex.

JUDY

When I was getting used to the idea that I was a lesbian and
beginning to make friends on the gay scene, I had my first physical
sexual experience with another woman. It was not actually very
good at all as both of us had been drinking and, for my part, there


20 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

was no real sexual attraction to this woman, but I was not sure
how to refuse her and felt it was something I had to do—almost
just to get it over with! My next sexual partner was a woman I
lived with for five years but I couldn’t honestly say that even then
the sex was good. My partner “did not (and does not) enjoy
sexual intimacy. We have now separated but she has not settled
with any other partner either in terms of sexual compatibility. At
the time we were together I felt very badly about my sexual
appetite and desires as she disliked that side of things. It wasn’t
until I had a brief encounter with a woman who ‘picked me up’ on
the tube in London and took me back to her place, that I had a
happy sexual experience. She was as passionate about sex as I am
and we had uninhibited and pleasurable sex in the week we were
together.

I had confided my sexuality to my mother after I became
involved in my first lesbian relationship and she just said that she
already suspected as much…and that was all. She was neither
positive nor negative about it and didn’t seem to want to talk so I
was not able to discuss that part of my life with her. Four years
after I came out my mother separated from my dad and,
subsequently, started a lesbian relationship with a work colleague.
She did not, at first, let anyone else in the family know until I
asked her about her ‘friendship’. Since then, she and her girlfriend
have been living together and are both very happy. My youngest
sister also came out in her late teens. As I am the oldest child in
our family, and my sister had also seen my mum settle down with
another woman, it was probably easier for her to come to terms
with her sexuality than it was for me, having no role models or
even knowledge of lesbianism as a child. My mother does not
consider that she was always lesbian and said she enjoyed her
marriage to my dad while it lasted—approximately thirty years—
but she now identifies as lesbian in her present relationship.

PAULA

My best friend was the girl next door. Carrie was the same age as
me. One of the games we played when we were about ten or
twelve years old involved us hugging and holding each other. At the
time, I knew that I enjoyed that game, and that it felt different and
pleasurable. I did not then recognize those feelings as
sexual. Later, when I experienced sexual arousal and understood


KIN 21

what it was, I remembered those games and reinterpreted the
feelings they aroused in me.

At the time of my friendship with Carrie, my mother asked me
one day what she and I did when we played in her bedroom. Even
though I felt innocent of any wrongdoing, and believed my
friendship and games with Carrie to be totally good and
acceptable, I knew there was trouble looming with my mother, so I
lied. I did not tell her about the hugging and holding game,
because I knew she would say it was wrong and sick. Even so, she
forbade me to play inside with Carrie unless the weather was so
bad that we could not play outside, and she made it clear that
anything Carrie and I did in her bedroom must be wrong and
abnormal and disgusting.

My sister, Julia, is a lesbian and lived with the same woman
from the age of eighteen till she was forty. However, I did not
allow myself to know she was a lesbian until I was about thirty. My
father asked me, when I was eighteen, if I thought Julia and the
woman she lived with were lesbians. I replied that I did not know,
and that it was none of my business anyway. I think that at the time
I thought they were lesbians, and that I was protecting them. I
believe that, as my politics and my friendship with women
developed, I refused to believe that Julia and the woman she lived
with could be lesbians, as that would have challenged my own
position.

When I was a child, we had two friends, Miss Ashton and Miss
Carpenter. Miss Ashton was twenty years younger than Miss
Carpenter and took care of her. They lived together, and I remember
that I was interested in the fact that though they had two
bedrooms they shared one of them, leaving the other empty. As I
got into my teens, I began to believe that they were lesbians (or
whatever my vocabulary allowed me to think), and that was fine
by me.

When I was sixteen, I began to be involved in the local repertory
theatre, and I soon realized that some of the men were
homosexual. They, and everyone in the theatre, were completely
open about it and, as everyone showed that it was okay, and as I
was continuing to rebel against my parents’ views, I had no
antipathy towards them. Indeed, the kindness and friendliness
shown by some of them probably helped to shape my view that
gay was okay. For others, though, not for me.


22 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

Paradoxical as it may seem, I am convinced that I finally reached
the position where I dared to express the sexual feelings I had had
for several years, because of the heterosexual relationship I was in
at the time. When I was thirty-two I began what turned out to be
the longest-lasting (two years), safest, most comfortable, least
threatening relationship I ever had with a man. Till then I had been
very unhappy, considering myself too unattractive, unloveable,
tall, intellectual, feminist, anything, to have a’normarl’ relationship
with a man. I was never in a couple and never felt accepted by the
straight world I inhabited. With this relationship came my
acceptance of myself as a worthwhile human being. I believe that
one of the reasons I was able to let go of my heterosexuality and
seize my lesbianism with such enthusiasm and determination was
because I felt good about myself for the first time in my adult life.

ELAINE

I live in two worlds. I’m not out at work or at home and I lead two
separate lives. My friends at the sports club where I play don’t
really know, with the odd exceptions. My friend is the same age.
We’ve been friends for sixteen years, quite close, and it was to her
that I first admitted I was gay. This was not, however, until after
I’d been seeing a man for quite a while and we/he decided that he
wanted to live with me. I wanted this as well, not really because
we were in love but we were good mates. We used to go out on his
motor bike and do things like that together, and we both wanted
to get away from our parents so we began to think about it. It was
then we had rather a nasty accident on the motor bike and I was
quite badly injured. He came to see me every day as he had only
slight injuries. When I came out of hospital he came twenty miles a
day to see me even though I knew it was a chore for him, but it was
the highlight of my day because he could take me out and I’d had
to sit indoors most of the day. It was two and a half to three years
before I could move about again and we found a place to live and
set up home. My parents, who are very archaic, were pleased in one
way, that I was living with a man, but they wanted us to marry. We
were very happy. Sex wasn’t very good, but I thought that was just
me. Occasionally, I used to lie in bed and cry but I didn’t know
why. Jeff used to get upset too. Eventually, I started going to see a
therapist about the sex problem and she was so good. I was only


KIN 23

meant to see her a couple of times but I ended up going to see her
for a year and a half.

I think she knew I was gay from the beginning but she never
said; she let me talk it out. Gradually, though, I began to feel like a
balloon that is being blown up until I was ready to burst. Jeff and I
went on holiday. We had a nice time and came back on the
Saturday morning. My sister, nine years younger than me, came to
see me. I’d known she was gay for a few years, when I’d visited her
flat (she’d been thrown out at home with these words from my
father, ‘I’d rather she’d been a prostitute’). When my sister came to
visit me she asked for directions how to get to a place twenty miles
away where there was a gay disco. On the spur of the moment I
asked her to take me along. I lied that I’d been to that sort of place
before and she was really shocked. So was I, really, but the more
she backed down the more firm I was until she agreed. I’d never
been to a disco before and I found it very loud. I was about twenty-
seven then. When we got there I met a girl I used to work with and
always fancied and she’d tried very hard to get to know me, but
then I was on my ‘straight kick’. She got quite drunk and, although
she was with someone, she danced very provocatively with me. I
didn’t see her for a while after that but I’ll always remember her. I
still find her very attractive but she’s settled down now.

Anyway, later that night I met a girl who danced the slow ones
with me and I asked lots of, I thought, impertinent questions. She
was very drunk but didn’t appear to be. Her name was Valerie.
She worked fairly near me and I saw her a few times in her place
of work, until one day she asked me out. We went out together for
a year until she met a girl who was supposedly straight. I still think
of her a lot and, though I don’t see her now, she still means a lot to
me. I was very upset at the time and I cried all the time at home,
although I’m not the crying type, more through injured pride, I
think. By this time I had gotten married and had been living with
Jeff for four years. Valerie used to find this difficult and so did I,
but after Valerie and I split up I moved out of the bed I’d shared
with Jeff and slept on my own.

I’ve had quite a few girlfriends but they all tend to fall in love
with me and I don’t fall in love with them as heavily. I don’t think
I’ve ever really loved anyone. I’m very selfish and I don’t like
things that get too routine. I’ve got a very busy social life with lots
of sport and I’ve never really found anyone that’s worth giving it
up for. I’d been going out with a girl for eighteen months until I


24 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

recently broke it off to go with a girl ten years my junior. I used to
have lots of girls wanting to go out with me. Although this sounds
big-headed it was true, especially round three years ago, but I’m
usually unaware of it at the time until someone tells me. I find it
all very embarrassing, although it does my ego the world of good.
In the gay world I’m found quite attractive, but in the straight
world I’m the butch girl who’s shy and boring and, as I work with
a girl all the men find attractive (I don’t), they fall over her and she
is very popular, it’s not very easy for me. I occasionally get fed up
with it, but not often. I find it very degrading to see her enjoying
the men leering over her.

I can remember being quite shocked about my sister being gay.
My twin sister is straight and, although she has had a fling with a
girl, she is really into men, but she is very open-minded and does a
lot to pacify my parents when they think I look like a boy because
my hair’s too short and so on. Soon Jeff and I are going to split up
as he is moving in with another woman and I have to tell my
parents.

FRANCES

In the first years of my sheltered life in Catholic middle-class
Dublin I was completely unaware of homosexuality. No doubt I
laughed at Dame Edna Everage or women with moustaches, but
only because they broke gender stereotypes. I had no idea that
there was more than one kind of sexuality.

At the age of ten, during a year in New York, I was astounded
when a boy in my science class asked the teacher, ‘Why do homos
wear leather and chains?’ and was given a calm answer about the
role of clothes in group sexual identity. Back in Ireland, my peer
group was not offered any sex education till the age of fifteen. I
absorbed homophobia. I remember commenting that sodomy
sounded disgusting and a friend reproaching me with ‘different
strokes for different folks’.

A few months after that incident I fell in love with a
schoolfriend, Michelle. I told my diary that I seemed to be a

‘platonic lesbian’ (since my adoration was above merely carnal)
but, no doubt, would grow out of it. After a year, when my
feelings for Michelle were even stronger and I was beginning to
have erotic dreams about other friends, I admitted to myself that I
was probably bisexual since, after all, there was no proof that I


KIN 25

would not be attracted to men in the future. David Bowie and
other pop stars were bisexual, so it must have some glamour. I
found my position more heroic and poetic—‘the love that dares
not speak its name’ and so forth—than frightening. It was all right
for geniuses to be a little abnormal, at least in youth.

My big break came at fifteen when I told my friend, Rachel, that
I was bisexual. She said, ‘Me too’. The relief was immense. Each
being in love with a different girl in our class we formed a sort of
alliance in coping-with-unrequited-sapphic-passion. Though I had
a much more positive attitude to lesbianism than she did, I joined
with her in assuming we would probably shift our attention to men
when we grew up. She did, I didn’t.

But for the first physical expression of my lesbianism I have to
look back to the age of about eight when my turbulent relationship
with my sister Evelyn (three years older) began to confuse both of
us. I worshipped her. She spurned me by day, but was gentle by
night. We played at boy-girl disco situations, nighties neatly
between our knees. I was aghast when, kissing me, she put her
tongue in my mouth, ostensibly to prepare me for boys. Once I
recklessly told Evelyn I liked it when she put her leg between my
legs and pushed. She went cold. I said, ‘It’s all right, isn’t it, since
we’re sisters?’ Evelyn never let me spend the night in her bed
again, and we have barely been on speaking terms ever since. I felt
ashamed of having put words on my pleasure and lost a sister.

At the age of sixteen my friendship with Michelle began, very
gradually, to become sexual. We ‘went out together’ for three
years, despite often feeling rather temporary and unmotivated
about the relationship, since we were in love with other women. I
discovered Michelle’s body with rapture. For various reasons, it
was a fairly one-way sexual relationship. Although we had to be
furtive, and almost always fully clothed, in my parent’s house, I
felt no guilt about sex. Despite being a practising Catholic, I knew
something that glorious and generous couldn’t be wrong. So,
although I didn’t experience much arousal or anything like an
orgasm till my next relationship, it was with Michelle that I first
discovered joyful sexual expression. You can live through your
hand…

At fourteen I had never knowingly met a gay man or a lesbian. I
was completely isolated. An American friend of my father’s that I
met once was rumoured to be gay, but that was all. No family
members, no friends or teachers—as far as I know. No role models


26 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

nearer than Martina Navratilova. Convent schools are not as full
of dykes as you might think! At parties, the more sophisticated
girls in my class remarked that we all had a certain bisexual
potential. We all flirted with each other, fondling each other’s
thighs under the desk or corresponding under pseudonyms such as

‘the gay rake’. But I thought I was the only one for whom it wasn’t
a game. When we guessed ‘who’s the one-in-ten?’ I dreaded that
they knew.

In retrospect, I see a fairly clear division between the three or
four in my class of thirty who had strong lesbian feelings and acted
on them and the rest who felt a certain amount of sexual
excitement in the convent school environment but never really fell
for a woman.

I would have liked to tell my parents while I was still at school,
but the risk was too great; though they wouldn’t have thrown me
out, it might have been unbearable to live with them if they had
reacted badly. I was a ‘good girl’ and couldn’t bear to jeopardize
that. I thought they loved me, yes, but only because they didn’t
know who I really was.

My father found out by accident and deduction when I was
twenty. He was rather upset that I’d been having a sexual
relationship in the house, and anxious that I should keep coming
to Mass and not get alienated from him and my mother, but other
than that he insisted it was ‘none of his business’ and I was still his
favourite daughter. As he got used to the idea, he became
increasingly loving towards me, though I doubt he will ever talk
much about it.

My mother I finally gathered the nerve to tell at twenty-one
when I had left home. It turned out she had guessed and come to
terms with it years before, but had not said anything because (a) it
might only have been a phase, (b) it would have embarrassed us
both to acknowledge that I was having a sexual relationship,
something forbidden in the house to my straight siblings, and (c) it
was up to me to tell her when I wanted to. She said all she knew
about homosexuality was that a certain percentage just were that
way. She thought it a pity that I wouldn’t have children, but then
neither did some of my unmarried siblings. It might be hard to be a
trail-blazer, but I was good at that sort of thing. Above all, she
loved me the way she always had.

Since then she has rung up all my family and announced that I
am ‘officially gay’. She is warm towards my lover, and so far has


KIN 27

never tried to closet me in a family or public situation. For a
woman who never knowingly spoke to a homosexual before, I
think my mother is doing wonderfully!

MANDY

When I was about fourteen or fifteen years old my brother, who
was eighteen, started going out with someone, but wouldn’t
introduce us or tell us anything about this person. So he was teased
mercilessly until such time as he chose to come out. He told me by
picking me up from school—in itself odd—and telling me straight.
I didn’t know what to make of it all, didn’t ask anything or make
much comment. Years later he told me that at this time when he
most needed his family around him we all absorbed the news and
scurried off privately to digest it, so he was quite alone. Eventually
I just accepted it and realized he was still my brother and so on, but
didn’t think about it really, and certainly didn’t think I could be a
lesbian.

I wasn’t aware of homosexuality until that time. One heard the
word ‘lezzie at an all-girls’ school but I never gave it any thought.
Apparently, there was at least one other lesbian in my class and
three lesbian teachers, but it was unknown to me! At twelve or
thirteen, I had a crush on a girl a few years older than me, but that
passed without incident. I suppose I didn’t really think about
lesbianism at all until I was in a lesbian relationship and that was
after the not unusual reaction of ‘I’m not a lesbian, I’m just in love
with this one woman’.

With my elder brother involved with Gay Liberation I picked up
philosophies of ‘liberation for all’ and certainly feminism. I would
moan at the injustices that women put up with, but it was my
brother who prompted me to do something. And a Christmas
present at sixteen years old of two feminist books and a soldering
iron was my initiation to feminism.

Gradually feminism and sexually relating to men began to
appear to be in conflict, and a move at twenty-one from the

‘trendy leftie’ Avon town where we had lived to an honestly and
blatantly sexist northern town highlighted the difficulty. Still
I hadn’t actually thought out the consequence, I just battled with
my choice of men.

At twenty-three, as a mature student, I went to women’s group
meetings, totally unaware of the almost one hundred per cent


28 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

lesbian attendance! But I became close friends with our student
teacher, who also identified as feminist, and we attended events
together. We were very drunk one night after a party and she, I
and a male neighbour came back for a coffee and ended up in a
three-way hug, which resulted in the man in a drunken heap on the
floor, and she and I kissing. The rest I don’t remember until the
morning when I awoke to the awareness of someone in my bed
and my first thought was, ‘God, that’s my teacher!’

That was the start of an initially happy relationship; difficult
because of the extreme secrecy necessary, but we were madly in
love for about six months. When it ended, messily and painfully, I
had a short fling with a man, but I knew that never again could I
have a sexual relationship with a man.

I came out to my family at various times, depending on the
relationship with each sibling. One brother guessed almost
immediately because I’m very open and demonstrative and I
couldn’t stop talking about this woman! My gay brother told me
to think carefully as it was a difficult life to choose! But all have
accepted it well and now there’s no difference between any of us in
the family and all partners are treated equally.

SHEILA

I had my first experience of a physical expression of my sexuality
when I was nineteen. I was ecstatically happy. Any unhappiness I
experienced was related to my family’s disappointment,
particularly my mother’s, and ‘hiding’ my private life from family
and employers. I felt a sense of shame in doing this and a growth of
the loss of my general confidence in myself as a person of worth
and ability. Over a period of six years these constraints affected
my happiness in the relationship. I began to feel happy only when I
developed the relationship in terms of sexual expression. Any
strain that later developed regarding sexual expression grew from
a sense of public disapproval of same-sex relationships—at least,
that was how I interpreted it. The relationship itself wasn’t the
problem. The problem grew out of the way a same-sex relationship
tended to be viewed by society at large.

My father was attracted to other men, but never had a
relationship with one. I think the same may apply to my mother
too, but she has never been as explicit with me as my father. I did
not know of this when I was a child. My parents told me when I


KIN 29

spoke to them about my sexuality. As an adult it helped a great
deal to know that my father understood so completely and that I
wasn’t so ‘different’. He accepted me as I am, just the person I am,
including my sexuality. One older sister accepted me and wanted
to understand. Mother was probably very disappointed, distressed
and guilt-ridden. She tried to understand, but had a lot of difficulty
in letting go of her dreams of my being married with kids and so
on. It’s taken us both a long time, but seventeen years later we
both understand, accept and respect one another.

LIZ

I have a female doctor who is not aware that I am a lesbian.
However, my father who is also gay informed the same doctor of
his sexual orientation and received a rather negative response. She
gave him two pieces of advice: (a) he should not tell anyone else—
telling me (his apparently heterosexual daughter) had already been

‘a mistake’; (b) he should never try to ‘pick up’ anyone.

My father had a nervous breakdown some years ago and still
suffers from depression. He sees this primarily as a result of his
guilty feelings about being gay. However, despite his disclosure of
these views, neither his psychiatrist or the woman doctor
mentioned above wanted to explore the connection between his
failure to ‘come to terms’ with his sexuality and his ‘mental
illness’.

JOY

I was thirteen when I experienced my first serious lesbian
attachment, but did not know that I was a lesbian, or the word. I
attended a convent, and lots of the other girls also had
relationships. We knew they had to be hidden from the nuns who
made a great fuss if they saw two girls alone or talking intimately.
I felt very strongly that my feelings were different to many of the
others and in later years was proved right. We were told in
assembly that certain ‘unnatural passions’ were sent by the
devil, and that we must work hard, play lots of sports and pray to
make a good marriage!

My first experience did not include sex, other than kissing and
fondling, and I was over forty before I met another woman who
had been a lesbian all her life and made love to me. It was the


30 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

most amazing experience of my life. I felt for the first time that I
understood what had been missing all my life. I had a sense of
coming home and having my experience validated at last.

Because of my Catholic upbringing my early impressions of
homosexuality were all negative, even though my father, for most
of my adolescent years, had boyfriends, and many friends of both
sexes whom I knew were gay. They were not openly so, but I
realized they were all ‘different’ and that my mother strongly
disapproved of most of them. From this I have developed a great
distrust of untruthfulness and double standards.

I was eighteen and a half when I left school and was, at the
time, very much in love with a girl of the same age. We never had
sex but kissed, hugged, wrote each other passionate letters and
poetry and shared a bed at each other’s homes from time to time.
She had several relationships with women and was trying hard to

‘straighten herself out’. She began a relationship with a man at
university and we then lost contact.

I married at the age of twenty after several other attachments,
none of which were sexual, and none reciprocated. The man I
married was four years older and an old family friend. I felt very
drawn to him and went into a phase of thinking I could be ‘cured’—
though I realized immediately that the sexual side of marriage was
a disaster to me. He knew from the initial date that I loved women
and told me soon after we were married that he knew I’d leave him
for a woman one day.

I had been married for twenty-two years when I met my first
lover, and, although the experience was a real catharsis for me,
resulting in my divorce, moving house and losing most of my
friends and family, it was like a rebirth, beginning the life I knew I
always wanted! Trying to disguise my sexuality for so many years
had taken a great toll—I suffered two nervous breakdowns and
various skin complaints for many years. The experience of coming
out meant losing my ex-husband’s family, my daughter (who has
still not come to terms with it), my home and eventually my job. One
of my biggest critics has been my mother, who is a very ardent
Catholic. She finds the idea of my lesbianism ‘dis gusting’ and we
have no contact at present. It was apparent that my father still had
boyfriends up to the year of his death at sixtyeight, but my mother
refuses to discuss it and is now even trying to deny it. My brother
and sister both experienced homosexual relationships in their early
twenties but now, at forty-eight and fifty-two, are also heavily into


KIN 31

denial. Both were initially supportive of me, but as my sister lives
with my mother I have no contact with her either. She does not
appear to be ‘anti’ when we are alone, but with anyone else, or in
public, she would prefer to ignore the subject or not be seen with
me.

As a young woman, trying to be ‘a good Catholic’, I approached
many priests and nuns. I was always told that my feelings were
sinful and wrong and that I should pray harder, receive the
sacraments more often and use the experience as a chance to
become holier and closer to God! After my first nervous collapse
at twenty-eight I was sent to a woman psychiatrist who behaved in
a very primitive and disapproving manner. I was virtually told to
behave myself, be thankful I had such a good, long-suffering
husband, and get back to the kitchen before he changed his mind
about me!

From then on, until the age of forty, I spent long periods in deep
depression on tranquillizers, sleeping pills, bingeing or dieting
according to my mood, so that my weight fluctuated between nine
stone at my thinnest and thirteen stone at my most depressed. The
only time I felt ‘normarl’ was when I was ‘allowed’ to spend time
with my brother and his wife who live in a large coastal town with
a big gay population. I used to call into bookshops and clubs but
never made a contact at the time. I just felt better knowing I was
not alone and recognizing other gay people, knowing they
recognized me. These things kept me reasonably sane, though it
became harder and harder to go back to my marriage.

My earliest memory of reading about a gay person was The
Well of Loneliness which I borrowed from a friend at college in
my late twenties. I found it very sad, and didn’t relate to a lot of the
experiences described. I remember having a very heated argument
with my husband about having ‘such a book in the house’ where
my children might read it!

I am still constantly surprised when I meet someone new who
has realized I am gay and finds it difficult. It is such a relief to be
open and just myself at last—but it’s no big deal to me and I no
longer ever intend to waste time on anyone who wants to ‘put me
straight’ again. I have come to a very positive image of myself and
of homosexuality through personal therapy and meditation. I feel
politically that living openly as a gay woman is the only way to
change attitudes and overcome prejudice.


5
Becomini


MORAG

My earliest recollections of not being heterosexual, at primary
school with my twin sister, half-heartedly joining in the childish
flirting games and rituals, meaningless to me but seemingly the
expected thing. Not myself taking part as such, merely being there.
One incident: a mock chase of a few of us girls by a few boys, all
the other girls a-twitter with excitement. I recall being confused
and annoyed that the point wasn’t for us to run away, but for us to
be caught! This was achieved by the girls running much slower
than they were actually able to, in other words females feigning
physical inferiority to make males seem stronger, more aggressive
and effective. My sister’s first boyfriend one Christmas or birthday
bought us both presents and I was so clumsy I dropped mine, a
bottle of perfume. I felt embarrassed, both that he’d ‘had to’ buy
me one too and then that I’d broken and wasted it. It sort of
underlined my gauche, unwanted, unsuitable presence in this boy
and girl scenario! Another time, an awful party at my sister’s
friends—totally out of it there too, not into the whole giggly young
girl scene, all dolled up, aping grown-ups, dancing, posing, etc. I
just wanted to disappear into the next room and watch television,
much more interesting for me. An awful competition on dress
jewellery—the girl’s mum had to be really sweet to me, allotting
me some points to start with to make up for my having no
handbag or jewellery and so on. I remember feeling grateful but
annoyed at being judged with the others for things I didn’t bother
with or know about. I felt gauche, unattractive and out of place,
but I don’t think I really longed to copy the other girls. I must have
gained a reputation as Megan’s difficult sister—oh dear!


BECOMING 33

I had my first boyfriend when I was about twelve or thirteen, I
think, a chubby, bespectacled ‘loser’/non-starter like myself, totally
ignorant about sex. I suppose we held hands and kissed a bit, I
don’t remember. It was just social habit (probably my mum
approved and encouraged in the background), no feelings of
emotional, romantic or sexual need; quite sweet company; okay.

My first sexual ‘response’ was when my boyfriend’s older
sister’s boyfriend kissed me. They were teasing us and probably
offered to show me/us how to really kiss in a grown-up way. I sort
of melted and can still conjure up the feeling. I swooned almost,
and naturally closed my eyes to concentrate on the sensations. It
seemed to last for ever and I was disorientated when it finished. He
was much older and taller. I was vaguely aware of his stronger
male body, very unlike my boyfriend’s.

The first time ‘homos’ were ever mentioned (and I recall being
avidly, genuinely interested, whereas my usual mode, in a world
which seemed to offer me nothing, was pathetic apathy and a taste
for escapism through books, scrapbooks of cuttings on films,
theatre, and so on) was by my boyfriend when a fellow school

‘friend’ was mentioned. He said, ‘Oh, him, he’s just one of those
homos’, sneering. I thought I heard ‘omos’. (There was Omo
washing-powder in those days—whiter than white!) I had to ask
him to explain and even then (and now) I didn’t understand his
definition—‘People who try to mould their own sex’. (Do you
understand that?!) Anyhow, my overall impression was that to be
this was dirty, sad and something to be ashamed of and something
males do.

The ‘homo’ boy was treated condescendingly, like an outcast. I
remember he would pester sexually, but rather for himself to be
touched or petted than him pestering girls as was probably usual. I
didn’t get into all that until a year or two later. Basically, I just
realized he behaved differently from the other lads.

I think I was always, from then on, tuned in to any possible
references to homosexuality, though I didn’t know that word then.
I was confused as to why I felt a fascination for this secret
knowledge. Partly being a ‘loser’ myself, I had strong feelings for
the underdog, those condemned for some specific defect or for
being or behaving differently. I didn’t know anyone else who could
share my love of books, words, poetry and so on. At some point,
maybe that young, or at thirteen or fourteen, I must have watched
all or some of The Loudest Whisper, the film of Lillian Hellman’s


34 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

The Children’s Hour, about two schoolmistresses spied on and
accused of being lovers. Such a secret subject (women, at last!) and
such a discreet treatment. I must have only half understood,
getting the atmosphere rather than specific facts. Also at that age I
had a highly developed sense of justice. I probably watched the film
of Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird then too, or a little later,
with a sense of passionate outrage at the suffering and injustice,
seeing it all in strictly black and white terms, total good, total bad,
no mature shades of grey. Anyhow, I never mentioned or discussed
any of these feelings with anyone.

I was a rather serious-minded child, at odds with the flip easy
way of my contemporaries, very introspective and passionate in
my mid-teens about classical music—no interest then in pop
music, hopeless at trying to dance, of course, though, with a friend
of mine, I recall very studiously trying to learn The Shake’ to some
of her records.

My next recollection was seeing homosexuality mentioned quite
openly and calmly in an essay that my brother, two years my
senior, had written for his A-level course on Othello. He cited Iago’s
motives and Othello’s confusions as stemming from their being
homosexually attached to one another. I was really excited and
amazed to find that dark subject as easily written about and by my
own brother who, of course, ‘knew everything’. Perhaps this also
gave me a spur, a clue, to look for examples and references in
literature and other books. If my brother could write such theories
it must be quite openly discussed and written about; his teacher
must know, everyone, except me, must know yet no one seemed to
discuss it. But I still didn’t know why I was so fascinated. Though
thoughtful in manner I was not given to self-analysis at all. About
this time, or a little later, I watched a television play called Green
Julia with John Hurt and Michael Jayston—just two actors. The
John Hurt character carried a photo of a girl (Green Julia) as a

‘cover’ because he was gay, but closeted. It was his alibi for not
being with a girl. A sane treatment of a quality play.

We moved to a different county after my thirteenth birthday, so
the following is all from that age onwards. I went from a mixed
school to a single-sex one. There had been a fair amount of sexual
petting in class in the mixed school (boys touching breasts and
inside knickers), all very exciting and enjoyable. I was only
anxious in case this was discovered by our teacher, but it was too
much fun to stop doing it. There were also some flirtations (though


BECOMING 35

I never expected to be fancied back) with one or two boys in
particular. I was intrigued by their bodies and differences and I
was tempted to look and touch when they teased me, but held
back in case they went too far or hurt me. Also, however much
girls messed about, you weren’t supposed to ‘give in’. I knew
about penises and erections because of that gay boy having
erections in class and begging me to touch him. Also, I must have
seen my brothers once or twice at home.

I have very vague memories of a few girls chattering about
having a crush on some member of staff. There were only two
male teachers at the all-girls’ school. These crushes were expressed
quite openly as exciting fun but were not made over much of, sort
of amusing but very forgiveable. I think it might have been the
games mistress (classic!) but I couldn’t see why they thought her
attractive. I tried to imagine her appeal that way and wondered if
it was because she was there fully clothed when we were changing
before or after games, all at an age when we were very conscious
of our bodies and undressing together. That’s the only
recollection, really, certainly no romantic attachments or actual
sexual, physical lesbian feelings or relationships ever revealed
themselves to me. I only once felt a bit gushy about the games
mistress when she helped me out of the swimming baths. I’d gone
under the water and was spluttering and panicking in a myopic
heap! Her ‘rescue’ and firm grip on my wrist was stirring stuff, but
it was her behaviour rather than she herself. I did fancy the
headmistress a bit, responding to her a little as other girls might to
an older ‘father’ figure. She was very dignified, rather masculine,
but not butch, and cerebral in her manner. I admired her and felt
she was on a higher plane. Again, her role and behaviour were
attractive to me, rather than her looks or body. Her job as
headmistress kept her cool and aloof, but I felt for her in her softer
moments when her guard relaxed a little. I would have hated her
disapproval. I wanted to be noticed by her. She was special. I
admired her restrained manner, not superficial but deep.

Interestingly, at that school, there were two teachers who were a
gay couple, rather typically butch and femme in outward
appearance, as I realized later, but that actually made them
quite believable. Role playing hetero parts perhaps made their
relationship more real and understandable to me and the other
girls who knew about them. I never felt this knowledge was
negative. The general feeling was that this was just another piece


36 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

of information. Obviously, it wasn’t a bad thing if we all knew, for
obviously, all the other teachers, especially the ones we liked and
respected and the headmistress knew as well, and allowed and
accepted it. Miss Markham and Miss Richardson were never
snubbed by other staff members. On one occasion Miss Markham
came into Miss Richardson’s maths class with, presumably, a
personal message. This hardly caused a stir though I remember
being fascinated by their behaviour and interaction, how we knew
and they knew but how it was never openly expressed or
discussed. They lived together a few miles away from the school,
passing me by in their car as I walked to school. Despite knowing
about them and liking Miss Richardson for herself, a good-natured
teacher with a good line in entertaining remarks who actually
made maths understandable and enjoyable for me, and Miss
Markham who taught art which I loved and thrived at second only
to English literature, it wasn’t a revelation perhaps because it was
just there and calmly acknowledged. I was, however, much more
emotionally and sexually tuned in to the English teacher who
happened to be one of the male teachers. I was very concerned to
impress him and to be noticed, not for looks or sex appeal as I still
was, or felt myself to be an overweight lump of clumsy flesh, but
to be recognized for any talent or intelligence I might have for
English literature. A word of praise or comment or a look of
approval from him really bucked me up and was important.

In my last year at school when, at last, the teachers began to
treat us like young adults instead of imbecilic children, I formed
my first real school friendship with a very gregarious, vivacious
girl. I came out of my shell because she seemed so lovely and
friendly and interesting to me that I just had to talk to her. I must
have overcome my shyness and self-consciousness and become just
easy and enthusiastic. I realized much later, with hindsight, that
eventually I’d been in love with her. At the time, in all innocence,
she was a soul mate in a lot of ways. At last I’d found someone to
share my interests, especially art. At one point we both attended a
particular art college enrolment day to see if we could get places
there. My parents adored her like another daughter. We were
always round at each other’s houses. I don’t know what she
thought of my gauche, ignorant ways but she never made me feel
uncomfortable. Once of twice she went out with my brother but
she was much too sparkly for him. We laughed a lot and she must
have enjoyed my company and not been ashamed of me.


BECOMING 37

We kept in touch after school when she went into nursing. She
had a steady boyfriend and, eventually, after qualifying, she got a
flat on her own before they became engaged. The world of
boyfriends and parties was still alien and uninteresting to me
though she gave advice in an uncondescending way on make-up
and so on. I suppose I was quite enraptured by her though I only
felt this in a typical friend-to-friend way. I had no awareness of
stronger feelings except a couple of times at her flat when her
fiance turned up. I felt that was another part of her world
increasingly taking her away from me, but that was just change
and growing-up. But I always felt a little self-conscious and ill at
ease with the boyfriend. I suppose I felt jealous and helpless but
was not aware of why! I put it down, if I thought of it at all, to my
lack of social experience and my usual inadequacy in talking to or
knowing how to behave with blokes. They didn’t interest me, but I
knew you were supposed to make a big deal about them and act in
a certain way.

One occasion, however, is quite vivid when my sexual feelings
for her and romantic feelings about her must have been growing
and affecting my response to her. I stayed the night one weekend
and quite vividly remember how special, cosy and warm it felt to
share her double bed. We both read for a while before we slept. I
recall how her movements under the sheets were
disproportionately ‘physical’ and disturbing to me. Though it might
just have been the unusual situation—I hadn’t shared a double bed
since when very young with my sister—but somehow her physical
presence was intense for me, her perfume, though the feeling
wasn’t focused sexually or just on my genitals as such. I suppose
I’d masturbated for ages by then, but this feeling was overall. I
think I lay unnaturally still just to savour the sound and feel of her
beside me. The only other time I slept in a double bed with a
school-friend (and later on with my next good friend) it wasn’t the
same feeling. I was fond of her but not at all in the same way. That
time it was just cosy and pleasant to be away from home and to
natter in the dark before sleeping.

After school I attended technical college for a year
and attempted A-levels. I took shorthand and typing as I was a
non-starter with regard to qualifications or career prospects. I got
in with two or three oddballs. We used to chat and hang around
together. The one male in our group I realize now was gay, very
much a loner but with a strong sense of himself, who just didn’t


38 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

bother to join in with the other lads or girls. He chose and
preferred our company. He felt no pressure from us. He only once
made a reference to homosexuality but never even said the word.
He talked about Gavin Maxwell, the author of Ring of Bright
Water and observed that he was very ‘strange’. Years later I
discovered by chance that Maxwell was gay. This lad just said he
understood how he felt and admired him.

The next gay reference was from the young English lecturer who
was very like Murray Head, the bisexual in Sunday Bloody

Sunday, in looks, when discussing Somerset Maugham, the author
of Of Human Bondage, which we were studying. It mirrored in
some ways the much earlier Othello revelations but this time in
front of a whole class of very young and ignorant students. I recall
a lot of sniggering, but the lecturer coolly stated his points and
carried on. Afterwards, there was speculation as to whether the
lecturer was gay (I bet the word used was ‘queer’) as he’d brought
the subject up. He was quite tasty and wild-looking so I don’t
think the girls minded, but I sense the boys were nasty and
belligerent. That was probably the first time I’d seriously thought
of a well-known person who was known to be homosexual. I
drank it all in and thought about it a lot. I was impressed that the
lecturer hadn’t introduced the subject in a negative way. It made me
aware of being homosexual as a lifestyle, not merely in isolation as
someone one has sex with, that it shaped a person’s life and
personality.

I had a bit more heterosexual experience, all experimentation,
no real romance or sense of direction or purpose really involved.
After that there were various jobs in a village a few miles away
from home. I acquired another boyfriend, my first real lover.
Around eighteen years old I ‘lost my virginity’ in a depressingly
drunk and unpleasurable way. He had no finesse. I think he was a
virgin too. It was all very boring but I liked having a boyfriend and
went along with it all. Seems crazy now and a bit degrading.

Then I switched jobs and went to work in a small factory and
became slowly infatuated with one of the women there. I was
aware that I was lovesick for her. I tried all the time to be near her
and talk with her. I was so naive that I didn’t at first realize my
workmates had picked up on this. I felt excited and alive, really
obsessed; with the sexual undertones it was good adolescent stuff
but maybe rather immature for a girl of eighteen going nineteen!
My true feelings dawned on me slowly and late. I wasn’t surprised.


BECOMING 39

I still didn’t know how I could be defined as gay (or by any
word) but I never worried too much. I just enjoyed the sensations.
Although I was a bit tougher by then I still didn’t enjoy being
teased and made fun of too much. My workmates just joked it all
along, never condemned or ignored me. Alongside this, my hetero
experience had awakened my sexual feelings and my romantic and
emotional feelings. I had another boyfriend, older, wiser and much
more fun and very considerate. With him lovemaking was just
that, pleasant and comforting, though he never aroused me.

At the factory, I had a weird sort of sexual interaction with the
supervisor. I was very aroused when she was close. There was just
an incredible air of sensuality about her. Very often we contrived
to touch, or make a mock caress. It was very sexual but I recall no
shame or self-consciousness. I don’t know if she was gay or
bisexual; I didn’t question that too much. I didn’t fancy her in a
traditional sense; I wasn’t in love. It was just horseplay and
physical good fun, a real uncomplicated turn-on.

I never questioned why I felt like this about these two very
different women, never put it alongside the male lovers, compared
or found it odd. I suppose, despite not knowing the words and
labels, I was calmly exploring and discovering my own choices. I
accepted that the guys were socially expected and acceptable and
part of one’s status and the normal fabric of day-to-day living. The
other was real for me but slotted naturally into a non-discussed,
quieter, private underworld.

This all went on until I left home for a university city about one
week after my twentieth birthday. I went with a penfriend who I’d
got to know through a mutual interest in the theatre. I remember
an amazing double bill of Women in Love and Midnight Cowboy
at the university film theatre. Lots of homosexual revelations
there. I was excited at the ‘arty’, worldly, joyful expression of this
subject. This guy I went with, Sudanese and quite unwestern and
old-fashioned about sex, was very embarrassed. I shushed him
quiet and sat totally enthralled. A grown-up subject treated calmly
by most of the intellectually cool student audience.

Moving away from home and parents and the overall restraint
and parochial world of home was a belated lifesaver for me. I felt
free and alive, stimulated, relaxed and, at last, involved and part of
life. I really blossomed. Initially, however, I got another boyfriend
and lover, a white guy this time, very sweet and protective. While
with him I became increasingly aware of fancying and being ‘in


40 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

love with’ several attractive young women of my acquaintance.
One young thing with whom I was infatuated realized that, but I
just think she was cool and flattered, though not at all interested in
me. I didn’t feel too upset. I still didn’t analyse my feelings or talk
about them and I had never met a lesbian.

However, all came to a head finally when a beautiful, exciting
girl started at the bookshop where I worked. We got on very well
from the first and went about a lot together. It was she—asexual
or, if anything, vaguely hetero—who guided me into the gay world.
She could use the word ‘homosexual’ quite casually and easily,
openly in a conversation. This was a real revelation.

Around this time, or a little before, I’d made a fool of myself
with yet another infatuation, another colleague who also lived
next door to where I had my bedsit. I was really gone on her and it
was very sexual and physical. She realized and encouraged me in
some ways, perhaps to see how far I’d go. I just longed to be with
her, close to her, very excited near her. The worst (or the best?)
occasion was very illuminating and the first time I was called

‘lesbian’. I recognized it as dirty and an insult though, I think, even
then, the word was strange and new to me.

We’d been listening to records and were lying side by side, fully
clothed, on top of her double bed, me moving closer and closer till
we touched, though neither of us said anything. I had an
unwelcome date with my boyfriend, but longed to stay with her. I
think she might have dared me to if I’d had more guts and been
open about my feelings.

Gradually, my real falling-in-love with my friend and workmate
and these other strong feelings led to trouble with my boyfriend. It
was increasingly impossible for me to deny or suppress my feelings
and needs. I never considered ignoring or fighting them, I just
didn’t want to be confused and laughed at. The guy had once had
a gay sexual fling with some older guy and was at the time
infatuated himself with Timothy Dalton as Heathcliff in the current
version of Wuthering Heights, but he was ninety-nine per cent
hetero, open and unashamed about it all. He even suggested an

‘open marriage’ as he didn’t want to lose me altogether. I said,
‘Sorry, no way, I’ve no inclination for blokes really and must
follow this lesbian thing!’ At that time, too, I was bowled over by
the Nigel Nicholson biography of his parents, Harold Nicholson
and Vita Sackville-West, and their open marriage. I identified a lot
then with her and accepted her divided loyalties and needs, and


BECOMING 41

admired her. I think, maybe around then too, I read Radclyffe
Hall’s The Well of Loneliness. I was very disappointed by it and a
bit annoyed as the first-person’s character was so male-oriented,
not a real woman loving women.

I made a definitive end to my affair with my boyfriend, very
decisive, but I couldn’t go that way any longer. Adventure and a
search for happiness were ahead of me!

My friendship with Sylvia was then a truly timely magic. She
knew a lot of gay blokes and was in tune, though not herself gay,
with the gay scene. She must have got me sussed from early on but
led me slowly and let me talk and talk about my feelings. I
expressed my ‘love’ for her. This was accepted in good part. She
let me know she was fond of me, but could not return that kind of
love, and that she had no bad feelings. She was the best, most
supportive and helpful person to influence me at that very
important time. After talking and being with her I could admit and
accept my own homosexuality. I made decisions and found my
own way. Thus I started the long-term process of becoming an
active homosexual.

I went with Sylvia to my first ever gay club. Finally, I was seeing
homosexuality as an almost insider. This was the start of learning
and accepting my real identity from the inside, as it were, which
changed my whole perspective.

NICOLE

No one ever told me that sex was enjoyable. I pictured it as a kind
of fit that came on people every now and then, like dogs and cats
in season. My mother emphasized that this was ‘natural’ and that
there was nothing harmful or disgusting about it. She implied that
when you grew up the desire to have sex would be irresistible, so
that it was better to make sure you were never alone with a man
unless he was your husband! Not having sex, it seemed, made you
ill and frustrated. Since my mother was very well read and I was
sure she knew what she was talking about, I imagined that all this
would seem less bizarre when I grew up. But it was a long time
before I realized that sex was pleasurable and connected anything I
felt, physically or emotionally, with it. I thought it was going to be
a mindless sort of craving, like scratching an itch.

I can’t remember anyone talking to me about homosexuality
when I was a child, though the children I grew up with used words


42 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

like ‘queer’ and ‘homo’ as all-purpose insults. I know that I had
heard of homosexuality by the time I was twelve, because I
remember having a conversation about Richard the Lionhearted
with a friend of mine. She told me that ‘the same thing was wrong
with him that was wrong with Oscar Wilde’. About a year later I
read something about two men who went to bed together, and
that really surprised me since I didn’t think people of the same sex
could go to bed—what would they do? I imagined they must act
out having sex by kissing and calling each other ‘darling’ and

‘dearest’. I think, by then, I’d acquired the idea that what was
wrong with homosexuals was that they were always pretending to
be things, such as the other sex, since they didn’t have the sort of
sexual feelings my mother described. Secretly, I felt they sounded
much more civilized than heterosexuals, but somehow I got the
idea that they were likely to be self-centred and unhappy.

When I was about fourteen I started reading everything about
sexuality I could find. I was going with a boy who wanted to be
physical. He was clearly in the grip of The Urge, but it wasn’t
happening to me. Most of what I read were marriage manuals, one
from my parents’ bookcase that was probably the same one that
formed my mother’s ideas, and none of it said anything to change
my basic (mis)conceptions about sex, though it did say in cold print
that homosexuals were immature, frustrated and nice to know.
Meanwhile I was passionately involved with the friend who had
told me about Oscar Wilde and wrote her fifty-page letters. I told
my mother that I loved this friend, and my mother was quite
horrified, not just surprised but speechless with shock. So I never
used that word again, either to my friend or about her.

About the same time my boyfriend told me about a
woman neighbour of his who was a lesbian. When I asked him
what he meant, he said she dressed mannishly, and when I asked if
she really thought she was a man he refused to tell me any more.
Looking back, I think this was the first lesbian I’d ever heard
specifically mentioned and so the implications of my romances—
from-afar with other girls at school and the amazon dreamworld
I’d lived in since childhood became real to me for the first time.

When it struck me that lesbians might be like the brave heroines
and beautiful-but-evil queens in my fantasies, I didn’t mind the
idea of being one at all; in fact, I rather doubted I could possibly
be that lucky. This isn’t like anyone’s coming-out story I’ve ever
heard. I suppose it just goes to show how much I lived in a world


BECOMING 43

of my own. Or maybe it was a way of ignoring the practical
problems I would have faced if I’d decided to live the way I wanted
rather than the way everyone else did. I was sure that no university
would admit lesbians and that they could be sacked if they found
employment. This didn’t turn out to be completely unrealistic
since, later, my mother wanted to force me to leave university
rather than let me live there with my lover. My father overruled
her.

So, I just let things go on. Sooner or later, I thought, The Urge
would have to appear, hopefully with some socially approved type
of boy who could also be a good friend. I saw myself as serious-
minded and sensible, ‘waiting for real love’ instead of rushing off
into teenage romance in order to gain a passport to the social
scene. My friend Emma, the one who had got the fifty-page letters,
was a bad risk as a life partner—she was possessive, melancholy
and critical—everything, in fact, the books said lesbians were likely
to be. (She later turned out to be very heterosexual.) Another
friend, Dawn, on whom I had a very strong crush for a year, never
admitted to more than friendship. She was a realist; she said she
wanted to marry a much older man who wouldn’t bother her
sexually. So there was no real prospect of a serious relationship
with a woman, anyway, and I guessed I’d just been lucky to meet
two women who weren’t totally consumed by the urge to marry
and settle down. There weren’t likely, as I got older, to be any
more. I felt rather out of things and expected I would change
sooner or later. At the same time there was a sense of clinging
desperately to the feelings I had then, even if they led nowhere.

When I was fifteen my family moved to another town and
two months later I met Kim and fell in love the first time we
spoke. My feelings for her were so strong, emotionally and
physically, that I couldn’t ignore them or pretend they weren’t
serious. In public we’d learned to act the parts of intellectual,
repressed, university-bound schoolgirls for so long that we didn’t
attract any unwelcome notice at school, but my mother sussed out
the private character of our friendship which was everything a
lesbian relationship was supposed to be: we were anti-authority,
cynical and looked down on everything but each other, fantasy and
books. We were going to become great novelists and world
travellers. We also snogged a lot and sometimes wrestled, but that
side of our relationship was never mentioned.


44 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

I didn’t think we were the only ones in the world. I’d read about
other women, and men, with our style of friendship, but I couldn’t
imagine a group of people like us. The whole point about us was
that we were anti-social. I thought we might meet what we called

‘interesting people’ after we became great novelists, but I was
privately convinced they would be worldly and competitive and not
real friends. I was a cynic under my cynical pose.

It was only at university that I got a sense of the possibilities for
any relationship. In some ways university was a very difficult
environment, but escaping my family and suburbia made me
realize that I had a chance to create my own life. I fell in love with
my room-mate, while still corresponding with Kim as well as Emma.
I read a friend’s copy of Krafft-Ebbing and realized that I fitted his
description of a lesbian so well that I might just be lucky enough to
be one. But I had occasional sexual fantasies about men, and
valued intellectual friendships with them, and I was still only
seventeen, so…. All this seems a real waste of time to me now that
I look back on it and realize that ninety per cent of my energy was
spent on relationships with women, but I looked on being a lesbian
as a qualification I had to achieve, not a description of feelings or a
way of organizing my life.

At Christmas I went back to my parents’ home and used every
possible moment to see Kim, who made an offhand remark that
suggested she thought ‘we were lesbians’. I had always imagined I
wouldn’t like confronting a real lesbian relationship but, to my
amazement, I was overjoyed. I ran all the way home that night and
wrote a terrible poem about how we were going to have an affair.
I mean that it was very inept poetry and completely sentimental,
but my feelings were only happy. All the guilt and doubt I had felt
about Kim seemed changed by the fact that she loved me in return.
The next year she came to university with me and we did have an
affair. She felt very guilty about it. I suppose the only reason/didn’t
was that I had spent so long turning the possibility over in my
mind beforehand. I was, and still am, astonished by the way my
feelings changed when I knew they were returned, and even more
when we became lovers. I felt proud and very glad to be Kim’s
lover, and I no longer felt I had to apologize for the way I was so
different from most people I knew. I could finally imagine growing
up to be someone I recognized as myself.


BECOMING 45

SUSAN


During my last year at primary school I had one girl ‘best friend’.
We always played together and used to get teased about being
‘lezzies’. I didn’t know what the word meant, though I was aware
that it was not complimentary. Two years later in my second year
at comprehensive school I would laugh at jokes about ‘homos’ and

‘lezzies’ and knew what the word ‘homosexuality’ meant. I was
learning homophobia by doing what was expected. Later, in the
sixth form, I had very tender feelings towards another girl in the
same year group. She was smaller and slighter than me, and I often
wanted to put my arm around her in a protective way (not that she
needed protecting!). I interpreted this desire to touch her as perhaps
meaning that I was lesbian, since I was not physically
demonstrative to my friends then as I am now.

An extract from a rare diary entry of that time (I was eighteen):

I don’t think I can be homosexual, for Penny said she feels
about me as I do about Hazel—wanting to put her arms
round me. No, the thought of actually making love to Hazel
or any other woman disgusts me. People are supposed to be
prepared to accept homosexuality but I wonder how many of
my friends and other people would feel completely at ease
with me if they thought I was a lesbian. They joke about it—
but the real thing? I feel very tenderly for Hazel yet don’t
want to turn her away from me.

I don’t believe I’m homosexual. But I’ve never had a
chance to find out! No, I’m sure I’m not. What’s wrong with
being a lesbian or a ‘queer’, anyway? Nothing. But how
many people would feel it was acceptable for two people of
the same sex to behave like heterosexual lovers? Really, how
many people would not feel uneasy or embarrassed? I
wouldn’t.

It is fascinating to read this again and see how ambivalent I was
about the matter, and how scared, too, of being different from the
majority in a very fundamental way.

When I left home, at eighteen and a half, I had never had a
sexual experience with anyone. Soon I discovered the joys, or
otherwise of hetero sex. During the next four years I had ten male
sexual partners, including one committed relationship that lasted


46 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

eighteen months. At the height of this relationship I envisaged
marriage and children as likely, desirable and satisfactory, as did
my partner. Since it broke up, nearly three years ago, I have not
wanted to get married. I’m not sure whether I want children.

I do not remember, during these four years, questioning
heterosexuality as the right way for me. I enjoyed sex with men.
But, during this time, I became interested in the women’s
movement. This was rather tentative at first, as I was discouraged
by my boyfriend’s snide comments about feminists. When we
separated I was very upset and deliberately became more involved
in feminism as a means of support and of building up my
confidence. I remember reading the chapter on sexuality in Our
Bodies Ourselves and feeling my consciousness rising by the
minute! I feel that my eventual ability not to be afraid to say I was
a feminist was important later to accepting my lesbianism. For me,
being lesbian (or, at first, accepting the possibility that I might be
lesbian) developed from my raised feminist consciousness. I would
not say that every feminist woman ought to be lesbian. Personally,
however, I find it hard sometimes to separate the two!

I did not seriously question my sexuality again until a visit to
Italy during the summer I graduated. I was travelling with an
attractive and friendly American woman. I was very angry at the
constant harassment we received from men, angry that they felt
they had a right to accost us, frustrated at my feelings of
helplessness about it. At one point I joked about how I would go
and live in a feminist separatist environment when I returned
home. Sometimes I think this was a very negative approach to
being lesbian—anti-men rather than consciously pro-women—but
it was a sufficiently extreme situation to act as a catalyst. If I had
not had this experience, it could have been a lot longer before I
came round to lesbianism.

Shortly after my return from Italy I stayed with a close woman
friend. We talked about sexuality and the possibility that we might
be gay. One night she was upset and crying in bed. As we were
both in one double bed I cuddled her for comfort, stroked her hair
and face, and felt very sexually aroused. She then turned over and
went to sleep! A few months later she wrote to me asking whether
I had wanted us to make love then; I replied that I had felt turned
on, but unsure whether our friendship would have been spoiled if
it had become sexual. She agreed with me on this last point. (She is
now in a happy lesbian relationship.) By this time I was engaged in


BECOMING 47

an ongoing debate about whether or not I was lesbian, and
whether I could contemplate bisexuality. I didn’t talk about it with
anyone as it seemed too vague to put into words. Only on one
occasion did I mention it to two close feminist friends, and even
that was more an exercise in telling them where I was at, rather
than because I was feeling desperately in need of talking about it. I
wasn’t upset or depressed about the confusion I felt regarding my
sexuality. I was, however, uncertain whether to complete the
postgraduate teaching course I had started. I don’t know how
significant it is that these two areas of doubt were simultaneous. In
the end, I withdrew from the course shortly before the start of the
third and final term, reversing a previous decision to continue so
as not to disappoint my parents.

About a month later, I left that area to do voluntary work in a
village further north. This meant living in a small community,
sharing a house with people I worked with. I found this quite
claustrophobic. especially as the village was in a mountainous
district so I was geographically confined as well. Here I started
writing my diary regularly—previously it had been very
occasional. This was my only available emotional outlet as I did
not know anyone well enough to feel comfortable talking about
my renewed doubts regarding my sexuality and did not want to
risk such a sensitive matter being a subject of gossip. My main
difficulty was that Maureen, one of the women I saw every day,
was openly gay. It seemed too easy to fall for the only lesbian
available!

Then a woman friend of mine came to visit. We shared a
bed, discovered that we were both uncertain about being lesbian,
and ended up making love! I enjoyed this experience, but it did not
resolve any questions. The following passages from my diary at
this time cover a period of about four months. I was then
twentythree.

Two weeks after getting here and I feel so depressed!…
renewed uncertainties about my sexuality. This is too small a
place to have a crush on anyone, woman or man. Maureen
said that most people come here to find themselves. That
sounds too traumatic for me to want to deal with at the
moment. There is no one I can talk to, or that I want to. I
feel an affinity with Maureen, but she is part of the problem.


48 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

I’ve had my first sexual experience with a woman…not an
earth-shattering experience but, as she said, both of us are
unsure about lesbianism as a way of life for ourselves…it has
made me realize a little, for the first time, the oppression that
goes with being gay—like being looked at for holding hands
with a woman. Still attracted to Maureen, but not obsessed
about it…. Is political lesbianism a serious consideration?

Still as ambivalent as ever about sexuality. Sometimes I
feel that intellectually I am lesbian—woman-oriented up to
the point of making love. (And this despite having been with
a woman!)

The question of sexuality seems less problematic now—I
feel that I am basically hetero, while liking to be close with
woman friends and not entirely forsaking the possibility of a
lesbian relationship. (I think this is known as copping out!)

Despite all this thought, I still imagined that I was sexually
attracted to some of the men at work. I could not admit my
lesbianism as I had nothing substantial to base it on. But a month
before I was due to leave the village, Maureen and I became lovers
after a long talk one evening. Before this, I had never felt entirely
at ease with her.

It’s wonderful to be open to feelings and emotions. I feel very
opened up, like a horse whose blinkers have been
removed! Catching a rare full-length view of myself in the
mirror at the pub, I think—is this what a lesbian looks like?

That was last year. That lesbian relationship, my first, is still going
strong. I feel very positive about being lesbian; I know it is right
for me. As yet, I find it difficult to get this across to people on a
day-to-day basis; I am afraid of possibly hostile or derisory
reactions. I know that I have the right to choose my own lifestyle. I
would not suggest to a heterosexual person that my way is more
right than theirs, despite the fact that society in general would have
me believe that heterosexual values are the only correct ones to live
by.


BECOMING 49

DINA


I had a very involved penfriendship with a girl who lived in
another Australian state. It was she who first raised the issue of
bisexuality in letters when we were about sixteen. By the time we
were seventeen or so, we were both able to declare that we were in
love with each other (we had met when she came to my city for
two weeks’ holiday) but I didn’t connect this with the idea of a
sexual relationship. I was amazed when she told me she found
certain female actors and singers attractive. During my school
years all my adulation was reserved solidly for male stars. And
although I had very little to do with boys (I attended an all-girls’
school) I maintained the expectation that I would eventually have
the sort of close relationship with one that I normally had with
school-friends. I was aware of some erotic feelings towards my
closest friend at school, but they didn’t cause me any distress as my
emotions were bound up in Philippa, my penfriend.

In the sixth form I remember that one of my friends who was
head girl was asked by one of the nuns in confidence if there was
much lesbianism among the girls. As she reported back to us she
laughed and said she had wanted to say, ‘No. Is there much
lesbianism among the nuns, Sister?’ We all thought this was very
funny. There were jokes about convents, but I lived in such an
emotionally repressed state when it came to my own
homosexuality that I didn’t give it very close attention. I remember
when we were around fourteen or fifteen and one close friend had
a big crush on the sports teacher. I felt quite contemptuous of her!
I was quite anti-authoritarian and didn’t approve of the idolization
of teachers.

On our last night at school, a group of us went out and got very
drunk together, I was in the toilets when one friend came in and
started begging me to kiss her. I refused and suppressed the
memory. Years later I found out that she and another girl had had
a long affair at school.

During my first year at university I developed a couple of
attractions to men, almost obsessive crushes, and yet whenever I
was in a situation where something physical could have developed
I pulled back. Meanwhile, Philippa had moved to my city and we
spent nearly all our time together. She constantly raised the idea of
us having a sexual relationship and I kept arguing that it would
destroy our friendship which was of a very intense nature.


50 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

Basically, I can see in retrospect I was really afraid of sex per se,
and of intimacy that threatened to overwhelm me.

In my first weeks at university, Philippa and I went to a
women’s liberation meeting on campus at which a woman
identified herself as a lesbian. This was the first lesbian I’d ever
encountered. Over the next couple of months we got to know her
and the women’s household she lived in. But I think, in a way,
those women had a delaying effect on my own coming out because
they weren’t particularly the sort of women with whom I would
have become close friends in any circumstances, and they were
quite into the mid-seventies fashion for wearing drab clothes and
having what, to me, were very boring appearances. Overall, they
presented me with a pretty negative image of what being a lesbian
was. It seemed not to have much to do with me.

Meanwhile, Philippa and I formed a consciousness-raising group
with two other women we met at a party, and before very long she
and one of these women had a brief affair. I remember not being
too upset when they told me, but on the first occasion after that
that I stayed overnight on the sofa and they slept upstairs together,
I could hardly talk to them the next morning. Still, it didn’t seem
to propel me towards Philippa, even though she maintained
emotional pressure on me to have sex with her.

It was probably before she had the affair, but I do remember the
first time Philippa and I shared a bed, a single bed in the house
where she rented a room. We came in very late, probably put on
pyjamas, and got into the bed. I lay on my side with her behind
me, and she tentatively put her hand low down on my belly. The
most exquisite adrenalin and sexual excitement ran through me,
but I was so tense I lay rigid and said nothing. Eventually, we must
have both fallen asleep.

Things continued in this vein for several months. Later that year
we both joined a feminist collective which ran a women’s centre,
and got very involved in its activities. The collective was made up
of around thirty women, and some of the most prominent
members were lesbians. Even though I had by that time come
across quite a few lesbians in women’s meetings—this was the
heyday of feminism and it was a big feature of my daily life—most
of my friends up till then were like me, young women who weren’t
particularly involved with anyone. Suddenly, being exposed to the
lives of women who I liked and admired, and who were older (in
their early twenties compared with my nineteen years) and living


BECOMING 51

lesbian lives, had a gradual impact on me. I could now see that it
was possible for me to do this too. It was as though a blank page
had been filled in.

A few months later, a crisis finally precipitated me into sexual
expression with Philippa. Another woman, a fully fledged lesbian,
asked her out on a date and they began an affair. I was plunged
into a terrible crisis of panic and jealousy. I couldn’t bear to think
I might lose her. I still didn’t consciously think that I wanted to
have a sexual relationship with her myself (my repressions were
still working hard). But the next time I saw her and stayed
overnight, as I frequently did, we had sex. My life and my sense of
myself changed almost instantaneously, because, in retrospect, the
groundwork had been laid during the previous year. I embarked on
a full relationship with Philippa and very soon was happy enough
to describe myself as a lesbian, and have happily been so ever since.

HARRIET

I had my first sexual experience with a woman, well, a girl really,
when I was seven or eight, but it had no name. I had just
discovered masturbation and couldn’t wait to tell Shelley, my best
friend, all about it. She would often come and stay overnight at
our house, so it seemed very natural that we would try it out in my
bed. She and I had several such encounters. They were always
great, but I never once thought about it in terms of sexuality. At the
time I didn’t really think about life-plans and so thoughts of the
type of person I would spend my life with didn’t occur to me.

I remember being told by my mother that there were a couple of

‘queens’ who came into the pub in which she worked. I remember
her telling me that they were very nice and fun even if they were
gay. It was all said in a slightly sneering way and the other adults
presents joined in with the joke. I don’t remember anyone
mentioning lesbians and wasn’t aware of meeting any until I left
home and went to university at eighteen. Nevertheless, I knew
about them and had come to the conclusion that I might well be
one. In my teens I had a very close friend, Janet, who, like my
earlier friend, Shelley, would often come to stay at my house. In
the mornings we would nearly always masturbate together, but in
separate beds. It was such a turn-on to watch her doing it and I
suspect she felt the same at watching me. My feelings for Janet got


52 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

stronger and I decided that I wanted to touch her rather than just
watch.

I remember when it first occurred to me that I might be gay. I
had a Saturday job in a shop and it was a quiet afternoon. I was
standing day-dreaming, mainly about Janet, and out of the blue
came the thought, ‘Oh, perhaps I’m a lesbian.’ It seemed like a
perfectly fine thought and didn’t seem too uncomfortable, but I
was a bit confused by it. My problem was that I liked boys too.
Now I was faced with the realization that I was attracted to both
sexes and I hadn’t heard anything about bisexuals. I went away on
holiday with Janet and talked about my feelings and desire for her.
It was all very good-natured, but she felt it wouldn’t be fair to her
boyfriend if we had sex. I don’t think I was terribly disappointed,
but it is hard to remember.

I then forgot about my lesbianism for a couple of years and had
several boyfriends. It was only at university that I rediscovered my
sexuality and that, strangely enough, was through a male lover. He
and I talked about sexuality quite a lot and we both discovered
that we had a bisexual streak. He was very supportive of me going
along to lesbian meetings and encouraged me in getting to know
lesbians and gay men. Unfortunately, it turned out that he got a
great deal of pleasure out of being with a ‘lesbian’ and towards the
end of our relationship was very insistent that I try to get several
of my female friends into bed. We had an open relationship,
although only in so far as I was allowed to go with women, but no
men. He was very insistent that I was really a lesbian and he was
the only male I could want. Looking back on the relationship I see
how destructive it was in many ways, but it did allow me to come
to terms with my attraction to women.

I have always had a very open attitude to sex, and
homosexuality didn’t feel any different to straight sex. It all felt
good to me and I still feel that way. When I worked out that I was
bisexual, it came as a bit of a relief and explained some of the
things I had felt when younger. For example, I couldn’t understand
why I loved Tom Robinson’s song ‘Sing if you’re glad to be gay’.
Why had I played it so often and learnt all the words? I identified
with it, but didn’t see myself as gay.

The only problems around my sexuality came from my
bisexuality. At university, during the first few years, I got quite
involved with the feminist movement and, in particular, with
lesbian separatists, which got so terribly complicated when I had a


BECOMING 53

boyfriend. I had a lot of trouble coming to terms with the fact that
I am attracted to men! I felt politically aligned to women and
wanted my sexuality to reflect that, but then I would get the hots
for some bloke and end up in bed with him. It is only in the last
couple of years, and after living in another country, that I have
made my peace with my attraction to men. I lived in Montreal,
Canada, and there bisexuality seemed a more acceptable option. I
am now filled with quite a lot of anger at the oppression that the
lesbian and gay world, along with the straight world, has acted out
on bisexuals.

I never felt that homosexuality was wrong or less valid than
heterosexuality, even though I had no good role models. It turns
out that I have a great-aunt who has lived with a woman for years,
but I very rarely saw her and then never really made the
connection. I didn’t have any openly gay friends at school either. I
just never thought about it in those terms. I knew I had feelings for
girls and assumed they all had them too, but didn’t feel it was
something worth discussing. In fact, it amazes me that it all seemed
so easy then. I was much more concerned with my schoolwork
than whether I was queer or not! I don’t remember any queers on
television or in the media until I went to university. It now makes
me angry to think how invisible we were.

At college, when I was about sixteen, there was a woman who
kept following me around and buying me presents. I honestly
didn’t think about the way she treated me, I just assumed she liked
me. It shocked me that I could be so naive when a few years later I
bumped into her at a lesbian bar and realized that she had had a
crush on me. Even though I had had those feelings about other
women I wasn’t able to recognize them when applied to me by a
member of my own sex, yet I always knew when a boy fancied me.
Without images of lesbians in books and the media, or indeed
anywhere, I had not learned to expect and interpret the signals
from women. How blind we were made.

My parents were very open about sex and always answered my
questions honestly, but I never thought to ask them about
alternatives to heterosexuality. I didn’t tell my mother about being
queer until I was about twenty-three. My lifestyle was so terribly
complicated, with many lovers of both sexes, and for a long time I
was living with a man, so it didn’t seem worth getting into the
maze of explanations. Once again I was confused about being
bisexual and felt sure that my mother would not appreciate this


54 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

outlook on life. When I did finally tell her she said she had known
it all along but was very confused about my bisexuality. She
demanded that I be one thing or the other, and still has problems
with this and my non-monogamy. My mother’s difficulty with my
life is not so much with the sex of my partner, but more about the
number of lovers I have and the promiscuous way in which I live.

When I told my sister, she said, ‘So what?’ and didn’t want to
talk about it any more. I was quite hurt by this. I think that to this
day my sister believes I do these things to shock her! We have very
different perceptions of life and can’t really communicate about
anything. I hope that things will improve as we get older. I suspect
that she doesn’t mind, provided that I keep it to the bedroom and
don’t ever touch my lover in public.

My perceptions of homosexuality have changed over the years.
At first it was just about who you went to bed with and seemed to
be as natural with girls as with boys. For a while I believed that I
should only be with women and experienced a lot of guilt about the
men I went with, but now I am delighted to be bisexual. It is no
longer just about who I sleep with, though—it is much more
political for me. I love the community I live in. I am proud to be
identified as queer and demand to be treated with respect and
dignity by all.

INGRID

I’m a radical lesbian feminist and I’m very proud of that fact,
because it has taken a lot of work to get as far as I have. I knew
about gay folk quite early on because I was taught at a music
school by a very nice gay man with whom I am still good, if
distant, friends. We all knew that he was different but we didn’t
have a name for why. I am also pretty sure that at least one of the
teachers at the girls’ grammar school I attended was a dyke. I had
a lot of close relationships with the other girls at school, one in
particular, who has also subsequently come out as a dyke, but
there was never anything physical, at least, not then; interestingly
enough, my first sexual experimentation at primary school, aged, I
guess, about ten, was with another girl. We used to lie on each
other on her bed and it felt good, but that was as far as it went.
She’s dead now, which feels awful as she would only have been in
her late thirties.


BECOMING 55

I went off to university aged eighteen after having started on
boys very early, as it seemed like everyone did that, and went on
being het, but never feeling very satisfied emotionally or sexually. I
didn’t have an orgasm until I was in my twenties (omigod) and
married for the first time, for the ‘right’ reasons. He was and is a
nice man, but we fell apart because of family pressure and because
he was going off to Ireland to do a job and I would have had to
produce babies if I followed him there and didn’t want to. I really
had little idea that I might be a lesbian in those days, but had
started reading feminist literature and questioning around that
one. I remember reading all that lesbian feminist stuff in the
seventies and thinking how wonderful to be one of those but not
knowing how I could do anything about it.

Still convinced I was het, I went off to Europe to play music, got
involved with another man, in Vienna, had a child with him and
finally married him. Big mistake number two. When he broke my
nose I left with my daughter. Husband number three (don’t laugh—
I did try hard, didn’t I?) also surfaced in Vienna and I followed him
to South Africa, where I was extremely miserable for a lot of
reasons, although I had a good job in an orchestra, and eventually
we came back to Scotland. He was so awful to me that I finally
kicked him out and started a new life with my daughter, having
made the decision that I would never relate to a man again, or
indeed anyone of any sex, or so I thought.

Meanwhile, being back in Scotland had reintroduced me to a
longstanding female friend with whom I had corresponded since
university days. She, too, had had relationships with men but had
subsequently come out as a lesbian with the help of the women’s
movement. She also has a daughter. In fact, I lived at her house
when I first came back to Scotland. I had come back to London
with my daughter, then left her with my mother for a term while I
came up here and got settled into teaching, and while living at her
house I was exposed to a lot of strong women, one of whom I
really fell in love with, but she and I never did anything about it
except becoming very good friends. In fact, I was quite freaked out
at visiting her alone in case she seduced me! But there I was,
around all these strong lesbian feminists, getting involved in the
local women’s newsletter and going to meetings and conferences
and the like.

I attended a conference on bisexuality in Edinburgh a few years
ago and began to have the most definite suspicions about where I


56 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

was at, sexually. I think I thought I was bisexual for about two
minutes. As a result of attending that conference, I started
networking myself around organizations, joined Gemma and
Kenric and eventually came out to my close circle of lesbian
friends about two and a half years ago, aged thirty-five or there-
abouts (omigod again, what a lot of wasted time and energy.)

My first real lesbian experience was with a woman I visited as a
result of being in Gemma, but as she is a really difficult person it
was a one-off. Actually, on mature reflection, it wasn’t quite the
first, as I did have the hots for another woman I met at a party
years ago and we had a cuddle, but that was all. Then I went to a
lesbian gathering in Edinburgh. By now I had quite a circle of
friends who were dykes, but they all seemed to come in pairs or be
unsuitable partners for one reason or another and I was getting
desperate. I knew I needed to find someone to relate to and it seemed
impossible. I can’t stand the disco scene because I hate the loud
music and there seemed no other possible way of meeting anyone.
But it felt great to have acknowledged to myself that I was in the
right place at last. And at the Edinburgh gathering I met the
woman with whom I am now lovers and it is just great!

We are both survivors of abusive relationships, she with
a woman, myself with a man, and we really skirted the issue for
ages, saying things like, ‘One needs friends more than lovers’, and
so on, and then one day when we were visiting her my daughter,
aged eight at the time, inquired of us when we were going to get it
together! So we did and it has been getting better and better ever
since, nine months now. I was a bit freaky about what lesbians did
in bed at the outset, and very shy, but things are really good now. I
feel I have come a million miles since all those years of getting it all
wrong with men and am very positive about my lesbianism, even if
it has opened up a whole new area of difficulty around coming out
and to whom, particularly at work.

MARGARET

My family were very open about things like nudity, which was
considered natural, but were pretty uptight and scared about sex
of any description, and it felt like enough of a triumph over
adversity for me to come out as an actively enthusiastic
heterosexual, which I did. I have pretty much always been aware
of feeling strongly attracted to women—my brother and I used to


BECOMING 57

pore over the family’s one ‘art book’ looking at the naked women,
and I remember getting turned on, but that was as much by the
suggestion of sexuality as by the bodies I was looking at. I had the
usual sexual and emotional friendships with girls my own age
between six and fourteen, then boys took over.

My best friend at secondary school and I were inseparable, and
the boys called us ‘lezzies’, which I hotly denied without really
knowing what they meant. She and I used to have sex on Sunday
afternoons in her bedroom, though we pretended one of us was the
latest dream boy, and we didn’t call it having sex. I had a ready-
made structure to fit these experiences into by then since my nice
liberal parents had bought me a sex education book— Sex and the
Adolescent by Maxine Davies, I seem to remember—which
reassured anxious readers that most adolescents ‘experiment’ with
their own sex and that this was a phase which I would pass! I
remember feeling bereft and appalled when my friend finally let a
boy go all the way—part of me was shocked that she could let a
great hairy boy near her—but I was eager to catch up and soon
did, rapidly progressing from brief fumbles with the local farmers’
sons to a real relationship with a tortured poet two years younger
than me—shock horror, that broke every school taboo!—and,
finally, an enviable ‘catch’, a twenty-year-old young man from
London (I was seventeen). We were both involved with the
underground press movement and other political sixties scenes,
smoked a lot of dope, hung out in the right cafes, toured a light
show to poetry readings around the country and generally had a
wild time. I discovered that I just loved sex, and we had
wonderful, playful sex.

That set the pattern for the next eighteen years, during which I
fucked loads of men, worked at egalitarian relationships with quite
a few of them, and continued to ‘fall in love’ with women. This is
strange—and I think it probably happens to many straight women
—throughout my life there have been crushes on women, which I
enjoyed and thought harmless, though they became more sexual
and self-consciously flirtatious as my feminism made me
increasingly aware that lesbians existed.

My first conscious recognition of homosexuality came in the
sixties, watching a gay rights demonstration on television. I can’t
recall what it was about or when it was, only my feeling of horror.
To me it was as if a group of lepers had stood up and proclaimed


58 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

pride in their disease, so some negative messages must have been
well and truly implanted by that time.

There are various significant fragments…my mother discussing
something ‘adult’ with a friend of hers and referring to another
woman’s daughter who, they calmly agreed, was ‘going through a
lesbian phase’. I was intrigued. They didn’t appear to be shocked.
Now I know that my mother was only pretending to be accepting
in order to appear liberal and tolerant. But quite suddenly,
lesbianism became possible, though something which was
hopelessly out of my range. For the next twelve or fifteen years I
thought of lesbians as some kind of higher being, arty, cultured,
bohemian, interesting, far far above my head. And carried on
fucking men, quite happily, and falling in love with my women
friends, quite innocently. I must stress that at no time did I believe,
nor do I now, that I was ‘really’ a lesbian all along. I had a
wonderful time being heterosexual, though it became more and
more disillusioning as I became increasingly involved with
feminism.

I didn’t meet my first known gay man until I went to teacher
training college and tried to get one into bed, and I didn’t meet my
first known lesbian until 1983, in a political group I was involved
with. By this time I had had a very brief affair with a heterosexual
actress. It was her first time too and she didn’t like it much and left
me instantly for a man who had just deserted his wife. But I had
decided that I probably wanted to be a lesbian.

It was about two months after I decided to become a lesbian
that I met and fell for the man I later married. We separated in
1987 and share parenting of our son fairly amicably. In retrospect
this seems to have been my ‘last fling’ at heterosexuality. Then I
met my first lesbian. I was fascinated and fell into such a state of
helpless adoration that I would run from any room she entered in
a panic. We are now good friends and laugh about my lovesick
act, but at the time it was painful and confusing. I didn’t talk to
anybody, not because I was embarrassed or ashamed of my lesbian
feelings, but because I was dreading that ‘real’ lesbians wouldn’t
take a married woman seriously. Of course, the community gives
newly coming out women a pretty rough ride. I’ve seen it happen
once since and I’m very glad I managed to avoid all that.

The next thing that happened was unfortunate, I had got to the
stage of meeting lots of lesbians, hanging round in delight and
fascination, and telling my husband that I was ‘becoming’ a lesbian


BECOMING 59

myself. Then I read the infamous Leeds Radicalesbians pamphlet,
and shrivelled inside. If lesbianism was like that, with all that
vitriol and guilt and shit-throwing, I wasn’t having anything to do
with it. So I went to my GP, told her I didn’t enjoy sex with my
husband any more, and tried to get ‘cured of frigidity’ (yeuckk!),
though I didn’t once mention lesbianism since I have never really
seen it as within the province of medicine at all. Very little is.

Luckily, I then got involved with a women’s group absolutely
crawling with dykes, fell madly in love with an extravagantly
beautiful woman, got ‘cured’ of heterosexuality and we’re still
together four years later.

JUDITH

I clearly remember my mother telling me about ‘odd’ people. It
was as if it was too awful to contemplate that it could not be
spoken of properly and I was a shy type of child so I dare not ask.
But then, what could I ask, as I didn’t really know much about
sexuality of any type until I was about sixteen. I used to feel like a
late developer and I am sure I was one. This has been a significant
aspect of discovering my true sexuality at forty years of age, after
many years of feeling like the odd one out, but not knowing what I
was looking for and often not recognizing what was there all the
time.

When I first thought I might be truly different, as I saw it, I was
in my mid-thirties. I spent most of my leisure time then with one
particular man. We had had a sexual relationship for about five
years prior to this but I found myself less interested in him sexually
and he seemed to cool off me. It had seemed ideal in some ways as
we had some shared interests and travelled around the world a lot
together, but always went off in separate directions each weekend,
me to my solitude and he to his elderly parents. I told myself it was
ideal, but I knew it wasn’t and I longed for a closeness he couldn’t
give me. I had some lesbian and gay men friends as I had worked as
an AIDS volunteer. My ‘manfriend’ used to joke about me seeing
my lesbos friends, as he called them. He worked in the fashion
trade and said he was often assumed to be gay but claimed that my
being around dispelled rumours. This made me feel angry and I’m
not sure why. I was to become angry quite often after that. I
suddenly felt very aware of all the anti-gay jokes that I had never
laughed at anyway and, one particular day at work, I remember


60 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

saying, in a loud voice, ‘What’s wrong with being gay?’ to
someone who was telling what seemed to me a very anti-gay story.

That was some sort of turning-point at work. People looked at
me or just walked off. I have come to recognize that look,
something between disgust and morbid curiosity. It is often still
repeated but I get better at dealing with it or ignoring it as I try to
do. I certainly don’t bite like I used to any more.

About this time I became convinced I must be bisexual because I
was getting very close to a girlfriend I had known for some time.
She lived with a man but had had a relationship with a woman
prior to him. I would do anything and, in retrospect, I must have
looked a complete fool at times. The set-up was so absurd it could
never have worked and yet I imagined it could. I was very lonely
and just allowing myself to follow my inclinations. I was treading
very carefully. I thought I would fit in with anything, a threesome
even, so as to be near her.

Fortunately, my bisexual phase passed as an error of judgement
for I decided that to be truly bisexual I should surely have
sexual feelings towards men. As I had none of these feelings, I
decided I must be a lesbian but felt unsure how to proceed towards
finding someone. I remember driving into the local town one
evening to read the number of Lesbian Line at the back of the
toilet door in the library, but I still didn’t know what I wanted to
know! At that time I had many gay dreams about women I had
known in my past. I found these very enjoyable and tried to get
into a good dream each night. My fantasy world was much more
satisfying than my real life then.

All this time I was just continuing as normal in my working life
and yet my mind was racing ahead with plans. I eventually went to
a few lesbian venues but felt unable to communicate my feelings to
anyone there and just went home feeling miserable and confused.
Maybe I was neither bisexual or lesbian, but what?

I eventually met my partner through a group I set up with the
aforementioned friend. The objective was to discuss sexuality and
labelling but we never really got off the ground. The group
disbanded after four meetings but by that time I had taken an
interest in Eva and hopefully she had in me. I then took what I
thought to be one of the biggest risks of my entire life. I asked Eva
to go with me to an amateur show for which I already had tickets.
It was also the night of my forty-first birthday and I felt about
eighteen and madly in love. Of course, she said yes and we have


BECOMING 61

been together ever since as lovers and partners but still living in
our separate houses. It sounds so cliché-ridden but I did feel on top
of the world. People who had known me said I looked better than
I had for ages. I felt I had come alive at last.

This was the happiest time I had ever known and still continues
to be to this day. I felt like shouting from the rooftops what a
wonderful thing we had between us and felt more sensitive than
ever about anti-gay remarks at work. Yet, because it was so
special, I felt more able to ignore the bigots around me. I even took
the risk of telling my closest family. My two brothers were so
accepting I wanted to jump for joy. Things changed when I went
further and told an aunt, my late mother’s sister and my oldest
relative. She reacted with all the horror of it being a great family
tragedy. She said she felt sorry for me, ‘as if I were a mongrel’ were
her words, and that I needed treatment. She said awful cruel things
about my partner without really knowing her and banned her from
her house. She became obsessed about sex and what we did,
quoting what she had read in the gutter-press about ‘perverts’ like
us. It was a difficult time, to say the least, but I stuck with Eva,
knowing it was right for both of us. My aunt never accepted us,
but became a little less bitter in the end. She died earlier this year
and I felt a sense of relief which I found hard to deal with. I will
always regret not being able to let her appreciate how great my life
is with Eva. Maybe I didn’t explain it well enough, but anyone
who really knew me could see how happy I was. She never knew
me.

TANYA

My first experience of a physical expression of my lesbianism was
at the age of twenty-one, in my second year at university. I had a
very close emotional relationship with a woman in my first year
and she had become very dependent on me, while I was going
through a period of popularity with men. I had ‘the upper hand’
with her at this point. She had become obsessed with me and
confessed to me one night that she was in love with me. I was, at
this time, recovering from an unhappy relationship with a man.
There were two occasions after a lot of drinking when she came to
my room and we fumbled and groped about with each other. This
was followed each time by me saying, ‘Oh, my God, what am I
doing?’ and taking long baths the next morning.


62 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

I treated her very badly for that year. I would make her take the
blame for what we did and I would assert my ‘true’ heterosexual
feelings whenever I could. We only ever made love about six times.
I only once stayed the night with her. The other times I escaped in
horror. I would usually go to bed with her after she became upset
over my flirting with men. In this way, I could make the excuse
that I was only doing it out of pity for her and not out of desire. I
was paranoid about anyone finding out and was embarrassed
about being seen with her around college.

We were almost inseparable during the first two years we knew
one another. Towards the end of this second year, my friend was
becoming more positive about herself, her work and her
relationships, and more attractive to me. When I came back from
the summer holidays for my third year, I had decided that I loved
her and that I wanted to make a go of it. It was too late. She had
begun a relationship with my male teacher.

The next year was terrible and I felt rejected and isolated as
a lesbian and very desperate. I didn’t get over this relationship for
another two years. I went abroad, after graduating, for a year, to a
country where homosexuality is treated in an extremely negative
way, but despite that I began to feel more positive about it and
more ready to define myself as a lesbian. I even came out to some
acquaintances there, which gave me a lot of strength. I only began
to feel happy about it when I got to know more lesbians in London
and began a long-term and very happy relationship with a woman
who had been my best friend since I was sixteen. This was the
most happy and fulfilling sexual and emotional relationship I have
ever had.

JAN

As a child I was very tomboyish and a rather George-like figure
(George, of the Famous Five books) desperately unhappy about
being a woman. I began to lead a double life, spending the
weekends wandering round record shops with a crew cut and
leather jacket, assuming the identity of a boy. I was very
convincing but was not aware of any sexual attraction towards
women. However, on reflection, I do remember a fascination with
female bodies which I vigorously suppressed due to my
homophobia at that time. As I grew older I learned to fancy men
and found that both relationships and sex with men were boring


BECOMING 63

and difficult. However, I assumed that this was due to my
inadequacies and I became quite depressed for many years.

I guess I should say something about how I became aware of my
sexuality. I was going out with a man at the time and, as usual, it
was a fairly awkward and unsatisfactory experience. One night I
went to bed, having got really angry with him that evening. I had a
dream that I was sitting in a women’s centre talking to this
beautiful woman from whom I was getting really warm, positive
feelings. I didn’t really interpret it as a sexual attraction at that
point, although I guess maybe it was. Anyway, when I awoke, I
knew that relationships with women were what I needed and
wanted for my life.

My very first physical experience of my sexuality was being
groped in passing by a woman in a gay pub and very nice it was
too! My first ‘proper’ experience was with my first and most
recent lover, a relationship which started four months ago and
lasted six weeks. That was definitely a happy experience. As I said,
I had assumed that sex was boring, full stop. It was a real
revelation to me, how good sex could be and how aroused I could
be and how wonderful another’s body could be. However, I felt a
bit anxious about letting myself go. I wasn’t sure I could do the
necessary or even know what it was. I got over this after going to
bed with my lover a few times, although I still feel very
inexperienced and rather anxious about the prospect of going to
bed with a new lover.

I wish I had known about my sexuality earlier. I think it took so
long because I was deprived of information as a child and didn’t
know a name for what I was experiencing. I think my Latin
teacher, about whom there were always rumours circulating, and
who is now a prominent activist on the lesbian and gay scene,
might have been a good role model, had we not been kept so much
in the dark. It makes me very sad to think that there are children
out there who, because Section 28 forbids a teacher even to
mention homosexuality, are going to be kept even more in the dark
than I was. I feel as if I’ve only just made it into the light.

KATH

I first became aware that I was a lesbian when I was twentyfour,
and at a women’s college. In the first year I was there I felt
attracted to certain women but didn’t want to sleep with them,


64 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

only kiss them and hug them. In the second year I fell in love with
Jackie, but she was celibate, a ‘political lesbian’, and she didn’t
fancy me anyway. This was the first time I ever wanted sex with a
woman but, of course, you don’t always get what you want
(especially not me!). So I pined away, and the object of my lust
was sent to prison. On her release we tried to be just friends, but I
found it very difficult so we drifted apart.

The first time I actually slept with a woman, I slept with two
women at the same time! They were a lesbian couple at college and
friends of mine. We joked about sleeping together for ages then,
one night, we got really drunk and actually did it. One of the
women, Sal, was very aggressive in bed, very ‘butch’. She
penetrated me hard with her fingers, which I didn’t like. Babs, the
other woman, was much slower and gentler and, in the end, we
spent a lot of time together. I think Sal got jealous because
afterwards she said she didn’t want it to happen again.

The next time I slept with a woman it was Shireen, a friend of
Sal’s. She had just split up from a long-term relationship. We slept
together the first night we met. I’d only known her for a couple of
hours. We were very drunk and I had to keep getting up to throw
up—not very romantic! She penetrated me and gave me oral sex,
neither of which I liked. I wasn’t physically or mentally attracted
to her, and I don’t think she was attracted to me either. We slept
together because it was convenient. There are so few lesbians
around that when you meet one your automatic response is to want
to sleep with them. This one-night stand ended up lasting for two
months. The second time we slept together I made sure I was sober
so I could feel something. I also had my first orgasm. I got on top
of her and rubbed myself up against her leg. I was so surprised
when I came that I hit my head on the wall and nearly passed out!
Once I found that I got turned on by rubbing and not penetration
there was no stopping me. Shireen usually got on top of me and
rubbed her leg in between mine. The next time I came the orgasm
was so intense I burst into tears. And I didn’t even love the woman!
She wanted to penetrate me all the time, though, and didn’t think
it was proper sex without penetration.

Eventually we drifted apart. Sex without love gets boring after a
while. She felt nervous about being an out lesbian. I think she was
bisexual too. In the pub she’d tell me not to look at her, and in
restaurants she was so nervous about people knowing we were gay.
I didn’t care, but she did. When we walked along the river once, I


BECOMING 65

held her hand, and she felt very nervous about someone seeing us.
I said I’d often seen women walking arm-in-arm, or holding
hands, and people just assumed they were sisters or friends.
Although, when I was thirteen, I was walking round the Boat Show
at Earls Court and I had my arm linked with another woman. A
couple of men saw us and said, ‘Yuk, lesbians’. They obviously
foresaw my future destiny!

Eventually we agreed to part, (a) because I was going to
university, (b) because she was moving and (c) perhaps more
importantly, the nature of the relationship. We pretended to be in
love with each other, often saying ‘I love you’ when we both knew
we didn’t mean it. It was a relationship more of convenience than
love. She’d just split up with her lover of five years and was still
very upset about it. She’d often cry in front of me and talk about
her ex-lover, saying she wanted her back. So I think she wanted me
for company really, whereas I wanted sexual experience. So I put
up with her behaviour which was quite bizarre sometimes. The sex
was the only thing to keep us together, but that stopped being fun
after a while. I was under a lot of stress as I didn’t want to go to
university and, in fact, dropped out a week after I arrived. I think
this resulted in a decreased sex drive on my part. She was also
putting pressure on me to let her penetrate me. I’d let her then hate
it. We also disagreed on politics. I was a socialist feminist, and she
didn’t really care about politics. In fact, she could be quite right-
wing and racist sometimes. She hated Pakistanis, even though she
was half Pakistani herself, so we’d have arguments about that.

So, at the moment, I’m not in a relationship with anyone. I put
anad in Spare Rib and met a penfriend, but we had nothing in
common and nothing to talk about. I’ve also slept with Sal. She’s
still in a relationship with Babs. They even got ‘married’. But Sal
stayed at college and Babs went to university. Sal had affairs and
told Babs, but they seem to have got back together again. I just
want to be friends with Sal, although sometimes I still feel
attracted to her. I think we made love because she thought that
was what I wanted. She tried to penetrate me, but I stopped her.
I’m not really that attracted to her, and I’m certainly not in love
with her. I don’t know how Babs can put up with Sal’s affairs. I
don’t think I could. But Sal is quite irresponsible and immature,
and Babs seems to accept this. Sal is also very caring sometimes
and very funny. She’s like an opposite version of Jackie. Jackie and
Sal both went to the same school and they look similar, short with


66 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

black hair, but Jackie is very political, left-wing. Sal is quite right-
wing. She is quite extrovert, where Jackie isn’t. They both appear
strong, but are really quite vulnerable. They’re both quite

‘masculine’.

I’d still like to try and make love to Jackie. We both had similar
experiences as children. She was sexually abused by her dad, and I
was given an internal examination by a police doctor after they
accused me and my dad of incest, which wasn’t true. This may
account for the reason I don’t like penetration because the police
doctor penetrated me with his fingers. I felt like I’d been raped. Me
and Jackie have both been in care and have both been in positions
of powerlessness. I have a feeling she might not like penetration,
but we haven’t discussed it. I would like to show her that there is
another way of making love. Sex is about power and control, and
if I told Jackie she was in control and she had the power, she may
be relaxed about letting me make love to her. The police doctor
had total control over me. In sex I like to get on top occasionally,
but I don’t have the strength or the stamina! I’d like a relationship,
but the right person hasn’t come along. I always seem to fall for
people who aren’t in love with me.

SAMANTHA

I had an overprotected middle-class childhood until the age of
eleven when my mother died suddenly. I had no brothers and
sisters and my father found it difficult to cope. I was a ‘good’ child
and didn’t make things difficult for him. When I was twelve we
moved to the city of his birth as his sisters lived there. I suppose he
thought they could help him out, which they did. Shortly after we
arrived we lived with his sister for a while until we could get a
house. I remember that I had masturbated since about age seven by
rubbing myself against pillows, but I started worrying, thinking I
was going to die because of some damage I had done. This I now
know was due to severe sexual repression as a young child. I
remember being truly desperate and I honestly believed I would
die. I solved this by asking my aunt in a roundabout way and, to
her everlasting credit, she told me that I would be okay.

When I was twelve I fell desperately in love with my female
French teacher and this pattern of painful unrequited love or
worship was to last ten hurtful years. I remember it coming upon
me and I had to accept that something had happened to me. I felt


BECOMING 67

very frightened and worried about it and tried to pass it off to
myself as being because my mother had died. So I must have been
negatively aware of homosexuality at that age. I told no one about
my feelings and for me the next three years were spent in me being
totally obsessed and infatuated with this woman. I can remember
thinking and fantasizing about her constantly but not about having
actual sex with her. My fantasies were often of something terrible
happening to her and me coming to the rescue and making it
better. By the time I got to about fifteen, I was so desperate I told
my father a bit about it and I remember crying. He was okay and
it helped a little. About this time she got pregnant and left and I
remember feeling totally desperate and I thought I wouldn’t be
able to go on without her. I must say, though, that I don’t mean I
was suicidal. I have never felt truly suicidal. In the end I felt so bad
I rang the Samaritans, who weren’t much help at all. It was a man
and he just said I would have to manage without her. I did, of
course, and after a while fell in love with someone else.

I went out with a few boys from the age of about sixteen. I
asked my father when I could go out with boys and he said,

‘Sixteen’, with no explanation of why. I didn’t disobey, partly
because I was brought up in a way that made me unable to cope
with disapproval. I still have problems with this today. At school I
pretended to the other girls that I fancied a male teacher. That did
me a lot of harm because it left me confused and not sure of what I
really felt at all, which was worse in some ways to just being
simply in love with women. I used to go to discos with the other
girls and let a boy pick me up so that the girls would see and think
there was nothing wrong with me. I remember they always groped
you and stuck their tongues right into your mouth and I felt very
repulsed. When I was sixteen I asked a man to give me a lovebite
and then I could show it off—pathetic! I always refused sex with
men, however, partly because I didn’t want it and partly because I
was taught that women who just had sex with men were dirty or
cheap.

When I was eighteen I went to a technical college in another town.
I lived there during the week and came home at weekends. My
father had died when I was eighteen and I now lived with an aunt,
not necessarily the choice I might have made if I had my life over
again. At this college I fell in love again, this time even more
strongly than before, with a woman teacher. I feel it is important
to note here that I have always, without exception, been attracted


68 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

to women much older than myself. I was again crazy over this
woman; I was desperate about her. I remember once seeing her in
the town and following her around without her knowledge. I once
sat next to her on a college outing and was so incredibly high just
to be with her. It was spoilt by my thinking all the time that it would
be over soon.

Afterwards, I felt terribly let-down and upset for about three
days after. At this time I started going out with a man from the
college, an Arab of about thirty. I went out with him for a year. I
did it because he asked me and I didn’t know how to say no. I also
desperately wanted a boyfriend, however, for status, and also I
wanted to prove to myself that there was nothing wrong with me.
I eventually had sex with him because he kept asking me. I was
worried about getting pregnant and went on the pill. I didn’t enjoy
the sex which took place about twelve to fifteen times. At the age
of nineteen I couldn’t stand it any more and, although it was very
difficult, I finished with him. I then acknowledged to myself for the
first time my true feelings for this woman. I remember
masturbating and thinking about her and had my first incredible
orgasm. I had another brief fling with a man a few weeks later, but
I felt so angry about him pestering me that I finished with him. It
was then I identified myself as gay.

Surprisingly, once having come to the decision, I found it easy
and not very stressful identifying as gay. I was writing to the
Samaritans. I eventually met this woman who was awful and
talked a load of rubbish about nobody knowing what they are
until they’re twenty-five or so, and I should get out and meet
friends of both sexes. I decided to leave it, as I was going away to
do a degree. When I got there I had no trouble identifying myself
as gay and started going out on the gay scene without worrying
about it. I remember my father once saying that he hated ‘queers’
but that didn’t bother me as he was now dead. However, I got a
great urge to tell the aunt I lived with. I had previously written to
my cousin who is ten years older than me and told her and she was
fine about it. I told my aunt who, to her great credit, just said that
it was my life and it wasn’t her place to interfere. She has never
judged me and is nice to my lover, although she doesn’t really
understand, or approve of my being gay. She has said that she
wishes I were straight, but then only because I asked her directly.

While I was growing up and in my teens I didn’t have any role
models. I didn’t know anyone else who was gay and it wasn’t


BECOMING 69

really discussed except for the odd remark here and there. I did
have an overall negative awareness of gayness but that wasn’t
strong enough to cause me great problems when I came out. There
was a gay teacher at school although he did not teach me, but I was
aware of him being seen as a figure of fun and ridicule.

My first expression of gay love was terrible. I was twenty-one
and had fallen in love yet again. This time it was with someone
who was involved in a very violent relationship. They had met in
prison. This was the first time I had been in love with a gay
woman and she knew about it and encouraged me. Her partner,
unfortunately, tried to get me to go to bed with her and I
consented because I had to keep up the pretence of liking them
both. It was horrible. I am extremely sexually repressed, although I
didn’t understand it then. When she tried to touch my clitoris, I
couldn’t stand it and cringed away, but she kept trying and said I’d
got to learn to stand it. I was in despair and thought there was
something wrong with me. I also thought I wasn’t gay any more
because I equated ‘gay’ with successful sex. Now I’d decided I was
gay that was how I wanted to stay and, as I was sure I wasn’t
heterosexual, this meant that I was nothing at all. I later had sex
with the woman I was in love with and this was marginally better.
Eventually, it all came out and her partner attacked me and beat me
up. I am a coward and no match for experienced fighters so I
didn’t try to fight back. She threatened me as well and I was
terrified for ages and got quite paranoid that she’d come after me
again. When I was twenty-three in 1983 I left the area and went
back home and it faded away, although it has quite upset me to
write about it and think about it again.

This horrendous story has a happy ending. In April 1984 I had
the chance of a relationship with a woman thirteen years older
than me; I took it and am now very happy. Although my sexual
problems are not resolved I am happier than I’ve ever been since
the age of eleven, or indeed ever dreamed possible!

Sex for me has always been a disaster area. When I was young,
the message I received was that sex was bad, dirty and disgusting
and this has affected me so badly that I have been unable to have a
proper sex life. I still believe that sex is bad, dirty and disgusting,
for a start. This may sound surprising, but it’s true. I don’t
consciously believe this and I would never say it to another person,
but that’s how I feel inside; it stays with me and it’s there at a deep
level. I cannot bear to be touched on the vagina and cringe away


70 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

involuntarily when touched. I have never allowed anyone to touch
my clitoris directly, even myself. This I cannot help—even if I
consciously wish it, I still cannot allow it. I have felt a terrible failure
because of this, particularly in gay relationships. I could accept the
failure with the man, but when I failed with women as well, it was
a bit hard.

The picture is not entirely hopeless, I must say. I have had, and
do have, orgasms. I can masturbate by rubbing myself against a
pillow and I have had orgasms with my present lover; this is the
first and only person this has happened with. I can do it if I keep
my knickers on and she keeps her hand still. We don’t really have
oral sex. I find this repulsive.

My girlfriend has different problems. She has never had an
orgasm with me or any of the men she has been with. She doesn’t
masturbate or get any pleasure from this. She was used to frequent
sex and has enjoyed sex with me. She enjoys sex with me and has
often got very frustrated, on occasions, because we have sex so
infrequently. It was more frequent at the beginning, but now has
dropped off and we go for weeks at a time without having sex. I’ve
got to the stage where I don’t care any more, it doesn’t bother me.
I’ve stopped feeling a failure and, as I feel my problems are so bad
I’ll never be able to overcome them, I just don’t bother about
them. My partner has adapted and doesn’t bother so much now
either.

MARIE

I became a Christian just after I realized I was gay, though for a
year afterwards it never occurred to me that the two might conflict
or that my feelings were ‘wrong’. I only started to wonder after I
read an incredibly anti-gay leaflet. I then started to discover that
nearly all the Christians I knew, including priests and deaconesses,
thought it was wrong to be gay. I don’t want to give the
impression that they were nasty about it, since they were sincere
and caring people who truly helped me in a lot of ways and spent a
lot of time with me, but for the next four years I became certain
that I could not be a Christian and gay at the same time and tried
to give up first one, then the other, but couldn’t.

At one point, a female Christian psychiatrist was recommended
to me and I saw her a couple of times, not really to ‘cure’ me, but
more to help me be happier in myself. I really want to stress that,


BECOMING 71

although I believe a lot of the counselling I received from my
church and Christian friends was misguided, they were in no way

‘ogres’ who wanted to repress me or make me normal. However,
their cumulative effect was to make me feel confused, unhappy and
inadequate before God.

It wasn’t until November 1985, when I had my first Christian
girlfriend, that I began to feel a lot happier about it all, and to
realize that a loving, committed lesbian relationship could
be blessed by God, and that sex within these confines was
acceptable to him. I hope you don’t think I’m some kind of
religious neurotic. I assure you, I’m quite sane! But it did take me a
long time to dispense with doctrine that had practically been
tattooed on my conscience. At the moment, I am with my second
serious Christian girlfriend and I must say that my commitment to
God is deeper than it’s ever been, and my sex life more enjoyable

MARJORIE

My mother confronted me about my sexuality four years ago. She
had read my journal. I denied it. At the time I was bisexual. Then,
two years ago, she challenged me again. I was forty-one and I
owned up to my lesbianness. She is still working through it. She has
given me a load of crap through letters about it:

It’s not God’s will.
What would the neighbours say?
Your brother thinks it’s awful.
Your friends are poor housekeepers. (A terrible criticism.)
Where did I go wrong?
Don’t you dare tell anyone in the village.

And the ultimate:

If you respect your father’s memory don’t say a word. (Or
he’ll roll over in his grave…)


6
Uniformu


BETH

I had feelings I couldn’t explain when I was very young. I
remember the first crush I had was on a girl called Norma, when I
was twelve. I used to be ballboy for her when she played tennis. I
used to sneak out of the dormitory at night to see her. We would
just kiss and cuddle and we wrote notes to each other all the time.
There were a few others after this before I left school. You were
not considered normal at our school unless there was some girl or
other you had a crush on. I did not know at this time what these
feelings were but I know I missed school like mad and, although I
loved my mother and father, could never wait to get back. My first
experience was very sad. I did not get the same love back as I felt. I
seem to remember mooning about all over the place and playing
Tommy Steele’s ‘Singing the Blues’.

I was able to feel happy about the way I felt when I joined the
army at seventeen. I thought I was home at last. I jumped into one
affair after another from the very first week of my basic training.
Then I went into Holding and Drafting while I waited for a
posting and there I fell in love. She was called Celia. I was quite
sorry to get posted to Catterick but there I had another love called
Kit. All this time I had a girl with me from Wales called Ella
(Spud). She always seemed there to pick me up when I met a crisis.
It seemed fate that we were the only two who passed our exams
and got posted together to Salisbury. I did make love to her. I took
her to the seaside for a dirty weekend. She was always there
though, looking back, I took advantage. And I saw other people as
well. I loved Salisbury but eventually we got postings to
Aldershot.


UNIFORMS 73

I hated it there, but there was a very large lesbian community
and stacks of talent. We used to go down the West End at
weekends to the Casino Club on Wardour Mews, and the Coffee
Pot on Berwick Street, and the Alphabet Club. I knew a couple of
strippers and we used to stay with them in Notting Hill. The
army’s own Special Investigation Bureau then discovered Spud and
I and two other friends were lesbians and threw us out. At eight
o’clock one night we were given a one-way travel warrant and two
pounds ten shillings and sent on our way. While they were grilling
us, which they did for hours, they recommended that all lesbians
could be put right if they saw a psychiatrist. I told my parents that
I came out of the army by going AWOL and working my ticket.

We immediately got jobs as telephonists with the GLC, all four
of us together, and by sheer luck our supervisor and head
telephonist were lesbians. By this time, Spud and I were having a
fully fledged affair. After a year I met my husband. It was ‘I
understand you, and we can have a super marriage, you can go
your own way’. I was the only child and I knew Mum and Dad
were desperate for me to settle down. I said goodbye to Spud and
married him. He was full of Irish banter. I can remember saying
one year into our marriage, ‘I will never change you for another
man. If ever I left you, it will be for a woman’. I did want children
and had three. I still adore them. I have never slept with another man
and, indeed, eleven years after I married him, I left him for a
woman, not without provocation though. It was only after he
started playing the field that I actually left with her.

He knew all about her. We both worked in a hospital and she
had to leave because people reported that we were in the toilets
together. Well, of course, this was rubbish because we saw each
other every night and didn’t need to resort to this kind of thing.
One of his friends rang my father and told him I was having an
affair with a woman. Pauline is thirteen years younger than me.
The children love her like their own. My eldest daughter accepts
us. We moved to be near my parents. We took the kids and got a
flat. My father, who is now bereaved, lives with us. We have
bought a smallholding out in the country and my father has started
a business for us and we are both directors. Pauline and I own the
house jointly. My solicitor is just getting me a divorce and she says
I will get custody of the children because my husband hasn’t seen
them for over five years.


74 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

TERR


When I told a friend at work I was a lesbian, she looked at me
with shock and disbelief and never spoke to me again. Another
friend told me how courageous I was to come out and I was to be
admired, but even she began to avoid me.

My mother told me one evening that she knew I had a problem
but she needed me to tell her. I had been a bit down in the dumps
the past few weeks. She almost fainted when I told her, she
thought I was pregnant. My father took the news very badly and
got very drunk. He burst into tears and said he wished I had
murdered someone, it would be less difficult to come to terms with.
That, to put it in a nutshell, was the contempt he felt for
homosexuality.

Before I told my parents that I was a lesbian I had decided to
join the army and train to be a nurse. I needed to leave home, and
I wanted to be a nurse, and that seemed to be the ideal solution. I
had my call-up date arranged when I came out to my parents. I
was told that until I joined the army I must be at home by ten-
thirty each evening. I could not have phone calls from female
friends, and I should conduct my life as a heterosexual. If I did not
join the army I would have to leave home for the sake of my two
younger sisters. I would have to break contact with the entire
family. However, if I were to try to overcome this ‘awful obsession’
I would receive a great deal of support and admiration from my
parents.

At that time I had no homosexual friends. I felt very afraid. I
was in a turmoil. And then I felt completely numb. I agreed to
change, although I knew deep down that I couldn’t. I had to find
some way of meeting others like myself. I found a number in a
magazine and plucked up all the nerve I could to ring it, having
spent an hour walking from one telephone box to another. I
started to go to meetings. I was young and painfully shy but I
began to look forward to attending the support group. I also
joined a gay dating agency. I met a woman, and for the first time
in my life I was held and kissed. She was warm and kind and I felt
safe and secure with her. We never had a sexual relationship. She
could not cope with the fact that I was so young and
inexperienced, but after ten years we are still firm friends.

My first sexual experience was two months after I joined the
army. Emotionally, I was still very attached to the first woman I


UNIFORMS 75

had met. That probably explains why, sexually, the experience was
a disaster. At that time I would have done anything and given up
everything to be with the first woman who made me feel so
wonderful just by simply kissing me and holding me close to her.

It wasn’t until three years later when I left the army that I had my
first real relationship. It had taken me that long to accept that a
relationship was not possible with the woman I felt deeply for at
the beginning. My parents became very fond of my lover and
found it easier to accept my sexuality. My mother said a prayer
that I would change. I threw a coin into a wishing well, hoping that
my parents would change. I seem to have won!

JEAN

My background was somewhat sheltered and protected, being the
only daughter of a Methodist minister. It was not until I began my
nursing training at age eighteen that I became aware that it was
possible for two men to have a sexual relationship, and not until
sometime later than that did I realize what my own feelings were
about. The way I discovered about gay men was that two men
were admitted to the men’s ward on which I was working. Great
effort was made to ensure they were at opposite ends of a very
long ward and staff were instructed to ensure that at no time did
these men go to the loo at the same time. Being my naturally
curious self, I dared to ask ‘Why?’, only to be given the somewhat
oblique answer that men like that had ‘unclean habits and would
give each other VD and that their friendship was perverted’. This
was in 1973!

LISA

When I started nursing I found myself increasingly drawn to
women, but pushed it to the back of my mind as unacceptable. I
had no knowledge of any of my friends or relations being
homosexual, and it never occurred to me to ring a helpline and get
some advice. I did actually confide in a friend but, although she
was very good, she didn’t really know how to help me.

I persevered with men and actually managed to have two (for
me) long-term relationships. I never felt quite at ease, though. I
was, by this time, in the army and it was there that I fell in
love with one of my friends. It caused me to re-examine the


76 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

feelings I had suppressed for so long, and I finally came to terms
with the fact that I was more attracted to women than men. I was
very depressed for a while—the army is not exactly the most friendly
environment for homosexuals. It has some disgustingly antiquated
practices such as the Special Investigations Branch, which has the
right to search your room, read personal letters, etc. if they suspect
you of harbouring ‘deviant’ tendencies. I came out of the army and
returned to my old hospital.

TINA

I come from a northern fishing town which sports the same
provincial attitudes it did when I was growing up. My family
moved here from a multiracial city in Wales in the late 1950s, and
I was born here in the early sixties. The number of other black or
mixed-race families living here at the time didn’t make double
figures, and there was no black community of any description. We
were subjected to a great deal of prejudice, verbal and sometimes
physical abuse, and, as our extended family lived nearly three
hundred miles away, we had no support network at all.
Presumably, the other black families living here suffered the same
fate. None of us ever communicated. It must have been a huge
shock for my family who had previously lived in a city where they
had been supported by their own community, but for me the
hostility was a way of life. My childhood was spent feeling very
isolated, and I guess the issue of my sexuality took a back seat to
the problems created by my more visible ‘difference’. People
seemed to react very badly towards black people, lesbians and gay
men, in fact anyone they perceived to be different in some way; the
images I got then of homosexuality and race were very negative
and, although things have improved since my childhood, the
general atmosphere here is still quite uncomfortable.

I joined the army before my eighteenth birthday and moved down
to the south of England to do my training, and it was then that I
saw other women who thought the same way as I did and with
whom I could identify. The feeling I had when I walked into the
NAAFI for the first time and saw this group of strong, confident
and happy women who bought me a drink and immediately took
me under their wing is indescribable. Suffice it to say that I felt
completely at home in company for the first time in my life, and
there was a kind of mutual, unspoken understanding that I had


UNIFORMS 77

never experienced before. No one spoke about lesbianism at all,
but they recognized me and I recognized them. More importantly
for me, I suddenly recognized myself, and I’m very relieved that the
revelation came under such positive circumstances. My lesbianism
wasn’t something I felt I had to come to terms with; that
experience purely provided me with a name for my feelings, and it
was something that made me very relieved and happy.

I phoned my mother one night soon afterwards and told her I
was a lesbian as part of our general conversation. I told her more
for her information than to ‘confess’, and I think she accepted it as
such. I think she discussed it with my family, but no one ever
questioned my decision.

My lover and I have been together for almost two years. We met
at a dance in her home town one night, introduced by a woman
acquaintance. Where she comes from most relationships begin
from meeting in a disco; there are quite a few nightclubs which
cater for lesbians and gay men, and consequently they are the main
meeting places. Where we live now, in my home town, there are
very few social activities. Women tend not to congregate in large
numbers here. There are lots of small cells of lesbians, quite
separate from one another, and it is fairly difficult to flit from one
to another. Who one meets is largely dependent upon which cell
one belongs to, which is quite restrictive.

Our lovership is constantly adjusting—there is always a need for
compromise within a relationship. We both of us recognize that we
are individuals with our own outlook on life, but that in order for
a joint agreement like a relationship to work we have to modify
certain attitudes and maybe give up certain things we enjoy doing
alone that might place a strain on us as a couple. For instance,
before I met my present lover, I had a number of friends with
whom I had a ‘flirting’ relationship, which meant that we could
have progressed to a sexual relationship at any time but for the
moment were enjoying the ‘play’, the flirt. I found this activity
particularly fascinating because it was something I had never
experienced before. I enjoyed being free (out of a relationship) and
making my own choices about whether or not I slept with
someone, without having to consider a lover. I have always been in
a long-term relationship and have never been free to have other
lovers, so this was a new experience. When I met my present lover,
I gave up my group of friends because I couldn’t relate to them on
the same level any more; it caused friction in my relationship. It


78 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

makes me sad, but I also understand that if the situation had been
reversed, and it was my lover who had been relating to other
women in this way, then I’d have felt threatened too.

When things are going well between us, when we feel really
close, then sex isn’t really very important. When we’re arguing, or
feel vulnerable, sex then springs to the top of the list of ‘things
wrong with our relationship’. Suddenly, one of us feels we’re no
longer sexually attractive to the other, irrespective of how often
we’re having sex or how good it is. Normally, neither of us is
particularly highly sexed. We make love about once a week, if we
remember! But we’re both very tactile and enjoy loving each other
without necessarily going the whole way. Occasionally, we
experiment, doing stuff one of us thinks the other might enjoy, but
on the whole I think we both of us revel in being physically close,
holding each other, stroking each other’s body.

My lover hasn’t come out to her family, so she feels under a lot
of pressure to conform. She’s in her thirties and her parents feel
she should be married by now. Consequently, she often feels torn
between what she feels she should be doing and living her life the
way that makes her happy. By contrast, I’ve been out since I was
eighteen, so my family has no illusions. However, they have often
interfered in my lesbian relationships and have created friction and
ill-feeling where there was no call for any, so I have largely
excluded them from my life. I have only occasional contact with
my mother and my oldest sister, and keep them both at arm’s
length. It’s sad, but it’s the only way I can be free to live my own
life.

Apart from our families, we don’t have much outside pressure—
the occasional insult from some idiot in the street, but not much
more than that. We feel like an ordinary couple and we act as such.
We know that we’re discriminated against and that lots of people
have a problem with our sexuality, but that’s their problem and I
think we would only take on board situations that directly affect
our living situation, such as problems with our landlord or the
DHSS. Fortunately, we haven’t had any difficulties in this respect
yet. On the street, I’ve had one or two confrontations with straight
men who have felt threatened by my sexuality, but it’s turned out
okay.

When I was much younger, I often wished that I could marry the
lover I was with. It was a fairy-tale thing, a happily-everafter seal
on a relationship. Now I realize that, if such a marriage was legal


UNIFORMS 79

in this country, I would be very reluctant to take the step unless I
was absolutely sure that the relationship was completely stable. I
think there should be an option like this for lesbian and gay
couples, both as a declaration of love and as legal security for a
partner who is left when a lover dies, or couples splitting up. But I
also think that, for many of us, there would be difficulties with
taking such a contract seriously because of the casual nature of our
social environment. I think that often we don’t take ourselves
seriously as people with a different, but equally valid, sexual and
political identity, so maybe we’d have to re-educate ourselves quite
extensively in order to accept something as formal as marriage into
our collection of life choices.


5
Ouv


LOUISE

I am definitely out. I have reached the stage where I see no point in
hiding my sexuality to most people with whom I have anything
more than casual contact. Besides which, I have a feeling that I
look like and dress like and act like such a lesbian that if people
don’t get the hint then it’s obviously something so far outside their
scope of life that it would be unkind to spell things out in words of
one syllable.

I don’t recall coming out as a grand event. It wasn’t like I was the
only person who knew, followed by an announcement in all the
national newspapers. It was more gradual than that. I told my best
friend at school that I was in love with one of the teachers, which
was fine because this friend had a crush on one of the other girls at
the time. So we shared crushes for a while. I told a few friends
after I’d left school and they all had roughly the same reaction,
that I was still their friend, which was nice (and a good thing too. I
told one friend as we sat in a bandstand in Ballarat in South
Australia. If she’d taken it badly the following three months
touring Australia would have been tense, to say the least!)

The first member of my family I came out to was my sister,
when I was unceremoniously dumped by the woman I’d thought
was going to be ‘It’ for my whole life. I was totally hysterical at the
time, so my sister hardly had the chance to react badly, she was
too shocked to make any judgements. My mother already knew by
the time I got round to telling her because one of her workmates
had got me sussed and told her and calmed her down and
explained everything. So it was no big news to her, and she was
okay about it. I didn’t tell my father for ages and, when I


OUT 81

eventually did, it was a great relief to him. I had been trekking
across town twice a week to go to a pub when there’s one just
round the corner, and he’d been wondering why I bothered. He’d
gradually decided that I was working as a barmaid in some sleazy
joint and that was why I was so secretive. When I told him it was a
women’s bar and I went there because I’m a lesbian, he said, ‘Oh,
that’s a relief then’! My parents, by the way, are dead sound and
completely wonderful and supportive and, looking back, I wonder
why I left it so long. But you can’t be sure, can you? And I didn’t
want to hurt them.

I came out at college by having a large poster of two women
locked in an embrace on my wall. It worked a treat. To start with,
I had come out to individuals but no one was too freaked out,
especially as I had a girlfriend, so they weren’t worried I was going
to pounce.

Because I’ve never had a severely negative reaction to my face,
I’ve not held back on coming out since I started college. It’s not so
much ‘coming out’ as just being me, and part of being me is that
I’m a dyke, take it or leave it. I’ve always been out at work. I’ve
never said clearly, ‘By the way, I’m a lesbian’, but I just let it be
known. I talk about my partner or girlfriend and if people are too
horrified they’ll steer clear of me the next time. But then I work in
a nice intellectual atmosphere where most of my colleagues read

The Guardian and it would be most improper of them to react
otherwise. I think some of them actually think it gives them
credibility to have a lesbian couple as friends. But I am fully aware
that a large section of the population would happily beat me up
and/or rape me if the situation permitted it. So I subscribe to the
ostrich school of life and avoid these people and those situations as
much as possible. I would never make it clear that I was a dyke if I
thought there was any physical danger. I’m not a martyr to the
cause.

Only once did I make an outrageous and gratuitous reference to
my sexuality and now I feel quite guilty about it, but it was such
fun at the time. I was in the ladies’ loo at a service station and got
stared at by Mrs Het, who coldly informed me that this was the
ladies. I get that quite a lot and usually just agree with them that,
indeed, it is the ladies and let them figure it out. But that time (and
God knows what possessed me to say it!) I said, ‘What’s the
matter? Don’t you know a lesbian when you see one?’ She was


82 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

suitably taken aback and shot into the nearest cubicle and bolted
the door….

ANDREA

You suggest that coming out is a public affirmation or celebration
of one’s sexuality. Oh, dear me, no. A fight. To be me. To be
recognized as me. To avoid being lynched for being me. To knock
some goddamn sense into the world.

My first coming out was to myself, when the penny finally
dropped that that was what I was. So, that’s what I am—a lesbian.
Just to say that out loud still scares me. And amazes me. No, the
sky doesn’t fall just because I say I’m a lesbian. But someday it
will, I’m convinced of it. Sometime I’ll say it to the wrong person
in the wrong place and lose my job, my flat, my career and my family
in one fell swoop, I know it.

So, I say it to the people I work with, again and again, because
they’d love to forget or pretend that, after all, if they keep quiet
long enough maybe I’ll end up like them. And every time there’s a
shock in the air. Their faces twitch slightly, the kind of contortion
that says, ‘I’m telling myself not to react. After all, it’s the eighties
and I’m a right-on leftie feminist, but why does she have to keep
reminding me she’s queer?’ And then they get all reasonable and
lecture me on equal rights. Jesus, sometimes I’d love to just walk
right out of there.

But no, I NEVER, NEVER tell my pupils, their parents, the
cleaners, the schoolkeeper, my assistant, my landlady or my
parents. Why court disaster? Well, yes, I know why. Believe me, I
feel the full force of Harvey Milk’s impassioned plea for courage.
But I’m a coward. I would love nothing better than to believe that
if I told the whole world, the world would mildly turn round, pat
me on the head and say, ‘Yes, dear, we understand’. But the world
happens to be a nasty, vicious place where people love nothing
better than a touch of violence to spice up their lives and I’m more
interested in survival than heroics.

My God, I’m getting reactionary in my old age. You wouldn’t
believe this is the same person who, shivering with terror, used to
walk around wearing a lesbian badge on my jacket lapel and who
still drags herself kicking and screaming on to both the Lesbian
Strength and Gay Pride marches every year, who founded a
primary teachers’ lesbian and gay group in a teachers’ centre,


OUT 83

for heaven’s sake, and attends various lesbian and gay group
meetings around the city….

So what is this kamikaze tendency to scream things from the
rooftops and then duck behind the balustrade for fear of imaginary
missiles? Advantages? One small space I can call mine. At work, at
home, in bits of the world I can be myself. But even there, straight
people don’t really understand.

I was listening to Radio 4 one day, to a marvellous gay man
whom I admire enormously for his incredible courage. He was
talking about ‘the intolerable strain of living in two worlds’ and
the need for us to ‘reconcile’ these two worlds. Well, that’s it. He
wasn’t talking about coming out, but it hits the nail on the head,
nevertheless. Coming out is my way of bringing the two halves of
my world together so that I can stay sane. If I don’t try, they’ll go
spinning off in opposite directions, tearing me apart as they do so.

ROSEMARY

The advantages in coming out are the sense of personal freedom,
the loss of fear. It means a lot to me when I hear even a mildly
anti-gay remark, for example, ‘All this public spending on lesbians
and gays’, to say, ‘Look, I’m gay and that’s not the truth’. More so
since AIDS. I feel my arguments have more weight when talking,
say, to a minibus driver who seemed to think he could get AIDS
from hotel linen. I could say, ‘I’m gay, and you don’t get AIDS like
that’. This resulted in a rather comic conversation with me yelling
advice on condoms from the back of the bus. He’d seriously been
talking of cancelling his holiday ‘because of all these gays about’.
He’s since driven me without any nonsense, except racist
nonsense, which seems a bit harder to eradicate.

I feel too it’s important for me to be identified as a lesbian for the
sake of people who are still in the closet. Even if they never come
out it must be some source of solidarity to know there are people
who are out. I remember when I was still in the closet the joy of
seeing other lesbians on television; there they were, real people like
me, my own people visible for once. And it’s wonderful feeling
part of the lesbian and gay community, being recognized and
recognizing others, being part of this ‘out’ network. Maybe this is
even better than being part of an accepting, largely het family? It
would, of course, be nice to have both! But I think that because of


84 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

this connection with other lesbians and gays I don’t miss family
support.

Apart from them and my doctor who is, I think, Catholic, and
who I don’t know at all as I see him as little as possible, I don’t
think I do select now who I come out to. It just seems to happen.
For instance, when one het woman I met at a community centre
was telling me about her courtship, and added, ‘I’ll find a nice man
for you’. I said ‘I don’t want one, I’m a lesbian’ and she simply
rejoined, ‘Oh, I’m quite the other way’.

Once a minicab driver was telling me, on a long journey, about
the sort of work he had and how he regularly picked up artistes
from gay pubs, and I said something like, ‘Yes, there are a lot of
good venues around here’. He said ‘How do you know?’ and I said,

‘I’m a lesbian’. He went very pale and it seemed clear to me he was
a closet gay because, although he said ‘I’m not married, but I’m
not gay’, he went on talking about it and then said, ‘But it’s wrong
to be gay, isn’t it?’ I said, no, it wasn’t, gays could act responsibly
to each other and have good relationships and no love was wrong
if it wasn’t exploitative. I don’t know if I was right about him and
if it helped him at all, but if I’d been in the closet perhaps we
wouldn’t have had the conversation at all. As he was a local
cabby, I think maybe he’d heard I was gay but hadn’t expected me
to say so.

I’m not religious so I can’t say anything about telling priests.
One could, I suppose, always ring them up anonymously and
sound them out on their attitudes to gays beforehand. One rather
closeted woman I knew, who came out to her priest, found him
not anti-gay. He just said ‘Do the best you can’.

I think I would not come out to medical people deliberately. If
they learn about me from other sources then that is different. I
think they are poorly educated or trained as far as sexuality is
concerned. I know a woman who had ‘homosexual’ scrawled in
her medical file. While I realize this could be beneficial if you need
to establish your lover as next of kin, I feel uneasy about it. I don’t
think medical files are confidential. I suppose I don’t want that
fact about me in bold print in a hospital when I am helpless and at
the mercy of medics there. I’ve spent too much time in hospitals to
have any illusions about still having much control over my life in
there and the sort of treatment I’d get. And nuns and religious
maniacs tend to loom up in hospital. I once had to endure a nun
going on and on about my loss of religion which she’d tracked


OUT 85

down in my file. Imagine having to depend on bedpans from
someone who chooses to go on and on about gays.

REBECCA

I had my first lesbian relationship at university. It was a very
agonizing period in my life as the relationship was conducted
secretly and sporadically, with a lot of hurting on both sides as a
result. We both felt totally isolated as lesbians, although a lot of
our contemporaries must have known what was going on. Because
of the secrecy and self-doubt, the relationship was doomed from
the start. My partner subsequently returned to men while I
remained celibate until we both left university and went back to
women!

I wanted to give relationships a rest and took the opportunity to
go abroad for a year to study at a foreign university. There, I felt
more isolated than ever because I was in a country where
homosexuality is completely underground. However, it was a
period when I was totally ‘out of circulation’ and had space to
consider what I really wanted. I joined a feminist group who, as
far as I knew, were all straight.

I had always kept my brother in touch with what I was up to, so
he knew about my first lesbian relationship. Because of its
haphazard nature and my occasional relationships with men, this
could not be termed an ‘official coming out’. I had also told my
best friend about my sexual confusion but she didn’t really
understand the implications; it was very strange to her.

Funnily enough, it was abroad, when I was sexually inactive and
in a context of illiberal traditionalism and heterosexuality, that I
began to come out, first to my landlady with whom I had
developed a close friendship and then, on impulse, to my feminist
group who were ridiculing lesbians. I felt totally depressed after
coming out to this group and thought that they would totally
reject me. I was surprised to find that, although they found it
strange and not unfunny, they were fairly supportive, and I even
discovered afterwards that one of their number was also a lesbian,
living in a country where admitting to being a lesbian was akin to
announcing that one was from Mars!

I take no pleasure in living a secret life and keeping my lesbian-
ism a secret has always been a burden to me. I come from a very
close family. I have never come out to my thirty-eight-year-old


86 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

brother since he is very family orientated and ridicules gays, nor to
my father because I was too frightened; he is now dead.

When I came back to England after a year abroad, I was more
convinced than ever that I wanted to live a lesbian life. I began a
relationship with the same best friend who had not understood my
lesbianism, and at that stage I began to work up to telling my
mother. It was very difficult as I feared being rejected, but in the
end it wasn’t as bad as I had imagined. She said that, although she
was surprised, she was not shocked. It took her a long time to
accept, but now she is fond of my girlfriend, and gets a lot of
support from us emotionally.

I have come out to most of my friends. I try to avoid those
people with whom I would not be comfortable in coming out. I
have come out at work when my workmates have ridiculed gays. I
tend to keep quiet unless someone is being anti-gay. I would feel
terrible about not defending myself and pretending I was one of
them. I do feel that, if absolutely everybody who was gay came
out, there would be an ideological and sexual revolution in this
country. I don’t come out to my mother’s friends to protect her as
she lives in a very close community where gossip is rife, but I think
it would be a very good thing to do for the sake of gay liberation. I
wouldn’t bother to come out to the milkman, for example. It
doesn’t seem relevant or worth the aggravation.

I think I have chosen a line of work which is independent of
others, in the world of entertainment where attitudes are a bit
more liberal than in the ‘establishment’. I believe that being out at
work would lead to problems for most people and I would never
blame them for keeping quiet about it. I feel a little resentful that
some avenues seem to be closed to me precisely because I have
stopped myself from pursuing a career in the mainstream.

It is often easier coming out to young people because the older
generation are often not at home with discussing any kind of
sexuality, let alone homosexuality. But, ultimately, most people
will have to bring themselves to accept this important aspect of a
person’s identity. We all fear rejection, but one can always tell
oneself that people who don’t accept us are not worth it anyway.

My personal situation with my family is unusual in that my
mother is widowed and recently lost one of her children. It
would be quite ridiculous for her to reject me as I am her only
source of comfort and support in an incredibly sad situation.
Parents who do reject their children because of their


OUT 87

homosexuality are choosing to lose their living children and are
totally incomprehensible to someone like myself and my mother
who have experienced a real loss which we were not in a position
to choose.

ANNA

Coming out for me was actually really easy. While I was straight
or bisexual (though, come to think of it, I was never really bi) I
was still just sharing a house with a man, but at that period of my
life I was mixing a lot with lesbians. They were great; scarcely one
of them pressured me. So one day, without any hard work or guilt
or heart-searching, I just realized that I too could be one of that
wonderful band. That, instead of just hanging out with them and
admiring them, I could be one too. I only thought about it for
about a week. My best friend didn’t want me to, she said she’d
lose me. Well, when she went up north with her bloke and had a
baby, I knew she knew what she was talking about.

The first thing I did was to put up a notice in my local women’s
centre to try and get somewhere else to live. I started the notice

‘Emerging lesbian…’. I like to think that I was the first person to
use that term. It was 1980, maybe 1981. After that I started a
lesbian support group which lasted four years. That was my family
all that time. When it folded I was devastated. When I told some
lesbians I’d been friendly with, they all said things like ‘What took
you so long?’ and ‘About time’. I had a lot of support back then.

It was a wonderful period, those first few years. I was often in
love and often in terrible pain, but I felt at the time I’d done the
best thing in the whole world for myself and berated myself for
not having ‘seen it’ sooner. Looking back on my life then it seemed
full of great and brave women who still believed in revolution. I
think I’d just caught the tail-end of something that has changed, if
not died. I’m very happy that I had that experience and wonder
what has happened to me since then that has stripped the joy from
my life.

GRACE

I haven’t ever come out as such. Where I am half-way out it has
been in the course of getting on with things, incidental rather than
deliberate. I have never come out as an individual, except to my


88 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

girlfriend, and then only after she came out to me first. It’s a kind
of inertia. I don’t make any effort to come out, but I don’t make an
effort to stay closeted either.

I have not told anyone at work that I am gay. I can’t see myself
offering this information unasked for, the whole idea is too
embarrassing. But I have to admit I have had opportunities to
come out which I let slip by, like when a colleague asks what I am
doing at the weekend, and I say I’m running a stall at a jumble
sale, I could have said it was at the Gay Winter Fair but I didn’t.
And I could come out by wearing gay badges, but I have seldom
done so and when I did nobody appeared to notice it. Once when I
wore a Ken Livingstone badge one woman said, ‘You’re a Ken
Livingstone fan? There’s just one thing I don’t like about him…’
and I thought, if it’s his support for gay rights then I’ll have to say
something, but she went on, ‘It’s this IRA business, they’re just
murderers’. I was half relieved and half disappointed that I wasn’t
going to have to defend Ken’s gay rights policy. I wouldn’t attempt
to defend his IRA policy; besides, the woman was Irish so she
knows more about it than I do.

Years ago when John Saunders lost his job in Scotland for being
gay, I wrote an article about him and sent it to the local NALGO
newsletter. The editor telephoned me to say she would print it, but
it wouldn’t be in the next edition as that would be devoted to the
annual conference. As it happened the newsletter ceased to exist
shortly afterwards and the article never did appear, but I would
have been glad if it had and would have been ready to argue the case
with anyone at work. A couple of years ago we all got a note with
our payslips saying that our employer intended to become an
equal opportunities employer, giving a list of grounds on which
they proposed not to discriminate, the usual—sex, race, religion
and so on, but not including sexual orientation. I wrote to the
secretary of the committee which had been set up to work out the
equal opportunities policy, pointing out the omission and
enclosing some NALGO leaflets about gay rights at work. She wrote
back, saying she had passed the leaflets on to the committee, and a
few months later we got another note saying that the equal
opportunities policy was now in force, and this time sexual
orientation was included as one of the grounds for not
discriminating. Probably they would have got around to thinking
of it without my prompting, but I like to think I helped. It’s not
exactly coming out, though.


OUT 89

I have never told any of my family that I am gay, but they know
I have been living with my girlfriend for seventeen years so they
must have some idea. I have no relatives in England, the nearest
are in Glasgow and I hardly ever see any of them except one aunt
who comes to stay for a few weeks in the summer most years.
When she is here, in order to have the time to entertain her, we cut
down some of our political and social activity, but not altogether.
We have taken her to a Gay Sweatshop play, an August Trust
lunch, a Gay Authors Workshop reading, several Gemma meetings,
an event at ULU at the end of a Gay Pride March; we couldn’t take
her on the march because she is seventy-five and her knees are not
up to it. Also we have introduced her to many of our gay friends,
some of whom are very outspoken. So, we think she must know by
now, but she never mentions it, so neither do I.

I have taken part in gay pickets and petitioning locally, and have
written numerous letters on gay subjects to the local newspaper,
giving my real name and address. The editor is anti-gay and, every
now and then, comes out with some absurd editorial opinion
which needs replying to. They usually do print my letters, although
sometimes in a garbled form, but this is one of the hazards of
writing to newspapers, there is nothing one can do about it. All
this is more ‘out’ than going on the anonymous Gay Pride March,
though I do that too, of course, but I have had very little
comeback.

At one time a local youth used to shout ‘Gay liberation’ at me
whenever he saw me in the street, and one time I heard him
arguing with some other youths, he telling them I was gay and they
expressing scepticism. Once some children followed me down the
road talking in loud voices about a gay television programme.
Once I was in a lift in a high-rise block in Plaistow with two
drunken men, strangers to me. One of them peered at my badge
and read slowly ‘Gay Vegetables’. ‘Vegetarians,’ I said. He looked
puzzled and read it again, ‘Gay Vegetables’. Then he said, ‘Are you
gay, then?’ I said ‘Yes’, feeling a bit anxious and wondering how
much damage two drunk men could do to me before the lift
stopped. He said, That’s all right. Everybody’s got to do what
they’ve got to do’. I regularly read Capital Gay openly on buses
and the underground, so far no reaction from other passengers.
But none of this is really what is meant by ‘coming out’. I have so
far been lucky enough not to have much contact with the police, my
GP or public officials. I certainly have not told any of them that I


90 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

am gay, nor will I unless asked a direct question, in which case I
will tell the truth.

Why haven’t I come out properly, by telling people straight out
instead of leaving it to be implied? I am not entirely sure. It seems
to come down to sheer embarrassment. I was brought up to think
it is not nice to talk about sex at all. But it is all right in a political
context. It is only now while writing this that it has become clear
to me. I had not bothered to think about it before. I realize I feel
an inhibition against discussing sexuality at a personal level and
can only do so as a generalization. I do think I ought to come out
properly, and I hope that eventually I will overcome these feelings
of embarrassment. I don’t feel it’s important to me personally, but
politically it is important that everyone who is able to come out does
so.

MORAG

It is almost fifteen years since I first approached the gay scene and
started to live a gay life. I must be as far out now as it is possible to
be without wearing a badge—I’m not radical or a particularly
political person. If the subject comes up or my own sexuality or
marital status is asked about I usually tell the truth, though the
words used depend on the questioner and the situation. I don’t lie…
ever.

So, being out is important for me on two main levels: so that I
don’t have to lead too much of a double life, and so that I am a
visible gay for all those who aren’t particularly anti-gay but who
assume gays are ‘someone else’, say a poncy pansy or a diesel
dyke, who may exist in a gay ghetto of straight people’s
imagination.

It is now so much an open part of my life and personality that I
couldn’t retreat back into the closet if I wanted to. The more times
you’re honest, and the longer you go on being honest, the easier
and more natural it becomes. I usually feel quietly confident that
the item of news about me will be well received. So much depends
on how you answer the question or how you put the subject. I’m
not radical, I’m not a crusader. Usually when the subject arises the
listener isn’t all that interested. They say ‘Oh?’ Sometimes they
say, ‘You’re not, you’re joking!’ I assume that’s because I don’t
look like their mental cliché of a dyke, and also they don’t expect


OUT 91

just to come across a gay woman, just like that, at work or on the
bus.

I present myself in any way that seems relevant. I’m fairly
articulate and present a calm, matter-of-fact approach, or maybe
I’m witty and make a joke. The main thing is not to clobber the
innocent listener or make them feel embarrassed or ignorant. For
example, you don’t say, ‘Are you stupid, don’t you know I’m gay?’

A lot of people ask a lot of questions; often ‘Where do you go to
meet other gays?’ (the ghetto thing?) and ‘When did you first know
you were different?’. They usually reveal their views and ignorance
on the subject by the form of their questioning. It’s usually no
major concern for them—why should it be?—but they are
fascinated or intrigued and if I can answer their questions that’s a
bonus. I often say, ‘No, I don’t mind answering as many questions
as you ask. I’d much rather you got the answers from me than
from a book written by a straight psychiatrist, or that you believe
the trash you read in the papers.’

At work I hope to get established and integrated before coming
out. That sounds like a contradiction, but if you go in proclaiming
you’re lesbian that’s all some people will ever see. In my present
job, which I’ve held for two and a half years, I came out very
gradually and gently to one or two people after almost a year.
They knew me well by then and had some respect and liking for
the way I do my job.

Sometimes you half hope the selected few you’ve confided in
will gossip and spread the fact to save you the tricky task.
Sometimes they do and the most unlikely colleagues and boss
know, though you don’t know they know! It can be tricky and
perhaps uncomfortable if you’re in a crowd of colleagues, half of
whom know and half who don’t. It leads to some farcical sitcom
jokes and double entendres but could cause some of them
embarrassment, which should be avoided. After all, it’s my

‘problem’, not theirs.

I’m proud of how I’ve been able to handle the situation in this
present job, but also proud, and often surprised, at my friends and
colleagues and how low-key and matter-of-fact and okay they are.

I came out to my parents about a year and a half after I’d left
home and moved quite a long way away. I’d fallen in love with a
straight friend who knew and didn’t mind, but who could not
respond that way, and I was lovesick and heartbroken because she
was leaving me to go back to university. I was so self-centred and


92 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

naive that I never imagined the bombshell it would be to them. I’ve
never gone through all the Angst and despair and soul-searching of
other gays who have nervous breakdowns and make frenzied
suicide attempts over realizing they’re gay. I’ve been lucky. The
news to my parents was that I was brokenhearted and blue, not
that I was gay….

That really illustrated my attitude, I suppose. People, the media,
and so on, tend to say so-and-so is a lesbian’, although they
would, if necessary, describe a straight woman as ‘heterosexual’,
not a heterosexual’. They imply that gays are labels and just that
label. So I try not to say I’m a label. I was gay, but in that
situation, my love was for another woman, that was the fact.

Anyhow, my parents were stunned. My dad never referred to the
subject as such. My mum called me every filthy name under the
sun and virtually disowned me: ‘I only have one son and one
daughter’ sort of stuff. ‘I always knew there was something not
quite right about you.’ Over the years she gradually accepted me
and my being gay but, very much, I think, because neither my
brother nor my twin sister, Megan, agreed that I was filth and to
be shunned. They, and their spouses, always accepted me and their
loyalty impressed my mum. Also, gradually, my mum (and dad?)
realized that I hadn’t got two heads or become a stranger—I was
still me. I hadn’t changed, I’d shifted perspective in their eyes, in
one part of my identity and being.

I think when you do come out to your parents and family you
have to accept that however much they then, or later, come to
terms with it, they will still find it tricky to refer to your gayness
with your aunts, uncles, grand-parents, close family friends, and so
on. Nothing prepares them for describing your gay lifestyle. We,
ourselves, never knew whether to refer to my ‘friend’ (twee!) or my

‘lover’ (racy, but a shade unserious?).

So, how do mums and dads cope? I wrote to my few relatives so
that the job was done and most are okay, if noncommittal. My
favourite two aunts were decisive and positive as I’d hoped and
would have expected. Another uncle did his boring duty as a vicar
to ‘pity’ me, but he does keep in touch. His dire prognostications
came true when my five-year relationship ended!

The further out you come, the more people you eventually have
to tell, else it becomes very complicated.

The most unlikely people accept the revelation calmly. Others
can be surprisingly naff and ignorant. My rather old-fashioned,


OUT 93

unsophisticated sister-in-law actually made what I think to be a
valid moral judgement before my sister’s first marriage split-up.
She’d been seeing an older, married guy and this was really
frowned upon by my sister-in-law who compared it to my being
gay. ‘Well, whatever Morag is doing,’ she said, ‘she’s hurting no
one and not breaking up a marriage. It’s something between two
unattached adults.’

My mum, initially, rather dwelled on the unnatural nature of
two women in bed together. I often use the comparison when people
say they just can’t imagine fancying someone of their own sex, by
remarking that hetero love scenes on television or film really turn
me off, especially if the woman is gorgeous (what a waste!). The
thought for me of going with a guy—I did have two or three male
lovers many light years ago—is just as repulsive and really does
seem unnatural! Well, it isn’t natural for me. It is quite a complex
battlefield, dealing with family, but I personally am relieved I told
them so soon and before it became a big hurdle.

The negative side, with some straight friends, is that although
they accept my gayness (and why the bloody hell shouldn’t they?!)
it’s of very little interest to some of them and I can feel rather
dismissed and diminished. If I refer to a girlfriend, their eyes go a bit
blank. If I’d got a boyfriend, I suppose their own empathy would
make it a bit more interesting for them, but it’s just as important to
me.

My closer colleagues all care, but also I care back and, being a
bit older than a lot of them, I’m something of an older sister or
agony aunt to them. I care and can offer advice to them about
their boyfriends and so on. Neither they nor I find that strange or
impossible. I suppose they’ve got an insight into someone being
gay, and it’s mostly being much the same through the actual real-
life, everyday me…being in love and exuberant or heartbroken and
hurt is the same for all of us. ‘Love is an emotion, not a gender’, as
the drag-queen remarked in EastEnders.

There are acres of experience and feeling where any fellow gays
can sympathize. It is good to be in a gay bar or club among your
own kind, but I’m grateful I can mix in either gay or straight
company and take just the bits I want from both.

I make my mates laugh with the more comic side of being gay.
They like my own self-acceptance, I suppose, and my involved-but-
detached attitude. For instance, if my lover and I wanted a set of
bath-towels saying ‘Hers’ and ‘Hers’ for Christmas, we’d just have


94 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

to swap with a male gay couple who had a set the same colour of

‘His’ and ‘Hers’. And you go into a male gay couple’s bathroom
and there’s two shavers, or two boxes of tampons in a lesbian
couple’s bathroom. After a hasty session of lusty undressing you
grope on the floor and pick up your lover’s bra by mistake, and
it’s too big or too small and ridiculous!

If all this is presented as just matter-of-fact it can be fun and
entertaining and much more educational for ‘ignorant’ straights. If
they all go on about fancying a film star or a rock star, I just refer
to a female star I fancy. Oh, yes?

The more serious issues do get touched on, but possibly sink in
less well. They see me as well-adjusted and friendly and that’s
diplomatic in itself. A major misconception I’ve done a little to
combat is that awful myth that lesbians hate all men. A lot of
questions are about that sort of thing. It all does some good. Some
of what I discuss is general, the rest personal and particular to me.
Of course, we’re individuals. I do wish, if only for one day or for
one hour, every gay would stand up and be counted, visible and
proud! It would amaze us, let alone them!

I have been abused (verbally!) and shouted at and the like, but
nearly always by strangers. When someone actually knows an
individual they can accept the ‘odd’ bits. I’m not a label and I
won’t hide. I’m a rounded human being who happens to be gay.
That’s the tale I tell.


8
Mind and body


LAURA

With the aid of retrospect, I can now recognize my lesbianism as
being a part of my life from an early age, exhibiting itself in

‘tomboyishness’, in interest in and fear of girls, in disinterest in and
jealousy of boys (for their status, what was ‘given’ them, and not
for anything inherent in the male), in deliberate attempts to fit into
the accepted norms while clearly not doing so, and in a desperate
kind of loneliness, despite the fact of having three sisters, including
a twin. I cannot remember not feeling different.

But retrospect does not reveal ‘as it was’ and the aspects listed
above do not simply relate to my sexuality, with or without self-
awareness, but to my whole emotional being. I had come across
many images of homosexuality in literature, though almost none
specifically about lesbianism. I do recall reading D.H.Lawrence’ s

The Rainbow, in which I found the lesbian scene exciting and,
therefore, frightening; it is also, there, clearly unnatural and so
cannot survive and nor, of course, does Ursula want it to survive.
Lesbianism is seen by Lawrence as something that ‘has no life of
its own’. Literature was where my life was lived; that is, not in the
actual world and not, somehow, connected with me. I had no
consciousness of my own emotional reality; that was too
frightening a thing.

A very close friend at school had told me he was gay. I was
initially shocked (envious?) but came to like and admire this, but I
could still hold it away from myself. I eventually found myself at
university with gay women and men friends but nothing bore any
relation to me; I was totally closed off from myself. I liked gay


96 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

people. They were ‘positive’ images, but I was totally ignorant of
my own sexuality and utterly, utterly screwed up.

Traditional education, even in literature, was neither
enlightening nor supportive. Attitudes have changed a little now:
there is a patronizing, kindergarten ‘know-your-place’ admission
of literature’s little sister—women’s writing (always optional
courses); in a provincial university in the sixties and early seventies
a course was created, directed and taught by men and largely for
men. I have no quarrel with male artists, male audiences and male
teachers per se, but it seems women must seek for an equilibrium
without the support of the establishment which may, ultimately, be
a good thing. In nineteen years of full-time education I learnt next
to nothing about myself or my sisters except, of course, how men
saw us. Education is a highly restricted and restrictive concept.

The only thing that was becoming clear during my time at
university, whether I liked it or not, was that sex with men (I did
try!) terrified and appalled me; the one clue I had to myself, to my
sexuality, was that my earliest sexual dreams were lesbian and
incestuous. I couldn’t put my dreams into someone else’s book or
life, they were mine, and they didn’t present me with the most
acceptable life-plan I could have imagined. For obvious reasons, I
couldn’t or wouldn’t talk with any member of my family; I was
incapable of talking to anyone at all about myself. The only place I
was getting was a crash-dive into alcoholism.

Never in touch with myself, not relating even to those images I
liked, and destroying myself with fear and alcohol, I ‘naturally’
found myself sitting in front of a psychiatrist—a straight, male,
almost old-enough-to-be-my-father, progressive and rather
wonderful psychiatrist. My academic tutor, who was male, had
sensed I was cracking up, not sleeping, not talking, drinking
heavily and really living in a state of terror and aloneness. My
university tutor, female, had made the appointment for me to see
the doctor who was usually entrusted with ‘problem cases’. He
was, naturally, fatherly, and we had fortnightly talks in addition to
the sleeping pills and minor tranquillizers he prescribed me. There
was a kind of charming naivety in all this, as well as a genuine
concern which provided some support. This same doctor was also
notorious for ascribing most problems in women students to

‘boyfriend trouble’; he eventually got round to this topic, but when
I said I wasn’t interested in boyfriends he dropped the subject. At


MIND AND BODY 97

the time, that was all I had allowed myself to know; it was a
further six years before I could say I was a lesbian.

When the extent of my drinking was discovered (a minimum of
half a bottle of spirits a day), the treatment became a little more
serious. Overnight I moved from being a student having some
difficulties to a potential, if not actual, alcoholic who was
probably depressive too. When questions regarding my sexuality
arose I usually skirted round them or joked; again, if I was trying
to hint at my own confusion, it wasn’t being taken up. I can’t
recall being aware, or it being suggested, at any point during this
period that my sexuality might be relevant to what I was going
through, let alone that it should matter! I continued to see the
doctor fortnightly, which gave me the excuse for not going home
in the vacations, and to be prescribed stronger sleeping pills and
stronger tranquillizers. Since I was continuing to drink as much, if
not more, my doctor realized that I was killing myself. He referred
me to a psychiatrist who had just opened a clinic for the treatment
of drug and alcohol abuse.

I consider my experience of the psychiatric world one of the
luckiest breaks in my life. I have seen more than enough on both
sides of the fence. Besides having two two-year periods of
treatment, I have also worked as a psychiatric social worker for six
months. Not surprisingly, I have also met many in the gay world
who have had psychiatric treatment and many who work in the
caring professions. As a result, I know that the positive treatment I
received is very, very rare in the public health service. My first step
into that world could so easily have been the first on a downhill
slide into institutionalization.

I was fortunate to find myself in a relatively enlightened setup, a
climate in which feelings, self-respect and trust were valued, and in
which one was encouraged to confront and work through
difficulties that were sometimes so blocked off that only by
opening up to an extreme of vulnerability could one begin to
become conscious of them. What, in retrospect, now seems
remarkable, is that both in individual and in group psychotherapy
there was very little attention paid to sexuality: in therapy, as in
almost every social situation, sexuality was an awesome and fearful
subject. Some allowance should be made for my own blocking of
the subject. I wasn’t aware at the time of a ‘gap’; and I do believe
my psychiatrist was ‘pacing’ me, maybe both of us. For example,
in my in-patients group, during three months of


98 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

hospitalization, there was one man who, after several weeks of the
ten-week course, disclosed that he was homosexual. He was in his
late thirties, a teacher, and found it extremely painful to tell us
about his homosexuality. He had not been able to come out to his
parents. The therapist and I encouraged him to confront his
feelings about his parents in relation to his sexuality, as everyone
else seemed to shy off. As he struggled to speak his head began to
corkscrew away from his body, and he was helpless to stop this.
His parents were literally screwing him up and tearing him apart.
He failed, in the end, to speak with his parents and, not long after,
he killed himself. At no time was anyone else encouraged to relate
what was happening to this man with their own sexuality and,
after he had gone, sexuality, as opposed to ‘trouble with
boyfriends’, disappeared from discussions. No one, including staff,
was prepared to go along with what he was trying to do, which
meant acknowledging the central and absolute importance of his
sexuality.

While in hospital I found myself, and there weren’t other words
I could use for it, falling in love with the woman who was a nurse-
therapist for our group. My psychiatrist knew it, she felt it and I, if
wordlessly, had to acknowledge it. This was not explored, it was
allowed to be, and I don’t mean just ‘tolerated’. None of us, I can
now see, could confront the simple fact of that emotional
commitment although it was recognized; I had to live with it and
learn to value my feelings or dismiss a vital and intense part of
myself. The real lesson, apart from that of realizing that to give up
on my feelings was to give up on myself, I learned through all this
during the five years it took to work through was that the
professionals in the psychiatric field are only human and often as
frightened of looking at sexuality, of seeing its potential
complexity, as the vast majority of people. If you are lucky, they
have discovered their own weaknesses and are prepared to admit
them to a degree which allows you the space to be. In more
traditional institutions, where the assumption of authority and
theory on the part of the professional ‘expert’, usually fully
endorsed by the ‘patient’, who rarely understands there is a choice,
displaces the need for the acknowledgement of such weaknesses or
vulnerability, I would have been categorized as sick. In my case, I
shall be eternally grateful for the support that helped me reach the
understanding that I am responsible for my feelings, and that those
feelings are all right.


MIND AND BODY 99

The first time I made love with a woman, at the age of
twentysix, was terrifying! However, frightened and confused as I
was, and here I think I am quite lucky, I knew from the first that
this was right, and that I had made a choice in that act that I
couldn’t move back from. I was still trying to fit in, trying to be
heterosexual, but the intense struggle this created in me meant my
finally seeking help and seeing a psychologist, again male and
straight, for a further two years. The difference now was that I
was making choices and decisions for myself. I knew that I needed
support to work through this; by myself I was slipping back into
old, destructive patterns. I could select that help. I, briefly, saw one
psychiatrist who, probably in response to my pointing out the
sexism in his questionnaire which asked if I had any difficulties
with relationships with the opposite sex, clearly saw that my

‘problem’ was that I thought I was lesbian. I didn’t think this was
a problem. I saw learning to accept and enjoy myself, not getting a

‘cure’, as the process ahead. Fortunately, he was not able to take me
on, or I would have rejected help at that time.

Discovering my lesbianism was a growing process leading to the
liberation and acceptance of my ‘self ’, including my sexuality, and
ultimately being able to embrace that larger self with joy. I do not
think that there is an end to such a process, for I continue to grow
within, and beyond, loving relationships I have had and have. I
have been happy in my sexual expression as I have learned to love,
and not to ignore myself which is more than, but inseparable
from, that sexual expression.

DOROTHY

Depression. The grey demon. The cold voice at the river’s edge,
saying, ‘Jump’. The razor’s edge that gave me scars. A two years’
possession. I needed help, I got family therapy. I spit on the
memory and the gap in my head it’s made, a big black block of
lost time I cannot, except in the briefest of moments, remember.
Leaving home and loving women released me from the dead spell,
and only when friends die does its sleeping miasma cloud my
spirit. I see the funny side these days. It’s the best weapon.


100 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

MAXINE


My first experience of lesbian sex was with Gaby, and was
wonderful. It was eighteen years ago now, and I can still tingle
from the memory! It wasn’t a momentous big decision or
anything. We were always sleeping over at her house as she was an
only child and we worked part-time in the same shop. So sharing
baths and cuddles just turned into lots more. We knew better than
to broadcast from the rooftops that we were in love, but we didn’t
know enough to feel guilty or have hang-ups about doing or not
doing whatever we felt like. For a while, one of my boyfriends was
a man who managed a garage and I spent six months with him
having sex in phone boxes, under cars, on the football terraces, his
idea of a big turn-on. As far as I was concerned, that was sex—you
open your legs and wait for the grunt. What I was doing with
Gaby just didn’t have a name and didn’t need one. I suppose it’s
odd that we never really talked about what we were doing, but at
the time it didn’t seem like that.

I really encountered lesbianism as a word when I encountered
feminism. I left home when I was eighteen and encountered all
sorts of exciting ideas and ways of doing things that I’d never
come across before. My first relationship with a woman after I’d
left home wasn’t a very good experience, though. She called herself
a feminist, too, but luckily there were enough other women around
to show me that there were as many types of feminism as there
were women with that label. Carla was physically and emotionally
abusive both in and out of bed, and at first I just accepted it
because I thought, ‘Well, this is a sexual relationship and if ones
with men are like that, why shouldn’t ones with women be?’ After
a while I got involved with my local Women’s Aid group, though,
and began to realize that I was being a bit two-faced. While I was
with Carla I got raped twice, both times by men who thought that
was an okay way of saying they were personally offended by me
being a dyke. I went a bit loopy after the second time, which Carla
couldn’t cope with. So we had a very flamboyant parting of the
ways!

I started coming to terms with my sexuality and labelling myself
for people more often quite soon after I left Carla. I saw three male
therapists on the NHS, one session with each, who all saw my
lesbianism as my main problem and had various theories, like I
was being loopy as a way of dealing with the guilt at having


MIND AND BODY 101

enjoyed being raped. The therapist who said this was sexually
turned on by me being a lesbian, and I got a definite impression
that after a few more sessions he’d have been offering some
experiencing cures! I told them where to get off, which I’m very
proud of now, because I was just about at the most powerless and
shot to pieces I’ve ever been in my life. Friends helped me find a
feminist therapist. She was, and still is, straight, but is now a good
friend and she did me a lot of good. As I got more involved with
feminist things, I also got to meet lots more dykes. Funnily
enough, though, it was coming across all these positive images that
opened my eyes to all the negative ones. I think being raped was
part of that process too. Although I can look back on my
relationships with men while I was living at home and call my
sexual involvement with them rape on some level, there’s nothing
to compare with the absolute terror of some man you’ve never met
before overhearing your conversation in a pub and being
underneath him in an alley ten minutes later. I think the
viciousness of both these rapes will be with me for ever and ever.
One of them had a knife and I really thought he was going to kill
me just because I’m a dyke. I don’t think I can communicate how
unbelievable that is, or what a perfect way it is of making a
woman feel like a piece of shit.

I got raped another time (I’ve heard all the jokes about being
careless, thank you) after both of these, and of course it was
horrific and took some getting over, but it wasn’t the same
somehow. I don’t think I can explain, but there was something
about that third time that it was me as a woman, which is just
something I am. But the other two times it was about my sexual
choice. I know it wasn’t really, I’ve worked as a rape counsellor
for six years and I know all the stuff about why men rape women
is because they know they’re allowed to. The time when I got
raped outside the pub, though, I just know it wouldn’t have
happened if we’d been talking about flower arrangements, or about
our boyfriends. There’s still a big part of me that finds it totally
unbelievable that I’m living on a planet where that can happen.

I think one thing that I do now that I probably wouldn’t be
doing if I hadn’t had those experiences is that every three or four
years I sleep with a man friend. I spend a lot of my time being
scared of men and sometimes it gets to the point where it’s hard to
function in a city which has a lot of men in it and my fear of being
raped again gets to take over my life too much. So I sleep with


102 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

someone safe, always someone I can trust enough to turn it into
something to laugh during, but I always give myself a hard time
about it afterwards. I don’t know if some of that comes from all this
stuff about lesbianism being second-best, the ‘you haven’t met the
right man’ stuff. I know that being with women isn’t a gap-filler for
me, but it just seems to help me function in a man-made world to
have some controlled sexual contact once in a while. End of
justification!

I make a point of making sure my GP knows I’m a lesbian, but
when I get a new doctor I ask her not to write it on my notes. This
is partly because my aforementioned loopiness involved convincing
the police that I wasn’t a dyke (it’s very complicated and I’m not
going to explain!) and although it was a long time ago I still get
fears sometimes that they’re going to come and do me for lying to
them! Mainly, though, I use my dykedom as a test of whether this
is a woman I’m happy to have as my GP. If she can’t cope I go and
find someone who can. One of the times I got raped I was left with
pelvic inflammatory disease and, when I have a recurrence of it, it
comes out as infections that are often heterosexually transmitted. I
get less assertive than I usually am when I have to deal with it,
though, and I want to know that I’m not going to get all that crap
about whether my boyfriend’s been sleeping with the neighbour’s
dog when I go for treatment.

I love being a dyke, I love being with other women and laughing
and living every bit of my life with other women, and most of the
work I do is about caring for other women while caring for myself
too. It is a choice though. I don’t believe in biological bases of
behaviour, particularly as men use these ‘explanations’ to let
themselves off the hook for all the shit they get away with, and I
know that if my life had happened differently I would have
married one of the men I was seeing to cover up my relationship
with Gaby, or got pregnant and panicked into straightdom, or
succumbed to everyone’s expectations to be a wifey. Even when I
think of all the ways we get punished for being a dyke, though, I’m
fucking glad I didn’t!

ISABELLE (written in 1986)

Why do you mention AIDS in a directive called Lesbians and
Health? AIDS has nothing to do with lesbians.


MIND AND BODY 103

VIV (written in 1986


I was first advised to see a psychiatrist when I was fourteen or
fifteen. I had an accidental drug overdose which was labelled

‘attempted suicide’, which it definitely was not, and all such cases
are automatically referred to a psychiatrist. In fact, I did not get to
see him and had no contact, personally, with any kind of therapist
for several years after that, although I have suffered from
depression since childhood. In a way I administered my own
treatment to myself instead, since for ten years I regularly took
drugs and, for two years, had a heroin habit. When I did stop
using heroin every day I went to see a private psychotherapist who
was a lesbian too, recommended by my homoeopath.

When I was nineteen I started psychiatric nursing and spent
about a year as an auxiliary nurse in a large hospital, general and
psychiatric. I was always in the closet at work where the attitude
was extremely heterosexual. In fact, one of the reasons I gave up
nursing was the anti-lesbian attitude of a lot of nurses, not
expressed to me, personally, since they didn’t know, but in general
conversation. It made me uncomfortable and unable to express
myself at work. I know one or two gay male nurses. One tried to
come out at work and was told by his superiors that if he didn’t
keep quiet about being gay then he would never be promoted.
Nursing is such a hierarchy that, lower down the scale, gays have
to be very careful. No doubt, higher up they are known and
tolerated, but only when being ‘discreet’. It’s particularly hard on
lesbians as it’s not exactly a ‘butch’ job. It can be better for gay
men as in a predominantly female environment they get more
tolerance from their co-workers. As far as patients go, I only
remember one, and he was an alcoholic. His medical notes
mentioned he was homosexual but as far as I know it didn’t affect
his treatment; again, it was largely ignored. But the whole
hierarchical and patronizing atmosphere in hospitals, in which
patients are allotted the role of children with the nurses as their
parents, means that it’s hard to assert oneself as an individual even
if heterosexual, let alone homosexual.

As far as AIDS goes, it’s relevant to me in several ways. Several
gay male friends are HTLVIII. positive, although none has yet
developed the syndrome. I expect it is only a matter of time before,
by the law of averages, one of them does, and this worries me. The
attitude of the media to AIDS and the way that they try to use it to


104 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

whip up hatred of gay people bothers me too. Although it’s mainly
against gay men it crosses over to cover gay women too. Because I
have been an intravenous drug-user I have been at high risk of
catching the virus. Last year I was quite ill, some of the symptoms
were similar to HTLVIII symptoms, and for a while I was worried
that I was HTLVIII positive. I went to the Special Clinic to be
tested. I know all the considerations about whether to test or not
to test and so on, but I wanted to know. In fact, I wasn’t asked
whether or not I actually agreed to the test, nor given counselling
or advice, just given that test among others. The attitude of the
doctors and nurses at the clinic when I told them I had been a junkie
and that I am a lesbian was non-judgemental and polite at all
times. I turned out to be negative. They stressed several times that
I did not have AIDS, and suggested I had some other virus which
they could not identify and could not treat. Obviously, it was a
relief to be HTLVIII negative, but stressful to think I have
something which diminishes my health. Since I came off heroin
two and a half years ago my health has been constantly bad, and I
also have glandular problems. Although I still occasionally use
heroin I rarely use needles and, if I do, they are clean, so I know I
won’t get the virus that way.

However, I am constantly at risk of sexually transmitted
diseases as I work as an escort, a polite term for prostitute. I always
insist on my clients using condoms where possible, and keep a
sharp eye out for AIDS statistics and information, who and where
the new cases are. As far as I know, it has not yet appeared in the
prostitute community here. The prospect of its doing so is
worrying. If, and when, it happens I would then have to consider
giving up my job, or adopting stringent safe-sex techniques with
virtually no contact at all. At the moment my safe-sex techniques
consist of a short discussion on hygiene with my client, do they
have regular check-ups, where have they been recently, do they
realize the need for safe sex, and so on, and insisting on condoms.
I also try to ascertain if they are bisexual, in which case I would be
insistent on minimal body contact with them, with no exchange of
bodily fluids. My other option, should AIDS appear among
working girls here, would be to specialize purely in non-direct-
contact sado-masochism; in other words, set up as a dominatrix.

. Later renamed HIV.


MIND AND BODY 105

Ironically, this, the safest method of working from our point of
view and the least likely way to transmit any STDs, is the most
heavily penalized by law. Working as an escort I am extremely
unlikely to be arrested and charged. Working as a dominatrix I can
be charged with running a disorderly house and risk a likely prison
sentence. This last point outrages me.

I suppose AIDS is thus almost as relevant to me as to any gay
man, in the personal sense. In a general sense it concerns me
anyway, as it may affect my friends and does affect the gay
community of which I am a part. I am appalled by the backlash in
the States, but try to take the positive attitude that, for every
reactionary around, there is a well-informed, reasonable person
with a sympathetic opinion. The States has always had more
extreme extremes than Britain, so I don’t think it will be as bad
here. I also think that people don’t believe everything they read in
the papers. I’ve just heard that the hospice for AIDS patients in
West London will be going ahead, despite much opposition from
public and press. I see this as a positive sign of more tolerant
attitudes. Eventually, AIDS will not be so concentrated in the gay
community so more time will have to be spent doing something
about it rather than inciting homophobia. I don’t think women are
seen to be as much of a threat as gay men. Lesbians are never
taken seriously. But, broadly speaking, anti-gay feeling affects
lesbians generally.

ROSE (written in 1990, in response to a directive
on the lesbian-gay divide)

Why do you say, ‘Perhaps lesbians might care to say how they feel
about AIDS even being mentioned in this directive’? AIDS is our
problem too.


9
Together


SUSAN

I have been involved in a lesbian relationship for eighteen months.
It is a monogamous relationship by mutual preference. Before
Maureen and I became lovers I had slept with one other woman,
who I knew well as a friend, when she was on a weekend visit to
me. I did not feel for her as a lover and our sexual relationship ended
then, though the friendship is still strong.

Our relationship has not always been easy, but the difficult
patches are by far outnumbered by the good times. Occasionally,
we joke about getting married, which I see as a way of expressing
a commitment to each other in a non-threatening way. The idea of
having our relationship blessed is meaningless to me, as formal
religion of any kind is irrelevant to my life and to both of us. In
any case, the permanence of a union of two people can never be
fully assured; I would rather say that I am committed to her for the
foreseeable future.

To suggest that long-term relationships between gay people ape
the heterosexual model strikes me as very negative. It denies the
existence of emotional needs and desires that everyone has,
regardless of their sexuality. Not all people want to fulfil these
needs through a monogamous relationship. Some have many
sexual partners, concurrently or consecutively, some prefer
monogamy, others are celibate. Many take all of these paths at
different times of their lives, but what they choose is not
necessarily dictated by their sexuality; other influences, such as the
attitudes and activities of friends, are present as well. I see gay
relationships as an opportunity of breaking away from
heterosexual stereotypes. For myself, being involved in a lesbian


TOGETHER 107

relationship means trying to establish and maintain a truly equal
partnership, with both of us taking responsibility for matters
emotional and practical. This is easier with no existing stereotypes
to challenge first, such as ‘who wears the trousers’ or wields the
dishcloth. Of course, there are stereotypes about lesbians, both
outside and within lesbian culture, but I wonder to what extent
these are imposed by or absorbed from heterosexual society which
can see gay culture only through straight eyes. It is possible that
straight friends of ours see one of us as the ‘masculine’ partner and
the other as the ‘fem’ one, but the issue has never arisen and the
people concerned have not, I suspect, confronted their own
prejudices.

I have not had any negative reactions from friends about being
lesbian, though I am unsure of a few I have not seen since I came
out. There is no direct pressure from my parents; I just know they
don’t approve. My way of coping with that is not to talk about my
lover with them, which I do not like myself for but hope that
sometime I will be strong enough to be more relaxed and open
about this whole part of my life. I do feel a general pressure not to
reveal my sexuality, especially when I am with people I don’t know
well. So there are times when I refer to Maureen only as my friend
rather than my lover, whereas if I were involved with a man I
would feel quite easy about calling him my boyfriend. Again, I
hope that as I become more confident as a lesbian I will feel less
inhibited by society’s conventions.

I have not felt compelled to make any changes in my behaviour
as a result of our relationship. What I do sometimes find a problem
is that Maureen smokes and drinks heavily, so that I find it hard to
stop smoking completely and I drink more when with her than
when we are apart. However, in the words of the women’s
movement, that is my choice! The most necessary change in my life
is that I travel more now, as we have lived a hundred and fifty
miles apart for most of our time together.

On the question as to whether it is possible to have a complete
and fulfilling life without a partner, this depends a lot on the
ability of the single person to seek and obtain emotional
satisfaction from friends rather than a lover. When I have been
single I have not felt less fulfilled in my activities, rather I felt free
to do what I wanted, whether that involved cooking the evening
meal or moving house, without always having to think about a
lover’s wishes. Yet I do not feel restricted in my choices because of


108 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

my current involvement. It is another consideration if I have to
make major changes in my life, but I would not let it stop me
doing something I felt was important for me. Sometimes I feel
lonely, even though I live with people I know well and am close to.
When I was single I sometimes felt lonely and unloved, despite
knowing that I had close friends. At times I feel frustrated that
Maureen and I cannot live together because our jobs keep us in
different parts of the country, but once that low point is over and I
am involved in my life here, that frustration ceases to be
overwhelming and I can feel more self-sufficient. In general, I feel
that everyone has an infinite capacity to continue finding out
about themselves and what they need to feel ‘fulfilled’. This
increasing self-awareness varies according to one’s friends, work
and so on, and whether one is involved with a lover. Such a
relationship is not the only way to personal development. The
general attitude that being half a couple is surely what everyone
wants is, perhaps, the hardest image to overcome for people who,
by chance or choice, are single or celibate or both.

I cannot predict whether Maureen and I will always be together.
I cannot take for granted that I will always be ‘married’ or assume
that I will have children to look after me in my old age. At present,
aged twenty-five, I have no fears about being old and lonely. When
I think of retirement, I imagine living with other ‘right-on
grannies’, sharing a flat with like-minded friends as I do now. That
vision may change as I get older, but I would certainly not want to
get married or have children to insure against a lonely old age.
That seems rather a lot to expect, as a partner may die before me
and children might not want to know me by then.

Sex is important to Maureen and me; we both want it and enjoy
it. I like the intimacy that it entails and creates. The desire for sex
varies; some of our weekends together are very passionate, other
times we are more platonic. At the start of our relationship, we
would make love a lot; now that that initial euphoria has died
down, sex is more fulfilling and relaxed. In fact, it just gets better
and better! There are times when Maureen is in the mood and I’m
not, in which case either one of us gives in to the other’s mood.
Sometimes, when I really don’t want to make love, I feel guilty for

‘failing her’, but this issue has never caused problems for us. If I am
honest, I have to admit that my lack of desire is sometimes more to
do with laziness than anything else.


TOGETHER 109

My feelings about multi-partnering have indeed changed over
the last few years. I realized, after several attempts, that I got no
pleasure from one-night stands or casual affairs. The best sex for
me has always been in the context of a monogamous relationship,
which I think is the consequence of the trust that takes time to
develop between two lovers. I came to realize this before AIDS. I
do not know how much less I would have experimented if AIDS
had been generally known about at that stage of my life, for going
to bed with someone is not always a careful and considered move.
But my awareness of AIDS, together with my increased self-
awareness, will make me more careful in choosing future sexual
partners or sexual activities.

Jealousy has not featured in our relationship, apart from one
occasion when I was very strongly attracted to one of my male
flatmates. I did not mention it to Maureen, so as not to hurt her,
and hoped the situation would resolve itself without her being
involved—and without sleeping with him! However, she realized
what I was feeling and was hurt by it. She confronted me about it,
which quite shocked me, but I realized I could not lie to her
because she would see through me. The fact that a man was
involved was especially hurtful to her and was also a shock to me.
I had, rather naively, supposed that, now I knew I was a lesbian, I
would never again have sexual feelings towards men. This incident
actually strengthened our relationship and established the basis for
greater honesty with each other.

I think that, in this case, my lover was quite justified in her
jealousy. I was being dishonest, for though I loved her I was
abusing the trust she had in me and in the relationship by not
admitting that I was attracted to someone else. The commitment
that had been to her alone was confounded by the feelings I had
for the man. As I do not go in for ‘open’ relationships, I was
beginning to feel that maybe I didn’t love her.

A last word on monogamy. I do sense a personal move towards
fewer sexual partners and more long-term relationships, both
among media-hype and among my own friends. I cannot tell which
has the greater influence on the other side. But, at the same time,
there are still many people who go in for non-mono-gamous sex,
despite the risk of contracting AIDS or other sexually transmitted
diseases. I think the attitude that casual sex is okay and desirable
will not disappear easily or quickly, nor is it an attitude exclusive


110 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

to one particular age group. After all, the wheel cannot be
disinvented.

PAT

At the moment I am in a long-term relationship; well, I consider it
long-term since it’s lasted two years so far, though it’s showing
signs of cracking now. It’s the longest relationship I’ve had—I’m
now twenty.

I’ve enjoyed being part of a steady relationship. I do think
there’s something to be said for the monogamous relationship,
although it can feel very restrictive. Being tied up doesn’t stop me
fancying other women or regretting lost ‘chances’. In my
relationship I don’t know if it would strictly be called
monogamous. In reality it is, but it’s open in theory. I don’t worry
overmuch about loneliness in old age; it’s a long way off. On the
other hand it would be nice now to have someone to come home
to, to reproduce the security of my own family; things like having
a cuppa waiting for someone when they come in from the cold,
watching telly together in the evenings and so on. I like security
and routines like that. My present girlfriend has completely
different ideas, seeing such things as bourgeois and as necessarily
involving oppressing one partner.

We met via Gemma. We’d written to each other for about a year
before we even met. I was just getting over breaking up with my
first ever girlfriend. We were both at school, in the upper sixth,
and we ended up writing twenty-page letters to each other every
week. Anyway, eventually she suggested we meet; this was after
we’d both left home for further education. It was pretty well
decided between us that, catastrophes apart, we’d have a
relationship, and lose our sexual innocence together. I suppose it
was a bit weird really but we both wanted a relationship and were
prepared to work at it.

We slept together very soon after meeting as a result, which was
a pity in a way because we ended up getting close afterwards,
rather than getting close first. At the time I was very lonely in my
first term at university and she was insecure too, and I think we both
wondered whether, if we didn’t do it that weekend, we might
never meet again.

I don’t think I adjusted my behaviour to suit her, nor vice-versa.
We’re very different people so we tend, and always have tended, to


TOGETHER 111

clash a lot. At first our politics matched, as did our taste in films
and books, but we’ve both changed a lot since then, so we’ve not
that many shared interests any more.

Sex was the area with which we had the greatest trouble. After all
that bilge about lesbians just doing it naturally, there we were not
getting anywhere. It was really discouraging. I’d had some sexual
experience, mostly in the back seats of cars, and in nooks and
crannies of school and that had been really great. Of course, I
assumed that sex would always be like that, but there just wasn’t
any spark between us for ages. Our first night was a real
disappointment to me; Marilyn still doesn’t know this! There was
a lot of cuddling and cossetting, which was okay, but very little
genital contact. She’d not ever had an orgasm when we met, and
still only comes if she uses a vibrator for ages. Maybe that’s why,
but she’s never given me an orgasm manually, and I really miss that.
On the other hand I guess I tended to shy off sex for ages. She was
really intense and I began to feel as though, if we ever cuddled,
that was it, she’d expect sex. This lasted for about a year and a
half. In the last six months or so the sex between us has really
started to come together, though we rarely come unless we—how
shall I put it?—see to our own needs towards the end. Typical,
that just as the sex gets good we start to break up! Nowadays I
guess our sexual appetites are fairly equal. I don’t feel like she’s
mauling me continuously any more and so I’m much more
responsive myself. It took a hell of a long time for that to come
about, though. From all this, you probably think that we never
talked about sex together, but we did…oh god, did we? I think
we’ve got just about every sex manual on the market between us!
Talking, demonstrating what we needed and so on, but the trouble
was neither of us could really appreciate the other’s feelings for
ages, because we’re so different. She likes direct, hard touching; the
mere thought just makes me cross my legs and start working out my
shopping list. I was always frightened of hurting her, and she was
always too rough for me. Still, it worked out, more or less. I don’t
know why our sex suddenly started getting better, it just
happened.

Even when it comes to doing things the other wasn’t interested
in, we vary. I’m really into water sports. For a long time that was
just a non-starter. We talked about it, but the idea really turned
her off. On the other hand, she discovered a mild interest in sado-
masochism during our first few sexual encounters, some of which


112 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

bores me. Tying someone up takes so long that any interest I felt
tended to wear off; ditto dropping wax onto someone. As for
biting someone’s breasts, yuk. Mostly, though, we were quite
experimental. We talked a lot about what interested us, or what
we’d like to try, and usually had a bash at it at some stage. I’ve
never let her tie me down, though.

As for pressures outside our relationship, my parents were no
trouble. Once they could see that we were steady girlfriends, they
just accepted it and they really like her. In a way that is itself a
pressure, though, because they assume that we’ll always stay
together, live together and retire together to somewhere in the
countryside. When we break up I should think they will react
much the same as they would to my sister divorcing, or my brother
breaking off his engagement, with bewilderment and sorrow.
Marilyn’s parents don’t even know that she’s gay. I’ve met them,
spent a visit with them. They think I’m just a nice, innocent (that
is, not man-mad) friend of their equally innocent daughter. My
mates have accepted her. I don’t know what they think of her as a
person, but they accept her as my bit, in the same way that I’d
accept their other halves without necessarily wanting their
boyfriends as friends, apart from that link. Marilyn’s chums are all
gay or lesbian, anyway. They’ve not put any pressures on us at all.

Marilyn has just got a council bedsit so we’ve somewhere to be
together. When we were in our first year at college she was in
lodgings so I couldn’t visit her and she had to stay in my room in
the college. She had no hassle from the other girls in my
residences; they all knew I was gay and referred to her as ‘your
friend’. We did have some trouble with the university cleaners
though. There was a little-publicized rule which said that if you
had someone to stay the night in your room then you had to book
them a camp bed. No one knew of this rule, and no one would
have wanted to hire them a camp bed, anyway. The cleaners didn’t
report any of the hets in the block for this activity, but reported me
to the accommodation officer for having a woman in my room for
dirty activities without hiring her a camp bed. I was crapping myself
in case I was thrown out on my ear, and really furious. Anyway,
the accommodation officer was really nice about it. She told me
that there was this rule, and she was quite aware that the cleaners
only enforced it selectively, but to shut them up it would be better
if I hired a camp bed in future; whether or not we used it was up to


TOGETHER 113

us. This upset Marilyn who saw it as the first in what might be a
long stream of persecutions.

In my parents’ village I’ve had an egg thrown at the window
when Marilyn was staying with us, and the little brats tend to yell
supposed insults like ‘lezzies’ at us as we toddle about. This scares
Marilyn, but having grown up in our reputedly peaceful village I’m
relatively acclimatized to such things. We do show affection in
public to some extent, linking arms as we go about, and kissing in
alleyways. It irritates me that Marilyn is so timorous about this;
she seems to fear that little old ladies will come and heckle us.

I wouldn’t say we suffered from jealousy at all. We’re quite open
about our little infatuations. The only time I got a bit worried was
when she began to talk about a close lesbian friend of hers,
because that was more serious.

Another area on which we differ is marriage. If marriage was
open to gays then I would probably like to be married eventually. I
don’t feel the need for a blessing at all. I’m a secular humanist and
run a mile from the Christian church. On the other hand, it would
be nice to have some sort of ceremony whereby you could mark
your intentions ‘in the eyes of the gay centre’ maybe. And, besides,
we miss out on all the toast racks as things stand.

On the whole I’m not sorry at all that I’ve had a long-term
relationship. We’ve been to a lot of places, and explored the
London scene together. The two years we’ve spent together have
had their troubles but there have been great moments as well. We
rely on each other. After the first six months you get to believe
that she’s there for you; she listens to your problems and worries;
she’s the only person I’m honest with about my failures. On the
whole, I like to pretend not to care about such things, but when
you’ve been with someone a long time you can talk about such
things. Also, when there’s something bad happening you’ve got a
private source of comfort and support, someone to take your side
against the world—we only argue in private!—and someone to
make an early cup of tea for.

GRACE

I think monogamy or non-monogamy is a matter of personal
choice and there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way of life. We should
follow our own inclinations and not try to impose our views
on others. If attracted to someone whose views on monogamy are


114 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

very different from one’s own, I think it is best to back off and not
let a relationship develop, because trying to change the other
person to fit in with oneself or trying to change oneself to fit in
with the other is unlikely to succeed and the failure could cause a
lot of misery.

My own inclination is to monogamy. I don’t consider this to be
copying anything. Rather I think that there is an instinct among
humans to form pairs, that some people have this instinct very
strongly while others have hardly got it at all, and being
heterosexual or homosexual has nothing to do with it. But I think
gender might have something to do with it. It does seem from
observation that women are more inclined to monogamy than men
(though, of course, there is a lot of overlap) and age too might
affect it, young people being more curious and experimental. I am
in two minds about the changes that are happening now. On the
one hand, I rather welcome any trend to monogamy because I
think for some people it is not so much a restriction as a release
from an imagined obligation to be non-monogamous. At the same
time I feel very angry towards the moralists who have eagerly
taken up the AIDS issue and made it an occasion for preaching
against gays and non-monogamous hets. They reject safe sex
because they see it blurring the edges of the moral issue and it
might even permit people to go on enjoying themselves. It looks as
though some of them would rather see people be put at risk of
AIDS than be informed about safety, and that seems to me to be
really immoral.

I think it is possible for some people to have a complete and
fulfilling life without a partnership, if they have the strength of
mind to withstand the constant battering of pro-marriage
propaganda from family and the media. I can’t say I have noticed a
difference between people in long-term relationships and others.
The difference is rather between people who are content with their
state and those who are not. One woman of my acquaintance is
bitter and resentful of lesbian couples, and I am sure this is because
she would really like to be part of a couple herself. Another
woman who says cheerfully that she couldn’t live with anybody is
friendly and relaxed with lesbian couples, because she is happy in
being single. I think the prospect of loneliness in old age is
something everybody should be prepared to face up to. Those in
long-term relationships should be aware that they might outlive
their partners, and even having children is no guarantee. I used to


TOGETHER 115

visit a woman in an old people’s home and one of her fellow
residents was a widow with six children, none of whom ever came
to see her.

DEBORAH

My first long-term relationship lasted a period just short of five
years. We met at work in the police service where, for many
reasons, we had to be careful of our behaviour towards each
other. We were good friends for about twelve months before the
relationship started. I had been lesbian for a number of years at
that time. She had had one fairly short-term affair with a woman
already in a long-term relationship.

I have had many ‘one-night stand’ type meetings, but must
admit that the most enduring and satisfying affairs have been
based on an initial friendship rather than pure physical attraction.
We lived together in a house which I was already in the process of
buying when we met, and consequently moved, yuppie-like, into a
larger house, which I also bought. Yes, I subsequently became very
poor when the relationship ended and I became responsible in full
for the upkeep of a two-income home.

I was not then, nor now, aware of any behavioural changes
caused by that relationship. I think, because I was very young at
nineteen, as she was, that we both matured as a natural process
throughout the time we were together.

My last relationship ended two years ago. I was aware during
this affair that my behaviour was changing rapidly in accordance
with my lover’s covert demands. At this time I had become fairly
active in a semi-political way, was out totally to family and friends
and was positive regarding my sexuality in the sense that, although
I was unemployed, I would not actively hide my lifestyle. My lover
was in the closet, everywhere. I willingly went along with the
depoliticizing of my life, believing at the time that I could only
function with a partner. I feel that this relationship was unequal in
a lot of ways. I accepted these inequalities as I had, shortly before,
suffered a bout of depression which made me quite dependent.
This relationship had its foundations firmly rooted in what I would
now term negative areas: sex, emotional dependence, economic
dependence and intellectual starvation. The relationship would
have died a natural death as I left our shared home, her house, to
go to university while she went to work in Saudi Arabia.


116 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

I have chosen to write about these two relationships because my
position was all but reversed regarding the equity within the
partnerships, but they ended under similar circumstances, different
to others where the affair petered out or I made the decision to end
it. In both the above relationships my partners formed new
relationships while still partnering me. This, in itself, is acceptable
to me as I have never really had a wish to be in a monogamous
relationship, but find that all too often the other ‘flings’ take your
place in your lover’s life.

This is my second period of celibacy which has lasted over
twelve months. I feel that I can live without a partner in the typical
sense, and use all my energy to support women friends, lesbian and
heterosexual, and homosexual men. My political consciousness is
well and truly raised with regard to areas relating to gender issues
and equal rights. I have very ambiguous feelings towards having
same-sex relationships blessed or even legalizing marriage. I say
this because the partnership I mentioned first was actually blessed
by a closeted gay priest who was a friend of a friend. This was not
of great importance to me, but to my partner and her family. On
the other hand, I feel that a commitment between two people is
between two people and surely does not need legitimizing,
regardless of your sexual orientation. The whole idea of marriage
smacks of possessing and being possessed.

I have noticed a great deal of difference over the past five years
or so relating to the behaviour of acquaintances in long-term
partnerships. It has become like some exclusive club. I mean that in
the sense that many of them (un)intentionally exclude non-
partnered people. The shift in their support is amazing. Having
been close, supportive, active women, they have become enthralled
by the material gains possible in a two-waged house and are now,
in many ways, less concerned with fighting for equal rights. I
suspect, and I have been guilty of this myself, that if the
relationship ends they will realize that the world is totally geared
to couples and instantly run off to find themselves another half.
This is not intended to sound arrogant, but is a general observation
of what I see around me more and more. I have fallen into the trap
on many occasions, hence my celibacy which acts as a safeguard
against me falling in lust and making commitments by default. I
feel I need to know what I am capable of before I enter into
another partnership, as when I am in love my behaviour pattern
changes dramatically. That is, when I am actively in a sexual and


TOGETHER 117

emotional relationship I am able to give emotionally to the same
extent to friends on a non-physical level, and feel that spiritually my
friendships are more important than having one person providing
physical, emotional and spiritual support. It has taken me, and I
am still learning every day, many years to realize that I cannot
cope with the intensity of such close relationships. I do not like the
feelings that totally encompass me and the dependency I feel.

I will not deny that the thought of spending the rest of my life
alone is unappealing but, and it is a large ‘but’, I do not feel
capable of handling all that goes with a committed long-term
partnership at this time, mainly because I have little time to devote
to one person in that sense and would come to resent someone
who diverted me from my current long-term ambitions.
Rationally, I realize the choice would be mine, but you know what
it’s like when the heart starts to rule the head…er! If I do spend the
rest of my life without a partner I do not feel I will regret it or feel
my life is wasted. Often my most lonely periods have been within a
relationship.

A special area of any mass-observation programme is the ‘daydiary’,
when volunteers are invited to record everything they can
of a given single day. The following two passages record
Christmas Day, 1989.

ROSEMARY

I spent all day in bed coughing, due to a flu virus, waited on hand
and foot by my mate who had had it a little earlier, but was still
coughing. Luckily we had two different coughs, she sounding like
a trombone, I like a cat being sick. I ate a very little vegan food,
drank lemon and fizz, no alcohol, feeling too grotty, lots of
aspirins and Strepsils. Watched television now and then, atrocious
programmes, no Elvis film yet again. I wrote an aggrieved letter to
the BBC. Read Dickens as he is the best author to read when ill, he
just flows along, Martin Chuzzlewit, and fell in love with the way
Jonas is written. Might be the flu virus but I see Martin Chuzzlewit
as one of Dickens’s gay novels like David Copperfield. If you want
my flu-ridden ramblings, here they are: Jonas, murderer and wife-
beater, is beautifully drawn, his S/M courting of Merry is
especially fine. Though Dickens keeps telling us what a rotter
Jonas is, yet he somehow dwells on his physical presence with
what I can only call tenderness. I think he was in love with Jonas.


118 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

A bit rough. Jonas marries late, and for money. He tells his wife if
he had to choose again he would not marry but would keep with his
friends, the gaudy bunch of crooks in whose lives women are
conspicuously absent; even when they have a party it is all men.
Montagu Tigg, the most gaudy of all, accuses him of wanting to

‘jilt’ him by going abroad. All the language around Jonas is
passionate and physical, even his suicide isn’t Dickens’s often
maudlin treatment of death, but is raw and real. The other
repressed homosexual is, I think, Poll Sweedlepipe, ‘Polly’, lone,
unmarried and elderly as Dickens says, who at the end adopts the
irrepressible monkey of a boy, Bailey. Well, what is that all about,
eh? ‘Uncle seeks nephew’, Capital Gay ads, I should say. Bailey is
to work with him in the business and inherit his all.

Xmas Day, then, was spent in bed. We have a double bed we
practically live in now we have the television on the chest of
drawers opposite. The kitchen is immediately next door so we
have all our meals in bed, read, write, sew and the like there. As I
had barely enough energy to wash myself, my mate did all the
work of the day, feeding us plus our two cats and three or four
visiting cats. I didn’t phone anyone and nobody phoned me, thank
goodness.

Mate cooked dinner, her delicious chestnut and mushroom pie
which we always have for a treat at Xmas. She is Xmas-mad, the
flat is dripping with tinsel and streamers, this bedroom looks like a
Hindu temple, and we get masses of cards, mostly from gay
friends. She is not Xtian but the carols and hymns blare out as she
really revels in it all. I am trying to, but I’m rather anti-Xmas really
as Xmas Day was a day of gloom in our family; my father hated it
and did his best to make it a day of misery; my mother, being
religious, tried to jolly it up, so we had these two opposing forces
battling it out, and the shadow of the marital war games still
hangs over the twenty-fifth for me, though I am trying to get rid of
it. A gay Xmas is nicer and less trouble.

We like to have this day to ourselves so we can stay in bed, ill or
not, and play with our presents and watch television or listen to
the radio or read. The lesbian friends are invited round on the
twenty-third usually, and the gay men on the twenty-sixth; never
the twain shall meet. And we are the pair who oppose separatism!
But we don’t want aggro at Xmas, and someone might say
something silly to someone of the opposite sex so, at the gay men’s


TOGETHER 119

party, we only invite those few women who can handle men as
well, for example the odd bisexual.

GRACE

Listened to the Queen’s speech on BBC2 at 7.35, noted she was
wearing a nice festive colourful dress for a change, not her usual
style. Hoped she was going to get through the speech without
mentioning God, but she failed. Watched Brookside and After
Henry, then telephoned a gay man friend, disguising my voice as a
drunken Scotsman and enquired if there was ‘ony chance of a bit of
leg-over the night’. In a cautious sort of voice he said he thought it
very unlikely. I then sang ‘We wish you a merry Christmas’ and
invited him to come for a drink and Christmas cake tomorrow
afternoon. I think he was relieved I was not really a drunken
Scotsman after his body.

Watched Alf Garnett on TV then gave cats their Christmas treat
of chicken roll and made toast for my girlfriend but did not want
any myself, having unwisely stuffed myself with nuts and
Maltesers. I went into the lounge and sat there a few minutes with
the light off, and the Christmas tree lights on, admiring the effect of
the coloured lights and the decorations and thinking about what I
might do tomorrow, that being another holiday, and how I ought
not just to idle the time away eating and watching television.

I really like Christmas. I always expect to enjoy it and I always
do, even if I am a bit ill as seems to happen sometimes, no doubt
because of the time of year. I love the music and the tinsel and
glitter, the feeling of excitement in the streets and the shops just
before Christmas, and giving and receiving cards and presents. I
don’t know how people can dislike it or feel depressed by it. Even
if you have no money it is still free to walk in the streets and look
at the Christmas lights, hear the music in the shops and see the
shop assistants with tinsel in their hair. I am not a religious person
but I do not find any contradiction in this. If I had to justify myself
I would say I am celebrating the winter Solstice and the return of
the sun.

LAURA

The needs and reasons underlying relationships are probably au
many as relationships themselves. But perhaps there is somg



120 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

justification for generalizing about the theory of lesbian
relationships and the changes in that theory we have witnessed
over the past fifteen years or so. The importance of early feminism
is loosening the ties of heterosexual models and demanding sexual
liberation is evident in the enthusiasm with which non-monogamy
was embraced in the late 1970s. What I suspect was really
happening, however, was that the force of a women’s movement to
a degree lifted women out of the immediately personal, pushing
individual relationships temporarily into second place, sisterhood
before self. I am not interested at this point whether this might be
thought of as a good or a bad thing, only that this is how it seemed
to me to be. Since then, I am aware of two processes, which might
in fact be inseparable. The first is that feminism has clearly lost
that sweeping energy that can lift and carry women along,
committing them to a movement which makes them look
outwards rather than inwards. The second is that those women
who were a part of that stronger movement have now grown older
and perhaps are shifting away from the need for a collective
process towards an awareness of existing for oneself, still within a
larger world, but recognizing that being together with oneself is a
necessary basis for strength.

At the same time, our environment has radically changed. We
have moved from Wilson’s to Thatcher’s Britain where self-seeking
and self-serving are the order of the day. If you don’t put number
one first, then you don’t come anywhere. Private revolt cannot
touch Thatcher’s philosophy; to survive in any kind of alternative
mode to Thatcher’s you need support as well as inner strength. For
reasons of health, national politics and economics, it does not
surprise me that more lesbians and gay men seem to favour long-
term relationships, if not necessarily rigid monogamy, today.

So much for some theory, which is a lot easier to formulate than
looking at what you do in or with your own life!

For myself, I don’t believe there is such a thing as an entirely
rational choice between a long-term relationship or not. My first
fully lesbian relationship, in that by that time I had come to terms
with being lesbian, was forever, but isn’t that always the case?
I moved in with her. We put up bookshelves, decorated a new
bedroom, went to dinner with her mother, and so on and so forth.
Only, I wasn’t allowed to grow. Everything was wonderful to
begin with, so that’s how it should stay. It was a type of
psychological bondage. After six months I left. Later I realized that


TOGETHER 121

what I’d really needed was endorsement and consolidation of my
sexuality; that achieved, I had to move on. That may sound hard,
but for me it underlines the idea that what I need from a
relationship, that is, when need is a dominating factor, will dictate
the style of that relationship.

The next two years were a continuation of that consolidation,
largely played out on ‘the scene’, with quite a few fairly brief
(some very brief!) liaisons which were often fun, but never really
satisfactory. As you head towards the age of thirty you begin to
wonder if you can fall in love! So, naturally, it happened. I fell in
love, and it was going to last forever. About four months to be
precise. And I was devastated as she took off with a woman whom
I’d hardly noticed but who was very cheerfully butch. My only
grim satisfaction was grasping what was happening without being
told—ten out of ten for sensitivity. I hurt like hell, but in the end
what I was aware of most was the intensity of feeling I’d
experienced at every stage; that I couldn’t regret any of it because
above all else was the fact of my being fully alive, feeling right
through from outrageous joy to almost intolerable pain. That is not
something I can experience through brief liaisons; for me it is
something that comes only with the love and trust that allows me
to reveal and experience my vulnerable self, my feeling self.

This kind of intensity necessitates commitment, and I see myself
as an essentially monogamous person; this is not to say that, while
I am involved in a long-term relationship, I am not aware of and
attracted to other women—it’s just that I’m very unlikely to do
anything other than enjoy that awareness and appreciation. This is
not a moral stance: a relationship which allows you fully to
experience your feelings is likely to open you up to a much larger
and exciting emotional world which is there to be enjoyed.

But to get back to reality, as this is beginning to sound like a bed
of roses, which it is—roots, thorns, aphids and all!

I first met my lover when she came for an interview for a
volunteer post at the place where I work. At this moment in time I
know of one other dyke in our immediate locality, so I needn’t go
on about meeting like-minded people and the rest. Fiona knew
where I stood from the start; I wasn’t into being discreet about my
choice of ear-rings or badges. I did not know where she stood
apart from her being something of an awakening feminist. For
four months we were on a basis of quite friendly, but slightly
distanced, good relations. It was only when she gave me a black


122 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

triangle that something finally clicked! But this interlude, I think,
was a good thing. As it was we were both, I felt, rather frightened
of what was beginning to happen, but there was reassurance in
having known each other for some time. And as soon as we really
spoke to each other we became lovers.

Ours is not an entirely conventional relationship because, for
nineteen out of the twenty months we have been together, we’ve
been over a hundred miles apart and only see each other for two
or three days every fortnight. This produces its own pressures.
First of all, it was ‘obvious’ that we should live together, and that
Fiona would come to me as I had the steady job. This put her
under a terrific strain, and therefore our relationship too, because
she felt, rightly, that she had a lot of exploring to do. Our
relationship wasn’t and isn’t the entire world. It was the oblique
forms this pressure took that brought us both, at about the same
time, to realize what was wrong. We then did exactly the same
thing in reverse, that is, that I should move in with her. Eventually,
we came to understand that we were trying to fit into a model
which, to date, is not appropriate to our situation, though there is
naturally a desire to be together more than we are.

Living so far apart has meant that we’ve avoided many of the
difficulties that couples meet, and also the traditional heterosexual
trap of the one becoming subservient to the other. We realize that
such an arrangement does have advantages. It also has a lot of
frustration and for me emphasizes my isolation within my
particular community. I am certainly accepted and tolerated here
as an out lesbian and have met actual aggression on only a couple
of occasions in the nearly four years since I moved here from the
city. However, I do not have a lesbian community. My focus is
with my lover who then becomes friend, counsellor and,
sometimes, not-so-willing sufferer for all my difficulties and needs,
as well as lover and sharer in joy.

Further, for the second time during our relationship, I am trying
to be a sober alcoholic with her support, for my own sake as well
as for the sake of our relationship. This, for Fiona, is beginning to
mean a re-examination of her attitude to alcohol and therefore
will necessitate a self-exploration which, I feel, she finds a
frightening prospect. But this is very much something that she feels
she needs to do. She is also some years younger than me and I
know, at times, she asks herself why things are like this, and


TOGETHER 123

whether she really wants it. These are thoughts that also frighten
me. It is intense, and can be exhausting.

But, though we have both, separately, sometimes tried to walk
round difficulties, we have both found that it doesn’t work for either
of us. Still, talking immediately about something which is clearly
wrong is often extremely difficult and painful. I think we are both
guilty, at times, of believing that we should get things right.
Recently we have been considering finding or creating a ‘third
party’, perhaps a therapist or therapy group, because we are
beginning to see that we don’t have to be a perfect couple so that
heterosexuals can’t point to us to show ‘it’s all wrong’ and it can’t
possibly work’; we are only human, we don’t have to isolate
ourselves. We have something that is worth some pain if
necessary, but we don’t have to torture ourselves.

Well, that’s what I’m saying and thinking and believing, and
telling myself it’s not all on my side. Possibly my worst fault is my
shortfall on self-love and that can be very punishing for my lover.
The adjustment I have to work at is acceptance of, and respect for,
myself. That’ll be doing us both a favour.

As in other things, in sex I seem to be the more needing partner,
but we have a good sexual relationship and I think we know each
other well enough for there not to be misunderstandings. Those
there have been have always involved alcohol, but it’s taken me a
long time to begin to come to terms with that. In less literal terms,
there is always a sobering process after the first heady days and
nights of loving; but this is to do with growing ease and
confidence, and trust in each other, less need and more loving. I
feel that we are continuing to explore each other and ourselves
without the desperation that comes from wanting to possess and
be possessed.

Without being exhibitionist, we are openly affectionate with
each other; if we are not, there’s something wrong between us. We
are both out with our families and Fiona has met my twin sister
and her husband and my mother. I haven’t met any of her family
yet. I think I can say that everyone behaves in a very civilized
fashion, and the least said the better. I do feel hurt by this, the
continuing hypocrisy, but it could be worse. Undoubtedly, we are
both most relaxed with friends, not all of whom are gay, and I
have always been delighted to introduce my lover to friends and
other lesbians. I would not dream of trying to keep her away from
others as if she were some kind of property. I have only felt truly


124 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

jealous once in my life, and that was years ago. I was shocked to
realize it. It seems to me that anger or sorrow are much more
appropriate responses to situations which might be supposed to
inspire jealousy. Everything may be a risk, but guarding against
possibilities is a waste of energy. It was harder for my lover when
she first introduced me to her new lesbian friends after she’d
moved. It was the first time she’d been in that situation and it was
rather testing.

I would not opt for the single life. I think I could handle it but I
would know that, for me, some vital part of my expression would
be missing. I invest a great deal in our relationship. Sometimes I
fear it might be too much for it to bear, but we’ve come through so
far, albeit with tears as well as joy. And we both keep changing
and growing, which is living. And so our relationship is living and
developing too.

JO

I don’t know at what age I became aware of homosexuality though
it must have been before the day I saw Tom Robinson on the telly
singing ‘Sing if you’re glad to be gay’. I must have been about
fourteen, which seems awfully late, but homosexuality just wasn’t
talked about in the small town where I grew up. I really liked the
song and agreed with it. It just seemed logical to me that love was
a good thing and why should it matter who or what it was directed
at? So, being a serious young Sagittarian, honesty before all else, I
joined in singing with him. Not very surprisingly, though it was to
me at the time, my mum asked me if I thought I might be gay. I
said ‘No’, but it did get me thinking. There was nothing in my
morals against it, but being gay was something people outside our
town did and something that men did. I think I decided I was
bisexual within five minutes of my mum asking me if I was gay.
After all, if she’d asked, there was a possibility I could be. I don’t
think I had either a positive or a negative image of homosexuality.
It was something ‘other’ and, as such, as both intriguing, exotic
and a bit scary.

It wasn’t until I moved to the city when I was sixteen that I met
anyone who was out and gay. I was going around with people
involved in one of the theatres and they had male friends who were
gay. There were five of us from sixth form college who went round
together and our local was the gay pub. By this time I’d got


TOGETHER 125

involved in my first sexual relationship with a man I’d met on an
archaeological dig during the summer, but since he was working
two hundred miles away that didn’t interfere with my life much.
Although I never talked about my involvement with the gay scene
with him, a couple of years later I heard a rumour that he’d made
sexual advances to a man on a dig. I don’t know about the truth of
this but most of the men I’ve been involved with have had a certain
amount of homosexuality. I don’t know if this is to do with the
sort of men I’m attracted to or just men in general!

So, at this time, my social life was centred around the gay scene.
The atmosphere at the time was one of experimentation. I don’t
think all adolescents go through a homosexual phase but I think
most go through a phase of sexual and emotional experimentation
and, if the circumstances are conducive, this may well include
homosexuality. Although I didn’t really notice it at the time, it was
the boys who experimented with homosexuality rather than the
girls. This didn’t stop me from telling a bisexual man I slept with
that I wanted to sleep with women, though I later found out that
he’d told my friends. This certainly didn’t cause any problems for
me since all it led to was a bit of gossiping behind my back which
was heard by the woman who was to become my first female lover.
I think it helped us get together.

I didn’t start my first relationship with a woman until I was
nineteen. I’d known her by sight for about two years. At this time I
was very promiscuous, sleeping with lots of men as a way of
exploring life and the different ways people live and think. I’d been
working as an archaeologist for a year since dropping out of
college, which meant a lot of travelling, but I was still based in the
city. On one of these stays at home I became sexually involved
with a man with whom my first woman lover had had a
relationship for two years and was still a good friend. Me and the
man used to go and see her quite often and, by the time I left the
city again, me and the woman had got to the stage of seeing each
other on our own.

While I was away we exchanged a lot of letters and in one of
them she told me she was coming out as a lesbian. I wrote back
and said I loved her, which surprised me then and still does,
because it’s not a term I use lightly and is something that, except
with her, I only say after I’ve been involved with someone for a
long time. When I got back to the city we got together, but the
physical side was disastrous. We were both very nervous and


126 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

unsure about how to go about anything. As we’re both very verbal
we could sort out our fears of being a same-sex couple (neither of
us really knew any lesbians) but when it came to sex we were at a
loss. Because lesbians don’t tend to be very explicit about sex, all
we came across in books was the general idea that lesbians are
very good at it since, being women themselves, they know what a
woman wants. Of course, this just made us feel more inadequate.

So, mentally we had a great relationship but physically I think we
just ended up laying a lot of guilt on ourselves for not knowing
how to do it properly. I think having been involved with average
heterosexual men before didn’t help, since you learn that it’s not
really up to you to take the initiative or even to think about what
you want sexually. Our non-monogamous coupled relationship
continued for two and a half years, but I think the ‘not quite
happening-ness’ of the sexual side and the guilt surrounding it
played a part in ending it. However, we’re still very closely
involved with each other and are both more confident about our
sexual expression with women these days, and we’ve vaguely
discussed becoming sexually involved again. For my birthday last
year she gave me a copy of Lesbian Sex by Jo Ann Loulan and we
sat and looked at it and said, ‘If we’d had this book four years
ago, we wouldn’t have had half the problems we did’. I think the
lack of lesbian sex education can be a big problem for women who
want sexual relations with other women.

Strangely enough, it was sex with my last male lover that has
given me confidence about my sexual expression with women.
Since he wasn’t into penetration and, for him, sex is about
communication of love and not just gratification I had enough
space with him to learn to be active and to be able to say what I
wanted. I think the other main factor has been choosing not
to sleep with men. My sexuality is bisexual in that I enjoy sex with
men and women, but because our society makes it easier to sleep
with men in so many different ways I’ve found I’ve needed to make
the choice of only sleeping with women; otherwise, I don’t confront
and overcome my shyness and lack of confidence with women.
Nowadays I don’t think that I’m just not going to know what to
do in bed with a woman because I know I do, but I still find it
hard to know how to go about getting there. Still, I’ve had a bit of
practice and that wasn’t too bad—in fact, it was very nice—so I’m
sure it can only get better.


TOGETHER 127

I first started coming out to people in general when I was
nineteen to twenty, but it’s a continuing process, especially as I
moved around quite a bit and people tend to assume you’re
heterosexual. I want people to know I’m not heterosexual, but it
tends to be only close friends I keep up to date with shifts of focus
along the lesbian-bisexual spectrum. Since I live in a separatist
women’s house and am mainly involved with women’s things
now, this helps people not to see me as heterosexual. I told my
mum that I was very attracted to women when I was twenty but
we’ve never talked about it. She’s very ambivalent about our
relationship which might have something to do with my
homosexuality and it might not. We’re certainly going to need to
talk about it if our communication’s going to get any better. Since
I see my family very rarely I haven’t told my sister and dad that I’m
gay, but I’m beginning to feel more of a need to know that my
life’s less chaotic and I’m re-evaluating what my family means to me
and my life. I can’t see any of them being really enthusiastic about
my sexuality but likewise I can’t see them rejecting me on the basis
of it.

(Since writing the above) my lifestyle has changed dramatically.
About six months ago I started co-parenting an eighteen-month-
old girl with a lesbian womyn who is not my lover. Around the
same time I also realized that I no longer identified as a bisexual.
Part of this was due to the fact that as a mother I have limited time
for relationships and therefore less time and energy for working
through the inevitable problems and oppressions of relating to
men. Of course, preferring womyn was also a major factor.

I suppose I have quite a liberal attitude to relationships. I can see
the value in everything from one-night stands to living with one
womyn for the whole of one’s life. I guess, really, I want to do the
lot. Perhaps this comes from having Venus in Scorpio! In relating
to womyn, I’ve had one long-term relationship and four casual
relationships. The long-term relationship was non-monogamous
and effectively lasted four years, although sex was only part of the
relationship for two and a half of those years. The casual
relationships lasted between one night and a couple of months.

At the moment I’m much more interested in a long-term
relationship than a casual one. I want the learning and enjoyment
of loving a womyn as we both change and grow. Perhaps I’m
cynical but I don’t really see long-term relationships lasting more
than two or three years. I do feel it’s possible to have a fulfilling


128 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

life without a lover. Also, that if womyn can’t live happily without
a lover then having one is just a sort of prop. I think we do need
lovers because there’s bits of ourselves and others we don’t see
otherwise, but likewise we need to live some of our lives without
lovers. Until this year I’d never spent more than a couple of
months without a long-term lover and I’ve really enjoyed and
needed the space and time I’ve had by not having a long-term
lover.

For both my co-parent and myself our decision to parent
together meant some serious thinking about relationships, what we
wanted out of them, what we could put into them and how much
time we had for them. We had both made a commitment to
parenting our child that takes precedence over love relationships.
Since we wish to live together without others at this time we don’t
have the option of living with our lovers. We may choose to live
communally with other womyn in the future but feel we’d prefer
not to have the strains and complications of a home life that
includes lovers of one or both of us. Although we both have some
regrets about not being able to live with lovers, we both have a
strong need for stability and in discussion have realized that we
actually have our stability needs better met by this arrangement
than in the emotional ups-and-downs of living with a lover. It is
important for both of us that we’ve not lovers for stability and also
because, as womyn, lesbians and feminists, we’re struggling
against the patriarchy and its basic structure of the nuclear family.
So what we’re doing fulfils our political and emotional needs.

Of course, it’s not all so simple. Co-parenting is such a
big commitment of time, energy and emotion that it’s a problem
finding enough left over to deal with relationships. I only know
two other lesbian couples who are co-parenting not as lovers. One
couple used to be lovers and are now splitting up although
continuing to live together and co-parent. Neither of the other
couple has had a lover since they started co-parenting about nine
months ago. All the other co-parenting couples I met at the lesbian
mothers’ conference this summer were lovers. From talking to
womyn there I gathered that this tends to mean that the non-
biological mother has little, if any, access to the child if the
relationship breaks up.

Both of us have previously been committed to relating non-
monogamously, although now it’s doubtful that we’ll have time


TOGETHER 129

for more than one lover unless we have casual relationships and
neither of us is particularly into this at the moment.

My co-parent began a relationship four months ago and this has
been a time of learning for all of us, especially since her lover had
never had a relationship with a womyn with children before. It’s
sometimes hard for us all to keep everyone else’s needs in mind.
My co-parent’s lover needs time for her own life, her other lover
and her friends as well as spending time with my co-parent. Until
recently communication between the two of us has been quite bad
but we’ve done a bit of work on it lately and it’s much better.

My co-parent, hereafter referred to as Gayle, needs time with
her lover, her child and me and, occasionally, even some time on
her own. I need time with my kid that feels like choice, and not
just because Gayle wants time on her own with her lover, and
enough time with Gayle to keep good communication going with
her. Recently, I also realized I needed time doing fun things just for
myself. I’d gotten so tangled up learning to parent that I’d
forgotten one day I’d have enough energy left over to do things for
myself.

Until now I haven’t had a lover. I’m beginning to get involved
with a womyn in the city where we will shortly be moving. This
weekend we’re going to a womyn’s holiday house with my kid.
Gayle said I needn’t take our child with me, but I decided I wanted
to because I need my lovers to be able to cope with me having a
kid. Of course, I don’t want my child always to be around when
I’m with a lover. That’s where a co-parent comes in handy!

At the moment we live in the countryside in Scotland, ten miles
from the nearest town. We’ve only been here six months and
within about fifteen miles we know about twenty dykes. We also
have lots of womyn visiting and we go and stay with friends too. I
know for many lesbians it’s much more difficult, especially if they
feel the need to stay in the closet, because it makes it even harder
to meet other lesbians because they don’t know you are. Both of us
are very open. We dress peace-camp style which I guess gets us
noticed, especially by the vast network of womyn connected with
Greenham, many of them dykes. And amongst our jewellery are
labyrines, lesbian symbols and badges saying things like ‘Lesbian
mothers are great’. We also get very little hassle. One womyn in
the village has stopped speaking to us but the rest are fine, in fact,
really friendly on the whole.


130 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

I don’t see a long-term relationship as security in old age. I want
enough honesty in my relationships for them to finish if it’s time
for them, whether it’s been three months or thirty years. I think if
I’m in a relationship when I’m sixty, but don’t have a lesbian
community, I’ll still feel lonely. No, I don’t feel equipped for being
lonely in old age, who is, which is why, when my child grows up,
I’ll probably be putting some time into creating some womyn’s
land in the country specifically orientated to having older womyn
as well as younger ones living in it. Then when I’m sixty or seventy
or so I can go and live in a house there with a couple of older
dykes with younger ones nearby into helping out if we needed it;
occasional visits to and from lovers, family, friends, living with the
land and, when the time comes, dying with it.


8
Power


GRACE

Soon after the London Lesbian and Gay Centre opened there was
an article in Capital Gay about S/M Dykes being refused meeting
space there. This enraged me so much that I wrote a very angry
letter to the management committee, and a letter of support to S/M
Dykes. They now have another place to meet so that particular
issue is dead, but I still feel the same about it. It is clear to me that
people who try to ban others from using the Centre are themselves
seeking power over other people, and that this, if successful, would
be power in reality, unlike the fantasy power of S/M games. I don’t
acknowledge the right of any pressure group to impose its policy
on me. I regret the decision of any minority to boycott the Centre
because it is a loss which weakens the unity of gay people.
However it is their right to go where they please. It is not their
right to stop others from using the Centre. If it comes to a choice
between those who want to impose their will on everybody else,
and those who want to do their own thing with other like-minded
people, then my support has to go to the latter.

About dress codes: I don’t like them. Maybe this is in part because
when I was young there was nothing like the freedom of dress
generally that there is now. People throughout all classes of society
were expected to dress conventionally, with strict gender
demarcation, and were judged by the way they dressed. I felt
strongly that this judging by appearances was a shallow,
superficial way of looking at people, and I value the comparative
freedom we have now. Apart from the restricting effect of dress
conventions in themselves, I am repelled by the motives of
those who impose them, because people’s clothes are a way of


132 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

expressing themselves, and suppressing freedom of dress is an
attack on the personality. That is what I think of dress codes,
personally. Whether they should be imposed is another matter.
The only dress codes I know of that actually exist are what I have
read of men’s clubs which stipulate leather and denim. I deplore
this as silly and childish. However, I have to concede that how I
feel about it is irrelevant, and if they want to behave in a way that
I consider silly they have every right to do so. So, yes to dress
codes in private clubs, mixed or single-sex alike, where the
members have democratically decided in favour of them. I would
only say that I think they should mention their dress codes in all
publicity to avoid annoying or embarrassing visitors and potential
members. But I feel strongly that LLGC and any other gay centres
in other towns are a special case. These should be for all gay
people to go dressed as they wish and be free from harassment by
pressure groups. Gay people of unconventional appearance get
hassled in straight venues and public places. We should be free
from it in our own centres at least.

About intimidation: I feel uneasy in the street when I encounter
groups of youths in skinhead or Rastafarian dress. I perceive both
as a potential threat to myself and I could say I feel intimidated by
them even though they do nothing to threaten me. It is to do with
their being young and male, aggravated by what I see as an
aggressive style of dress. But I acknowledge that this is my problem,
not theirs. It is my responsibility to control my feelings about their
appearance, and to assess the situation as it actually is, that is
what they are doing, not how they look. It is not their
responsibility to change their dress to suit me.

I have been a victim of violence. I was beaten up and my jaw
broken by a man unknown to me in the street at night, for what
reason I don’t know, presumably robbery, but I had nothing on me
to steal. This violence, where I was attacked and injured without
warning and without my consent, has nothing to do with S/M. I
am against violence, but where people consent together to use a
measured, controlled amount of violence in the context of their
relationship, that is their business. I have nothing to say about it
and I have no right to say anything about it. Violence in self-
defence is, I think, permissible because, although I may admire the
courage of the person who refuses to be provoked and literally
turns the other cheek, I don’t expect everybody to be like that and
I am not like it myself. The violence I oppose is the unprovoked


POWER 133

attack on a person who has not sought it and does not consent to
it.

I have tried to think through and understand the feelings of
people who need violence to achieve sexual expression; I don’t
know how far I have succeeded. I don’t share these feelings in fact,
but I try to share them in imagination. I can imagine that, for
some, consensual S/M is useless and they need to impose violence
on unconsenting victims. These people need to be restrained for
the sake of the freedom of the rest of us.

JO

The first time S/M came into my life as anything I spoke to anyone
about was in 1983. I got together with my first womyn lover in
late 1981. She was also bisexual and by early 1983, when she
tentatively told me about her masochistic feelings, we’d already
been through a lot together. Since we were so close, and what she
was basically telling me was that she wanted to find out more
about it by reading and talking about it, I wanted to support her in
that. The fact that I didn’t have any firm views on it helped, but
also the fact that, at the time and, as far as I can tell, now, the
stance of anti-S/M womyn seemed to be to suppress all
information and discussion made me angry, as I felt and feel that
hiding it all away isn’t going to help anyone.

The summer of ’83 I went to the Lavender Menace bookshop in
Edinburgh and bought Coming to Power for my girlfriend. That
autumn we both read and re-read it. Some parts of it made me feel
sick and some really turned me on. What upset me most of all
about the book was realizing how much of ‘normal’ interaction
between people is sado-masochistic, all the little mind-games and
so on. I think we all do things like ignoring people, withdrawing
affection and being cold in order to show our hurt when others
don’t act as we want them to.

Reading Coming to Power made me realize that I definitely didn’t
want to do any of the more obvious S/M sexual practices although
some of the role-playing mind-games did attract me to a certain
extent. We dipped slightly into some of the role-playing stuff that
winter and spring but never really got into it and stopped doing it
altogether pretty quickly. I think we both felt uncomfortable with
it all.


134 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

For the next year I didn’t think about S/M at all, though quite a
few womyn in the city where I lived read Coming to Power with
pretty much the same reaction as us. I moved into lesbian feminist
circles again in 1985 and S/M was definitely out. I still can’t relate
to the ‘it’s politically incorrect and gives lesbians a bad name’ line,
however.

When I started living with and co-parenting with Gayle I found
she was very anti-S/M but it comes from an ‘it makes me sick’
point of view, which I can relate to much better, and which made
me start to think about what I felt. I’d known for quite a while
that I knew the lines both sides took but couldn’t make my mind
up and then I started listening to my own reaction from wanting to
know who I am and not which camp I’m in. Back in Lavender
Menace I picked up a magazine called On our Backs which I knew
was lesbian pornography/erotica. I opened it up on a picture of
lesbian S/M and thought, ‘Yeuch, if that’s lesbian sex I don’t want
it’ and put it back. From that I’ve decided that I’m against lesbian
S/M.

I’ve done a lot of rationalizing from that gut reaction. I still
think S/M is something we all do to varying degrees some of the
time, but it’s something I’m working away from. Becoming
separatist has helped me to see that if there’s something I don’t like
in the world it’s not right for me to give any energy to it or to
work with it in any way I can comfortably avoid, and that goes for
S/M too. Hopefully, my energies are now being used to create an
alternative for me and other womyn so that more and more we can
free ourselves from sexism, classism, racism, homophobia, ageism,
ableism and all the other ‘isms’, S/M and patriarchy. I see them all
as the same thing really, all the ways we treat each other without
respect. I know from reading Coming to Power that it’s possible to
do S/M and be really respectful to other womyn at the same time,
but I think the activity itself isn’t and that it’s something to be
worked against. But some womyn seem to see it as a really big,
damning evil. I don’t think of it as being any worse than so many
of the other shit things in the world. As a vegan I’ve been hassled
by a vegetarian who doesn’t use aluminium pans. Maybe we all
just do what we can.

I do feel empathy for womyn who need S/M for sexual
expression. I empathize with the pain in them that brings it about;
we all have that pain in some form. I have been very self-
destructive in the past and still am sometimes. I see my


POWER 135

separatism and working on honest relationships of all sorts with
womyn to be part of me getting away from that. I still have some
masochistic fantasies. In fact, when my lifestyle became less
destructive I had them more so. I’d like them to stop altogether,
though, and believe they will the more my life comes together. I
think they came up more when it was first getting together because
enough shit was out of my life for me to be able to deal with the
less obvious things. I feel like it’s safe for me working through
these issues in my head since I can change and grow and move on
as soon as I’m ready. Apart from the fact that acting them out
wouldn’t give me any pleasure I also would be tied to them, they
would be part of my reality if shared with someone else and it’d be
harder to let go of them. That’s why when womyn say they’re into
S/M therapy I don’t think it’s a very good way of doing it.

I do think power imbalance is a form of S/M, though I’m not
sure it’s always mild and I believe that imbalance must be
confronted for a relationship to continue as, sooner or later,
someone stops getting what they need from it, usually the ‘weak’
one. I think most relationships have inherent power differences, but
in good ones the differences are small and both womyn have areas
where they have more power. If, at the same time, you’re both
working on not wielding your power over the other, well, you’ve
got it made!

TANYA

I have very mixed feelings about the issue of lesbian
sadomasochism. I feel that there should be a ban on the use of the
swastika and badges with express racist or sexist slogans because
these represent an evil ideology which destroyed and continues to
destroy the people of the world. I feel that the rest of S/M
paraphernalia is more to do with western punk youth culture than
with Hitler’s Germany or the National Front although, of course,
there is some overlap. I feel that it is the intent of clothing and not
clothing itself that is important. I find the idea of banning Doc
Martens and leather jackets ludicrous and dangerously
proscriptive, as well as degrading and belittling to the would-be
wearer. We must be allowed some freedom of expression in our
clothing as in everything else. What’s the point of struggling for
gay rights if we’re repressed to that minutely detailed extent within
the gay community itself? There is a growing ‘thought police’


136 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

mentality within the lesbian and feminist movement that censors
opinions, words and now clothing. It must be resisted, though with
sensitivity for the issues involved.

I have never particularly been the victim of physical violence; I
dislike it intensely. I feel that S/M is not so much immoral as a
symptom of our world and times. I certainly would not condone
violence against S/M practitioners as it would be too reminiscent
of the gay-bashing we could all fall victim to. The woman from
Leeds who entered Chain Reaction with a crowbar was a
particularly frightening element of the anti-S/M lobby. I think this
was absolutely disgraceful.

The trouble with S/M is that one is never told what it involves.
The same goes for ‘vanilla sex’. I don’t have a clue what my lesbian
friends get up to in bed, which probably goes to show why the S/M
lobby is so keen to air a subject which feminist lesbians have,
puritanically, been repressing. I sometimes think that S/M must
just be a reaction to the playing-down of sex and sexuality on the
part of radical feminism.

I have a very warm and trusting relationship with my lover so
that, although we have hit each other in anger on some occasions
and we do indulge in some rough horseplay, I wouldn’t
particularly want to ritualize the violence and integrate it into our
relationship, as I would find it alienating. Our relationship
involves a power struggle, naturally, but I don’t think this can be
compared with a cultural localized western practice. But,
obviously, people have been beating and torturing each other since
the beginning of the world. I imagine that many people, gay and
straight, young and old, male and female, practise S/M in their sex
lives, but they don’t wear the gear of a lesbian youth punk
subculture. The human mind is very shadowy and complex, but
people like the anti-S/M lobby are a bit frightened of this fact and
they therefore scapegoat the tiny minority of S/M dykes who are
fairly young, marginal, and definitely wield no real power in the
world. Yet they provoke strong emotions of hatred.

There are a lot of problems and injustices in the world. I would
like people to address the important things and not something
which is, as far as I can see, a fashion, a youth reaction, an
expression of the ‘west’. Only in the west, where living standards are
relatively high and torture and brutality relatively unknown, could
there emerge S/M as a fashion and a sexual practice. In other parts
of the world cruelty and torture is not a matter of sexual choice.


POWER 137

ANNA


The thing that has upset me the most about the S/M debate is the
fighting between women that I know and love. Living in London
and being a feminist lesbian it’s impossible not to know when
something as awful as this is going on. But then, it’s not just the S/
M debate that seems to bring out viciousness in some women. I’ve
been very distressed at the glee some women feel or appear to feel
when there’s an opportunity to criticize other women. It seems
impossible for us to respect each other and hold different views. I
wonder if this is because, though London is huge, feminists in
London are often rather parochial. Is this due to our imperial past?

I do think heavy S/M is bad. I do believe it to be a reflection of
male domination that exists in the male world we live in. I do
believe that the costume of S/M is fascist in origins and that it
encourages a fascist presence in a culture that is already pretty right-
wing. I am Jewish. I listened to my father scream in his nightmares
in terror that the Nazis were going to get him, more nights than I
can remember. But actually I think dog collars and chains and
whips and all that stuff are, after the initial shock, rather more
stupid than threatening. and of course a lot, not all, of the wearers
haven’t the faintest idea of Jewish and Nazi history. Perhaps that’s
too generous.

I must say that I shrink from the sight of a Union Jack. But
that’s as much to do with England’s history as it is that I know the
wearer is probably a fascist. Okay, let’s have a dress code, but who
is going to enforce it? I remember a meeting in 1985, I think, when
a group of women met the woman who used to run a well known
bar. She was anxious to discuss the workings of such a code for
her bar. The outcome was that a large number of the women there
said it would be her job to enforce it. Great; can you see it?
Running the bar till all hours and getting your head stoved in every
week because it was your job to see no one wore a dog collar. The
final decision was that we would all be ready to share the
responsibility. But I don’t think anyone ever did very much. For
me the situation was the usual one: a group of women ready to
criticize, but not ready to do any work.

I think a lot of us use a power imbalance to handle
relationships. I know many relationships like that. I’m sure that
most lesbians enjoy, for example, being constrained a little during
lovemaking, or being held down. Vigour is not confined to those


138 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

who practise S/M. I must make a distinction, however, between
such ‘normarl’ practices and the terrifying practices of cutting, etc.

And, yes, I do have fantasies that could, I think, be described by
the purists as being slightly S/M in overtone. I suppose you want
the details…eh? Okay, it’s pretty mild, so no need to get worried. I
have this fantasy where I’m in the steam-baths and I’m slumped
over one of those old-fashioned cage-like showers with the water
going full blast, and some nameless woman is making love to me,
the point being that I can’t move from this metal structure. Then,
once, when I was involved with a very scruffy jeans-and-trainers
type woman, in a rather delightful fantasy I dressed her in a very
tight Victorian corset/basque and made love to her while she was at
my mercy.

In theory, aren’t all fantasies involving another person, using
that person without her knowledge, therefore S/M in their power
imbalance? Maybe I’m lucky, I’ve never been turned on by rape or
pain. I did once have a lover who said she was into S/M and once,
to be obliging, I let her trail a leather thong all over me, but I think
I yawned. Anyway, that was the beginning of the end of that
relationship.

Finally, may I relate a sad little tale? I was in the Fallen Angel on
a rare hot summer evening last year when a dear young friend
asked me if she could ask me something in confidence. I said, ‘Sure’
and prepared myself—for what? Had she gone back to men and
wanted to know about contraception? Had she stolen something in
a moment of temptation? No. Her question was, had I read
Coming to Power, and what did I think of it? We spent the
evening talking a little about the book, but mainly about the
current situation which made her come to me in secret. I was, she
said, the only person she knew she could discuss it with. And she
was immensely popular with an enormous circle of friends.


;
Community


INGRID

Clause 28 has made a lot of noise in British society and we, as
lesbians and gay men, have got a lot of mileage out of being visible
as a group or groups. I joined OLGA at one stage and went to an
AGM but was so miserable at all the men behaving just like
straight men, hogging space and so on, that I subsequently left the
organization. I have also made the decision that I don’t spend time
with men unless I’m paid for it. This means, at work, teaching
music, nothing else!

Although I know quite a lot of really nice gay men, I am
confused and upset by some aspects of their lifestyle. I just read a
book called Anticlimax by Sheila Jefferys. In it are detailed a lot of
sexual practices which I find extremely abhorrent. I can’t believe
that any of my gay male acquaintances indulge in such things, but
it adds to the increasing feeling I have that lesbians are not gay in
the same way that gay men are. We’re a different species or
something. There are a lot of dykes out there who got to where
they’re at by the same route as I did, and it has got to do with
separating from men in a big way. Nevertheless, I would
acknowledge wholeheartedly that gay men are oppressed. Society
at large despises us all as being unnatural, whereas I never felt so
natural in all my life! This does not, however, make it any easier to
work with men of any persuasion. Gay men have all the privilege
conferred as a result of biological difference that straight men do.
And I’m quite sure that, had the AIDS virus gotten into the lesbian
community, gay men would not have been as supportive of us as we
are of them. I don’t mind talking about AIDS. I think it is an awful
thing and something we must all care about and fight. We as


140 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

lesbians are a very low-risk group of the population but I do feel
supportive of gay men around that issue, because it is not them
that are really spreading it but the intravenous drug-user
population, as far as I am aware.

I am glad for women-only spaces. They are extremely important
and I find it very oppressive when they are invaded by
transsexuals, who are a surgical construct in my opinion. I think
that these poor people should be helped to confront their
homosexuality, which seems to be what their problem is, and,
heaven knows, they do face awful difficulties. But I don’t want
male-to-female transsexuals in women’s spaces, no way! They are
men.

Of course, as a lesbian, I am oppressed by the patriarchy, doubly
so, as a woman and as a lesbian who rejects the society of men in
general.

I really don’t think that lesbians and gay men can work together
very effectively until the men get rid of their preconceptions about
biological superiority as men, which is a great pity, but, because of
that, I am putting all my energy into women right now and, until
things change, neither will I.

GRACE

When I was younger and more naive I thought a ‘political lesbian’
was a lesbian who was interested in politics. I could hardly believe
it when I found out what it really meant. It seems to me it is no
different from a gay person forcing themselves to be heterosexual
for exterior reasons, like religion or the law or to gain the
approval of society. Also, there is something repellent about it; it
has the feeling of being exploitative or patronizing. What I mean is,
I would not like to be involved with a woman and find that she
was basically het but making herself a lesbian for a political reason.
That would make me feel used or, at least, certainly put upon, as if
I was a sort of accessory to her political costume. There is no
reason why a het woman can’t be a feminist. In fact, the more het
feminists there are, the better, because they are in a better position
to influence het society from within than we gays from outside. If
you take the view that only a few people are one hundred per cent
gay or het, and most are somewhere on a scale between, then I
suppose a woman who is around the middle of the scale can
choose which side she leans to. But I hope she would make the


COMMUNITY 141

choice guided by her own preference and knowledge of herself, not
what was expected of her by others. If people are not true to
themselves, they are going to be screwed up.

I usually refer to myself as a gay woman. I also refer to myself as
a lesbian, but only when I don’t feel I am being coerced into doing
so. ‘Dyke’ I am not so sure about. I don’t think I would use it
myself from choice, but I don’t object to it when used in a positive
way by other gay women. It has the virtue of being short, and has
a cheery, defiant feel about it which is good, but its having been
used so much in a derogatory way makes it a word to think twice
about. It all depends on the context. It’s like ‘queer’. I think the
time will come when we can use these words freely without any
hint of putting ourselves down, but maybe it hasn’t come yet,
except among friends where we all know what we mean. I really
loathe deliberate mis-spellings of ‘woman’ and ‘women’.

Of course I am a feminist. Anybody of either sex, gay or het,
who has the slightest sense of justice cannot be other than a
feminist. A feminist believes in the equality of the sexes, and does
not judge people by their reproductive organs. A feminist does not
presume to know anything else about a person on knowing that
person’s sex. Unfortunately, it is possible to be a lesbian without
being feminist. You have to have cotton-wool between your ears,
but they have.

The only exclusive lesbian group I belong to contains women
with such diverse views they often seem to have nothing in
common with each other, never mind with me. But then that
means there’s usually one or two I agree with on any topic, and a
few I disagree with. I don’t regard a person as an enemy because we
have different opinions. I’ve often been staggered by the nonsense I
read in lesbian publications, but I don’t encounter hostility in
person, because I don’t go into situations where I would find it. I
have too much else to do, and even if I had nothing else to do, I
would rather do nothing than go to a conference which advertised
no admittance to S/M or leather gear, and no discussion on these
topics. And anybody who does go to such a conference ought to
know what to expect and not go moaning to The Pink Paper
afterwards. I am not an S/M or a leather person myself but I find
that people who are strongly opposed to S/M and bisexuals tend to
be of the rigidly authoritarian temperament which I find pretty
uncongenial. And I wouldn’t bother trying to reason with them
because their minds are closed. I am not brave, I don’t have a loud


142 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

voice. I’m not good at putting my thoughts into words at short
notice, and I can’t conjure up screaming hysterics at will.

I haven’t found assumptions being made about my politics
because I’m lesbian, but I did once get into an argument with a
young man who just couldn’t understand that, although I was on a
demonstration protesting against the racial harassment of Asian
schoolchildren, I wouldn’t sign his petition demanding the
withdrawal of troops from Northern Ireland. He seemed to see
them as a sort of package deal, rather than the two separate issues
which to me they clearly were. I can well believe some people think
being a lesbian is part of a package deal too.

DINA

I became a lesbian when I was nineteen and I did so completely
within female circles, within a group of feminist friends. It had
nothing to do with gay men and I called myself a lesbian right from
the start. The word ‘gay’ had quite apolitical connotations for me
at that time, and especially it seemed to indicate non-feminist
women. That was in 1976.

Nevertheless, I was never a separatist in any sense, I was a
socialist after all. Before I came out to myself I had only known
one or two gay men, but after I became a lesbian I was
immediately interested in gay politics. My lover and I joined a
group called Socialist Homosexuals, which quickly changed its
name to Socialist Lesbians and Male Homosexuals! Apart from us
there were only one or two women who attended sporadically, yet
about ten men. Nevertheless, they were all very politically okay
men and I don’t recall any actual friction, but there was the
constant sense of being ‘other’ and of having to explain to them
about lesbian perspectives. I became friends with a number of gay
men then. Throughout my adult life my only male friends have
been gay, but they are never close friends, they just don’t rate in
the same way women do for me.

I remember the big disco explosion in the late seventies and my
friends and I going out and dancing a lot, sometimes in mostly gay
men’s clubs. Then around the time that clones first appeared, some
of the gay men I knew were really eager to go off and involve
themselves in an exclusively male lifestyle and politics. I remember
this causing concern, not just to women, but to some other gay
men. Then, a couple of years later, when the sexually free life for


COMMUNITY 143

men was at its peak, my lesbian friends and I had many
conversations about cruising, anonymous sex and the like. We
wondered what we had to learn from gay men. Would we be
better off if we could just go into the park across the road and
have a quick fuck? The idea fascinated us, but also revealed what a
huge divide there was between us and men. I think I wished we
could do what they did but, at the same time, I was always sure
that we had a richer emotional life, which I wouldn’t have
swapped. It seems ironic now that, in fact, lesbians did start to
become more sexually adventurous, probably influenced by gay
men, around the same time that HIV was taking hold.

I don’t have absolutist views on the gender divide. You can be a
separatist over some things and not over others. I see lesbians and
gay men having some mutual interests—after all, we were all

‘abnormal’ and excluded from the family—but as having some
interests which in no way concern the other. It’s boring that some
people still haven’t realized why there’s the need for women-only
space and events, and I certainly object to words like ‘apartheid’
being used to describe that. It’s constantly annoying as a woman to
see gay men so completely oblivious to the fact that lesbians exist;
they really do think that gay means male, and that their world is
all there is. They are mostly unaware of the vibrant and complex
world that lesbians move in. To some extent I don’t care about that,
it’s not my business to try and tell them about my life. But as I
have worked in various gay media projects over the years, time and
again I’ve come up against their narrowness of vision. I would
never opt out as a response to that. But I do always have lesbian
projects on the boil that have nothing to do with gay men and
that’s where my strength comes from.

The other thing that is really striking in the difference between
the two groups is how much more visible, attractive and successful
gay men are than lesbians. There are many more famously gay men
than women; there are all the modern singers like Boy George and
so on; gay men can be comfortable with their image as trendsetters
in design and fashion; lesbians are the dowdy poor relations. It is a
cliché, but probably true, that it all comes down to money and
power and basically gay men are better off because they’re men.
It’s hard to confront that without falling into the position of being
the whinger. That’s why, when working in mixed groups, I prefer
to get on and do things and, if necessary, do lesbian-orientated
things, than waste time confronting the men.


144 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

So, I support some men-only or women-only political
campaigns. I don’t support men-only social space in mixed venues,
they have enough of that already. I think we need to come together
over some things. In principle, I support things like the campaign
to lower the age of consent for gay men, but I would probably not
devote any energy to it because there are things I need to be doing
on my own behalf. But I have done work around AIDS, because I
personally care about the men involved and because, on a larger
level, I see an attack on gay men as an attack that concerns me. I
fully support a mixed gay media because I think that if lesbians left
gay men to run the gay papers, then gay men would happily go their
own way, dominating all discussion of issues and questions which
concern us all. For example, if Channel Four’s lesbian and gay
series Out on Tuesday had been separated, as some gay men
argued it should be, then probably men would have got all the
attention; they are more confident and glamorous in straight
terms. But, even more annoyingly, they would have blithely gone
ahead and defined the issues solely in terms of their interests.
That’s what’s infuriating to a lesbian, to see men speaking as
though they represent everyone, without realizing that, in fact,
they speak only for themselves. Yet they do it again and again
because they are oblivious to the existence of different groups of
people.

I was never a lesbian separatist because I disagreed with that
from a feminist position. But neither have I exclusively wanted to
work with women, because I’ve always been aware of the different
position I’m in from straight feminists. So my life has been a mixture
of different political groups and interests, very much depending on
circumstance and what the political climate is at any given
moment. And my social life reflects that diversity in that I mostly
mix with women friends, mostly lesbian but some straight, but at
some times in my life there have been a few gay men I’ve been
close to.

STEPH

First, let me say that I hate labels. I think that’s the problem with
most things, putting people in little boxes, like straitjackets, and
nailing the lids shut. You can only be biased against someone or
something if you’ve been able to label it. All labels carry a series of
preconceptions. Having said that, I’ll also confess to being just as


COMMUNITY 145

prejudiced as anyone else, just as likely to label people and attach
stereotypes to those labels!

I would define myself as a lesbian (most definitely) and also as a
feminist, but not as a lesbian feminist. It’s very hard to put into
words what I see as a ‘lesbian feminist’, and why it’s different. It’s
more a set of attitudes than a distinct character type. Separatism
seems to me the end of the line of which ‘lesbian feminist’ is the
beginning. The idea that female is better in all things, that women
are never responsible for their actions, or lack of action, that it’s
always men’s fault. Yes, men rape, or batter, and the like, but the
issue isn’t always that clear-cut. Some women do stay in
destructive relationships when they don’t need to, and I cannot
stand the attitude that makes them the poor innocent victim.
Women have to be responsible for themselves. The lesbian feminist
line is that it’s always someone else’s fault, either a man or
patriarchy in general. I have great arguments with friends about
this!

I can’t get on with separatism at all. It seems crazy in a world
where the only way to survive is to work together, that some
women want to cut themselves off completely. Where do you draw
the line? Don’t relate to men? Don’t relate to women who relate to
men? Don’t get on a bus with a male driver? Don’t eat food
produced by men? It’s simply impractical. And if men did the
same, think of the outcry!

I once read a short story. I can’t remember what it was called,
who it was by, or where it appeared, but it was about an island
community. Separatists bought the island and lived on it; men
weren’t allowed to land. Towards the end of the story they realize
that outside society is shipping lesbians to the island, that they
have been exiled and their paradise is a prison. I can see that
happening!

I can’t understand political lesbianism at all. How can you

‘choose’ to be a lesbian for political reasons? You either are or you
aren’t. It’s not about rational things like choice. It’s about feelings
and attraction, emotion, love, lust. It’s about feeling closer to
women in every way, lovers, friends, companions. I could no more
choose to be straight than I could flap my arms and fly to the
moon, so how can a straight woman choose to be gay? I tend to
think it’s a way of avoiding the consequences, a sort of ‘See, I’m
not really queer, I’m just making a logical choice in an oppressive
society; if society changed I’d be normal again’ attitude. I didn’t


146 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

choose to be gay. I just am. I love being gay, mind. I love women. I
love being with women. I love making love with women. I love the
extra closeness I can have with women friends. I wouldn’t change
one iota of that, even if I could, but it wasn’t a choice. I just grew
up and found all my attention was directed towards women. I was
never attracted to men or any particular man. It was always
women. When I was younger I wasn’t as pleased with my life as I
am now, but that wasn’t because I didn’t like being gay, more that
I didn’t like how society felt and tried to make me feel about being
gay.

I can understand women being heterosexual and later finding
themselves attracted to women, even being married for twenty
years before they realize, but that isn’t a conscious choice, it’s a
realization of feelings. I don’t believe there is such a thing as a true
political lesbian. I think there are just women who are afraid of
being labelled ‘lesbian’ with all the negative values society in
general applies. It’s funny, people are never afraid of being labelled

‘straight’. People don’t mind labels, only the wrong ones.

As far as my own choice of label goes, I call myself lesbian, dyke
or gay woman at various times, depending on the company or the
mood I’m in. I don’t use homosexual because I think it puts the
emphasis on sex, and although that’s a very important, maybe the
most important, part of being gay it’s not the only part, there are a
whole lot more emotions than just lust. I never use spellings like

‘womon’ or ‘wimmin’; it annoys me. Language changes and grows
but not by artificial bastardization. Language means something,
words mean something. I always get angry with people who fuss
about excluding ‘man’ from ‘woman’ as if it made a difference. As
if ‘history’ had anything to do with ‘his’. I’ve had some volatile
discussions about that as well. I work on the principle that

‘plumber’ is far more exclusive of women than ‘chairman’, and it
doesn’t matter what they call you as long as they pay you right and
give you respect!

In spite of this, I call myself feminist and, yes, I
frequently experience hostility from other lesbians as well as
straight feminists, I’m afraid. I hold strong views and can be
assertive, even aggressive, about expressing them. My friends say
I’m stubborn, pig-headed and loud-mouthed. I won’t tell you what
others call me! I’ve never been officially excluded but I’ve
sometimes felt excluded. I’ve also felt excluded by background.
This is where I’m ‘classist’ as well.


COMMUNITY 147

I might live in a cathedral town but I was born in London in
what was then a fairly rough working-class area. I’ve got a thick
cockney accent and, although I’m very intelligent, but not modest,
I don’t always understand the big words some middle-class
feminists use. I grew up knowing strippers and barrowboys,
prostitutes and conmen and my views on prostitution and
pornography reflect this. I used to sit in the women’s group
listening to them saying how few working-class women they knew
and how they needed to attract more to the group, and feel that
they were out of touch. They’d got no idea about looking after the
four kids and getting the old man’s dinner ready before he came
back from the pub…In some of the discussions I had three choices:
(1) carry a dictionary; (2) not understand what was going on; (3)
keep interrupting to ask, ‘What does that word mean?’ Often I
might have read the word but not known how it was pronounced.

‘Hegemony’ was a good one, as I recall.

What does feminism mean to me? That’s a hard one; it’s almost
easier to define what it’s not. A feminist is a woman who puts
other women first. A woman who does not believe that men and
women are unequal, who is willing to struggle for total equality of
opportunity in every sphere for all humans. Not all people are
equal, not everyone can be a brain surgeon, but a roadsweeper is
just as valuable and just as necessary and has just as much right to
a decent home, healthcare, education and so on. This means that a
feminist believes that men and women are equal, not the same. No
one ought to be daft enough to think that there are no differences,
just that the differences shouldn’t count in most things. Women
are no more superior than men are. And women ought to be
responsible for themselves and not rely on others. All humans have
a right to work, all have a duty to look after themselves, their
homes and their children. A feminist ought to believe that a
woman who stands by and lets a man beat her child to death is
responsible for that neglect, even if she is also a victim. Men and a
patriarchal society should only be blamed for the things they are
responsible for. Most men are brought up by women. If anyone
can change the way society runs it has to be the women who raise
the next generation of men.

A feminist is simply someone who refuses to act as if women are
second-class citizens and works to make this a reality for all
women.


148 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

It is arguable that Section 28 of the Local Government Act,
1988, which proscribed the ‘promotion of homosexuality’ and
‘pretended families’ in schools and in local government-funded
projects and events, has had a negligible effect. However, early in
1988, the ramifications of Clause 28 devastated the community. A
virtue of mass-observation is that it freezes in time immediate
reactions.

ANNA

I’m not quite sure where to start. The whole situation is so terrible
and so bleak, although I’m sure there must be others like myself
who have a secret feeling that our worst expectations have finally
been realized. Through the past years while lesbian and gay rights
have been recognized in some departments, and funded, I tried to
squash the subversive thought that it couldn’t last forever. But this
is not something I’d say to just anyone. However, negativity apart,
it’s obvious this present government is potty. Look at the other
inhumane legislation we’re having to put up with.

I don’t actually think we can talk about the government’s

‘intent’ as if it was one body we’re dealing with. The government
is composed (some would say decomposed!) of any number of
individuals. If we understand this then it’s easy to see how malice
and ignorance and even good, though misguided, intention can go
hand-in-hand. Many government officials have far too many issues
to handle, so when it comes to educating themselves out of
homophobia they obviously don’t have the motivation to start
with nor the time, even if they thought it worthwhile. Therefore,
I’m sure that many of them really believe there’s no censorship or
denial of human rights involved. What they haven’t foreseen is
that, together with the homophobia, which is always denied, of the
individuals on local councils plus the pressure from government on
those same local councillors to cut spending, the first out will
always, in such situations, be lesbians and gays.

I come back to my original subversion. Maybe it’s safer like this.
If a majority of heterosexuals feel threatened we’re bound to suffer.
Maybe we’ll suffer less back in the closet. Dear me, this is dreadful…
do I really mean this? I suppose what I do mean is that I’m not
willing to die for this cause. And I guess I believe it could come to
that.


COMMUNITY 149

Nazi Germany? Yes, maybe. History never repeats itself exactly,
does it? I don’t really want to think about it. I’m half Jewish and I
know those stories. I’ve had a metaphorical suitcase packed for
years. Maybe gays and lesbians will never have real parity in the
world until heterosexuals do to them what was done to the Jews.
Still negative.

More realistically, I can say that I’ve been a teacher on and off
between 1968 and 1986. In that time and in different London
boroughs I’ve never seen any evidence of the promotion of
homosexuality. Obviously, it has been contrariwise, the promotion
of heterosexuality and marriage, never even a suggestion that a
young woman might find a life without marriage. I’m sure the so-
called promotion was merely some idealistic souls trying to
combat prejudice and bigotry. It’s interesting, isn’t it, that people
who would fall over backwards rather than be seen as racist don’t
mind at all making offensive remarks and so-called jokes about

‘queers’. This happens everywhere, of course, not just in schools.

As for the ‘pretended’ family relationship, I feel this is the tragic
nub of the matter. A lesbian with a child, especially if the child
was born through A.I.D., hits at the heart of the patriarchy. Such a
relationship must be denied if male power is to continue. Of course
the word ‘pretended’ is an insult, unless such women and men are
excused the payment of rates and taxes and so forth which,
somehow, don’t seem very much pretend. How can anyone

‘pretend’? A family is a family. A woman who looks after a child is
the child’s family. After all, institutions like the Dr Barnardo’s
Homes refer to themselves as families of the children they care for,
so why not a woman who is a lesbian? Better a nice safe home
with a lesbian for a mother than a so-called family where children
are raped and battered by parents.

As for the end…I can’t see it. Our struggles could peter out.
After all, we only have so much energy and time and money. I
think the clause has repoliticized us a little. Also, it’s brought us to
the attention of some liberals who denied homophobia as paranoia.
Now they can see what we were talking about. And I think it could
get harder for us. Thatcherism isn’t dead by a long way. And the
other parties are hardly likely to feel that success is going to be
found supporting us. We have to do it ourselves. Personally, I
couldn’t face violence. But I’d understand those who could. I’m
trying to speak up more for our cause. We’re between a rock and a
hard place.


150 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

Three years later, Clause 25 of the Criminal Justice Bill sought
to stiffen the penalties for several crimes with which gay men are
frequently charged and was seen as the precursor to the
recriminalization of male homosexuality. Concurrently Paragraph
16 of the Department of Health’s guidelines on the placing of
children with foster parents included the assertion that ‘ “equal
rights” and “gay rights” policies have no place in fostering
services’. At the end of 1989 an Old Bailey judge sentenced eight
men to up to four and a half years in prison for consensual S/M sex
sessions, and related offences.

MIRANDA

1988 is currently and will probably remain one of the most
important years of my life. This is mainly to do with the
publication of Clause 28 of the Local Government Bill and the
tremendous response to it. In retrospect, my sexuality and its effect
on my life had been a very personal affair, and my main concerns
like most other lesbians and gays revolved around coming out and
how to do it!

Clause 28 seemed to mark the beginning of my political
awareness relating to homosexuality and I threw myself into
campaigning on the streets and among my friends and colleagues. I
was disgusted at the implications of the clause although the
ambiguity of the wording and the degree to which it would be
adhered to meant it was very much an unknown quantity. No real
information or statistics have been collated, to my knowledge, or
could be to measure the effect of the legislation but the idea was
clearly homophobic and discriminatory.

The strength of feeling at the public marches and
demonstrations I attended in Manchester, Leeds and London was
incredibly supportive and exhilarating and certainly appeared to
make those people around take notice. Many interpretations of
how the clause would affect us, our children, families and friends
were on offer, but people around me seemed more concerned at
the idea and the prevention of it rather than assessing possible,
potential damage.

Three years later I still feel it was worthwhile even though the
bill passed into law. For a few months I checked my local libraries
to see if the token half-dozen or so gay books were still there. No
change. The town I live in boasts, as do most Labour-run councils,


COMMUNITY 151

an equal opportunities policy, but has never included ‘sexual
orientation’. My career is in social work and within my immediate
circle of colleagues and clients there has been no noticeable change
in attitudes and working practice. However, lately, a few of my
friends have started teacher training courses on which there is a
compulsory Equal Opportunities module. All have told me they
have received no tutoring on homosexuality and related issues, and
believe this has to be because of Clause 28. Although I have
experienced few ways in which the clause has compromised the
community, I’m sure it has fuelled homophobic feeling and I
believe people must organize to reject any discriminatory
legislation.

Clause 25 and Paragraph 16 are further examples of the
government’s homophobic, heterosexist attitude. Clause 25 is
incredible in that the linkage of gay sex and child abuse is totally
unfounded and dangerous, reinforcing the belief that child sex
abuse doesn’t happen in ‘normarl’ ‘decent’ families, when the vast
majority of it does. It makes me very angry to think that the abuse
and oppression that women and children suffer is being blamed on
a section of the community almost devoid of responsibility. This
government will go to such lengths to find scapegoats in protecting
the precious ‘family life’ that it ignores the facts.

The evolution of Paragraph 16 seems like a natural progression
in the thinking of the government implementing its big blue-rinse
over the ‘normal’ majority! I know of some lesbians who accept
lesbianism and motherhood as an either/or choice. Like Clause 28,
the response to Clause 25 and Paragraph 16 has been substantial
and not only from lesbians and gays but from socialists too. I have
no doubt that, if the police utilize the new law to the full, then the
judges who are, in the main, male, white, hetero and over sixty
will have no hesitation in sentencing.

VANESSA

I am feeling quite upset about the environmental damage in the
Gulf, experiencing a sense of powerlessness in the face of
patriarchal institutions such as government and army and the like,
simply doing as they like, regardless of public opinion. Poll tax
summonsing, no money in the NHS, ordinary people deprived of
the treatment they need because it is ‘too expensive’, worrying


152 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

about the implication of this for people with AIDS, especially gay
and lesbian people with AIDS.

Section 28 has stopped my local community from getting any
direct funding for the lesbian and gay centre we would like to
open. The local council is Labour but still homophobic (or should
that read ‘Labour and homophobic’?) and yet it has had some
good galvanizing effects. Every cliché has a pink lining.

As for Clause 25, I am disgusted but not surprised by it. This
government would introduce aversion therapy if they thought they
had half a chance of getting away with it. The police, of course,
won’t object. It’s much easier to catch gay men ‘at it’ than rapists
and paedophiles, isn’t it? I am very glad to see the elements
concerning rape and sex with children going into Clause 25, but
not happy that they are lumped in with gay matters. But then, to
nice straight Conservative men, we’re all sick criminals, aren’t we?

Paragraph 16 may mean that some self-censoring gay couples
don’t put themselves forward as foster parents, but I’m pleased to
see that some do challenge it. Quite why, I’m not sure. I’ve always
thought that being a lesbian was a great excuse for avoiding
maternity. I hate and loathe the way women are expected to
subsume their identity with the sacred confines of motherhood.
Snails have it sussed: they deposit their eggs under a rock and
leave. Besides, the world is over-populated as it is, so why
exacerbate the problem? But this is a digression from fostering.
Sorry!

I feel the S/M trial certainly was an attack on homosexuals, and
is yet another aspect of anti-gay institutional prejudice. But I think
those blokes were extremely stupid to send videos through the
post. Of course, straight people find gay and lesbian S/M repellent;
it constitutes too much of a threat to their narrow notions of what
sex is about. Straight people are often boring in bed because they
castrate sex of its power and danger. I would have liked a female
equivalent of ‘castrate’ here, but there isn’t one. Malespeak for
which I’m apologetic.

Community policing?—ha! ha! ha! Only in San Francisco! ‘Our’
police are cottage-bashers and gay pub-raiders. My opinion of the
police is pretty low and it’s only the fact that one of my friends is a
dyke cop which prevents me from being totally anti. Haven’t done
too well on the London gay murders, have they?


COMMUNITY 153

A regularly sought day-diary addresses the way observers spend
the last Saturday in June, Pride Day, whether or not their activities
that day are affected explicitly by their sexuality.

MARGE

It’s 27 June 1987 and here is my hourly diary.

Stayed at a friend’s luxury flat the night before and woke at
about 9 a.m. Got up, went to the kitchen and had an illicit
sandwich. Bread—white—mayonnaise and a hot chunk of
delicious sausages. And I haven’t finished yet. Cereal, twice, with
milk. I was hungry. I sat watching the repeat performance of
Lizzie’s Pictures on the video. This is a treat for me. I sat there on
my own having a good cry over it. Great.

10 a.m. Watched The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on
video too. Afterwards I ran a bath and put on Joan Armatrading
on the hi-fi. Got in the bath. Aaaaah.

11 a.m. By now I’m clearing up the debris from the night before,
leaving the flat tidy for my mate. There was reams of it. I feed the
miserable half-wild cat. Phoned Robert, arranged to meet in
Covent Garden at 1.30 p.m.

12 p.m. Still fucking tidying up. Putting on the answering
machine. Pack my bag and I’m off. Cycling towards Holloway
Road.

1 p.m. In ‘Sister Write’ buying cards. Very relaxed in there. Came
out of shop. Cycled two hundred yards down road. Nearly collided
with idiot who walked out on the zebra crossing right in front of
me. Steered round him. He saw me. I saw him. He stopped. I
carried on. Next minute flagged down by an unmarked navy-blue
car. Fuck the Bill. Did I know that pedestrians had precedence at
pelican crossings? Did I always ride through crossings, Madam,
blah, blah. Authority, Authority. I am a nasty overbearing shit. I
stood up to him. I wasn’t going to be harassed by him. He said
he’d book me. Twelve pounds with two weeks to pay. I said it was
petty, the man had one foot off the crossing. After much wrangling
from me he let me off. I don’t think he was on duty.

2–4 p.m. Arrived late, chatted, went to shops, the pub and
walked down to the Strand and bumped into the Gay Parade
March which I had decided not to go to. Robert and I stood
watching the passing parade and I bumped into old friends and old


154 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

lovers. I eventually persuaded Robert to join the march and we
arrived in Jubilee Gardens jubilant.

4 p.m. The music was good with the exception of Bronski Beat.
Crap.

5 p.m. Went to beer tent, drank, sat down. I admired some
woman’s outfit from afar. As well as the woman. Quietly.

6 p.m. Looked at various stalls. Queued for the toilet. Watching
the drunken lesbians and gays stumble past.

7 p.m. On the way home bump into the dreaded mother of my
three-year-not-very-certain lover, who doesn’t like me. Surprise,
surprise. Hellos exchanged. Get home, ring my not-very-definite
lover, who sounds a bit depressed.

8 p.m. Potter about in flat. Flatmate arrives back drunk. She has
slept in my bed with her lover last night. I’m very pissed off.
Flatmate can’t stand up straight.

9 p.m. Get ready to go out. Flatmate makes pass at me, asks to
sleep in my bed again. I’m furious, but there is no point hassling
with a person when she’s drunk. The answer is no. I leave for
work. Buy some food. Arrive ready to babysit.

10 p.m. Lesley has just put Adam to bed. The two of them have
just arrived from Italy. We chat and eventually she leaves with her
boyfriend. I relax in front of the TV with my crisps and brew and
watch Germaine Greer.

11 p.m. Get into bed and lying there dream of my lover while
listening to smoochy music…

VI

Midnight. Arrived home after a birthday celebration at a gay club
in Luton. I hadn’t enjoyed the club much, my first visit. Very
young clientele, very ‘posey’ and a not very friendly atmosphere.
Cabaret artist did a couple of what I considered very offensive
drag spots, one of which was sexually explicit and of the
lowest lavatorial humour. Interesting to note he didn’t get too big
a response from the audience. Didn’t feel his material was suitable
for a mixed gay audience. My friend Rita and her brother Tom,
the birthday boy, wanted to leave early, partly because Rita was
dashing home to meet her new lover and Tom because he’s driving
up to London later.

12.30 a.m. Feeling very headachey and lethargic, also vaguely
queasy. Have only consumed two pints of orange and lemonade,


COMMUNITY 155

but on reflection realize I’ve also had very little to eat today, toast
and marmalade for breakfast, cucumber and mayonnaise on a roll
at lunchtime, three crumpets with margarine for tea. Let the dog
out for a pee. Look anxiously at the sky feeling spots of rain. Quite
a breeze too which will make carrying the Lesbian Line banner
difficult.

12.35 a.m. Warm bath makes me feel dizzy and hot. Feeling
anxious about the morning. Am I going to be able to travel feeling
like this? Notice my hands are still slightly pink from the cyclamen
coloured Crazy Colour I put on my hair yesterday. Got into bed
accompanied by my two four-month-old demolition experts
(kittens!), Skye and Mandela, who insist on playing like it’s the
middle of the afternoon. Feel really uncomfortable and my head is
pounding.

2.30 a.m. Woken by violent urge to vomit; get to the bathroom
just in time. Feel violently ill and fragile like I can hardly stand up…
wish there was someone here; it’s very lonely being ill alone. Look
at myself in the bathroom mirror. Face very pale and my hair
looks quite shocking in contrast. The kittens and the dog sit in an
interested row watching me on my knees at the loo as another
wave of nausea hits me.

2.45 a.m. Back in bed with a hot-water bottle and two
paracetamol. Don’t usually take drugs at all but am so anxious to
be better by the morning. Lie feeling cold and shakey. Can’t get
comfortable. Feel too grotty to be amused by the kittens who begin
leaping on and off the bed. The dog also wakes up and stands,
everything wagging, looking expectantly at me. I tell him to lie
down and he goes back to sentry duty at the hall door.

3.30 a.m. Get up after tossing and turning and being unable to
sleep to once again be sick and feel frail and giddy in the bathroom.
Look out of the living-room window. All quiet outside, still
drizzling with a light breeze. Make a cup of tea then find it makes
me nauseous so throw it down the sink. Assure the kittens it is
definitely not yet time for breakfast. Crawl back to bed. Now feel
too hot with hot-water bottle and summer-weight duvet. Head still
pounding and eyes and neck feeling achey and sore.

5.30 a.m. Woken by kitten jumping on my head. Realize I’ve
had a couple of hours sleep. Sit up and decide it’s more
comfortable lying down. Is it a bug or a migraine? Whatever it is, I
wish it would go away. Why did it have to ruin today of all days?
On another trip to the bathroom I admire my waistcoat,


156 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

resplendent with twenty badges—Dykes OK, Pride 90, Lesbians
Rule, Sanctions Now, AA Freedom for South Africa, our local
Lesbian and Gay Switchboard, etc.—hanging all ready to be worn
later. Make another cup of tea and manage to drink half of it
before feeling sick…

5.45 a.m. Back in bed thinking about how much my head hurts.
Also about all the lesbian and gay friends I’m hoping to see later,
excited and full of anticipation, slightly sad remembering that I’ll
be on my own this year as my last relationship broke up a month
ago, wondering if I’ll see Tilly and her new lover and how I’ll feel
if I do. Realizing part of me feels quite cynical in that I’m aware
that so many lesbians there will be avoiding and not speaking to
other lesbians there. Sisterhood? Then I reflect on the fun and
cooperation that has existed among the group I belong to
preparing for the march: badge-making, banner-making, both
activities involving several new women. Must get some sleep. Pray
for healing.

7.20 a.m. Awake again and this time with an urgent need to
empty my bowels. All I need. The headache is still there and I feel
hot, dizzy and shakey. Stagger back to bed after taking two more
paracetamol. Animals standing looking expectant force me up
again. I figure if I give them breakfast they’ll possibly settle down
and give me some peace. Put on trousers and trainers and a jacket
over my T-shirt to stagger downstairs to take the dog for a pee.
Feel really frail and can’t wait to get back to bed.

8.05 a.m. The phone rings and it’s my friend Alison who is
sharing the car with Toni and Shirley to go up to Pride. She’s
recovering from a bad nervous breakdown and her sense of timing
and events are still somewhat confused. I explain we won’t be
picking her up until 10.45. Tell her how ill I’m feeling and that I’m
not sure I can make the journey. She’s disappointed and suggests I
try to sleep for an hour or so…

8.15 a.m. Postman drops off instruction manual for a Gallup
Poll I’m doing next weekend. Can’t face looking at it at the
moment. It’s sunny and bright. My eyes are hurting so I close the
curtains and get back into bed.

9.10 a.m. Dozing and sweating. Another lesbian rings wanting
to know the arrangements for those going up by train. I’m
coordinating. I give her all the details but tell her not to expect me.
She’s really surprised as I’ve been so active in the arrangements and
also encouraged her and several others to go this year. I explain


COMMUNITY 157

my boring list of symptoms. She’s suitably sympathetic. Beginning
to feel really sorry for myself. I don’t want to be left behind.

9.30 a.m. Two more lesbians ring for times. Toni rings and is
really upset to hear I’m ill, tries to suggest what to do. Can hardly
stand up at the moment so cut her short and go back to bed.

10.15 a.m. Toni rings again to confirm that I’m not going.
Feeling really disappointed. Assures me she’ll have me with her in
spirit and will tell me all about it on Monday. Not much
consolation as I stagger back to bed feeling very lonely and
disappointed.

11 a.m. Dying, and wondering why my neighbour had to choose
this very morning to mend his car with much crashing and banging
accompanied by loud transistor music right under my bedroom
window! The phone rings again. Another lesbian I met for the first
time this week who was undecided whether to go on the march
has made up her mind to go. If she can get to Alison’s within the
next ten minutes she can have my place in the car…

11.10 a.m. Take the dog out for another pee. Back to bed.

2.30 p.m. Actually managed to sleep all this time. Still feel
lousy. Reflecting that the march will have started by now, wishing
I was there, seeing a parade of all my favourite lesbians and gay
men going past in my head, wishing I’d lent Toni the whistle I was
going to take with me. Hope there won’t be any trouble from the
National Front or other yobs. Remembering the amazing strength
of feeling, being part of the gay community. Us in the majority for
once. Would it have been a booster for me, having been feeling
cynical and disillusioned with the scene lately, lots of dissension
and strife going on among the ‘straight’ lesbians and the ‘feminists’
locally. Drifting off again…

CHRIS

On Pride day, 29 June 1991, I woke up at my lover’s flat at 8.15
a.m. when the alarm went off. After a brief cuddle I got out of bed
despite her protestations; I knew that if we got into any serious
cuddling we would probably be late and I hate being rushed in the
morning. We got dressed in our identical outfits—white Pride T-
shirts, blue jeans, black Doc Marten boots (carefully polished the
night before), studded leather wristbands and black leather
jackets. I had breakfast, toast, but she didn’t as anything more


158 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

than a cup of coffee (instant Nescafé—very right off!) upsets her
tummy.

At 9.15 our taxi arrived and took us to the station and, after I
had bought my ticket, we got the Intercity to London. On the train
we sat gay-spotting and met a couple of fellow Gaysoc people. A
friend of my lover’s appeared and sat with us and on the way
down we talked about our jobs, the local gay scene and speculated
as to what Pride would be like.

Two hours later we arrived at St Pancras and took the tube to
Temple station. We couldn’t find any toilets there and had to walk
all the way to Embankment where a long queue of lesbians waited
at the public toilet. By the time we had walked back to Temple my
legs were starting to shake and we picked up one of the
wheelchairs which the Pride committee had laid on. I have M.E.
and can’t walk very far. This was the first time since my illness
began four months ago that I had had to rely on a wheelchair and
it felt like a big giving-up of control.

My lover started wheeling me down the pavement towards the
front of the march and we passed pink balloons, people in drag,
groups of lesbians and gays with banners, and floats driving up
and down, all adding to the general air of excitement. There were
also several phalanxes of policemen, grim-faced and determined
not to enjoy themselves, which lent a rather sinister air to the
proceedings. Several people gave us embarrassed smiles or made
patronizing remarks and I felt very conspicuous. A man holding a
bunch of whistles said to me, ‘Here you are, dear, have a free
whistle from Outrage’.

Soon the march started off with much cheering and blowing of
whistles and soon people were lining the route as we waved and
blew our whistles to them. Cars passing by on the other side of the
road who hooted were greeted with cheers and more whistles
blowing. After a while we hung back to wait for the S/M Gays’
banner to go by and, as we spotted it, we caught up and marched
with them. Much to our surprise and delight, one of the group
asked if we were interested in S/M and gave us a leaflet about their
tenth birthday celebrations which were coming up. People on the
march shouted slogans like, ‘We’re here, we’re queer, and we’re not
going shopping’ and there was an interesting selection of T-shirts
on display, including ‘Queer as fuck’ and Trade entrance at rear’.

Eventually we arrived at Kennington Park and decided to have a
look round the stalls. My lover found it heavy going as the ground


COMMUNITY 159

was very soggy and uneven. We ran into several people we knew
who didn’t know about my M.E. and who reacted in various
ways. One looked appalled but didn’t say anything about it,
another asked if I had hurt my foot and one asked what it was and
seemed happy and comfortable talking about it. We also ran into
the two bisexual people I live with and our baby. She sat on my knee
in the chair and we talked about my pushchair and hers and
looked through the publications in my bag. We went to the Clone

Zone stall to get me a Muir cap and some handcuffs. I had to get
out of my chair as nobody would get out of my way to let me get
close to the stall in the wheelchair. We also looked at Della
Grace’s book Love Bites and decided that there were a few good
pictures in it but not enough to justify buying it.

My lover was getting worn out by this time so we sat down and
had some Veggieburgers and a rest. It was nearly 7 p.m. by this
time so I returned my wheelchair and we went to the main stage to
watch Nomad. They came on after a couple of other acts and did a
short, but brilliant, set. When they had finished we were both very
tired and decided to go home.

We made our way to the tube station, which was packed with
gay people, and met a couple of friends we had seen earlier. Our
carriage was full of gays who, at one point, burst into a communal
chorus of ‘I am what I am’. We arrived at St Pancras, by which time
I was having a hard job coping with the numerous stairs. We
finally made it on to the late train and sat talking about being gay
in a het world and how to cope. When we got home we chatted
briefly about our day before falling exhausted into bed and rapidly
to sleep.

RUTH

The first gay bar I ever went to was an accidental event. I was
seventeen and besotted with one of my best friends at school. We’d
been out together for the evening and on the way home decided to
stop for a drink. Although it was a fairly local pub, neither of us
had ever been in it before. We’d bought our drinks and were
sitting down when I started to look round, the way one often does
in a strange pub. It was then that I noticed that nearly all the other
drinkers were men and that, for the most part, they seemed to be
in couples. I realized immediately that it must be a gay pub and
felt strangely elated. At seventeen I’d had only straight relationships


160 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

although I was increasingly aware that it was women I felt
attracted to and wanted to be with. The friend I was with that
night was straight and so I couldn’t share my feelings of joy with
her at having found a gay pub. It was to be over two years before I
went to another gay pub, but at least then it was a conscious
choice.

At nineteen I was working and living in London and very
gradually coming out to myself and to a few other people I
trusted. I knew only two lesbians then and one night they took me
along to Gateways. I’d seen the bar featured in the film of The
Killing of Sister George but somehow it had seemed bigger in the
film. I remember we had to go through a door on the street and
then down some steps to another door where we were vetted,
signed in, and then finally allowed inside. It was dark and smoky
and I don’t suppose there were more than thirty people inside. I
felt rather cheated; I think I thought it would be filled to the gills
with women drinking, dancing and, of course, all snogging
furiously. Instead, it seemed to be full of women, mostly in their
thirties, sitting around chatting or propping up the bar. I can only
remember one woman clearly from that evening. She was serving
behind the bar and must have been in her fifties. She had close-
cropped grey hair, was smoking and, to me, she looked like the
butchest dyke I could imagine. I never went back again.

ROSEMARY

Bars have played very little part in my life. I was brought up
abroad where women did not go to bars much. In Britain I have
been to a few pubs with my mate, encouraged to go there by lesgay
friends. Ugh. Noisy, smoky, conversation impossible. Cannot
understand why anyone goes to pubs. I can’t remember the first
pub I went to which is odd as I’ve been to so few. One of them
was supposed to be a gay pub and our lesgay campaigning group
met there in a back room for a while. Then the pub went het
rather nastily. ‘Fuck off, fairy,’ was said over the phone to a member
trying to book the room. The main pub bit was mainly het, I
suppose, dull old men sitting about, as far as I can recall. I
couldn’t understand why, when we met later in a nice spacious
clean library room, the rest of the group missed their grotty pub.
Two members stopped coming, they would miss their drink. When
I suggested they could bring tins of lager with them to the meetings


COMMUNITY 161

the others stared at me as if I had said the most peculiar thing.
Then they tried holding the meetings in a public bar. I couldn’t
believe it, trying to speak above the noise of music and other
people shouting. One member said he preferred to drink in pubs
because he did not believe in drinking at home. I noticed that when
we had evening meetings in a left-wing bookshop the business had
to be galloped through in order to have time for that drink in the
noisy stuffy pub en route home. Needless to say, I never joined
them in this treat. The Brit’s attachment to pubs is to me the
strangest national characteristic. They all seem better at lip-reading
than I am; I suspect they have to be if they spend so much time in
noise-polluted pubs.

When I was first interested in meeting other lesbians and lesbian
groups, feeling that my mate and I were very cut off from making
lesbian friends, most of the scene, especially lesbian, was
inaccessible for disabled people. At that time I longed to go to the
big lesbian meetings which were held in a room above a pub,
where there were speakers and special interest nights, poetry
readings and so on, as well as the beer. I could not go because of
lack of access. Now, because I have some noise-free smoke-free
socials to go to, I wouldn’t go to the main lesbian gatherings if I
was paid to, and they still meet in inaccessible rooms above pubs,
the antediluvian dears.

GRACE

What’s in a name? Logically, nothing, but I resent the current
fashion of sticking ‘lesbian and’ in front of ‘gay’ whenever it
appears. I object to waste of time, space and energy, and
insistence on these redundant syllables wastes all three. More
seriously, I dislike it because it removes gay women from the
mainstream and relegates us to a sort of appendage (‘lesbian and’)
which can be readily chopped off. I like the word ‘gay’ because it
is short and because it annoys blimpish hets who deplore the loss of
that ‘pleasant little word’ and I do not agree to give it up to the
exclusive use of men. Gay is me. Lesbian is me too, but as a
subdivision within gay, not an alternative to it. Analogy: I am a
Scot, I am also a Glaswegian. Sometimes I think of myself as the
one, sometimes the other, depending on the context, but to talk
about ‘Glaswegians and Scots’ would be nonsense.


162 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

‘Pride March’ is a spineless cop-out. I make a point of always
referring to the Gay Pride March, Gay Pride Week, the Gay Centre
and Gay Switchboard. One of the gay groups to which I belong
has kept its original name. Despite not having tacked ‘lesbian and’
on to our name we have a good proportion of women active and
prominent within the group.

I don’t like the existence of women-only space in gay centres and
at rallies. I think such places and events should be wholly open to
all gay people. It follows that I would not like black-only or
disabled-only, or even Scots-only spaces. An entirely separate
lesbian centre is a slightly different matter. If a category of people
choose to organize themselves and establish their own centre and
exclude all others then, while I might wish they didn’t, I have to
admit they must have the freedom to do so. I belong to a women-
only group which was formed to serve the interests of a particular
section of gay women. We decided from the outset that it had to
be women only, because the small collective that runs the group
would not have the time or resources to cope with the numbers if
men were admitted. We have had men join the group pretending to
be women. One actually attended a meeting, sitting there with his
moustache on asking us how we knew he wasn’t a woman. We
feel angry at this deception and expel these men when we find
them. We are not so unanimous on the subject of transsexuals. I
am for regarding them as women if they so regard themselves,
other members are not. We have no set policy on transsexuals and
tend to assess them on an individual basis. If a man were to enter
the women-only space at, for instance, the Gay Centre, I would
suspect his motives, that he was looking for trouble. So I would
ignore him, in the belief that if someone is looking for trouble,
nothing upsets him so much as not getting it.

I wouldn’t like to see men-only space at the Gay Centre. In
effect, it is there already when there are meetings of men-only
groups, but I would resent seeing part of the building devoted to
men on a permanent basis. I imagine that resentment is what men
feel when they see women-only space. Perhaps I am wrong in
projecting my feelings on to men in that way. I haven’t asked any
men how they feel about women-only space. I don’t think I would
get an honest answer.

We do still have an oppressive patriarchal society. There have
been great advances during my lifetime but there is still a long way
to go and I am afraid the rate of advance is slowing down and is


COMMUNITY 163

about to stop and even reverse under the pressure of religious
fundamentalism. Gay men are part of the patriarchal oppression. I
think most of them dislike women. They probably don’t hate us
quite as much as het men do, because they have no need of us, they
just wish we didn’t exist. So we have to fight them. We don’t do this
by separating ourselves from them, but rather by getting in there
and standing up for ourselves and our right to acceptance as
equals. Any little thing we do helps, even if it’s only pulling them
up every time they call us ‘ladies’ in that patronizing voice. They will
do it again next week, but if we keep at it it might eventually sink
in. I don’t believe in giving up and retreating to a separatist ghetto
which is what the misogynists would like us to do. I see no
contradiction between fighting with gay men and against them;
gay women have two battles. Gay men are our allies in one and
our enemies in the other. This is all sweeping generalization: there
are some men, gay and het, who are genuinely non-sexist. I don’t
believe the non-sexist men are the guilt-ridden right-on brothers
who conscientiously tack ‘lesbian and’ on to everything and who
say things like, ‘We must get more women in the group’—you can
practically hear them thinking, but never saying, ‘then they can
form a women’s section and hold their own meetings and we
won’t have to have them at ours’. Of course, I deplore manhating
in women as much as misogyny. Both are the results of mental
laziness, where one cannot be bothered to find out what another
person is really like, but assumes that because one knows that
person’s gender one therefore knows all there is to know about
them. What’s in a person’s head is more important than what’s
between their legs, and I have more in common with a man who is
interested in politics and books than with a woman who is
interested in dancing and snooker; not that there is anything
wrong with dancing or snooker, they’re just not my things.

Obviously the cause must suffer from separation. It’s lucky that
our enemies don’t know the half of the in-fighting that goes on
within the gay movement, or we would lose all credibility. A few
years ago an organization was formed called DAFT (Dykes and
Faggots Together) which was to be for political action by gay men
and women. I thought this seemed like a good idea and went along
to the first meeting. The woman co-organizer went to some trouble
to explain how she was all for women-only groups and activities,
but there just might be a place for a bit of joint campaigning. Then
the meeting spent most of its time bellyaching about Gay


164 WHAT A LESBIAN LOOKS LIKE

Conservatives and Gay Christians, and proposing letters to tell
these errant brothers and sisters just what we thought of them.
What a waste of time, I thought, directing our efforts against other
gay people instead of against our real enemies. I didn’t bother
going back and I haven’t heard of DAFT since. I’m afraid its name
was altogether too apt. Then when something like the Gay Centre
opens, one of the first things it does is get into a furious argument
about what gay people it can keep out. What should be a unifying
force becomes negative and divisive. Goddess help us….


Index of authoru


Andrea 81
Anna 86, 136, 147

Beth 71

Cathy 3
Chris 157

Deborah 114
Dina 48, 141
Dorothy 9, 98

Elaine 21

Frances 23

Grace 87, 112, 118, 130, 139, 160

Harriet 50
Helen ix

Ingrid 54, 138
Isabelle 102
Isla 9

Jan 62
Jean 74
Jessica 5
Jo 123, 132
Joy 28
Judith 58

Judy 18

Kath 63

Laura 94, 11;
Lisa 76
Liz 28
Louise 7;


Mandy 28
Margaret 58
Marge 152
Marie 72
Marjorie 73
Maxine 9;
Meg 12
Miranda 14;
Morag 31, 8;


Nicole 40

Pat 10;
Paula 1;


Rebecca 86
Rose 106
Rosemary 83, 116, 15;
Ruth 7, 15;


Samantha 68
Sara 18
Sheila 29


165


166

Steph 12, 144
Susan viii, 44, 105

Tanya 4, 61, 135
Terry 73
Tina 75

Vanessa 151
Vi 153
Viv 102