From: cjohnson@polyslo.csc.calpoly.edu (Coe Salzgeber)
Subject: Re: 'women's' vs 'lesbian'
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 92 19:44:49 GMT
Organization: Cow Poly, San Luis Obispo, CA

twtierce@amhux1.amherst.edu (Tim Pierce) said...
>In article <gePjdGe00VAtAWJVtd@andrew.cmu.edu> "Sherrianne m. Johnson" <sj1s+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
>>I have been rejected by some
>>lesbians I know as almost not real...like bisexuals were not real
>>creatures at all, but just some fragmented confused creatures.  (Ha!) 
>>Obviously I have been rejected by heterosexuals, although straights seem
>>to be pretty accepting of female bi's, anyway...
>
>Do you really think so?  Having seen how straight men deal with female
>bisexuality and lesbianism, I imagine that were I a bi woman, their
>actions would drive me further and further from relationships$with
>men.  

Aaaaagh, i want to respond to this, but don't want to make stupid
generalizations.  Well, i'll try not to,0and perhaps you7ll humor
me if i let one or two pass.

>It seems to me that heterosexual men consider bi women even more
>sexually targettable than they do heterosexual women.

I agree.  To me, there is a certain wolfishness in _some_ men's
reaction to finding out that i am bi.  I have not gotten the same
reaction from any man that thought i was straight, and my friends
have not gotten it from men who thought (or knew) that they were 
lesbians.

I think it has to do with some stereotypes, such as: 

(1) Bi's are promiscuous.
This may or may not be statistically true, but it has no predictive
value (i.e. if you meet a bi, you can't know from the fact that 
they are bi whether or not they are monagamous).  And anyway, the
fact that someone may have multiple partners does not necessarily
mean that they will sleep with anyone.

(2) A woman (if she likes men at all) will unfailingly drop her 
female friends to be with a man. 
Women have been socialized to do this.  I saw it in high school -
female friends plan to spend an evening together, but if either
gets asked out by a guy, the plans are dropped without question.
Historically, this seems partly to have developed because of
economic dependancy - if a woman is single, her choice between
spending time with a woman or a man may boil down to the choice
between a friendly evening and the chance for economic support
for the rest of her life.  Clearly, this does not have to be the
case any more, but the assumption still seems to hold in many 
peoples' minds.

(3) All she needs is the right man to make$her forget about women totally.
I have met people who assume that women's attraction to women 
boils down to a matter of technique - a woman knows how to make
love to another woman better than many men, because she lives
in a similar body.  If this is the case, then this combined with
stereotype #2 would prefer a man would mean that a sexually experienced
and proficient man should be able to make a woman forget about women.
There is no acknowledgement that a woman may desire other for other
reasons... different attitudes, different body, different
experiences...

It is usually clear when someone is interested in me because of these
stereotypes, and when someone is just interested.  In comparing 
attractions to bi men and attractions to straight men, I find that i
tend to assume that bi men have confronted$these stereotypes, so i may
be more likely to return their interest.

In analytic mode today,
-Coe

Oblig. salacious content: "Lesbian lovemaking is soft and slippery
and it never, ever ends." -Susie Bright