I'm "decidedly inappropriate for polite society?"

[lesbotronic]

"Over the past decade,** ‘lesbian’ has been Pornhub’s most popular category: the word is slick with performative sensuality, decidedly inappropriate for polite society.

"Needless to say, young girls first discovering their same-sex attraction are hardly clamouring to identify with this hyper-sexualised world of scissoring, threesomes, and dispassionate ‘orgasms’. When it doesn’t stink of bitter misandry, ‘lesbian’ seems dirty and embarrassing, quite alien from the earnest, loving relationships that many queer women dream of.."

 

Julia Serano in Whipping Girl**:  "These days, I recognize the huge difference between sexual desire and sexualization. Sexual desirability is something that we all hope to have to some extent. When other people express their sexual desire for us, it can be extremely empowering, so long as such expressions are reserved for the appropriate time and place—i.e., from the right person and when we have signaled our openness or willingness to reciprocate. Sexualization, on the other hand, has the opposite effect: Rather than empowering the person, it’s used to leverage power over them. This can be seen all the time in the media, where women often appear not as fully formed human beings with their own thoughts, feelings, and opinions, but as purely sexual objects used to sell cars, beer, and other commodities. Some might naively argue that these women have power—specifically, the power to lure men—but it’s a power that only serves heterosexual male interests. After all, how much power is there in being a carrot on a stick dangled in front of someone?"

"The idea that lesbians are a source of sexual entertainment** for men is exacerbated by the hugely inaccurate portrayal of lesbian sex in mainstream pornography, usually aimed at male consumers and often involving a male performer who enters to ‘finish’ the scene. The pornification of lesbian relationships is mirrored in pop culture offerings such as the 2014 music video for ‘Can’t Remember to Forget You’ with Rihanna and Shakira, where the two artists writhe around together, eyeing the camera and making it clear that their attraction to one another is pure performance, for the purpose of selling records.

"This is connected to the reality that many lesbian couples do not feel safe in bars or clubs, as they are routinely treated as a sideshow and receive unwanted attention and comments like ‘can I get in on that?’ or ‘I can join in if you want a threesome’."

 

 

** We wish it didn't need to be said but still probably does that just because we quoted someone isn't a promise we're on their "team" and thus promise to agree with everything else they said before or will say later.  We can't even agree with our own wives 100% of the time.  We're just saying whatever we said about whatever we quoted, nothing regarding everything else they've ever said or ever will say forevermore . . .