★
“If, in her poems to Rosania and Lucasia, she has been writing about a man, no one would assume that she was not speaking of a romantic and erotic love. After her friend’s marriage, she reacted as a lover scorned. The scholar concludes: ‘There is no question that Katherine Philips produced lesbian texts, that is, texts that are amenable to lesbian reading in the twentieth century.”
—
Gay Lives by Robert Aldrich, reviewed at t
he Lesbrary.
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★
“It is probable that some men in almost all cultures have experienced an emotional and physical desire for other men, just as some women will also have felt intimate affection, romance and lust for others of the same sex. Exactly what this meant to them and others in their societies is seldom entirely clear.”
—
Gay Lives by Robert Aldrich (reviewed at the
Lesbrary)
31 notes Tags: lgbt lgbtq lgb gay lesbian
★
“Seen in this light, lesbian pornography is “just” dyke entertainment, but I have never understood why anybody would think that entertainment was trivial. If you live in a society that wishes you didn’t exist, anything you do to make yourself happy disrupts its attempts to wipe you out, or at the very least, make you invisible.”
19 notes Tags: patrick califia pat califia pornography porn lesbian
★
“Sexual orientation here is seen as emotional as well as physical—a question of intimate affinities, not just fornication; of love as well as lust.”
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★
“It’s always been ironic to me that the more progress we make, the more we erase our separate identity. And I mourn that. I loved the specialness of being queer. I love the subculture and the separate, sort of invisible world. But of course I don’t want those conditions to continue. Ultimately, the goal of all this is for people to do whatever they want without having labels. The categories are becoming vague for a good reason. But I can’t help missing that moment when I knew who all the lesbians were and they were all reading my strip. It was all very cozy.”
— Alison Bechdel, in Travels in a gay nation: portraits of LGBTQ Americans p. 44.
43 notes Tags: alison bechdel dykes to watch out for lgbtq lesbian lesbians
★
Anonymous asked: Any suggestions for good historical fiction books (specially during second world war?) I’ve been looking around, but most of them aren’t reviewed, so I can’t tell whether they are worth it or not.
I am very late in answering this question, I apologize!
I love Sarah Waters’s books, and they’re almost all historical.
- Night Watch by Sarah Waters (1940s!)
- Fingersmith by Sarah Waters (Victorian)
- Affinity by Sarah Waters (Victorian)
- Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters (Victorian)
I can definitely recommend any of those! Also,
- Women’s Barracks by Terreska Torres, the first lesbian pulp fiction book. Published in 1950, set in WWII.
- The Wolf Ticket by Caro Clarke (end of WWII)
- The Passion by Jeanette Winterson (Napoleonic Wars)
- Silhouette of a Sparrow by Molly Beth Griffin (Young Adult, set in the 1920s)
- Miss Timmins’ School for Girls by Nayana Currimbhoy (1970s India, which is probably too recent, but it’s good!)
- The Last Nude by Ellis Avery (Paris, 1920s)
- The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson (African history, set all over time)
- Patience & Sarah by Isabel Miller (19th century. A classic lesbian historical romance, and one of my favourites)
Aimee and Jaguar by Erica Fischer is not fiction, but it is an amazing lesbian love story from World War II. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See is just subtext, but still (China in the 19th century). Then there’s of course the classic lesbian novel actually written in the 1920s, The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall. If you’re looking for more lesbian fiction actually written throughout history, check out Inseparable: Desire Between Women in Literature by Emma Donoghue, which I’m pretty sure is my favourite book of all time. Also, there’s this listopia of Lesbian novels from before 1990.
But I haven’t read a ton of lesbian historical fiction, so check out this Listopia and click through to reviews and descriptions. Another list is here, with descriptions/mini reviews.
Lesbian historical fiction set during WWII that I haven’t read:
- The Music Box (Instruments of War) by Elaine Atwell
- The Love Of Good Women by Isabel Miller
- Beautiful Journey by Kenna White
- Into the Mist by Sharon G. Clark
- Snow Moon Rising by Lori L. Lake
- The View from 16 Podwale Street by Paul Alan Fahey
- Laughing Winds by Rosa Christo
(I could have sworn there was another one, but I can’t seem to find it…)
Hope that helps!
(I have created a Lesbian WWII Historical Ficiton Goodreads list with all the relevant books added.)
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★
“My readers are 90 percent gay, and it’s who I write for. I am not here to entertain straight people.”
— Sarah Schulman, “A Different Sort of Sell For Gay Authors; The New Lesbian Literati Can Take or Leave Crossover Appeal” (Washington Post)
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★
““My love for Marie is as natural to me as your love for me is natural to you!”
“I know, I know!” said Frank with evident embarrassment, “I meant abnormal, as people generally view such things.”
“Yes,” said Norma, “it is abnormal in the eyes of the community.”
“That was all I meant,” said Frank.
”
—
“Take a guess at the date of this calm little exchange about the relativism of the “natural” and the “normal”: 1960? 1980? Guess again: 1895. The remarkable Norma Trist; or, Pure Carbon: A Story of the Inversion of the Sexes is a “dime novel” by John Wesley Carhart”
Quoted and discussed in Inseparable: Desire Between Women in Literature by Emma Donoghue
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