To write "like a woman": transformations of identity in the work of Willa Cather

Willa Cather's early life resembles one of the histories in Jonathan Katz's Gay American History. Her cross-dressing, invention of a male pseudonym, and details of behavior, together with her love for two women in her adulthood, Isabelle McClung and Edith Lewis, make it clear that Cather was a lesbian. Defensive about One of Ours, Cather nonetheless wrote much of her fiction in a male persona--A Lost Lady, The Professor's House, "Tom Outland's Story," Death Comes to the Archbishop, O Pioneers!, My Antonia, and One of Ours, as well as numerous short stories. Much of the fictional material in these works is curiously inconsistent with the male persona, but instead resembles lesbian experiences: the inaccessibility (to the narrator) of women who are nonetheless accessible to other men, absolute heartbreak at the untouchability of the women rather than anger or guilt or the search for sexual release elsewhere, and the women's intimacy with the men involved, as in One of Ours or O Pioneers!, without any suggestion of sexual involvement or explicit sexual history. Lesbian isolation, in adolescence at any rate, produces such situations; Carson McCullers's and some of May Sarton's work are cases in point. Speaking in masquerade, Cather is capable of describing lesbian experience with a fullness and unconsciousness which is now impossible. Innocence gave way to guilty self-consciousness, and that to politically conscious rebellion. The gain is in honesty, but Cather's record of lesbian experience, under whatever disguise, is nonetheless irreplaceable.     

Love between women in 1928: why progressivism is not always progress

Because lesbianism, as described by sexologists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was treated overtly in a number of novels of the 1920s, while earlier literature seemed seldom to recognize its existence, it appeared that what had been a taboo subject suddenly "came out of the closet" in a liberal and sophisticated era. In fact, fiction of earlier eras often dealt with love between women in the most romantic and positive terms. The fiction of the 1920s was no more frank about affection between women than its predecessors, but it differed from earlier work by depicting women who loved other women as congenitally abnormal, neurotic, peculiar, or outcast. These changes in the literary view of love between women came about because the spread of sexology "wisdom" created a hitherto seldom acknowledged category of abnormality. Women's increasing economic independence opened the possibility of permanence in such relationships, posing an ostensible threat to heterosexuality. And the new interest in companionate marriage encouraged heterosociality and heterosexuality as it had not been encouraged before, to the exclusion of love between women.     

Effects of sexual preferences on earnings in the Netherlands

A small literature suggests that bisexual and homosexual workers earn less than their heterosexual fellow workers and that a discriminating labormarket is partly to blame. In this paper we examine whether sexual preferences affect earnings at the beginning of working careers in the Netherlands. Using an alternative, and quite possibly a better, measure of sexual identity, we find (i) that young and highly educated gay male workers earn about 3% less than heterosexual men; (ii) that similarly qualified lesbian workers earn about 3% more than their heterosexual female co-workers; and (iii) that among homosexual workers the gender gap is not observed. From this we conclude that the Dutch labor market does not discriminate on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender in entry-level jobs.All correspondence to Erik Plug. Both authors would like to thank Jim Albrecht, Mikael Lindahl, Hessel Oosterbeek, Susan Vroman and an anonymous referee for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Responsible editor: Daniel S. Hamermesh.     

Same-Sex Relationships in Yorùbá Culture and Orature

It is widely believed that lesbianism and homosexuality are foreign concepts and colonial imports to Sub-Saharan Africa. This popular view is not unconnected with hegemonic heterosexual orientation of the society. The pitfall of heterosexual orientation, which hinges on politics of sexual representation, is worth an academic investigation. Therefore, this study seeks to close the analytical gap by examining Yorùbá oral literature, which is regarded as the repertoire of their traditional and cultural beliefs and nuances, to unravel the subject of lesbianism and homosexuality from a sociological approach.

Drawing on interviews and oral literature, this article examines the vital ideas of lesbianism and gay culture among the Yorùbá people of southwestern Nigeria. This article argues that the preconceived obscenity of lesbianism and homosexuality among the Yorùbá hinges on the culture of silence within the cultural milieu of the people. The study concludes that the representation of lesbianism and gay in diverse oral literature, as the repertoire of people's experiences and worldview, rubberstamped its presence and practices in the Yorùbá society.     

The "new gay" lesbians

The three-stage progression toward homosexual identity that Minton and McDonald (1983/1984) delineate in Bisexual and Homosexual Identities (De Cecco & Shively, eds., 1983/1984) is generally not applicable to women who have come to lesbianism through the radical feminist movement of the past 15 years. Their progression toward a lesbian identity was in an order roughly the reverse of what Minton and McDonald describe: Through the movement they came to understand that society's norms can be critically evaluated and that heterosexuality was detrimental to women's freedom, often before they had homosexual genital experience. The "egocentric" stage for these women may have been no different from that of heterosexuals. They may have escaped the guilt and isolation associated with the "sociocentric" stage because they first viewed themselves as lesbian in the context of a supportive social group. There is also some evidence to suggest that many premovement lesbians made their decision to identify as homosexual on the basis of their political views about heterosexuality. Thus, they too may not have experienced Minton and McDonald's three-stage progression toward identity.     

The "we of me": Carson McCullers as lesbian novelist

Although Carson McCullers camouflaged her love for women in her fiction, gay and lesbian themes are inarguably present in her work. The loneliness that her characters face takes on allegorical intensity, and it is even more potent due to her own sexual confusion and alienation. Married twice to the same man and falling in love repeatedly with both women and men, McCullers wrestled with bisexuality throughout her personal and literary life. Her deepest attachments were to her husband Reeves McCullers; David Diamond, a musician-composer in love with both McCullers and her husband; and Anne-marie Clarac-Schwarzenbach, a Swiss writer. All three of these love interests required that McCullers deal with complicated and ultimately destructive triangles. Given that fact, it is no surprise that she created fictional worlds peopled with characters engaged in three-way relationships. In her novels, Mick (The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter), Frankie (The Member of the Wedding), Miss Amelia (The Ballad of the Sad Cafe) and Weldon Penderton (Reflections in a Golden Eye) also reflect the author's sexual ambivalence and inability to fit into the prescribed social structures of the South.     

Mental health issues: a comparison of lesbian, bisexual and heterosexual women

This study examines mental health issues among women of different sexual orientations. An anonymous survey was administered at 33 health care sites across the United States; the sample (N = 1304) included lesbians (n = 524), bisexual (n = 143) and heterosexual women (n = 637). Not only did sexual orientation influence the probability of experiencing emotional stress, but also whether a bisexual woman or lesbian had disclosed her sexual orientation (was "out") impacted the likelihood of having or having had mental health problems. Bisexual women and lesbians experienced more emotional stress as teenagers than did heterosexual women. Bisexual women were more than twice as likely to have had an eating disorder compared to lesbians. If a bisexual woman reported being out she was twice as likely to have had an eating disorder compared to a heterosexual woman. Lesbians who were not out and bisexual women who were out were 2-2.5 times more likely to experience suicidal ideation in the past 12 months. Lesbians and bisexual women who were not out were more likely to have had a suicide attempt compared to heterosexual women. Lesbians used psychotherapy for depression more commonly than did heterosexual or bisexual women. This is one of the few studies that compares lesbians, bisexual and heterosexual women. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Recent challenges to traditional assumptions about homosexuality: some implications for practice

During the last decade there has been a change in professional attitudes toward homosexuality reflected in the development of new models of treatment. Rather than offering a cure the aim is to help homosexuals adjust positively to their orientation. Such attitudinal change on the part of the practitioners has not, in the main, questioned the fundamental assumptions of theories which seek to explain homosexuality. Recent theoretical inquiry into homosexuality, however, has done this, posing an important challenge to the traditionally held view that people have an essential sexuality that is either homosexual or heterosexual and which remains fixed and unchanging throughout their lives. This paper addresses some of the more important clinical implications of these recent developments, in particular, the suggestion that "the homosexual" as a certain type of person is an "invention." In addition, the therapeutic value and difficulties associated with an acknowledgement that sexual preference and identity may change over time are considered. Finally, there is consideration of what the goals should be in the case of the person who seeks professional help in changing from a homosexual to a heterosexual orientation.     

Battered gay men: an exploration of abuse, help seeking, and why they stay

In comparison to a large body of literature about battered heterosexual women and a growing body about battered lesbians, this is one of the first published studies that investigates the experiences of battered gay and bisexual men. Results indicated that these men suffered patterns, forms, and frequencies of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse similar to what has been documented by research on battered heterosexual and lesbian women. Likewise, the most commonly reported reasons for staying--namely, hope for change and love for partner--appear to be universal to the experience of being battered. Unlike battered heterosexual women, respondents in this study were not likely to report that being financially trapped was a major reason why they had remained. HIV-status, however, appears to significantly influence their decision to remain. Moreover, lack of knowledge about domestic violence and the lack of availability of appropriate resources play a significant role in same-gender domestic violence victims' decisions to remain. Like battered lesbians, battered gay men infrequently sought assistance from battered women's services and perceived these services as not helpful. By contrast, individual counselors and agencies who provided individual counselors were rated as quite helpful.     

Two Japanese variants of the absolute transvestite film

This essay compares two Japanese transvestite films from different generations-Black Lizard of 1968 and Summer Vacation 1999 of 1988. While Western transvestite conventions are usually exploited only to climactically reinforce heterosexual coupling, what binds these two films is their divergent tradition of what I call "permanent transvestism." That is, the films employ a cross-dressing which occurs extra-diegetically, is unnecessary to the plot, and which an audience may or may not be aware of depending on their geo-historical position. However, it is this non-Western tradition of cross-dressing that nevertheless imparts an aestheticization of sexual desire beyond fixed categories of "gay," "lesbian," or even our conventional ideas of transsexualism.     

Bisexuality: reassessing our paradigms of sexuality

Sexuality research currently needs to re-examine critically its constructs of sexual orientation and identity for theoretical inconsistencies and simplistic assumptions about the nature of sexual desire continue to plague it. This becomes evident when one reviews how the confluence of heterosexual and homosexual desire in individuals is "explained" by theories that assume a basic dichotomy in sexual orientation. This article examines how categories such as homosexual, heterosexual, and bisexual have developed, and differentiates between their utility as social labels and as scientific constructs. The intrusion of social and political considerations into the scientific investigation of sexuality is noted, and it is suggested that the use of these labels impedes rather than advances such study.     

The cross-gender performances of Yam Kim-Fei, or the queer factor in postwar Hong Kong Cantonese opera/opera films

This essay is designed as a brief historical examination of the Cantonese female cross-dressing star Yam Kim-Fei, whose hundreds of films and opera performances in the '50s and '60s have made her one of the century's most celebrated transvestite artists. While her craft has often been relegated to studies of gender alone, I assert that the traditions of Chinese operatic transvestism she employs are not merely a relativist historical-artistic mode without political relevance but can be justifiably reclaimed for the purposes of queer interpretation and spectatorship-for indeed their original intent coincides very well with what we call "queer" today.     

Japan's progressive sex: male homosexuality, national competition, and the cinema

This essay serves as a broad investigation of the origins of what came to be called the "gay boom" in 1990's Japanese cinema: a culmination of print media, television, and especially films which made the gay male not merely a visible (political) subject but also the site of displaced contestations of gendered (female) desire. The most visible transnational signifier of the "gay boom" was the 1992 film Okoge, a film which, in keeping with a Japanese trend which relocates the gay male as a safe displacement of female desire, posits the heterosexual female as the audience's point of identification in a film about the lives of gay Japanese men. Using this as a starting point, this essay seeks to explore how male homosexuality and gender construction operate within both Japanese nationalism and the transnational discourse of Japanese cinema's dissemination.     

The grandmother role as experienced by lesbian women

This study explores the grandmother role as experienced by a nonrandom sample of nine lesbian women. It examines how they define the grandmother role, and the behaviors and actions through which they enact the role. During individual interviews each woman was asked to talk about what makes a woman a good grandmother, memories of her own grandmothers, and the relationship she has with one or more of her grandchildren. The effect of her sexual orientation on the relationship was not explored. These women define the grandmother role as providing emotional support to their grandchildren, providing varied experiences for their grandchildren, and providing support for the parents of their grandchildren.     

The Grandmother Role as Experienced by Lesbian Women

ABSTRACT

This study explores the grandmother role as experienced by a nonrandom sample of nine lesbian women. It examines how they define the grandmother role, and the behaviors and actions through which they enact the role. During individual interviews each woman was asked to talk about what makes a woman a good grandmother, memories of her own grandmothers, and the relationship she has with one or more of her grandchildren. The effect of her sexual orientation on the relationship was not explored. These women define the grandmother role as providing emotional support to their grandchildren, providing varied experiences for their grandchildren, and providing support for the parents of their grandchildren.     

Feminism and science in Masters of Sex

This article examines the fictional characterization of the real-life sex researchers and scientists William H. Masters and Virginia E. Johnson in the Showtime television program Masters of Sex (2013–2016). The historical Johnson had a complicated relationship with second-wave feminism: she disdained the movement and was interested primarily in improving heterosexual marriages and the sex lives of married couples. The Johnson character speaks in a language of postfeminism with minimal interest in collective action and broader social change. However, second-wave feminists later used her and Masters’ research in order to support their own beliefs about sexual autonomy and freedom, within and beyond marriage and heterosexuality. The television program demonstrates Johnson’s importance to both phases of her and Masters’ research—in the first phase, when they are based in a hospital and university environment, and in the second, when they establish their own research institute and raise funds directly from the clients that they serve. Johnson exemplifies postfeminist depictions of ambitious women in prestige television, her aim to have a successful career and marriage conflict, and while she is willing to compromise scientific values to serve her own goals, her male colleagues temper that ambition in service of “objective” science.     

Sexuality and human rights: an Asian perspective

In Asia, the lesbian and gay rights movements are clearly dominated by activists, who tend to think in terms of a binary opposition (homo- vs hetero-) and clear-cut categories. Based on "Western patterns," the approach is practical, the arguments based on minority rights. "Coming out" is often perceived as a "white model" bringing more problems than real freedom. On the contrary, "Asian values" put the emphasis on family and social harmony, often in contradiction to what is pictured as "lesbian and gay rights." Homophobia follows very subtle ways in Asian countries. Asian gays have to negotiate their freedom, lifestyle and identities in an atmosphere of heterosexism, and not the endemic violent homophobia prevalent in many western countries. In Asia, one's identity relates to one's position in the group and sexuality plays a relatively insignificant role in its cultural construction. That Asian gays often marry and have children shows the elasticity their sexual identity encompasses. Fluidity of sexuality does not really match the Western approach in terms of essentialist categories that have a right to exist. Most Asian societies can be thought of as "tolerant" as long as homosexuality remains invisible. Procreative sexuality can be seen as a social duty, and heterosexual marriage is often not considered incompatible with a "homosexual life." The development of the Internet has even facilitated the encounters while allowing secrecy. Unfortunately, the traditional figures of transgender and transvestites have often been separated from the gay liberation movement.     

Health risk-factors for gay American Indian and Alaska Native adolescent males

Having multiple identities as a homosexual American Indian or Alaska Native adolescent male increases the likelihood for poorer health and diminished well-being. This study assessed the differences in self-perceived health status between gay adolescent males and their heterosexual counterparts. A national nonrepresentative sample of 5,602 Indian and Native adolescent males was surveyed about issues of sexual behavior, physical and sexual abuse, mental health status, substance use, attitudes about school, participation in violence, and access to health care. Results indicate that there were no real differences between gay and heterosexual male respondents for substance use or attitudes about school. Statistically significant differences were found, however, in areas of mental health, as well as physical and sexual abuse. Gay adolescents were twice as likely to have thought of or attempted suicide. Gay adolescents were twice as likely to have been physically abused and nearly six times more likely to have been sexually abused. Gay American Indian or Alaska Native adolescent males constitute a very vulnerable population and are clearly in need of targeted health and social services. Unfortunately, the benefits seen by adults of the "two-spirited" gay and lesbian American Indian movement have not been accessible to Indian and Native adolescents.     

Gay Men and Lesbian Women Who Become Parents in the Context of a Former Heterosexual Relationship: An Explorative Study in Italy

In Italy, homosexual people are not allowed to perform donor insemination/surrogacy or adoption, thus they become parents mainly in the context of previous heterosexual relationships. The current study examines the experiences of 34 gay fathers and 32 lesbian mothers with children from a heterosexual relationship. Data on homosexuality awareness, reasons for marriage and parenthood, and the coming-out process to children were collected. Most participants reported not being aware of their homosexuality when they married and became parents. The most common reasons for marriage were “love” and “social expectancy,” whereas parenthood was motivated mainly by the “desire for children and family.” Most participants came out to at least one child and reported a positive reaction. The most cited benefit of coming out was “openness/not hiding anymore.” The results suggest that the lives of gay and lesbian parents are shaped by their sexual minority status as well as by societal heterosexism.     

How Lesbian and Heterosexual Women View Relationships,Sex, and Virginity: Explorations With a Singapore Sample

Thirty-eight lesbian and 38 heterosexual women in Singapore (ages 21 to 35) discussed relationships, sex, and virginity in focus groups. Views were mostly similar between the two groups, although there were differences. All participants defined relationships as romantic involvement. However, while heterosexual participants equated commitment with monogamy, lesbian participants distinguished them. All participants differentiated between having sex (for thrill and fun) and making love (for expressing love), although there were differences in the purposes of making love. Primacy of penetration was found in defining virginity loss, but for many participants, virginity was important only insofar as it indicated sexual permissiveness.