By Jen Izaakson
“Lesbophobia is, like lesbianism itself, invisibalised in favour of more respected social forms. The wider amorphous ‘homophobia’ serves today as a catchall for any anti-gay sentiment, but it only really captures what gay men face: prejudice and discrimination based on their sexuality i.e same-sex attraction (to other men). Anti-gay prejudice experienced by men is pure homophobia, whereas lesbophobia is purely misogynistic. It is not the same-sex element of lesbianism, that two women engage sexually together that is objected to (as we know, many people enjoy watching depictions of lesbianism in porn and heterosexual women will perform lesbianism for men’s arousal). It is the sexual prohibition against men that is hated and is the root cause of lesbophobia.”
“That refusal of heterosexuality informs almost all of the characteristics of lesbophobia. Firstly, the idea that lesbians are ugly and ‘unfuckable’: a classic patriarchal reversal. Lesbians refuse men, a refusal that must be hidden, so it is reversed into a male refusal of us. Secondly, the notion that lesbians are manlike or in fact men, to signal attention our deviance and again assure everybody we are simply not ‘normal’ women. Thirdly, sexual harassment or corrective rape, to demonstrate that lesbians, and in fact no women, can escape male sexual attention. Lastly, the figure of the isolated and unhappy ‘spinster’ lesbian who must be miserable and lonely (to show straight women what might become of them should their stray from the righteous path of marital family life).”
Continue reading at On the Woman Question: https://onthewomanquestion.com/2021/04/26/lesbian-visibility-day-lesbophobia-is-not-homophobia-its-misogyny/ (Source)
Listening to Lesbians 