Lesbian Desire

"The question cannot be answered because lesbian desire is just as various as any other; no generalizations about it are possible or worthwhile. 'Lesbian desire' as a unified entity does not exist."

I think I'm willing to accept this answer (and withdraw the question and, as Mark Lawrenson would say, pack my bags and go home). But then, there might still be other, more positive answers.

There is no Ulterior Motive to the question. It's just a genuine bit of curiosity that I hope offends no-one.

I can't tell if you're puzzled because you think the answer's "no difference, obviously" or "difference, but i don't feel i should say so".

I think it is, but if you mean to contest this assumption, that's fine. I just realized that it was an assumption that I had made while trying to come up with why lesbian desire is different.

Tracer Hand talked about the uses of desire. Before he clarified what he meant, I thought he was talking about how desire is (not) satisfied. If it's through sexual possession, then that's pretty straightforward. But people say that women get different things out of relationships than men. I don't know the position of the feminist theorists that rosemary mentions on this; maybe it just reinforces gender roles. From my experience, it doesn't seem off the mark. Which makes the idea of possession more difficult to define for women. (Desires that are unattainable for want of a fixed or known object.) Certainly, I've admired women before. I think I idealize them more than men, whose swagger I think of as some sort of shtick.

I found that passage in The Hours. It's on p. 143.

but of course, i also subscribe to pinefox's first answer: that is that lesbian desire is multiple.

As a far-from active bisexual I pretty much second lady di's point, that desire-for-boiz and desire-for-grrlz = diff kettles of pash.

however in terms of what one woman feels for another, in respect to sexual acts, emotional feelings, etc, i would suspect that might depend on the women involved, and that the women involved would have to speak about that desire themselves

why do i find this statement so offensive?

I think I have just spoiled the joke.

i do not have a strict definition of the word "woman" because to do so would lead to essentialism and i think that the looser the definition, the harder it is for people to pigeonhole us = the more room we have to move as people.

generally speaking and note within reason i think anyone who chooses to define themselves as a woman is a woman. by within reason i mean that if a person with XY chromosomes who normally identifies himself as a man suddenly chose to identify as a woman for no other reason than to take issue with my definition of "woman", i would say that he has no grounds for it. but i throw my definition wide enough to include female transsexuals and some ambiguous others.

yikes this stuff is tough. critical engagement on this would be cool! bring it on!

CREOLE PROVERB: "Tell me who you love, and I'll tell you who you are"

Your idea also shows simplistic (stupid) (mis)understanding of rape. I don't believe that avoiding penises (yeah I know that's not the correct plural but it's what i usually say) is a wise response to rape nor a common one. I have never been raped - would you therefore interpret me as an exception? Or am I an exception anyway because I am also attracted to men (disproportionately, as this is much rarer compared to my attraction to females and I prefer "girly"ish men, and because I am not only attracted to butch women)???
What about "bulldykes" who are submissive - what happens to yr theory when you regard women who like to sexually dominate submissive butch women? What about men who are attracted to butch women (/"bulldykes")?
The people y're being really ignorant and disrespectful about helped create the present environment where it is easier/safer to express and acheive those various desires you wrote about on this thread.

Just what degree of butchness is it a gal's objects of desire mustn't exceed in order for her to fit your definition of lesbian?

in the emantime, we once conducted a straw poll on what consitituted a woman, and found that 9 out of 10 women could be found to have liked grease the movie. Disucss.

I do not forget that comment Di, just because I could open the jar of salsa and you couldn't :)

stop it menelaus, you are obliterating my tough girl credibility! ;)

I'm sorry, we're supposed to be talking about lesbians, aren't we?

Fucking hell - not even a lesso thread escapes the uberphallus

I invoked 'the bone' deliberately because higher up-thread someone was accused of wishing she was a bull [dyke] when she was 'just' a [fat, ugly] cow, and it amused me that the masculine would be assigned a higher value even in this discussion.

I don't truly think there should be a Grimmest Poster category. After I put that posting up I felt bad,as it looked snide when I saw it on the page. I apologise for that.

Would you care to explain to us how using a phrase taken from a matriarchical culture that originally refered to a bone literally can have anything to do with an "uberphallus"? Unless we were talking about animal peni, which i don't think we were.

proof: they POINT a BONE!!

Oops, 'master', there I go again.

http://www.teamtalk.com/Images/161592.jpg

Wow, Toraneko was a real number.

A few more posts and we'd be in nominations for amazing ILX threads that are over 400+ posts and serve as a brilliant shining monument to the narcissism of small differences territory.

Who was Kara Fig?

Are different things valued, and different kinds of experience hankered after?

i would have thought so.

but it's not like lesbian desire or male hetero desire are any kind of a 'given'. at some point in this argument 'desire' became what they used to call 'nature' -- a huge abstraction and 'explaining force -- as a way of getting round using the dread word 'nature'. progress.

I bet the teenage soldier was "mucking out" when he came across two women doing it.

Well played sir.

"When" or "After" ?

these are mad cute

http://www.autostraddle.com/lesbian-prom-37132/

Those pictures make me wish I was gay.

Awww

:)

ps how can a thread with this title have such a weak revive? fuck is wrong with u all

those pictures make me wish abbott was gay

perhaps we're being extra careful not to sexualise them from a male POV - counsel kept - they do look like they're having a great time, as any loving couple, but in this context of course with a certain defiance. i am all for this sort of thing, and i hope every bible-belt school who would disbar homosexual prom dates gets covered in magic rainbow paint

And those doing the disbarring in poop.

it's cruel to strip homosexual prom dates of their law licenses ; )

v. disappointed to find the only picture in this thread is of the queen.

counsel not kept

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_J6j-bn9B08M/SxP-TCa7-HI/AAAAAAAANNU/SneWhYIZeZI/s1600/lez+zeppelin-784445.jpg

PDAs at the bar