By Any Other Name

Why I'm still a lesbian, despite the man in my bed.

By JoAnn Loulan

Imagine my surprise, being one of the lesbian sex queens and finding the weirdest thing happen to my self-righteous self: I started having a relationship with a man. I lost friends, loved ones, chosen family, a place with the movers and shakers of the lesbian world. I lost book sales, public speaking opportunities; I lost my sense of self and my smug belief that I knew who I was and where I was going. I have had to sit in the midst of the hurricane that followed. I have been renounced by the best and the worst of them, and by hypocrites. I've been claimed by the bisexuals; I've been reclaimed by the heterosexuals. Meanwhile, I kept hold of a shred of belief in what I have always written: I get to say who I am.

I have this old-fashioned, feminist notion that I am in charge of my own identity. I am the one that gets to say if I am a lesbian or not; that I like to hang out with women; that I love women; that I get women; that I love to make love, have sex, fuck and be fucked by women. That I feel at home with women, and that I see myself as part of women's culture. I get to say that I am awkward, slightly outside myself in the company of heterosexual people. While some of my best friends are heterosexuals, this is a cultural group I find myself a part of by virtue of the sexual and relational company I keep. I have this notion that men do not get to define women.

We want to make sexual issues simple and concrete; however, sex is complex and squishy (with good luck). Explaining our sexuality to ourselves and others is a difficult task. There are at least four aspects to include: identity, behavior, orientation, and affiliation. The short version of how I see that list: how you feel deep inside; what you actually do; what people make you feel at home; and those with whom you actually spend your time. All of these factors and more (such as gender, gender identity, sexual history, class, race, religious and ethnic affiliations‹we could go on), are all part of the sexual make-up.

Being a lesbian has to mean something, however. I agree. But who gets to decide what that definition is? Does the individual decide, or does the group decide? I have had people say many things about my lesbian-identity qualifications‹it depends on how many years you have been with this guy; it depends on how many years you spent with women; it depends on whether you are monogamous with this man; it depends on whether you are still attracted to women; it depends on whether you intend to have sex with women ever again. I remember in the old days it depended on whether you had ever ³invited² semen into your body (which included artificial insemination for the purpose of getting pregnant). If you had, you could not be a lesbian.

I have also heard women say: you were never a lesbian. Various proffered reasons: I wore my hair long; I loved dildos (wearing them and having some wonderful women wear them); I considered myself a femme; it was just a feeling on their part. Funny that these rather superficial reasons are in retrospect reasons to doubt my lesbianism. Yet my deep resonance, attachment and identity as a lesbian didn't apparently count to some then and doesn't count now.

What does make a lesbian? Some say a lesbian is a woman who loves women. There are lesbians who hate women. Some say lesbians have sex with women. There are lesbians who haven't had sex in years; in fact, there are lesbians who have never had sex. Some say lesbians are woman-identified. There are lesbians who aren't and never will be. There are lesbians who deny their lesbianism‹are they lesbians?

It's difficult because we are part of a culture that holds that our identity is defined by who we fuck. Fucking is supposedly directly attached to our sexual orientation. However, lots of people don't even fuck, lots of people lie about who they fuck, and lots of people fuck people of genders that aren't consistant with the sexual orientation they claim.

It's also a problem that who we want to have sex with places us in a power dynamic with the world. Lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transsexuals, and others who don't fit the hetero norm are punished severely. We may have our children taken, lose our jobs, be denounced by our families, even be killed, simply for who we love or fuck. So when people want me to renounce my sisters for their anguish and furor over my choice, I refuse. I have many people ask me why I am being so obstinate‹my only defense is that it's my truth. Women liked it when I was a big mouth and they agreed with me. Saying with my big mouth, what I am now, does, of course, feel like a betrayal. I do wonder though, wouldn't it be more of a betrayal to have some guy come into my life and breathe a sigh of relief and say, "Oh, just kidding these 20 years, see ya."

During the 20 years of my adult life that I loved and fucked (and was fucked by) women exclusively, was I a lesbian? According to the definitions of having sex with, loving and being in committed relationships, that fits...yep, I was a lesbian. Now a man comes along and his involvement in my life changes my identity. I don't think so. Or does it? Who decides? One thing I do know is, I don't know what I thought I did, and I know more now than I ever have.

I have great sadness about losing all that I have lost, because of sex, love, and my sense of self. I do not identify as bisexual. I have had sex with both sexes, so from that persepctive, I am. But from my inside, deep down, heart self, I am a woman-lover. Perhaps it is as simple as easy as that‹I love women, and even with the controversy over a descriptive word to explain that phemonema, I can be in peace.

JoAnne Loulan is a psychotherapist, author of Lesbian Sex, Lesbian Passion and The Lesbian Erotic Dance, and a columnist for On Our Backs. She is currently working on a book that explores lesbian identity and sexual orientation.