Short/Response Post: Invisible Lesbians

"Compulsory Heterosexuality" is an article discussing how we automatically assume that women and men are innately attracted to each other sexually and emotionally and that it is a universal thing. This term that is discussed in Rich's article is a huge issue among our third wave of feminism. Under this regime, men control women's lives in all different areas. They control their sexuality, labor, child rearing, access to knowledge etc. According to Rich, while all this goes on, we tend to ignore the gays and lesbians and pretend they don't exist. After our discussion in class about Sexual education, It finally struck me how we do tend to ignore this whole other sexuality. I have never heard of a Sex Ed class that has ever taught anything about gays and lesbians or experimentation. Every sexual education class that I have taken automatically assumes that we are all innately attracted to the opposite sex and leaves out homosexuality completely. If we addressed the principles of homosexuality in classes, then the idea of heterosexuality wouldn't be so universal. Maybe there wouldn't be as many suicides and bullying among gays if sexual education for them was given out in school. I am not saying that we need to separate the two divisions of sexuality into separate classes, but I do think that they should address both divisions in one class with all students present, so that way they are not automatically assuming everyone is straight.

Rupp's "Toward a Global History" talks about same sex sexuality. She examines global patterns of same sex sexuality and how the patterns can make this term somewhat problematic. Sometimes age difference class difference and gender difference are more important factors then similarity between genitals. Rupp then goes on to explain a situation that occurred with her colleagues son. The 5 year old boy was playing with a dog with a girl from his school when she said that she would love to marry Lily (dog). She then goes on to say that she couldn't though because the dog was a girl. The boy then responds that she couldn't marry Lily because she was a dog. Rupp uses many other examples to demonstrate the differences that prioritize themselves over same sex sexuality. Another point in her article that I found interesting was the issue of what sex is between females. How can you classify sexual acts as sex if you a penis is not involved? She touches on diary entries that women have wrote to describe their sexual encounters with other females. I remember talking to a friend about how she was a lesbian and she was trying to explain to us her views on sex. She said that kissing and touching were sex to her and now I understand how it is hard for her to consider anything else sex after reading this article.