Historical Views of Women and Sex

The historical influences on western women’s views of themselves and their sexuality still affect women today. The predominately heterosexual bias reflects patriarchal dominance and is steeped in the viewpoint of what a ‘man’ needs. Women’s sexuality has been considered unimportant. Throughout history this has made being a heterosexual woman difficult let alone those who consider themselves to be lesbians or bi-sexual.

In ancient times, and until the industrial revolution, women’s autonomous sexuality was something men were afraid of and therefore had to be strictly controlled. Many of the fears were focused on ideas about women who lived independently. Men in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries went so far as to accuse women of witchcraft. Many women lost their lives during this period of time.

In the nineteenth century, popular fiction and the Church presented women as sexless. Women were to submit to sexual intercourse only in order to conceive or for the sake of their husband’s satisfaction. There was little chance for women, although sexual feelings did of course exist, to express their sexual feelings. Women were perceived as mothers, virgins or whores.

As the twentieth century progressed, perceptions of women’s sexuality continued to be challenging. Women were seen as having no autonomous sexuality and sex was considered something they had to be taught to enjoy. Their sexual feelings were believed to be only a response to a man’s and could only be awakened by him. The heterosexist and sexist assumptions behind these theories were not challenged for many years.

The first sex manual by and for women was written by Helena Wright in 1930. (http://www.star-dot-star.net/si/004984.html) Even though this was an attempt to publicly find a way to express women’s plight, she could not find a way to get beyond it being a wife’s duty to enjoy sex.

The so-called ‘sexual revolution’ in the 1960s greatly changed women’s expectations and behavior around sex. Pre-marital sex, “trial marriages, “sleeping around” and the emergence of homosexuality became visible.

Women began to expect to enjoy sex. One theorist who was influential by considering that women needed to be liberated was Wilhelm Reich, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Reich) a pupil of Freud. His ideas on sexual freedom remain radical today, even though they deal only with heterosexuality. Even though Reich’s views were ahead of his time, they still were strongly based on the so-called ‘double-standard’ for men and women.

Such myths were designed to keep women sexually and emotionally dependent on men. For many, these ideas still persist. Men and women are still considered sexual opposites, and the sexual revolution is widely seen as having failed women by encouraging them to have sex on men’s terms.

While the 1960’s encouraged women to behave more like men by actively seeking out sex (usually within some kind of relationship), it did little to change men’s behavior or level of understanding. (http://www.amazon.com/Surpassing-Love-Men-Friendship-Renaissance/dp/0688133304) It was seen by many to be a sexual revolution for men but not for women. Women were criticized by both men and women for sexual behavior which was considered traditionally male. This was true of the attitudes of men and male behaviors in many other areas of life.

For many people, the period of the sexual revolution was as repressive as any other. The freedoms of the 1960s and 1970s were profoundly questioned and reassessed in the 1980s. Sexual liberation, and women’s liberation seemed to some women to be undermining women’s traditional place without giving them a positive alternative. Hedonism and sexual ‘permissiveness’ as well as sexual choice reached only a small part of the population, while others actively campaigned to counter it.

It is unlikely that we will ever go back to the ‘age of innocence’ and heterosexual exclusivity that has been encouraged throughout history. For women, both heterosexual and homosexual sex is an idea that is still promoted as wrong and dangerous, and monogamous marriage between heterosexual partners is still considered as the only option.

It is no wonder that finding our way as lesbians has had its difficulties in the social climate that comes from such a dominantly heterosexual background. We can only hope that women will be able to find and express their sexuality in the future with more support than in the past.

MY MAGIC GIRL

Abracadabra
July 17, 1992 – November 19, 2008

I had to put Abby to sleep this morning because she had lost her quality of life, had no control of her bodily functions and was in pain. It was so hard to see her trying to stand in her weakened state because she was in too much pain to sit or lie down.

My heart was torn in two. On the one hand I could not imagine my life without her. She had been such a big presence for a long time. On the other hand, I knew what I had to do. She was telling me loud and clear it was time. She went peacefully in my arms.

I want to tell you about this magical little soul. Abby was a retired Champion when I took her in. She was a beautiful Tibetan Spaniel. The first time I saw her was in a picture on the internet of her dancing in a too too. It made me smile.

When she arrived in the airline cargo area and I took her out of her crate I couldn’t believe how little she was. She was wispy and as light as a feather. I had just lost the dog of my heart and wasn’t feeling totally open to another. I couldn’t help myself. I fell in love at first sight.

She came right into my life as though she had always been there. She had no knowledge of my loss and proceeded to build a life with me based on love and light. It was as though her soul was a light beam. She would be snuggly and loving and then she would wisk away in a second and be off on her own adventure.

Her presence was enormous. I felt, and told her often, that she was the Empress of the Universe. She filled the role with no hesitation. She was regal, definitive, elegant, and was quite comfortable within her own sovereignty.

She fit right in with my other two Tibetan Spaniels and never felt jealousy or envy. Nor was she bothered when her sister got jealous if I was petting Abby. She would just finish her time and move on. There was no problem for her and she didn’t take it on ever.

It was her soul that I don’t know if I can describe. It was like angel wings. It felt airy, effervescent and strong. She seemed to be on the earth to make me happy but it was though she didn’t have any personal work to do. She was complete just the way she was. Growth was not part of her life’s agenda.

She was diagnosed almost two years ago with kidney failure and responded very well to a certain diet and my making sure she ate. I was given a gift by her being so ill. It gave me the opportunity to be in the moment with her every day. Every moment we spent together I got to experience her precious essence. I never forgot that she could leave this world at any time.

Now I am left with my other two Tibbies and it is strange what an enormous void such a little girl can make. It is not just her physical self that I miss so terribly, but it is her energy. I had no idea how huge her energy body was! I honestly don’t know if I have ever known a soul that was so huge.

This evening, while I was sitting on the porch thinking about her, a curl of her hair came floating through the air. It floated down around me and then over my other two Tibbies who were sleeping, circled around the rocks that she had had such a difficult time negotiating in her last few weeks and then came a landed on my lap. Then, just as quickly as it floated down, the wind whisked it up and it floated away. I was certain I had been visited by little Abracadabra.

I am sad. Very sad. And yet, I do not feel that she is far away. I feel her angel wings holding me tight while at the same time I feel her flying free. I was given a wonderful gift of many years of “being” with this little magic Abracadabra, and I cannot find words to express my gratitude.

Risks To Positive Identity Development

Alcoholic or chemically dependent lesbians carry a double stigma in a society intent on denying the existence of both lesbianism and alcoholism or chemical dependency in women. The prevalence of alcoholism or chemical dependency in the lesbian community is unknown but presumed to be high.

An early study in the 1970’s done by M.T. Saghir and E. Robins (Male and female homosexuality, A comprehensive investigation) that is still often sited, used a small control group. They found that 35% of a samples of lesbians were alcoholic or abused alcohol at some point in their lives. Their findings were the most comprehensive at the time and are still widely quoted and comprised of the “best estimate” as to the prevalence of alcoholism and alcohol abuse in the lesbian community.

If the estimate even approximates the actual prevalence, alcoholism and alcohol and drug abuse are now in epidemic proportion in the lesbian community. Since this first comprehensive study, larger-scale studies have been done that have concluded a serious problem within our community that needs to be addressed.

Detailed information about lesbians’ habitual patterns of alcohol or drug consumption is largely unavailable and typically a matter of speculation. There does appear to be some evidence that lesbians engage in multiple substance abuses and exhibit mixed patterns of drug and alcohol use. Obviously, however, if we are to avoid speculation or erroneous extrapolation to lesbians, much work needs to be done to document the drug and alcohol consumption patterns in large and representative groups of lesbians.

There are some risk factors for lesbians. A larger than expected proportion of the lesbian community may be the adult children of alcoholic parents. Another risk factor for some lesbians is heavy reliance on lesbian bars or other public or private drinking settings to socialize and be “out.” Ambivalence or conflict concerning one’s lesbianism can also represent a risk factor that may represent a problem for development of chemical dependency or alcoholism.

Although the alcoholic or chemically dependent lesbian shares treatment issues with the larger group of alcoholic or chemically dependent woman, some issues are unique for the lesbian community.

Both Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA) form the cornerstone of recovery for thousands of individuals, including many lesbians. Some women and some lesbians resist attending AA and NA meetings because many of the groups are male-dominated and members of some groups are homophobic. There is also resistance to attend these programs because of their emphasis on surrender and powerlessness and the meeting format for its focus on members’ personal recounting of adverse incidents that occurred during their years of alcoholic drinking or addiction.

Some feminists argue that women alcoholics and addicts in recovery have low self-esteem and are further burdened by guilt and shame when recounting or being reminded of their actions and behaviors while drinking or using drugs. Other advocates of the AA approach, many of whom are also feminists, argue that recognition of powerlessness over alcohol or drugs paradoxically empowers the alcoholic and addict and discussion of past events in an accepting and supportive atmosphere is an affirming experience and begins the process of self-forgiveness and self-healing.

Another issue that can be different for lesbians is denial and rationalization. Denial may play an adaptive role in staving off anxiety related to homophobia and living in a homophobic society.

Lesbians tend to experience more negative affect in their lives than other women. This would include depression, low self-esteem, isolation and feelings of rejection and anxiety. Generally, for some lesbians, particularly those who are heavily closeted or otherwise isolated from positive lesbian role models, negative affective states may be more pronounced than they are for chemically dependent heterosexual women.

Closely related to negative affective states is the issue of internalized homophobia, or the internalization of homophobic or negative societal attitudes and stereotypes of homosexuality. A convenient model for assessing the extent of internalized homophobia or for evaluating the extent of development of a positive lesbian identity is provided by V.C. Cass (Homosexual identity formation: A theoretical model. Journal of Homosexuality, 4, PP 219-235). Cass outlines six stages in the development of a positive homosexual self-identity, including Identity Confusion, Identity Comparison, Identity Tolerance, Identity Acceptance, Identity Pride and Identity Synthesis.

These stages of positive identity development for lesbians affect many more than those dealing with just alcohol and chemical abuse. All lesbians deal with these stages of development at various points in their lives and sometimes more than one at the same time.

The fact that some lesbians drink and do drugs to cope does not mean that all lesbians don’t have other ways of dealing with the challenging issues facing us. All addictive and unhealthy behaviors that are used to cope are risks. We need to build a strong support system within our lesbian communities that allows lesbians who need help with all ways of coping to “come out” and find accepting and genuine guidance and support.

Married Lesbians

Within the lesbian community there is a group of women who are married and also have same-sex relationships. There is a lot of ambivalence about these women within the community and I think, within the married women themselves.

There are several variations of married lesbian lifestyles. There are married women who are involved in same-sex relationships but who do not define themselves as lesbians. There are also married lesbians who have just never obtained a divorce. There are married lesbians who have an “open marriage of convenience”. And there are married women who live a double life of living in a traditional heterosexual marriage, having a lesbian lover, and considering themselves to be lesbians.

A person’s sexual orientation may not be easily captured in a single word and it may change over time. Sexual orientation is a complex and dynamic concept rather than a simple, fixed label. Married lesbians illustrate this and challenge our tendencies toward oversimplification.

Married lesbians bring up some interesting questions. How are married lesbians different from other lesbians? Why do they end up married and lesbian and why do they remain living this dual life? Where do they obtain support for their marriage and for their lesbian relationships? Can they maintain intimacy in their lesbian relationship when there is such limited contact?

There seem to be four issues that address these questions. First, being closeted versus coming out as a lesbian. Second, receiving support for being a lesbian/being in a lesbian relationship. Third, balancing two lives, and lastly mataining romance in the lesbian relationship.

Married lesbians seem to have a longer period of mystery and romance in their relationships than other lesbian couples. They usually report little or no sex in the heterosexual marriage and a good deal of mutually satisfying sex in the lesbian relationship. This is true regardless of how many years the women have been lovers. The longevity of a romance stage also may be due to the “balance” that their arrangement offers. They maintain a dynamic tension between their Mrs. Role in the heterosexual world and lover role in the lesbian world.

The trade-offs required to maintain this balance are complex. Coming out into the lesbian community or changing their perspective about their marriages may drastically alter the balance that has supported their lesbian relationships. It is as if the marriage and the lesbian relationship depend on each other for their survival. This would be described as triangulation in family systems theory.

Two-person relationships are inherently volatile and difficult to keep in a balanced state. Triangles develop when there are problems in the relationship but the partners do not want either to confront the problems or end the relationship. If neither of these options is chosen, triangulating a third person in the relationship allows for other resolutions. Triangulation does tend to stabilize a relationship and probably prevents things from becoming worse. But it also prevents them from becoming better. For a married lesbian, neither relationship may be able to stand on its own.

Married lesbians’ relationships come in two forms: either both women are currently married or one is and the other is not. These women are often in their forties or older. There are various reasons for this. Some are rooted in society’s expectations of women who were so entrenched prior to the renaissance of feminist consciousness during the sixties. For many of these women there was little support to pursue a career, which left them vulnerable to poverty and/or dehumanizing jobs. Even more than now, women were dependent on men for financial survival.

Under these circumstances, it was harder for women to admit to themselves or even realize that they were lesbians. Many of these women married men in a “last-ditch” effort to establish a “normal” life. Now these married lesbians may be able to be financially independent and have support from other lesbians. However, they stay in their marriages for a number of reasons including children, economics, loyalty, comfort, religion, fear, and habit. Society and environments that restrict women’s economic opportunities encourage all women, including lesbians, to marry men and stay that way.

Who then do these women rely on for emotional support? They rely on each other and sometimes a very small group of others, usually women and usually lesbians. Frequently the only people who know about the other relationship are themselves very closeted. Married lesbians are often criticized by the lesbian community for their unwillingness to give up their “heterosexual privilege”. This animosity isolates these women from a possible support group.

The risks associated with coming out as a lesbian include loss of spouse, home, children, income and established social acceptance. Married lesbians seem to feel overwhelmed by these risks. For them, the benefits of their current situation far outweigh the dubious potential gain of coming out.

Alone times are often difficult for married lesbians to manage. They frequently see their lover during the day and in public places such as restaurants, movies, plays, and community meetings. Married lesbians seem to have an abundance of intrigue and romance. They sometimes see that as an advantage to their lifestyle choice. Having little time together gives them a relationship that retains much of the early stage romance and sexual excitement.

Because of the duality of their lives and the restrictions on their time together, married lesbians are definitely not merged in the same way as other lesbian couples. They are free to have the best of each other as lovers and still feel protected from having their lover enter into their whole world. When they are together, they focus intense energy on each other; and when they are apart, they are clearly separate.

The married lesbian is very concerned with image and the general sense of order in their world. They value guidelines for behavior, dress, and relationships. The visible lesbian community feels alien to them because it lacks clear norms for just about everything. They may also be frightened or put off by the lesbians they do see. The heterosexual world, on the other hand, has accepted social and legal guidelines for most behavior. Living predominantly in the heterosexual world and being an infrequent visitor to the lesbian community helps these women stay grounded in the world in which they feel most comfortable.

The consequences of living in such a delicate balance can be costly unless the two women address the issue of their growth as individuals. When one woman changes, the relationship must change or it is likely to end. Married lesbian couples have two areas of potential change. The first is individual growth, such as becoming more assertive. The second is attitudes toward lesbianism. Married lesbians have found a way to live intimately with a husband, to do without contact in the broader lesbian community and to do with only intermittent in-person contact with their women lover. If one woman in the couple begins to change in any of these areas, the entire relationship many be at risk. The balance is threatened.

It is a constant challenge for married women who also have same-sex relationships to live a closeted duel life. They must sneak around to spend time with their lesbian lover. They are obsessed with the illusion of balance. They have to work to face the challenges within themselves to confront and examine their values, their stereotypes and their definitions of sexual orientation and lesbian lifestyle. Dabbling in the lesbian lifestyle is complex and not easy for married lesbians.

LESBIAN MERGING

All couples deal with the dynamics involving closeness and distancing. For lesbians these patterns and struggles can be different as compared to two men or a couple with one person of each gender.

The dynamics unique to the lesbian relationship comprise of both women attempting to maintain an extraordinary level of emotional intimacy while learned societal values create a situation of compelled interpersonal merging. The impact of this on the security of the couple’s formation profoundly effects, intensifies and prolongs the merger of the couple in a lesbian relationship.

Merging often occurs with characteristic frequency in lesbian couple relationships. I am using the term merge to mean a psychological state in which there is a loss of a sense of oneself as individual and separate.

It is helpful to view merging occurring in most relationships to varying degrees. In some relationships, merger is transient and mainly present during times of sexual or emotional closeness. In other relationships, it is a normative preference for intense connection that can include some loss of individuality.

In still other relationships, it is more fixed or permanent and can reach a point of excessive dependency where there is acute tension or anxiety when there is physical or emotional distance, an inability to function effectively without the presence of the other, and multiple self-other confusions in terms of who is feeling what.

It is important to contemplate the effect of sex role socialization on female dependency, negation of the self, and responsibility for the happiness and caretaking of others. From birth, girls are taught these responses to others that forms a mode of relationship functioning that becomes established as a relational style. The quality of the female sense of separation of self and other becomes fluid and not sharply defined.

This absence of clear individual boundaries creates a strong capacity for empathy or the sensing of the feeling reactions in others. It is the basis for the capabilities of nurturing, connecting, and personality blending which enables a profound and vital dimension in relationship intimacy.

Another thing girls learn from an early age and is observable in many women is an acute attunement to the needs and wishes of others as well as a vulnerability to emotional distancing and difficulty with separateness and differences in relationships. These relational capacities and characteristics, duplicated in relationships between women, shape the dynamics of the lesbian couple.

Couples proceed through relationship development. The first stage of couple formation is typically a merge-like period of intense bonding. This phase of union, loss of boundaries and individuality, with its thrilling discoveries of similarity and mutuality of sexual passion and emotional connectedness is heightened in romantic relationships between two women.

Because they each possess the female relational capacities for intimacy and empathy, each is less fearful of boundary loss compared to heterosexual couples and each is less willing to place limits on emotional closeness. The mesmerizing combination of physical similarity, duplicated softness, sexual arousal, and mutual nurturing establishes strongly connected bonding. This creates an interdependence of unmatched intensity and a quality of relatedness distinctly different than in other types of couples.

The importance of this stage in couple formation is it makes possible the continuation of the relationship through the disappointments, disillusionments, and discovery of conflict differences inherent in all relationships. The first stage of merging provides the impetus to change behaviors, to compromise, to solve incompatibilities, and to develop those relationship skills necessary to negotiate the multiple tasks involved in relationship building.

Memory of intense connectedness hopefully makes possible an eventual tolerance and comfort with separateness and difference. Lesbian couples who do not have the experience of intense merger closeness generally have a feeling that something is missing or incomplete.

As lesbian relationships continue, merger connectedness combines with power or control issues. This is typically a period of conflict that includes particular struggles over issues of differences, power, individuality, and dependency. This phase attempts to re-establish individual boundaries and tests the couple’s solidarity.

Although stressful, its potential outcome of accommodation and acceptance of differences and incompatibilities can forge new compatibilities and confidence in the possibility of an ongoing relationship commitment. When ongoing connectedness is joined to repeated experiences of resolution of conflict and difference, the internal experience or feeling of relationship trust and stability is strengthened.

Couples who have the courage to deal with the issues that arise during this period make it possible for later stages of commitment and re-commitment based on more individuality and separateness. Those who deny differences and avoid rather than resolve conflict, tend to form unhealthy relationship systems based on prolonged and entrenched merger.

For them, any change toward decrease in merging is experienced as a “wrenching apart” as if their relationship is disintegrating. Both women typically wish to spend as much time together as possible to maintain their merged connectedness.

With relationship trust and security yet to be established, couple harmony becomes primary and tends to be defined as the absence of difference and conflict. Individual interests, activities, friendships, and often values are relinquished in the service of closeness. Interactions that create distance and are disruptive to closeness, such as the asserting of differences, disagreement, and limit setting, are avoided as the couple tries to maintain stability around merger connectedness. The consequences are individual restriction and limitation and an increasingly isolated and stagnant relationship system.

Difficulty with establishing distance as well as honoring differences and conflict are often recognizable to both women in couple relationships. Attempts at change in terms of increasing individuality and separateness, more open communication, and expression of needs or negative feelings are often responded to with anxiety and fear that these new patterns and behaviors will interfere with the relationship’s connectedness equilibrium.

In order to negotiate increased separateness, both women must be able to tolerate distance and also manage anxiety. To assert individuality, differences must be conveyed in a non-threatening way and not contain meanings of personal inadequacy or threats of impending relationship loss. The couple’s struggle and resolution is rarely absolute. Instead, these themes are worked and re-worked throughout the relationship.

The disruptiveness of compelled distancing often remains a continuing stress in lesbian relationships. When couples do not accept or resign themselves to this fact of lesbian existence, it can play a sizable part in contributing to projections, misunderstandings, and frequent feelings of hurt and rejection.

Couples need to anticipate potential disrupting events. Arranging signals of reassurance before particular triggering situations, planning how each can be responsive to the other in distancing situations, and engaging in prior negotiation regarding their closeness and separateness issues are important relationship strategies.

Lesbian relationships are characterized by two women who each wish the relationship to be central in their lives, who display ongoing attentiveness to each other’s needs, and willingness to devote time and effort to working out difficulties. In spite of the lack of sanction, invisibility, and multiple disruptions by society, it is this relatedness that distinguishes romantic relationships between women—and when it is healthy, forges possibilities of extraordinary connectedness, compatibility, and happiness in a disconnected and alienating world.

LESBIANS OF SIZE

My cousin, who is now a lesbian writer, has struggled with her weight since she was a little girl. She is two years younger than me, so I was very tuned into her when we were growing up. Her brother was 11 years older than her and by the time we were old enough to remember, he was receiving awards for his athleticism in high school, was highly popular (particularly with the girls) and was driving around in a convertible, like a prince in a chariot.

The more popular he became, the more our family encouraged traditional male values and his exploitation of them. That is when my cousin began to show signs of a life-long eating disorder. I remember clearly going to the Dairy Queen after family swimming outings and seeing how many hamburgers my cousin could eat. That started when she was 4 years old and continued until I graduated and left home.

It was obvious to me from an early age: women and men in our society have a different socialization process. From early childhood women are taught that their appearance is a crucial aspect of their lives while men are taught that their accomplishments are what counts. The end result of this impossible quest is that most women are unhappy with their bodies and suffer from negative body image.

Lesbians are a segment of the female population who have undergone the same socialization process as all women but have rejected traditional female values. By definition a lesbian is a woman whose primary ties are to other women. (Furgeson, A. 1981. Patriarchy, sexual identity and the sexual revolution. Signs 7 (1), 158-172) and she isn’t bound by the ideas of a patriarchal society.)

A lesbian resists male domination and through this resistance is able to escape the social and biological bindings from patriarchal society. Lesbians do not think of themselves as objects to be defined by males. So it would seem that lesbians ought to be able to escape from the negative body image and lack of self-acceptance that other women in our society suffer. And yet as the lesbian literature suggests (Kidwell, M. (1987). Fat at the forefront: Another feminist issue. Matrix 12 (2), 5.) even feminist lesbians, have bought the myths. Many lesbians suffer from body image disturbance and discriminate against heavy lesbians who do not fit the patriarchal standard of beauty.

All human beings develop a body image (mental representation of their body) that shapes their body concept and self-concept. Body and self-concept are related to each other and affect a person’s self esteem, especially for women. Historically a woman’s body concept and self-concept have been tied to the roles prescribed for her under the dominant, male, patriarchal culture and the enforcement of compulsory heterosexuality (Rich, A. (1980). Compulsory heterosexuality and lesbian existence. Signs, 5 (4), 631-660.) (Zita, J.N. (1981). Historical amnesia and the lesbian continuum. Signs, 7 (1) 172-187.)

Even though society views lesbians as different or nonexistent, (Addelson, K.P. (1981). Words and lives. Signs, 7 (1) 187-199.) lesbians tend to see ourselves as resistant to the patriarchy. We view lesbianism as the only way for women to gain control of our bodies. Lesbians, because of our erotic and emotional ties with women (Ferguson, A. (1985) Lesbian identity: Behavior and history. Women’s Studies International Forum, 8 (3), 203-208.) and relating sexually to other women’s bodies, have had the opportunity to come to love our own bodies.

Yet, when it comes to lesbians of size, those who do not fit the patriarchal, male standard of female attractiveness, the resistance against the traditional definition of women breaks down. An excellent analysis and anthology of writings by women of size is Shadow on a Tightrope, edited by L. Schoenfielder & B. Wieser, 1983 and Matrix, April 1987 issue.

The lesbian feminist movement influenced the raising of consciousness for these women by affirming a community of women that was safe for women of size. They were accepted for who they were and not ostracized because of their appearance. Lesbian communities make a safe haven for women of size because they have given up male values of “acceptable standards of sexual attractiveness”. (Lepoff L.A. (1983) Fat politics. In L. Schoenfielder & B. Wieser (Eds.), (pp. 204-209). Iowa City; Aunt Lute Book Co.)

The emphasis for lesbians has been on becoming allies to women of size, being sensitive to fat oppression, and loving and supporting their friends without trying to get them to change. Through opening their hearts and minds, lesbians are encouraging women of size to accept themselves.

As feminist lesbians work more on breaking free from the patriarchal prescription of one body image for women, both individually and within lesbian communities, it will be interesting to see what happens to lesbian’ body concept and self concept.

The lesbian feminist community is beginning to attack the patriarchal oppression of women through body image in the same way it has attacked the oppression of women through rigid, traditional roles. It is a difficult struggle, for even though lesbians have rejected the assumption that a woman’s purpose in life is to attract a man, they have still been socialized to attempt to mold their bodies to fit man’s image of woman. Hopefully, as the struggle continues, the statement “not in man’s image” will be completely true for lesbians.

Lesbian Emotional Battering

Last week a friend of mine, Anna, with whom I have only been in occasional contact, called me. In the course of our conversation a story began to emerge that helped me understand her unspoken anxiety. At first we talked about her little girl who is three. Then we talked about work. It took a long time to get around to the difficulties occurring in her relationship.

When it finally came out, she admitted her whole world was crashing and she was crawling out of her skin in fear. She started telling me that her girlfriend faulted her on everything she did. Anna’s self-esteem was very low and her denial level extremely high. She minimized the verbal and emotional battering that was chronically occurring. Her denial came out in how she took the blame for everything as well as the responsibility. Every other sentence she said had an apology in it.

That night Anna was waiting for her partner to come home. She told me her partner had been hanging out with several women who had just come out as lesbians. She had told Anna that the time she was spending with these women was developing a newfound spirituality. She wanted no restrictions from Anna about this, particularly in terms of amount of time she spent with them.

Anna was comparing it to when they first started dating and the partner would not allow her to talk with her ex. Evidently they had many fights about this and finally Anna just gave in and cut off all contact with her ex, who was a good friend and a strong part of her support system.

She told me it was after 10 pm on the east coast and that her partner had the baby, whose bedtime was 7 pm. This was after she expressed that the partner had wanted to talk when she got home. Anna’s fear was that the partner was going to break up with her.

One form of lesbian battering is the emotionally destructive relationship. Emotional abuse is the form of battering which is psychological and verbal. It humiliates and degrades the victim and makes the victim feel inferior. It may involve such behavior as blaming the victim for problems, threatening to withdrawal from the relationship, manipulating with lies and emotional insulting, criticizing, harassing the victim with attacks of jealousy, and denying that the victim is being abused. The main difference of characteristics between chronically abusive relationships and emotionally destructive ones is that the weapon is words rather than fists.

Hart (1986) defined lesbian battering as: http://www.loribgirshick.com/bibliography.htmlhas
…that pattern of violent and coercive behaviors whereby a lesbian seeks to control the thoughts, beliefs or conduct of her intimate partner or to punish the intimate for resisting the perpetrator’s control over her….If the assaulted partner becomes fearful of the violator, if she modifies her behavior in response to the assault or to avoid future abuse, or if the victim intentionally maintains a particular consciousness or behavioral repertoire to avoid violence, despite her preference not to do so, she is battered….The violence may include personal assaults, sexual abuse, property destruction, violence directed at friends, family or pets or threats thereof. It many involve weapons and is invariably coupled with nonphysical abuse, including homophobic attacks on the victim, economic exploitation and psychological abuse.

Lesbian battering has been denied by the community in which it occurs and ignored by society as well. Many of the themes are the same as in dealing with heterosexual abusive relationships; however, there are some specific dynamics to being a lesbian in a homophobic society and the nature of lesbian dyads that adds dimensions that complicate the issues.

Although it is believed that lesbian battering has been with us for quite a while it was not until the Task Force of the National Coalition Against Domestic violence http://www.dcadv.org/10task_force/gay_lesbian.html held a meeting in 1983 it was first addressed publicly. The lesbian community had been hesitant in dealing with it until a few courageous women began to speak out about the abuse they had received at the hands of their women lovers.

Finally, in 1986, the first book appeared on the topic: Naming the Violence: Speaking Out About Lesbian Battering by http://www.antiqbook.nl/boox/vin/28254.shtml K. Lobel. This book offered an excellent first step in educating lesbians and the public in general regarding the extent and forms the violence may take. In addition, it addressed the community’s response to the problem in terms of developing support groups for the victims and trying to educate staff to lesbian problems within the battered women’s shelter movement.

Robin Norwood, in her bestselling book Women Who Love Too Much http://www.amazon.com/Women-Who-Love-Too-Much/dp/0671733419 suggests that the relationships we are attracted to replicate what we lived with growing up. She gives the following characteristics as typical for women who find themselves as victims in abusive relationships.

1. Typically, you come from a dysfunctional home in which your emotional needs were not met.
2. Having received little real nurturing yourself, you try to fill this unmet need vicariously by becoming a caregiver, especially to a partner who appears, in some way, needy.
3. Because you were never able to change your parent(s) into the warm, loving caretaker(s) you longed for, you respond deeply to the familiar type of emotionally unavailable partner whom you can again try to change, through your love.
4. Terrified of abandonment, you will do anything to keep a relationship from dissolving.
5. Almost nothing is too much trouble, takes too much time, or is too expensive if it will “help” the partner you are involved with.
6. Accustomed to lack of love in personal relationships, you are willing to wait, hope, and try harder to please.
7. You are willing to take far more than 50 percent of the responsibility, guilt, and blame in any relationship.
8. Your self-esteem is critically low, and deep inside you do not believe you deserve to be happy. Rather, you believe you must earn the right to enjoy life.
9. You have a desperate need to control your partner and your relationships; having experienced little security in childhood you mask your efforts to control people and situations as “being helpful.”
10. In a relationship, you are much more in touch with your dream of how it could be than with the reality of your situation.
11. You are addicted to women and to emotional pain.
12. You may be predisposed emotionally and often biochemically to becoming addicted to drugs, alcohol, and/or certain foods, particularly sugary ones.
13. By being drawn to people with problems that need fixing, or by being enmeshed in situations that are chaotic, uncertain, and emotionally painful, you avoid focusing on your responsibility to yourself.
14. You may have a tendency toward episodes of depression, which you try to forestall through the excitement provided by an unstable relationship.
15. You are not attracted to women who are kind, stable, reliable, and interested in you. You find such “nice” women boring.

It is a long and difficult journey, when in the midst of an emotionally abusive relationship, to have the self-esteem and courage to get out of the situation. Usually by the point Anna has reached, emotions and thinking are confused and it feels too overwhelming to take any action to leave the abusive situation. Developing strong support systems, women’s abuse groups or Alanon http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/ , and therapy are extremely important to built confidence, become educated about what is happening, and stop the denial that is so debilitating.

I hope Anna will be able to seek out these resources and begin to find her way back to herself. The positive thing that I can see is that she called me and talked about it. That is at least a start on the path to healthy freedom.

Jung and Lesbian Writings

For 25 years I have been practicing as a psychotherapist. While my philosophies have been eclectic and my repertoire broad, I have found Jungian psychology to be the most fascinating. In short, I have drawn from his ideology and found my own ways of presenting his ideas in my work more that any other methodology.

What has disturbed me most about his writings is how little he wrote on male homosexuality and even less on lesbianism. This seems odd because in both Jung and his immediate followers, female homosexuality occupied a place of some focus.

The equation of homosexuality with male homosexuality is perhaps the best evidence for the rightness of the feminist criticism that psychology, analytical psychology included, uses men’s psychology as normative human psychology and ignores female experience as much as possible or considers it only in comparison to men’s psychology.

The gay liberation movement’s distinction between the gay male community and the lesbian-feminist community may also contribute to this situation. Many contemporary women who love women do not define themselves as homosexual, preferring to identify themselves instead as lesbian, a term that, like gay used for male homosexuals, implies a consciousness of how homosexual orientation carries political, social, and communal meanings. So you could ask, could it not be that contemporary Jungian writers may be making a similar distinction—using homosexual to denote male homosexuality and reserving lesbian for female homosexuality?

Unfortunately, a perusal of the Jungian literature for specific references to and discussions of lesbianism yields woefully little. Despite the burgeoning literature on women’s experience and psychology form a host of talented, insightful, and creative women in Jungian circles; the literature of contemporary women’s experience from a Jungian perspective remains largely a literature of heterosexual female experience. Even in books where you might expect to find discussions of women’s sexual relationships with other women, such as some of the most popular and widely read Jungian books on contemporary feminine experience—Sylvia Brinton-Perera's Descent to the Goddesss: A Way of Initiation for Women, Linda Leonard’s The Wounded Woman: Healing the Father-Daughter Relationship, Nancy Qualls-Corbett’s The Sacred Prostitute: Eternal Aspects of the Feminine, Christine Downing’s Psyche’s Sisters: Re-imagining the Meaning of Sisterhood, Ann Belford Ulanov’s The Feminine in Jungian Psychology and Christian Theology, Jean Shinoda Bolen’s Goddess in Everywoman, Sibylle Birkhauser-Oeri’s The Mother: Archetypal Image in Fairy Tales—there are only brief mentions of lesbianism, usually in the context of heterosexual women’s lesbian feelings.

Two exceptions to this near silence on lesbianism are to be commended, despite their brevity and limitations. Betty De Shong Meador, a Jungian analyst in Berkeley California, describes in great detail an erotic countertransference reaction she experienced toward a female client in an article in Chiron Publications entitled “Transference/Countertransference between Woman Analyst and Wound Girl Child” Given the scarcity of frank discussions concerning countertransference in the literature and the even more serious absence of nearly anything on lesbianism, you can understand why Meador couches her clinical report in the form of an impersonal fairy tale concerning two women. Like-wise, Marion Woodman in The Pregnant Virgin discusses the lesbian imagery of a number of dreams of women she has treated.

The major limitation of both these creative and even courageous contributions to the literature lies in the fact that these discussions are not on lesbianism at all but rather on heterosexual women’s experience of same-sex attraction. Lesbians, women whose primary (or even exclusive) sexual orientation is toward other women and, who define themselves socially and politically by this orientation, remain an unknown population for Jungian writers. Is there a specifically lesbian psychology with its own archetypal themes and experiences? The Jungian literature remains silent and provides no answer—indeed, the question itself has not yet been raised.

So far, it seems, this question may be too anxiety provoking to answer by exploring the real nature of lesbian experience, except in the context of heterosexual women’s brief flirtations with lesbian relationships. One hopes a fuller and more satisfying view of “the importance of women loving women” is forthcoming from the many talented women that populate the Jungian community today.

FEMALE EXPERIENCE

D.H. Lawrence (1917) wrote: Man is willing to accept woman as an equal, as a man in a skirt, as an angel, a devil, a baby face, a machine, an instrument, a bosom, a womb, a pair of legs, a servant, an encyclopedia, an ideal or an obscenity: the only thing he won’t accept her as is a human being of the female sex.

Once I became aware that I was going to grow up to be a woman I wanted to know what that meant. The Mid-West farm women around me, while they were steady and steadfast, did not model for me anything that I wanted to join or follow. I could not help but notice the interchangeability of everyone, as if they were all cut from the same fabric. Their lives did not seem rich at all but dull and identical year after year. I knew at an early age that I wanted more. I wanted my life to be abundant with a bountiful female experience. I sensed there was more than I was seeing, but I didn’t know what it could be. It wasn’t until I went out into the world and got a broader view of life that my dreams began to take shape.

One of the first things I encountered was a clearer picture of society’s expectations of women and how limitations have been embedded in our consciousness for generations. Fortunately, I became a woman at an amazing time in history when women were waking up and collectively reaching out for more. Feminist thought was encouraging us to listen as we recounted our own experiences. We were learning from what we heard rather than prejudging our issues by already having a theoretical framework that spelled out what we were “supposed” to be. We were beginning to focus on the individuality of our stories rather than some universal applicable truth for all women.

This move away from viewing all women as “the same” gave us a much wider spectrum to explore our uniqueness. It brought a new value to our sense of self and encouraged self-seeking as a way to get to know and express our authentic selves.

When we began to own our unique individuality, a change in consciousness was created. This had a profound effect on all people, men and women alike. It drew us into a changing paradigm of thinking and being. The new pattern began to fragment the bonds of conformity and isolation that had been dominated by Patriarchy for thousands of years.

This changing consciousness, which encouraged us to know ourselves better and stop the feeling of being alone that had kept us so isolated, had a strong impact on our interfemale relationships. Women came together in an exploratory frame of mind, open to new possibilities about each other. The connections this offered gave us support and reflection. The insights of women’s groups throughout the world pointed to the need for internal change, growth, and healing. The internal concepts women had of themselves lagged behind the progress that was being achieved in our external world.

The issues that had been fought by marches in the streets and voiced through political debates were also being fought in the psyche of each individual woman. To resolve the dilemmas of a legacy of inequality, the victory needed to be gained at all levels of psychic understanding. Building a strong sense of self through changing our beliefs was necessary to live a full and satisfying female experience in a male dominated external world.

In 1982 Dale Spender, in her angry writings said: “ I have come to accept that our society depends on the experience and values of males being perceived as the only valid frame of reference and it is therefore in the interests of men to actively prevent women from collecting, sharing and asserting their own equally real, valid but different frame of reference.”

It was becoming imperative to discover our own point of reference, honor our experiences and view our perceptions as valid. There were many things that women began to examine to make the internal changes necessary to develop, nurture, and live confidently in the world.

The three greatest complaints I have heard from women are that they feel they are invisible, that they do not feel heard and that they feel they are totally forgotten. Women’s desires about making a worthwhile contribution to our culture are deeply entrenched in these beliefs. If these are maintained, any woman who attempts to make contributions to the culture has to have their contributions, and often themselves too, denied. This invisibility and being forgotten is one of the problems we face when it comes to having role models to show us the way.

When I was young there were no women in my life that I could find that exemplified the kind of ambitious spirit I brought to the world. History showered us with men who were honored for their contributions, but there was only a smattering of women to follow. At last, through literature I began to find examples of women who, through their writing, shared the experience of a rich female experience.

Aphra Behn was one of the earliest women I discovered. Virginia Woolf (1928) said of this woman: “all women together should let flowers fall on the tomb of Aphra Behn…for it was she who earned them the rights to speak their minds.”

Aphra Behn (1640-1689) was a prolific dramatist of the Restoration and the first English woman writer to make her living with her trade. Her writing was controversial and was often considered scandalous for the time because she addressed women’s emancipation, their sexual pleasure, abuse and nature.

After a hiatus in the 19th Century, when both she and her work were dismissed as indecent, she was rediscovered. As she has come back into visibility, people began to take more notice of what she actually wrote, as opposed to just her career. She was reportedly bisexual and, from her writing, held a stronger attraction to women than to men, a fact that has made feminists enthusiastic to learn more about her.

Having women role models enlivened history for me. It helps me better comprehend issues that women had faced within the context of the time and social climate in which they lived. Being able to read women’s stories helped me better understand the issues that have and still impact us.

When we are exposed to the historical and social context of other women and their lives, we start to understand the limitations and challenges of their experiences. This helps us grasp on a deeper inner level the issues we are dealing with now. Learning about the female experience empowers us in our internal and external lives, our careers and our relationships. By examining this, we will advance further in understanding our own experiences. We must make ourselves visible in our truth, listen to each other and ourselves and remember our sisters, like Aphra Behn, who have walked before us on our path to wholeness.

Lesbians As Models For All Women

Every day we receive messages that make heterosexuality the normal lifestyle. These messages are myths and standards that society has created and perpetuated to define women.

Adrienne Rich published an essay in 1980 “Compulsory Heterosexuality and the Lesbian Experience” in her book Blood, Bread, and Poetry. In it she argues, “Heterosexuality is a violent political institution making way for the 'male right of physical, economical, and emotional access' to women”.

She challenges the notion of women’s dependence on men as social and economic supports, as well as for a sense of completion. Rich coins the term “compulsory heterosexuality” to infer the lack of choice and limitations placed on women. The overt and covert assumptions of society define and disempower women and take away from having their own female experience. This is a serious problem that affects all women.

Rich talks about lesbians and their place in a society dominated by compulsory heterosexuality. She feels the term lesbianism is a stigmatized clinical term used by society to imply that lesbians are either diseased or non-existent. It is also a way to minimize those who challenge the heterosexual standpoint.

Lesbians try, through their women-identified point of view, to break out of the stereotype of heterosexual beliefs. Part of being a lesbian then, is to resist and reject the views set by the patriarchy and their perceived male right to women. In the midst of a heterosexual world, we try to carve out a place for ourselves where we can feel our own power, be economically independent and create our own lives without limitations imposed on us by society.

No matter how “normal” we individually experience our lives as lesbians, we cannot deny that the society we live in is dominated by a heterosexual reality. Living in a world where alternative lifestyles are chastised and not acknowledged in positive ways is not something we cannot escape. How can we live a satisfying life within the world as it is? What kind of a world are we actually living in?

According to The International Lesbian and Gay Association study in 2007, 85 countries criminalize consensual same-sex acts between homosexuals. Not all enforce these laws, but they remain on the books. Some of the countries consider lesbianism as an offense against public morality. Interestingly, nations that consider lesbianism legal include both Muslim (Indonesia) and Catholic (Austria) nations, socialist (Poland) and capitalist (Canada) nations, developed (Denmark) and developing (Guatemala) nations, and nations from various continents.

In the United States, the legality of lesbianism is determined on a state-by-state basis. Obviously, legal status does not always correlate with practice or tolerance. There are sodomy laws for both heterosexuals and homosexuals in 10 states. Four states, (Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas) are more explicit in banning homosexual activity.

Despite the loosening of laws in some states to allow same sex unions, second parent adoptions, and domestic partnership rights, limitations continue to exist. Resistance and prejudice remains in the collective consciousness even though baby steps are being taken to give us equal human rights.

Society at large tends to define a relationship according to the presence of sexual activity. If two same-sex people are not having sex, then they are not considered a couple. In contrast, the legal status of marriage defines married heterosexual couples as a unit regardless of sexual activity. In lesbian couples there is a large emphasis on emotional closeness, love, and security. According to lesbians, the strength of a relationship is considered to be the level of intimacy, uniqueness, and equality that can be achieved between two women.

For most lesbians, the emphasis is not on sex but on other aspects two women together can create in terms of safety and compatibility. Society at large fails to see lesbianism as a choice of lifestyle rather than merely a sexual choice. A large number of Americans still consider homosexuality obscene, vulgar, and “harmful to American life.”

The first entry on lesbianism appeared in Psychological Abstracts in 1927. Written by N. B. Davis, it described a survey of 1,000 married and 1,000 unmarried women. It was the first of many studies comparing the qualities in lesbian and heterosexual women.

The stigma of lesbianism runs counter to 30 years of research indicating that lesbians experience positive adjustment and mental health. In fact, research indicates a tendency for lesbians to be more self-confident than female heterosexuals. In 1969, the American Sociological Association passed a resolution preventing discrimination based on sexual preference, and the National Association adopted this for Mental Health in 1970.

In 1971, the American Psychological Association invited a panel of gay people to discuss the psychiatric label of homosexuality, and in 1972 the National Association of Social Workers rejected homosexuality as a mental illness. After considerable debate, the American Psychiatric Association voted (58% in favor) in 1973 to remove homosexuality as a mental disorder. This was particularly significant because this association publishes the official diagnostic system of mental illness used in teaching, research, and insurance reimbursement.

After 1973, homosexuality was considered a disorder if the individual was distressed by same-sex arousal and wished to become heterosexual. Finally, in 1987, homosexuality was removed altogether as a diagnostic category. A survey of 2,500 members of the American Psychiatric Association was taken in 1980 (Time). It indicated that 69% believed that homosexuality was pathological, 73% viewed homosexuals as less happy than heterosexuals, 60% perceived homosexuals as less capable of mature and loving relationships, and 43% felt that homosexuals presented a greater risk in holding positions of responsibilities.

In contradiction to the prevailing societal perception, lesbians have always been in the vanguard of social change. Lesbian feminists were responsible for initiating alternative health care, feminist therapy collectives, battered women’s shelters, and grassroots political organizations. As these institutions have become more respected and established, lesbians' part in developing these causes have given them the unfortunate experience of feeling unwelcome and ignored.

Arianne Haley stated in a letter to the October, 1987 issue of MS Magazine: “When all other women have given up hope; when all other women have silenced their voices; we will still be there, wearing our pink triangles and working for the equality of all women. Lesbians were there at the start of the movement. Lesbians will be there to the end. We may be your worst nightmare, but we are also your future.”

Adrienne Rich concurred with Haley when she wrote: “women-identification is a source of energy, a potential springboard of female power, violently curtailed and wasted under the institution of homosexuality.”

As we raise issues that we consider to be vital to the lesbian experience, we need to keep in mind and understand the significance of the sociopolitical context of compulsory heterosexuality. Hopefully, an understanding of these issues will not only decrease homophobic stereotypes about lesbians, but also demonstrate how the lesbian experience can serve as an affirmative model for all women to stop denying a continuity of our personal and political herstory. Given the extremely homophobic societal pressures we have had to navigate, it is amazing that we have done so well.

LESBIAN NONMONOGAMY

Lesbians have many options when choosing an emotional and sexual lifestyle that best suits their needs. Some of the reasons that can influence this choice are families, society, life goals, the desire to parent, personal growth, healing from a difficult childhood, political beliefs, and self- identity. Often a choice can be made during one period of life and then later change. Some lesbians choose coupling, others prefer to be single and still others make the choice to be in relationships with multiple people.

Monogamy is the custom of having only one mate in a relationship, forming a couple. The word monogamy comes from the Greek word monos, which means one or alone, and gamos, which means marriage or union. Many lesbians search for a partner with whom they can share their life, making a commitment as a couple both sexually and emotionally. They experience being in a couple relationship as a potentially normalizing way to live within our society. Psychological need for physical and emotional closeness and attachment are important functions in monogamous relationships, particularly between two women.

Politically, coupling has created a struggle for feminist lesbians who reject the traditional social norms that oppress women. They seek a way of living that encourages and allows independence and autonomy. These lesbians have a strong need to see themselves as separate individuals within interpersonal relationships. The internal and external pulls between coupling and independence contribute to breakups, serial monogamy and nonmonogamy within the lesbian community.

Lesbian nonmonogamy is a form of intimacy in which a woman concurrently engages in sexual and/or emotional relationships with more than one woman. Nonmonogamy is an importan subject in the lesbian community and is one of the most controversial topics regarding current lesbian sexuality (Constaintine). Lesbian nonmomogamy is a diverse phenomenon that either develops as a conscious, planned, alternative to monogamy, or as an unplanned, spontaneous solution to relational conflict and dissatisfaction.

Nonmonogamy can provide a relational structure within which lesbians can gain autonomy and personal power, meet unmet needs, resolve conflicted boundary issues, and grow in personal and interpersonal maturity (Burch). It may also serve as an unconscious strategy either to affirm a primary bond, or to function as a transition out of, or into, a monogamous commitment (Linderbaum). Nonmonogamy can also have a “symbolic” function for individual or coupled lesbians, when simply the discussion of nonmomogamy as an option serves as an individuating boundary, which can enhance the development of self or the development of the couple (Nichols).

One of the main reasons lesbians would choose nonmonogamy has to do with having difficulty recognizing, tolerating and structuring differences between partners due to gender-specific sex-role socialization. This socialization facilitates primary identification with others and discourages differentiation. With lesbian couples, both partners bring to the relationship confusion about differentiation within an intimate relationship (Peplau & Amaro).

One end of this continuum is the desire to merge, or to be as close and as alike as possible. This becomes problematic when differences between partners surface either consciously or unconsciously. At the other end of the continuum is the woman or lesbian couple that pushes away conflict and dependency needs through a false independence or rigid self-sufficiency. Nonmonogamy serves as a vehicle to de-merge the merged individual or couple. It can also act as a transitional step in the development of autonomous boundaries (Krestan & Bepko).

Nonmonogamy is usually lived out in four recognized ways. The first style is known as stable nonmonogamy. It tends to be long-term, consciously planned, have clear role definitions of primary partners and secondary partners, and is valued as a stable, life-enhancing, explicit choice. A stable nonmonogamous system, based on a consensual agreement to be nonmonogamous, is satisfying to most members of the system, and possesses a very sophisticated negotiated structure.

In stable nonmonogamy, all members of the system manifest an ongoing involvement and investment in nonmonogamy. The benefits and problems are clearly discussed. When members of the system are engaged in multiple relationships, communication between them has been established. Partners who become chronically dissatisfied with nonmonogamy in this system either leave or are asked to leave. Rules and guidelines are explicitly developed, including a ranking of primary and secondary partners.

For other lesbians, nonmonogamy is an unstable relational system, which serves as a transition into or out of a primary commitment. Transitional nonmonogamy is not agreed on by all participants, is chaotic and has no rules. Participants usually express dissatisfaction. Transitional nonmonogamy is not chosen by all involved and creates opposition from some members of the relationship system. Lack of choice and feelings of victimization are prominent. There is often no communication between partners. Rules about primary/secondary rankings are nonexistent, covert, inconsistent or ambivalent.

Self-oriented nonmonogamy is a style that is an important vehicle for individual self-discovery and self-actualization. Some of the aspects that are highly affirmed from self-oriented nonmonogamy are autonomy, challenge of personal and social limits, creativity, and stimulation. Focusing on one’s own desires, values, and potentials defines this lifestyle. As a result of this emphasis, participants make commitments first to themselves and their needs. They tell their lovers their decisions rather than consulting with them first. This emphasis on the self makes defining primary and secondary relationships unclear because all decisions are made based solely on their own needs.

Couple-oriented nonmonogamy is a way to separate and individuate from a valued primary partner, while remaining committed to the relationship. This form of nonmonogamy occurs when, consciously or unconsciously, partners are dissatisfied within the primary relationship due to a merged couple system that results in the women not feeling special or sexual with each other. In couple-oriented nonmonogamy, clear primary and secondary roles are delineated as it focuses on differentiating and revitalizing the primary relationship. Primary partners are longer-term, less sexual, more familial, more accountable, and more of a responsibility than secondary partners. They are also consulted on all major relational decisions. Secondary partners are more transitional, more sexual, more emotional, less accountable and less of a responsibility than primary partners.

One important aspect that nonmonogamy encourages is helping to learn about boundaries in relationships. Setting relational boundaries (Kaufman, Harrison, & Hyde) can help lesbians who have been sexually, emotionally, or physically abused as children or who are adult children of alcoholics. They can use nonmonogamy as a way to development appropriate boundaries (Woititz). Nonmonogamy can serve as both explicit and implicit boundary setting in areas such as amount of time spent together, types of emotional experiences shared, and help defining social identity.

The desire for equal power among lesbians is a major difference between lesbian and heterosexual relationships (Peplau & Amaro). Lesbian partners who have relatively equal power are more satisfied with their relationships. Equality and inequality of power is an important dimension of nonmonogamy. Primary partners generally have equal decision-making power and are more satisfied; secondary partners have less decision-making power, and are less satisfied. Relatively equal power in decision-making and consensus about nonmonogamy is associated with higher satisfaction and a stable nonmonogamy system. Unequal power in decision-making and boundary setting, and lack of consensus regarding nonmonogamy, is associated with guilt, dissatisfaction, and more transitional style nonmonogamy.

Nonmonogamy is complicated and presents challenges. Many lesbian couples enter into nonmonogamy with a sincere desire to “open” their relationship based on feminist political values that “controlling” their partner’s sexuality is oppressive. Translating this theory into practice is difficult and creates challenges that are diffictult for many lesbian feminists (Nichols).

Nonmonogamy requires a significant commitment to the time and energy required to establish and maintain more than one sexual and/or emotional relationship. Lesbians who experience nonmonogamy as right for them report the benefits outweigh the obstacles it presents. These women acknowledge heightened sexuality, expansion of self-awareness, satisfying autonomy, and actualization of political values.

Nonmonogamy continues to be a highly charged issue in the lesbian community. It is considered by many as one of the most controversial topics regarding current lesbian sexuality (Nichols). As women examine their sexual and emotional options for relationships, many different versions of lesbian intimacy have begun to manifest. It is important that the lesbian community support the unique cultural vantage point of lesbians. The options available for lesbians to experience personal growth through interpersonal relationships provide many choices. This is both a privilege, in the expansive opportunity it implies, and a responsibility, in the special care needed to assess the impact of our behavior on others and ourselves.