Difficulities With Abuse Within The Lesbian Community

Lesbian domestic violence victims often experience a sense of frustration and betrayal at the response of other lesbians to their difficult situation. It is relatively easy for many lesbians to spot male victimization of women, and to see the need for women to leave those situations in which they are being abused by men. It is far more difficult for lesbians to sort out our victimization of each other.

Ironically, lesbians may be more tempted to blame other lesbians than they are to blame heterosexual women for victimization experiences. Lesbians may feel loyalty or identification toward another lesbian who behaves abusively that they would ever feel toward a male batterer.

It may be difficult for lesbians to understand that a woman would "allow" herself to be battered by someone physically smaller. Paradoxically, lesbians may buy into the sexist stereotype that somehow women aren't big enough or strong enough to do each other damage. It is hard for lesbians, especially lesbian feminists, to acknowledge that other lesbians are capable of being cruel, violent, and brutal. When friends or acquaintances do recognize that violence exists in a relationship, they may experience conflicting loyalties.

In a breakup, it is not uncommon for the batterer to "get custody of the friends" when the victim has retreated into depression, fearfulness, vulnerability, and isolation. As she doesn't feel safe in any situation in which she may encounter her abuser, she avoids social or community gatherings that might include her former partner. Ironically, by not taking sides, mutual friends may nevertheless create a climate in which they are primarily available to the batterer.

Within some segments of the lesbian community, an especially insidious sort of victim blaming occurs: battered lesbians are labeled 'co-dependent," "co-alcoholic," or just chronic "victims' who are 'as sick as the batterer." Such labeling ignores a premise that is fundamental to the foundation of the battered women's movement: no one deserves to be battered. By labeling the battered lesbian as "co-dependent," or as "such a victim" the fact that the batterer alone makes the choice to behave abusively is overlooked.

Children's Psychosexual Development

Clarifying aspects of sexual development can eliminate confusion in people's minds. Researchers distinguish between gender identity, sex roles, sex-typed behavior and sexual orientation.

Gender identity refers to a child's self-labeling as either "male" or "female" along with the knowledge that this is a stable, permanent attribute. Research indicates that most children have acquired an accurate, stable gender identity by age three. Their gender identity is highly resistant to change and is based upon what people around them tell them they are.

The development of both sex role stereotypes and sex-typed behaviors is a more gradual, flexible process. Sex roles refer to the child's conception of how members of each sex should behave. Young children (under 4-5 years) are likely to judge the appropriateness of a behavior according to their desire to engage in the behavior. Somewhat older children (around 6 years) develop fairly rigid stereotypical sex role conceptions. Finally, adolescents and adults develop more flexible sex role notions.

Sex-typing refers to the extent to which a child chooses to exhibit or inhibit various sex role stereotyped behaviors. The factors which affect the development of sex roles and sex-typing have not been fully delineated. It is believed that a combination of social factors influences the child: parental reinforcement, social pressure, modeling and imitation of parents, peers and television characters. The child's own cognitive development and biological predisposition also seem to play a role.

Sexual orientation, unlike gender identity, is not necessarily established early in childhood. The causes or factors influencing the development of sexual orientation are by no means fully understood. However, homosexuality is not considered to be the result of an inversion of gender identity. Sexual orientation, like sex roles and sex-typing, is more fluid and amenable to social shaping although recent research emphasizes the biological contributions.

A number of researchers have studied to development of gender identity, sex-typed behavior and sexual orientation among children of lesbian mothers. Green (1978) studied children of both transsexual and lesbian parents. He found that all children had a gender identity consistent with their biological sex and that they engaged in stereotypical and gender appropriate sex-typed behaviors.

Researchers also compared the development of children of lesbian and single heterosexual mothers and found that sexual orientation of the mother was not a factor in the children's development of gender identity, sex-typed behaviors or sexual orientation.

The general consensus among researchers is that children raised by lesbian mothers develop an appropriate gender identity, follow typical developmental patterns of acquiring sex role concepts and sex-typed behaviors, and generally develop a heterosexual orientation. Although these results follow a traditional pattern, this should not be taken to imply that in individual cases other outcomes such as the development of more androgynous sex-typed behavior or a homosexual orientation is possible.

The scientific literature indicates that being raised by a lesbian mother does not impair a child's psychosexual or psychosocial development. In fact it suggests that children of lesbian mothers may become more tolerant than others of cultural and individual diversity. The most likely result would be that the child will grow up with a balanced understanding of homosexuality without homophobia.

The Life of Aphra Behn

"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." Virginia Woolf

Women throughout history have often wondered "what hope do I have of ever being remembered?" That sense of disappearance extends across the great, the successful, from those who obeyed society's dicatates, to those who ignored them, to those who were ordinary. Not only do individual women disappear but the models for whole groups of women, the archetypes of history...the real women as opposed to the martyrs, madonnas, and witches of fantasy, are all made to disappear. In order to have just a taste of the experience of having real models we can look at the life of Aphra Behn. Sadly, few women know of her existence at all.

Aphra (or Eaffray) Behn was born July 10, 1640 near Canterbury, England. She died in 1689 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Below the inscription on her tombstone read the words: "Here lies a Proof that Wit can never be/Defence enough against Mortality." She was quoted as saying that she had led a "life dedicated to pleasure and poverty."

Behn was very political in her early writings. She was sympathetic to Catholics during anti-Catholic fevor of the 1680's. She was firmly dedicated to King Charles II. She was a Tory supporter who believed in absolute allegence to the King, who governed by divine right. She was distrustful of Parliament and Whigs since the Revolution and wrote propaganda in support of the restored monarchy.

By 1666 Behn had become attached to the Court, and was recruited as a political spy by Charles II. Her code name for her exploits is said to have been Astrea, a name under which she subsequently published much of her writings. During the Second Anglo-Dutch War in 1665 she went to the Netherlands as a spy. When she returned to London, King Charles didn't pay her for her services or expenses and she ended up in debters prison. In 1669 an undisclosed source paid Behn's debts and she was released. Starting from this point she became one of the first women who wrote for a living.

She was an adventuress who traveled to the West Indies and became involved in a slave rebellion. She was an early abolitionist who's novel "Oroonoko" contained the first widely read account of the horrors of slavery.

She wrote 17 plays which were all performed within 17 years and she also found time to write 13 novels and a collection of poems and political pamphlets. Her most popular works included The Rover, Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister, and Oroonoko. Writer Virginia Woolf thought that Behn's total career was more important than any particular work it produced. Woolf wrote, "All women together, ought to let flowers fall upon the grave of Aphra Behn...for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds."

Her writings reflected her relationships with women and included many references to this which made her popular in the writing and artistic communities of the 20th century and present day. In an age of libertines, Behn undertook to proclaim and to analyze women's sexual desire, as manifested in her characters and in herself.

After a hiatus in the 19th century, when both the writer and her work were dismissed as indecent, Behn's fame has now undergone an extraordinary revival. She has become a favorite among sexually liberated women, particularly bisexuals and lesbians, who proclaim her as one of their most positive influences.

Why has Aphra Behn, and all that she could have taught us about women of the past, all but disappeared? I feel a sense of outrage that such an important element of herstory is not actively taught to all girls. How many years do we spend listening to supposedly "great" deeds of warriors and armies? How hidden are the real heroines?

Isle of Women

I have not had one word from her

Frankly I wish I were dead
When she left, she wept

a great deal; she said to me, "This parting must be
endured, Sappho. I go unwillingly."

I said, "Go, and be happy
but remember (you know
well) whom you leave shackled by love

"If you forget me, think
of our gifts to Aphrodite
and all the loveliness that we shared

"all the violet tiaras,
braided rosebuds, dill and
crocus twined around your young neck

"myrrh poured on your head
and on soft mats girls with
all that they most wished for beside them

"while no voices chanted
choruses without ours,
no woodlot bloomed in spring without song..."

Sappho--Translated by Mary Barnard

In the 6th century B.C. women exclusively inhabited the isle of Lesbos in Greece. This sacred colony was rule by a group of women dedicated to the worship of the female principle. According to the Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by Barbara G. Walker, Lesbos was devoted to the goddesses Aphrodite and Artemis, and the practice of caris, "grace", meaning music, art, dancing, poetry, philosophy, and romantic "lesbian" love. It was a highly respected cultural center of its day.

Their most famous colonist was the poet Sappho. Sappho's work was burned by early European Christians when the idyllic world the women had created and lived in so beautifully was destroyed. The early European Christians were incredibly threatened by the lifestyle on Lesbos and regarded the women as "a crime without a name". They carried out heinous acts like burning the women alive without a trial just to support their ideology and fears.

Today we can still feel the influence and undercurrent of hatred concerning being independent and strong women. Women, straight and lesbian, struggle and come up against threatening unconscious patriarchal attitudes. Some respond by chasing after excelling in the workplace and focusing on things considered successful in a "man's world".

Openly showing interest in the "charis" is also threatening to those who live by the patriarchal religious dogma. Participating in those activities is considered by them frivolous and a waste of time. Anyone who gravitates toward these disciplines is subconsciously chastised for pursuing activities of the heart. This has made it challenging in our society today to stay true to ourselves.

Perhaps with the loss of Lesbos we have lost track of the two Goddess archetypes Aphrodite and Artemis. Maybe through revisiting their energies we can gain some insight into what is missing and what we might be able to do if we brought those archetypes back into our conscious awareness.

Aphrodite was much more than the "Greek goddess of love". Like Kali she was a Virgin-Mother-Crone trinity. She governed the world by the natural law of the maternal clan. (Bachofen, 57, 192. Encyc. Brit., "Byblos"3. Graves, G.M., 1,69.)

Artemis, Amazonian moon-goddess was worshiped at Ephesus under the Latin name of Diana or "Goddess-Anna". She was called the Mother of creatures. She also possess a huntress aspect, killing what she protected. (Neumann, B.M., 276.)
Because she was always a patroness of nature, fertility, and birth, the male gods turned against these attributes in opposing the cult of the Goddess.

Symbolically integrating the qualities of Aphrodite and Artemis brings us to modern-day lesbianism. Ruling one's life by the natural law of women's maternal clan and being the protector as well as the huntress in all its forms are a lesbian's identity and challenge today as it has been for centuries. Just as losing Lesbos has influenced our psyches, we are isolated and feel cut off from both our own world as well as the heterosexual world we live in.

The qualities inherit in women that are exemplified by the Goddesses Aphrodite and Artemis are still a threat to the Patriarchal society at large. Their response is to minimize, chastise and squelch anything and anybody who reminds them in any way of those powerful energies.

Educating ourselves about these qualities is the first step to bringing back what has been lost. It is important for us to consciously not allow ourselves to devalue them or let others devalue them. In spite of how enormous a task it feels, we have the strength and conviction as women to persevere.

What would it be like to live in a world of accepting, loving, strong women? Perhaps by practicing and living with a keener awareness of those who lived on Lesbos, we will swing back into a more balanced position where we can hold our own and not give in or give up.

Gentle Musings…

I have been reflecting this week about the feelings I had when I first started having relationships with women. I was in my early 30s before I figured it out. When I did realize I loved women, everything in my life made sense.

I struggled in my relationships with men. I struggled within myself and with them. I felt belittled and like I could not truly be myself. I felt I had to be manipulative to maintain any sense of Self at all. I did not understand why it was so uncomfortable and difficult on myself to be able to stay steady in a relationship with a man.

One thing I found interesting was what happened to my own inner masculine when I was relating to men. The inner masculine and identity is what connects what we want to “do” and what is important to us, with our soul. The masculine is the bridge that makes that connection.

When I was in a relationship with a man, my own inner masculine could not stay strong and steady and would become eclipsed. I would try to get stronger and found that the more I tried, the angrier and weaker I got. This was a problem in each relationship I had with men.

When I got with women, our inner masculines were doubled and I did not loose my power. It wasn’t like competition or envy or anything like that. The process was just comfortable and easy. Being with women helped me keep my masculine inside. It helped me own and identify what was important and direct the energy of “doing” toward my deepest soul. This felt so right.

Another thing that was easier for me to deal with women rather than men was my sexuality. With men, there was always a tension, an expectation, a blurring of myself that made my sexuality feel very unsafe. When I got with women, sexuality flowed out of friendship, intimacy, connection and love.

With men, the connection was always one-sided. Theirs. It was incredibly difficult to find intimacy with the men I chose. I have several men I know who I have as friends and have never been in a romantic relationship with. With them, closeness and caring form the core of the foundation of our relationship. Taking away sexuality makes these men safe and close also.

Perhaps another thing that made being with women so comfortable was my early training about caring for others. My family and particularly my mother paid close attention to the men and boys and took extra care to make sure they were happy. This early conditioning (which smacked of co-dependency) was not only strongly encouraged but I got into a lot of trouble when I tried to stray away from the program.

This made for a lot of conflict when I was in relationships with men. My repressed anger came out with them because I did not want to take care of them. It wasn’t a selfish streak that I was feeling but a struggle to keep myself intact. I had not learned to take of myself, which didn’t make me a good candidate to take care of those whose sense of entitlement left me flat.

Being with women just simply made all of my childhood issues less stressful and made healing less dramatic and painful. The dynamics in my relationships, regardless with a man or a woman, had a lot of similarities. After all, I was the same person in each equation. It was how I was able to work through my issues that became much easier with women.

It has taken many years to reach a place within myself that I can have a healthy relationship with myself. This makes it possible to even have a relationship with another person. I am still smitten with women and am delighted that I know this about myself so that I can share that joy and gratefulness which makes my heart so full.

Androgyny

According to Wikipedia, Androgyne derives from two Greek words, but makes its first appearance as a compound word in Rabbinic Judaism, most probably as an alternative to the Greek Pagan-related usage of hermaphrodite.

The Online Etymology Dictionary dates its appearance in English to 1552, although it is sometimes (incorrectly) claimed to have been coined by Sandra Bem, who helped to popularise the concept.

An androgyne in terms of gender identity, is a person who does not fit cleanly into the typical masculine and feminine gender roles of their society. They may also use the term ambigender to describe themselves. Many androgynes identify as being mentally "between" woman and man, or as entirely genderless. They may class themselves as non-gendered, genderneutral, agendered, between genders, intergendered, bigendered, or genderfluid^.

Sandra Bem's work on androgyny preceded the current widespread use of the term as a gender identity, and uses the term more in terms of character traits than core gender identity. She considers an androgynous balance of traits to be desirable, stating that those who are able to draw on both traditionally masculine and feminine emotions and behaviours are best able to cope with life's challenges in a well-rounded way.

One of the most common mis-definitions of bisexuality is to confuse it with androgyny. Most writers before the 1050s used the word 'bisexual' to mean duel-sexed, to describe the co-existence of masculine and feminine components of the self, or to designate behavior traditionally classed as masculine in a woman, or as feminine in a man.

At the same time, the idea of the co-existence of male and female characteristics within the psyche of every person was being explored by psychologists, most notably Carl Gustav Jung. He believed that the female unconscious contains a male element or animus, while men have a female element or anima. For Jung, 'bisexuality' was a balance between the masculine and feminine elements of the psyche of everyone, rather than a sexual drive.

his concept of androgyny was very fashionable in some circles in the early twentieth century with writers like D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce believing that people were man-womanly or woman-manly.

Today, it is appearance rather than psychological make-up that is the most frequently explored aspect of androgyny. Androgyny is still connected to sexuality within the popular imagination and is perceived by traditionalists as threatening in its potential to break down gender roles.

Some gays choose an androgynous image as part of the expression of their sexuality. Other people see androgyny as a reconciliation between the sexes, allowing male and female attitudes to come together within one person.

The confusion between androgyny and bisexuality seems to have arisen from the idea that one can only respond to a person of the same sex if one has or takes on aspects of the other. In the case of bisexuals, the capacity to respond to people of both sexes is seen as implying that the bisexual must be both 'masculine' and 'feminine' simultaneously.

The words 'masculine' and 'feminine' have strict and inflexible meanings, connected exclusively to either men or women, and are not terms that can be applied equally and non-judgementally to people of both genders. In addition, power differences between men and women mean that it is not such a simple project for women to express their 'masculine side' by dressing and/or acting as men--power is not so easily grasped. A powerful group can voluntarily 'give up' power; a less powerful one cannot get it simply by taking on the characteristics of a more powerful one.

Androgyny then becomes an interesting concept to interweave with sexuality, gender roles, power differentials and other terms. Masculine and feminine attitudes are found in everyone, regardless of their sexual preference or identity. Androgyny is inclusive of internal psyche workings as well as practical things such as dressing and personal actions and attitudes. It is a concept and a reality that deserves more thought.

Feminist Theories of Sexuality: First Wave Feminism

Many of the different feminist attitudes towards sexuality manifest today were already in existence from the 1860s. Of central importance to feminists has always been the organization of sexuality.

One example of this was the campaign against the Contagious Diseases Acts in England between 1864 and 1869. This act was supposed to stop the spread of venereal diseases. The police were allowed to arrest and test women thought to be prostitutes while their male clients (presumably infected as well) were never apprehended. The Acts were the focus of massive feminist protest, and the campaigns against them were followed by other anti-vice campaigns. (Prostitution and Victorian Society by Judith Walkowitz, Cambridge University Press, 1982.)

In America, many different types of women came together to fight for the vote and look at the position of women in general during the Suffrage movement in the decades leading up to 1914. Many of its members made the choice to remain celibate (seen as an early form of separatism) rather than endure disrespectful relationships with men. Instead, they poured their energy into womens issues.

Other women took a very different view of heterosexual relationships, believing that the answer lay not in the rejection of men, but in finding new forms of interacting. Many ‘free-thinkers’ around the turn of the century established committed, but not legalized, heterosexual relationships in which the woman strove for equality and autonomy.

Alexandra Kollontai, the only woman in Lenin’s USSR 1917 government, was known to look at the new forms of society explored in the early post-revolutionary years. Kollontai believed the ‘sexual crisis’ was three-quarter socio-economic, and that emotional possessiveness and egotism in men needed to be challenged. (Allexandra Kollontai, Sexual Relations and the Class Struggle, SWP, 1984.)

Other women, such as anarchist Emma Goldman in New York, tried to separate love and marriage. She saw marriage as a purely economic arrangement to which she was vehemently opposed. (Love Your Enemy? Onlywoman Press, 1981.)

At the time when the study of sexology was popular among the radical intelligentsia, politically active women such as British contraception and abortion campaigner,Stella Browne, were attracted by what they saw as its liberating ideas. (Stella Browne, Sex Variety and Variability Among Women, British Society for the Study of Sexual Psychology pamphlet, 1915.) Many of these women were well aware that society would have to change radically before attitudes about sex could fundamentally alter. Without a means of preventing endless pregnancies, it would be difficult for heterosexual sex to be equally good for men and women alike.

During the turn of the century, some feminists lived in lesbian relationships, though this was down-played by all sections of the movement. Stella Browne believed that 'congenital lesbianism' was tolerable--if inferior--to heterosexuality but that it should not be encouraged for 'ordinary' women. Emma Goldman held similar views, although it is known that she had at least one lesbian relationship.

In the 1920's, once women had gained the vote, organized feminism lost energy and ceased. The only text published over the next forty years to discuss womens sexual issues was Simone deBeauvior's The Second Sex (1953). Here she put forward the concept that the history of an individual is not fatalistically determined, but is comprised of choices. deBeauvoir saw lesbianism as a choice which should be fully allowed by society.

Feminists from these earlier times maintained it was obvious that women should wish to fight against the restrictions placed upon them. This included those restrictions imposed by heterosexual society. What was less understandable to these women who were politically active and influential was why more women did not fight back.

Collective Conditioning

As women today, we are grappling with an age-old dilemma. History may not provide the right answer to our individual questions but it often throws a new, unexpected light on what appears to be an individual problem and then turns out to be social in origin. When we can recognize that our complaints, concerns and conditions are not new, we can begin to acknowledge our lives in the context of history.

Our concerns have the voice of many women; women who have lived thousands of years before us. This awareness brings with it comfort at not being alone to deal with things in life. It also encourages our need for a change in consciousness. Change is needed not just for this generation but for the many generations of women who will follow us.

Have we forgotten how silenced and invisible we are and have been? This reality is difficult to observe consciously with accuracy. Centuries of being unheard has been internalized by women who, while feeling sadness and outrage at the lack of response our contributions in life produce, will at the same time undermine ourselves in any conversation. We minimize our problems, concerns, and even joke about things in our lives that in actuality are significant. We have been taught throughout history to “be–little” ourselves.

It is difficult to live and encounter this passivity in ourselves when we have done and endured so much. It is important for us to reflect on the thousands of years of conditioning that has gone into making the collective beliefs in and for women. These beliefs have been buried in our unconscious for so long we don't even question the behavior produced by our internalized oppression.

The beliefs women have internalized over generations have been brought to light by feminism but still persist at a deep unconscious level. Women collectively believe we are in some way worthless. We believe that our minds contain only small matters and that our thoughts can never be great or inventive. We doubt we will make any significant contributions to our culture or the world.

Being reminded of this unconscious collective belief system makes it more possible to stay aware of the ludicrously of its thinking. We can learn from history that women have now, and have always had, genuine complaints and issues that are real and pertain to the context in which we live. These issues have an impact on the lives of all women from our first days as dependent and vulnerable daughters to our last days.

We are not invisible. We do matter. Unless we are willing to face the historical and social context and acknowledge the limits of change that have plagued women for generations, we will be held back from advancing further in an understanding of ourselves and each other.

Champion Arty Come Lately
April 24, 1994 - April 2, 2009

After Abracadabra died Mid-November, Ladybug seemed to skip over grief and never turned back to miss her sister. She hung out contentedly with Arty--through his failing health, as he visibly weakened daily from not eating. She didn't seem to notice when he couldn't walk anymore.

Earlier that day I had called the veterinarian to bring Arty in to put him down to sleep. "You'll have to wait until tomorrow morning at 7:45", met my request. I knew, with only a Mother's knowing, that the time was NOW and tomorrow would be too late. As it turned out it was not only too late but too long.

Mid-afternoon, I came around the corner of the bedroom and found Arty sprawled on the floor with each of his feet going in one of the four directions. He had taken his last steps. I gently lifted him and laid him in his dog bed. Shortly after, as I lay on the floor, rolled on my side petting him, he had his first convulsion.

I immediately jumped into "HELP" mode, totally ignoring my feelings of inadequacy and my ignorance of what to do. The convulsions were mild at first, although I didn't know that at the time. It was only later, after I had stayed up with him all night, I realized that those early ones had been mild.

Arty had my heart. He was the "most beautiful dog I have ever seen", my sister would say. I leaned that way in my own biased thinking. He had been my dear friend from the moment I first laid eyes on him and our friendship grew stronger each year of the twelve we spent together. We understood and respected each others' need for unconditional love. I don't feel he was ever once disappointed in my humanness and I felt deep pride in watching him become more and more of a dog. In his later years, he actually became a full-fledged canine and he was happy.

I can still see him running full-out across the wide green expanse of the park we frequented in our early years together. He was a picture of Grace. Balance. Joy. Even then, Hobbit's vision blurred and Arty stepped right in to guide her, even on their park runs. After a long-enough run he gently brought her back to me. He was by her side day and night and when she died, he sank into a deep grief that lasted a good four years. Her absence broke his heart.

It was when we moved across the country that he began come out of himself and notice his Tibbie sisters and me. The introverted perspective gave way to the world again and he began to enjoy life again. Like the sunshine part of the country we now call "home" he warmed up from the inside out. It was like having the old Arty back, new and better than ever.

I wonder, even now, if it was our strong attachment to each other that created our last awful night together so we could let go? It made the break clean. Necessary. Final. We acted out our entire relationship in that one last precious, tedious, nightmare night.

Ladybug, who I believe always thought wanted to be an only dog, mirrors my grieving now. I see it in her eyes and in her wandering aimlessly through the house looking for something that is no longer here. Arty's absence is more difficult that his death was, for me. So, we wait for our hearts to heal, knowing another Tibetan Spaniel is waiting for us to be swooped up into our lives. Into our hearts. Into our forever home.

Developing Interdependence

The concepts of dependency and independence are at the core of the stereotyped assumptions about women in our culture and particularly lesbians. Growing up in a world where these stereotypes are taught from birth brings many challenges to understanding and relearning new perspectives. Learning to live them consciously in a society that still unconsciously believes in the view that men are independent and women dependent takes a lot of work.

We live in a society where dependency is devalued and pathologized. It is linked with symbiosis, weakness, passivity, immaturity, and is attributed to women, children, and persons perceived as inadequately functioning. Independence, on the other hand, is highly valued. It is linked with autonomy, strength, taking action, and maturity and is attributed to men, adults, and individuals who are perceived as functioning fully.

This kind of polarization and stereotyping makes it difficult for all women to accept our dependent feelings and depend on each other empathically. It also complicates the acceptance of our independent feelings and goals and retards interdependence among women.

Lesbians tend to identify with the independent roles in what feminist theoreticians and clinicians see as an androcentric value system that regards independence and autonomy as masculine traits. Lesbian relationships are effected by this identification and can become difficult if one partner shows any signs of dependency or independence, or if both are acting independently and are unable to receive or ask for help.

Our striving toward balance or interdependence would be healthiest to find ourselves bringing both dependency and independence together on a continuum. Bringing them together could be seen in an individual whose independence encompasses the ability to be interdependent, that is, to depend on others and to be depended upon in a manner that is equally respectful of the needs of self and others, as well as being appropriate to the situation.

In this value system dependency is no longer perceived as a regression to infantile functioning, as feminine passivity, as weakness, or as a pathology. Independence would not be seen as positive attributes given only to men in our culture. A middle ground for both men and women would be allowed to develop and achieved.

Developing this balance is especially important for lesbians because our natural proclivity is toward the independent end of the continuum. Independence is well within our comfort zone and is reflected in the way we approach feelings of neediness or helplessness. These uncomfortable feelings make it challenging to accept our vulnerability.

When we can place our ability to give to others from the core of who we are, we can also recognize the legitimacy of our own needs. When we value the help we get and the help we give, our interdependence, we can more easily ask for help and trust ourselves and each other. When we cherish our ability to meet the needs of others, our dependability, we are better able to express our own needs, or dependency, and to take care of ourselves, to be independent. As lesbians, it is important to learn and develop the awareness and skills to interact in a mode of equality and interdependence.

SEXUALIZING LESBIANISM

Growing up in the Midwest in a homogonous heterosexual culture it never occurred to me to think of the couple’s living in our community in terms of their sexuality. My attention centered on awareness of their children and families, their farms and crops and their religious affiliations.

I remember being "put off" when my girlfriends began to flirt and date boys. I thought something must be wrong with me. (I knew something was wrong with them!) To fit in I "dated" (or more honestly, became close friends with) a boy. He was the only one in my high school of 100 students who had any interest in psychology, feelings, and esoteric spirituality.

I knew our "relationship" was only a friendship and how it looked to other people was different than it actually was. The safe part of the sham was that it was not sexual. It was the perfect arrangement for me by making me feel like a participant while keeping myself intact.

Then I muddled through the heterosexual mind field trying to find positive feelings for men in my relationships. It was no use. My identity as a lesbian couldn't contain itself any longer. Looking back on my first 30 years I can see that I always loved women. I liked their way of relating, the connectedness I felt, the emotional intimacy our friendships offered. I admired women’s strength and their beauty (inner and outer).

Realizing this made me take a different perspective on the women in my life at that time. They were all identified as heterosexual and had varying relationships with men. But I felt deep love for each of them in my heart. I never thought of our relationships as sexual, because there was no biological element to our connectedness.

I began to want to meet other lesbians to see what my feelings would reveal. I found the same warmth, inclusion and emotionally intimacy in them that I had with straight women. My sexual liaisons grew out of friendship and had a highly charged biological element to them. Still, that was only a part of these relationships. In fact, being sexual sometimes jeopardized friendship. I lost more than one “friend” after the sexual element was introduced.

I was very open with my friends and the world about my love for women and never once got a negative reaction for my choice. Everyone accepted it as a natural expression of my being. I still didn't think of myself as a lesbian, although I was definitely woman-identified gender oriented. I was simply being my true self.

It was a shock to me when I started my psychotherapy practice to find many lesbians who felt people, both straight and gay, thought of their lifestyle only in sexual terms. This was unsettling to me because of my distaste for myopic thinking and labeling. Once people have you pigeonholed, they won’t let you change your mind.

I felt it was a shame they had to divide people up, divide love and friendship into sexual and non-sexual. How could they let such an intimate, personal and spiritual choice be reduced to biology? How did it happen that homosexual desires were taken out of the realm of the ‘ordinary’ to be perceived as existing only in people who are classed as ‘other’ and ‘different’ from the rest of the population? Had our culture’s fear overtaken their perspective?

I began to do some research on this matter and found out the first use of the word ‘homosexual’ was around 1869 and the fifty years that followed was brought under the jurisdiction of the legal and medical professions, and pathologised. The first sexologists tried to explore homosexuality from what they believed to be a humanitarian perspective. They were seeking to find out the ‘truth’ about what makes a homosexual.

Sexologists and reformers from the 1890s onwards tried actively to reform both laws and public opinion. Through links they made with the medical profession they were able to translate into medical terms what had been thought to be a social problem.

This information explained the idea of thinking of lesbians only in terms of biology instead of an integral part of the culture in which we live. I kept on looking for answers and discovered there were many attempts in the late 1800s to criminalize lesbianism. This failed because there were strong feelings of not wanting the matter to be brought to the attention of women who had never heard of such a thing. Thank you Patriarchy!

By this time it was the mid-80s and we had the sexual revolution and gay liberation of the 70s shoulders to stand on. The 70s had seen the beginnings of a public unapologic and fun face of homosexuality. Within a mood of great optimism, those involved in gay liberation began for the first time to define themselves, rather than being defined by others.

Still, society tried to control people’s sexuality by boxing them into categories of acceptable or unacceptable, the same or other. Even today, mainstream society often views homosexuals in terms of sex. They see “other” gender choices from their own as either ‘wrong’ or as sad victims that cannot help their sexual orientation, and therefore deserve compassion and understanding.

I have the understanding of same-sex relationships based on many more levels than simply sexual. I know that the experience of being with women brings with it friendship, companionship, equality in love and partnership and the experience of being understood. Sexuality is only a small part of a healthy lesbian relationship. Not to minimize the importance of a good sexual component in a lesbian relationship, it is only a fraction of a mature partnership.

Maybe that is what was modeled to me when I was growing up. I saw partnerships that were mature and weathered the good times and the bad. I have known the rollercoaster ride of serial lesbian relationships based on lust and eventually not much else. Now, in my more mature years, my identity as a lesbian isn't fooled anymore by sex. I am much more focused on how I work together with my partner, how we respect our differences and similarities and the flow of our friendship and relationship.

I refuse, as a lesbian, to be identified by sexuality alone. Our culture needs to be educated about gender and the many varieties of relationships and choices there are. Perhaps through knowledge and having the experience of knowing people who have made a “different” choice from them, there will be less fear and more real understanding.

Maintaining Personal Boundaries In Relationships

We come into the world at birth with no sense of boundaries. We don’t know where mother ends and we begin. We feel no doubts of our need fulfillment and of its source.

Our first growth realization is of separateness. With our first steps our task is letting go and acknowledging a personal boundary: I am separate and so are those who care about me.

As exuberant as this independence feels, emotionally it is a departure and a struggle. The rawness of the experience may even feel like abandonment. From the beginning of life, we have equated letting go of attachment with loss of power and of secure need fulfillment. The mystery of why we hold on so fiercely as adults may be found in this original terrifying and illusionary experience.

Healthy adults learn that separateness is not abandonment but simply a human condition, the only condition from which a healthy relationship can grow. With boundaries comes interdependence rather than dependency. With boundaries comes personal accountability not entitlement to be taken care of. From boundaries comes the mutuality that drops control of another in favor of honor of another.

Boundaries do not create alienation; they safeguard continuity. Boundaries are what allow us to have closeness while we still safely maintain a personal identity. To give up personal boundaries would mean abandoning ourselves. No relationship can thrive when one or both partners have forsaken the inner unique core of their own separate identity.

In a healthy person, loyalty has its limits and unconditional love can coexist with conditional involvement. Unconditional does not mean uncensoring. You can love someone unconditionally and place conditions on your interactions with them to protect your own boundaries.

The essential inner core of our self must remain intact as relationships begin, change and end. The journey never violates our wholeness. When we are clear about our personal boundaries, the identity that is ours is not given to us by others nor do we let it be plundered by them.

What is important in building a functional healthy ego is to relate intimately to others with full and generous openness while your own wholeness remains intact. This is adult interdependence.

In every truly intimate relationship we become ego-invested in the other person. This means that we care deeply about our partner’s welfare. It also means that we care about our partner’s opinions of us and treatment of us. We are vulnerable to hurt and rejection. We have given power to our partner. This is perfectly normal and flows from the nature of commitment.

In a functional ego-investment, we give power without being personally diminished. We are vulnerable as lovers not as victims. Our commitment does not mean losing our boundaries.

In a neurotic ego-investment, we loose our ability to protect ourselves. The actions of our partner then determine our state of mind rather than simply affecting it temporarily. We live by reaction rather than by taking action. This is how the unfinished business of our childhood can sabotage adult self-esteem.

Those who were abused or neglected as children and had no way of defending themselves, have the most trouble in making a healthy ego-investment in relationships. For them, boundaries were never clear or safe and adult relating depletes their tentative ego supplies.

There are some things to keep in mind when becoming more aware of your personal boundaries. Ask directly for what you want. This declares your identity to others and to yourself. If your boundaries are so rigid that you avoid closeness, you may be in the grip of fear. If your boundaries are loose or undefined you may be in the lap of submission to others’ control.

Foster inner self-nurturance (a good parent within yourself). This builds an inner intuitive sense that lets you know when a relationship has become hurtful, abusive, or invasive.

Observe others’ behavior toward you—taking it as information—without getting caught in their drama. Be a fair witness who sees from a self-protected place. This is honoring your own boundaries. It empowers you then to decide—uninfluenced by another’s seductive or aggressive power—how much you will accept of how someone treats you.

Maintain a bottom line. There needs to be a limit to how many times you allow someone to say no, lie, disappoint, or betray you before you admit the painful reality and move on to mutual work or separating.

Change the focus of trust from others to yourself. As an adult you are not looking for someone you can trust absolutely. You acknowledge the margins of human failing and let go of expecting security. You then trust yourself to be able to receive love and handle hurt, to receive trustworthiness and handle betrayal, to receive intimacy and handle rejection.

Maintaining personal boundaries in relationships is something that we can learn as adults. Many breakups happen when boundaries are fuzzy and co-dependency is operative instead of healthy interdependence. The stronger we are within ourselves and the more we know and trust ourselves, the healthier our relationships will be.