2 ms·

> lesbian culture is, arguably, centred on poetry. Pardon?

retrac 6y ago
Sorry, I should not have left a half-baked half-joke idea hanging on a sensitive topic like that. In the 1990s, back when we had physical bookstores, and when such things were even segregated sometimes, this was pretty in your face. If you went into a lesbian bookstore you would find a great preponderance of poetry. A gay men's bookstore would, by contrast, be relatively overloaded with how-to manuals and erotic novels of the more descriptively explicit kind. To this day, there are simply far more lesbian literature periodicals, especially poetry ones. This shouldn't be too surprising; straight women also read a lot more poetry than straight men in the USA today. When I look at typical lists of prominent gay men and lesbians in the American arts, I see a pattern. The men tend towards film, photography, dance and musical theatre. The women towards poetry, modernist theatre, and perhaps in conflict with my hypothesis, comic novels. There is no gay male equivalent of similar status to Audre Lorde. It's hard to imagine, really, what that might even be like. And there is no lesbian equivalent of John Waters. Even within their genres, I find the likes of Bechdal and Baldwin have different... natures? I admit it's a little hard to articulate without sounding like some sex-essentialist mouthbreather. I figure one perspective is a bit more emotionally introspective than the other, and one perspective is a bit more embodied than the other. And it tends to be reflected in the kind of arts and the nature of the arts produced. If this is more than just an observation bias on my part it is of course only a slight tendency and it should not be taken too seriously; Alan Ginsberg was not a lesbian.
- horatiocain 6y ago
  You read the most thoughtful things sometimes, thanks
- morelisp 6y ago
  > There is no gay male equivalent of similar status to Audre Lorde. "Similar status" is frustratingly vague if someone wants to argue this. Fame? Whitman. Canonical? Wilde. Political? Gunn. > And there is no lesbian equivalent of John Waters. You're implying the difference must be something quite fundamental, but every time I read a statement like this I'm reminded of Gregory Corso's comments when someone asked him why there were so few women among the beat writers. There were women, they were there, I knew them, their families put them in institutions, they were given electric shock. In the 50s if you were male you could be a rebel, but if you were female your families had you locked up. There were cases, I knew them, someday someone will write about them.

Sorry, I should not have left a half-baked half-joke idea hanging on a sensitive topic like that. In the 1990s, back when we had physical bookstores, and when such things were even segregated sometimes, this was pretty in your face. If you went into a lesbian bookstore you would find a great preponderance of poetry. A gay men's bookstore would, by contrast, be relatively overloaded with how-to manuals and erotic novels of the more descriptively explicit kind. To this day, there are simply far more lesbian literature periodicals, especially poetry ones. This shouldn't be too surprising; straight women also read a lot more poetry than straight men in the USA today. When I look at typical lists of prominent gay men and lesbians in the American arts, I see a pattern. The men tend towards film, photography, dance and musical theatre. The women towards poetry, modernist theatre, and perhaps in conflict with my hypothesis, comic novels. There is no gay male equivalent of similar status to Audre Lorde. It's hard to imagine, really, what that might even be like. And there is no lesbian equivalent of John Waters. Even within their genres, I find the likes of Bechdal and Baldwin have different... natures? I admit it's a little hard to articulate without sounding like some sex-essentialist mouthbreather. I figure one perspective is a bit more emotionally introspective than the other, and one perspective is a bit more embodied than the other. And it tends to be reflected in the kind of arts and the nature of the arts produced. If this is more than just an observation bias on my part it is of course only a slight tendency and it should not be taken too seriously; Alan Ginsberg was not a lesbian.

horatiocain 6y ago
You read the most thoughtful things sometimes, thanks
morelisp 6y ago
> There is no gay male equivalent of similar status to Audre Lorde. "Similar status" is frustratingly vague if someone wants to argue this. Fame? Whitman. Canonical? Wilde. Political? Gunn. > And there is no lesbian equivalent of John Waters. You're implying the difference must be something quite fundamental, but every time I read a statement like this I'm reminded of Gregory Corso's comments when someone asked him why there were so few women among the beat writers. There were women, they were there, I knew them, their families put them in institutions, they were given electric shock. In the 50s if you were male you could be a rebel, but if you were female your families had you locked up. There were cases, I knew them, someday someone will write about them.