Lesbian

This is an image of Ellen and Portia, a very well known lesbian couple. This is an image that many can connect with what a lesbian couple should look like. This image is of two women, one a very beautiful woman in a very classic sense of beautiful woman, and the other also a beautiful woman, but she is more "manned up" in a way. Ellen is assuming the role of the man in the relationship. She is dressed in a suit with a shorter more "manly" haircut, while Portia is dressed as a "woman," in a dress with jewelry and long hair. This image of a lesbian couple is one that many people in our society see as what a lesbian couple should look like, one woman assuming the role of the man, and the other, the role of woman.

Now that I have laid out the common image of a lesbian couple in our society, we will now look at my experience. My friend and I went out this past weekend, as we would any other weekend. If I were to read what we look like when we go out, I would see two attractive young girls, not scantly clad, simply fashionable for a night out. Notice that there is no mention of sexual orientation in this reading of us. What we have found is that men are attracted to this and they make that very clear by the things they say on the street and to us. This past weekend we went out for our night on the town. A man comes up to us and strikes up a conversation. We were the exact opposite of interested, so my friend says that we are together, we are dating, a couple. The man was taken off guard and was shocked that we would be a lesbian couple because of how we looked to him. We were both dressed as girls would dress with red lipstick and long hair. The man even said, "wow, I'm surprised you two are a couple because you both are very beautiful." This reaction was one that I did not expect. I did not realize that the image of a lesbian couple is one that is so strong in our culture that two girls that look like my friend and I would never be considered to be a lesbian couple. After this interaction, we kept up the ruse and were waiting for the bus, holding hands, acting as a couple would. Another man approaches us and was once again completely shocked that girls that looked like we do would be of that sexual orientation. We continue onto the bus and continue with our body language of being a couple. We then hear a man and woman talking about us. We overhear the man say, "I don't know, just a bunch of dykes or something." Hearing this and being a supporter of any lifestyle and of all people, we were deeply offended. By this point with the attention we had attracted by assuming this role for the night of being a couple consisting of two women, we discovered how much culture really is affected by the images embedded in us. People were shocked that two girls that looked like we did would have the sexual orientation that we were claiming to have. This just shows how this image of a couple is deeply embedded into our culture. In order for a couple to be seen a couple in our culture, it seems as though one piece of the couple has to assume the role of the woman, and the other the man. This is an example of the politics of representation because of the way culture, the people around us, reacted to us assuming this role. The image of Ellen and Portia may be the only image that many in our culture have to go off of, so seeing anything straying away from that is shocking to culture.

I would also like to say that through this small experiment my friend and I did on our night out, we would not do such a thing again. It is unfair to people of that sexual orientation to "pretend" as we did for that night. We have a deeper respect for what they have to go through to exist in our culture. Even through writing this, I am realizing that I am making "they," "lesbians," "people of any other sexual orientation than my own" the "other". This is not what I want to do, but being in the culture I am in, there seems to be no other way of explaining this case. This fact just shows how my intelligible body works as a result of my culture.