Lesbian Sex Scandals addresses the contradictory separation of lesbian sexuality from lesbian identity. Readers will gain unique insight into the blending of feminism and lesbianism and see how it has sometimes failed in acknowledging the reality of lesbian sexual experiences. As the contributors to this collection document, sexual practices are often at the core of lesbian sexual identities, communities, and politics, but are usually down-played when exploring lesbian identity.The contributors to Lesbian Sex Scandals address important, real issues of sexual practice and sexual politics. You'll find that they explore important experiences, questions, and directions concerning lesbian sexuality, giving you keen insight into the possibility for renewed lesbian sexualities.Lesbian Sex Scandals will help you recognize the importance of embracing the diversity of sexuality, pleasure, and desire as a core value of lesbianism. You will also see how adopting a universalizing approach, which emphasizes the importance of sexual freedom across the spectrum of identity, will give lesbians a larger and stronger community base from which to challenge oppression. Hopefully, you will come away inspired to demand that sexuality studies discontinue the current trend of approaching sexual identifies and communities without regard to actual sex.
Sexing the Teacher is a provocative study of public and professional responses to female teacher sex scandals in Canada, the United States and Britain. Sheila Cavanagh examines the moral and professional panic over sexual transgressions in the educational milieu by analyzing several sensationalized legal cases, including Mary Kay Letourneau, Amy Gehring, and Heather Ingram. Deploying queer theory, psychoanalysis, postcolonial theory, and feminist film theory, Cavanagh analyses deep-seated anxieties about white female teacher sexualities and offers a critique of the damage that gets done in the name of child protectionism. Arguing that foundational assumptions about race, gender, class, sexuality, and family are all central to the panic, Cavanagh questions the conventional wisdom and politics governing our conceptualization of sex scandals in education. She also demonstrates that public upset over female teacher sexual transgressions, ostensibly about child welfare, is also about the regulation of gender, heteronormative, and white reproductive futures: a hidden curriculum in Western educational systems. Timely, original, and controversial, Sexing the Teacher will appeal to scholars and students in education, sociology, gender, sexuality, and cultural studies, as well as to general readers interested in the sensationalism over school sex scandals that has dominated recent headlines.
The study represents the first book-length treatment of lesbian text and discourse, focusing on the changing notions of lesbian community as expressed in non-fictional texts published in the UK and the US between 1970 and 2004
Not so long ago hardly anything was said of the Lesbian Liberation Movement and the Gay Liberation Movement, indeed, the terms gay and lesbian were not even used if some other expression could be found. Today, by contrast, hardly a day passes when something important does not occur, and is carried by the major media and disseminated on more personal levels through blogs and the social media. If anything, there is perhaps too much “news” and not enough “information.” Obviously, a book like this cannot keep up with the news, but it can do something equally important when it comes to information, by reminding us of the past and what has been going and just how fast events are moving. The Historical Dictionary of the Lesbian and Gay Liberation Movements covers the history of this movement through a cross-referenced dictionary with over 1000 entries on specific countries and regions, influential historical figures, laws that criminalized same-sex sexuality, various historical terms that have been used to refer to aspects of same-sex love, and contemporary events and legal decisions. Including a comprehensive chronology and bibliography, this book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone interested in learning more about the struggle for equality.
“I had just witnessed women who shingled their own roofs, drove eighteen-wheeler trucks, and built their own houses—as well as kept them clean and cooked a damn good meal. On women’s land I am a first-class citizen, I’m treated as an equal. I now see the world with righteous anger and hope. Living in womyn’s community has provided that lens for me.” —Elizabeth Sturrus, third wave feminist One of the driving forces in the lives of many lesbians is the search for community in a society that favors heterosexuality and often turns a cold shoulder toward women who love women. Lesbian Communities: Festivals, RVs, and the Internet takes you inside flourishing lesbian communities—physical, spiritual, and virtual (online)—that provide practical help, emotional support, and much-needed outlets for creative expression. Exploring communities functioning in harmony with general American society as well as separatist groups, “festival communities” which form for short times annually, and informal online groups offering meaningful communication to physically isolated lesbians, this book offers a ray of light to those whose search is still ongoing. It also provides much-needed analysis of the current state of lesbian communities—some decades old now—for educators, researchers, and social scientists. In Lesbian Communities: Festivals, RVs, and the Internet, Susan Krieger revisits the vibrant community she first explored in The Mirror Dance. An African American member of Old Lesbians Organizing for Change shares the details of her search for a cooperative, caring space for aging lesbians—and what led to her eventual decision to create this space herself. And one of the founders of Hallomas, a back-to-the-land community that has survived in northern California since the late 1970s, reflects on that unique community’s birth and life—with 13 photographs and illustrations. The book also bears witness to a life-changing encounter and dialogue between second-wave feminists from the woman's land collective of Arcadia and third wave feminists. You’ll also learn about: the birth, joys, and tribulations of an online community that becomes physical each year at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival the accidental birth of a lesbian community in isolated and fundamentalist-dominated West Texas the international online lesbian parenting community called MOMS (affectionately known as Dykes and Tykes)—how it began, what belonging to this community provides for its members, and a look toward the future the debate on inclusiveness versus exclusiveness (of bisexual women, transgender people, and the male children of lesbians) in lesbian communities the current decline of availability and dilution of the purity of lesbian-only space—and the rise of segregation (by social class and financial status) and oppression within the lesbian community the current plight of lesbian bookstores, which since the 1970s have served not only as gateways to a multitude of lesbian communities, but as the centers of lesbian communities themselves the online experience of lesbians searching for community in Japan the issues facing Jewish lesbians and the formation of Nice Jewish Girls, a Montreal group for anyone who identifies as a lesbian, bisexual, or queer woman and their non-Jewish partners and friends the power of myth and mythmaking to help women regain lost strength and reclaim lost history From the efforts of back-to-the-land groups creating “wimmin’s space” to life in modern residential/retirement settings, this book explores the places created by and for lesbians. Photos and illustrations bring these women and their communities to life. Lesbian Communities: Festivals, RVs, and the Internet w
Most therapy is set up in a heterosexist context. Explore the issues facing your gay, lesbian, and bisexual clients--and how to deal with them! The Therapist's Notebook for Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Clients offers therapists treating lesbian, gay, and bisexual clients innovative, practical interventions plus homework and hands-on activities tailored to these populations. Use the notebook to explore the issues surrounding coming out, homophobia in the workplace, spirituality, identity formation, and issues that require a non-heterosexist approach, such as domestic violence and relationship concerns. Grounded in current theory, each chapter explains the rationale for the activity it proposes, includes contraindications, and provides a list of helpful resources for therapists and clients. Here are just a few of the issues this extraordinary book explores in its four thoughtfully planned sections: Section I: Homework, Handouts, and Activities for Coming Out and Managing Homophobia and Heterosexism addresses: conflicts in self-perceptions obstacles to the growth of a healthy GLB identity dealing with the trauma and anxiety that result from discrimination using semi-hypnotic visualization to treat internalized homophobia helping bisexuals decide whether to come out or to “pass” coping with internalized homophobic messages dealing with heterosexism in the workplace or at school Section II: Homework, Handouts, and Activities for Relationship Issues will help you and your clients understand and work on issues involving: choosing the right partner intimacy and gender roles financial stability assimilation, queer pride, and everything in between how ethnicity and coupling impact sexual identity negotiating a healthy open relationship sexual concerns, sexual dysfunction, and pleasuring sexual role values for bisexual and lesbian women Section III: Homework, Handouts, and Activities for Gender, Ethnic, and Sexual Identity Issues addresses “who am I” issues: sexual orientation and gender identity the intersection of sexual and ethnic identity oppression on multiple fronts gender exploration for lesbians Section IV: Homework, Handouts, and Activities for Specific Issues tackles concepts including: enhancing resilience through spirituality reconciling with religion spiritual wellness and the spiritual autobiography body image disturbances unwanted sexual behavior creating a safety plan in case of same-sex domestic violence alienation and finding a caring community medication adherence for HIV+ clients the difficulties faced by coupled lesbians with children family care planning addiction and recovery healing from the wounds of homophobia relationships with ex-partners managing workplace stress If you're new to treating lesbian, gay, and bisexual clients you’ll find rich material, based in current literature, to guide your work. If you've already worked extensively with LGBT clients, the activities and fresh, innovative strategies in The Therapist's Notebook for Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Clients will expand and invigorate your skills.
The Lesbian Liberation Movement is both a movement that encompasses liberating a sexual practice from stigmatization and a political movement challenging the dual oppression of women by the patriarchy's assumption of male supremacy and heterosexuality. Over the years, much has been written on homosexuality and the Gay Liberation Movement, yet much of the focus has been on male homosexuals, especially male homosexual activity and the politics that activity raises. The A to Z of the Lesbian Liberation Movement: Still the Rage is a comprehensive overview and resource guide for one of the most invisible social political movements: the Lesbian Liberation Movement. This book helps to make the still-active movement visible_the history, successes, setbacks, controversies, and issues. This book is a good resource for those studying this social political movement, containing a chronology, contextual overview, dictionary entries that cover persons, laws, terminology, issues, and countries, and an extensive bibliography of primary resources and current work.
