texts

Perhaps a better way to define a lesbian, then, is to say that she is a woman whose sexual desire is directed toward women. The advantage of a definition of this sort is that it allows us to recognize lesbian existence even within the con‑ fines of heterosexual marriage. For throughout history, women often have had to marry, whether they wanted to or not, in order to survive economically or because the rigid social system in which they lived offered them no other social or psychological option. And some of these women, though they may have loved and respected their husbands, were passionately attracted to women rather than to men. Virginia Woolf, who was married but who had a passionate, long‑stand‑ ing affair with Vita Sackville‑West, is a case in point. What if, however, there is evidence of a passionate attachment between two women—such as a long exchange of letters in which passionate love is expressed—but because the relationship occurred in a different historical period from our own, we can’t be certain exactly what it was that was being expressed? For example, how do we interpret the “romantic friendships,” as they are called, between women in nineteenth‑century Britain and America—one embodiment of which was the “Boston marriage” discussed earlier—in which the most pas‑ sionate attachment and the tenderest love are expressed, but for which there is no concrete evidence of sexual activity or sexual desire? The period is known for its overblown sentimentality and excesses of verbal expression, and effusions of physical affection between women were accepted, even encouraged, by patriarchy as charming displays of women’s “overemotional nature.” So we can’t assume with any certainty that women’s exchanges of let‑ ters filled with exuberant expressions of passion—such as “I love you my darling, more than I can express, more than I am conscious of myself”3—are indicative of sexual desire, let alone sexual activity. On the other hand, many such rela‑ tionships might have involved a sexual dimension to which nineteenth‑century heterocentric patriarchy would have been utterly blind. Indeed, given the nine‑ teenth century’s restriction of women’s sexuality and sexual awareness, many women might have had enormous sexual desire for other women without ever recognizing it as such. Thus, a strict focus on what we would define today as sexual activity or sexual desire runs the risk of erasing an important dimension of women’s lives that very well might be understood fully only through a lesbian lens. In order to avoid this kind of erasure, and to promote solidarity among all women, some lesbian theo‑ rists have suggested that lesbian identity is not restricted to the sexual domain but consists of directing the bulk of one’s attention and emotional energy to other women and having other women as one’s primary source of emotional sustenance and psychological support. That is, a lesbian is a woman-identified woman.