Lesbian Love Stories
From LoveToKnow Dating
Lesbian love stories have increasingly become a part of mainstream media. From being unable to admit the existence, much less validity, of romantic relationships between women, major networks now have no trouble weaving lesbian love stories into the plot lines of their most popular shows.
Lesbian Love Stories in Literature
From the early poetry fragments of Sappho, an ancient poet from the isle of Lesbos, stories about love between lesbians has always been present somewhere, even if marginalized, disguised, or ignored. For example, Anais Nin is well known for her writing about her affair with Henry Miller, but very little is talked about her relationships with women other than that they happened. While her writing is admired for it's literary value, it is also often considered "transgressive."
The Well of Loneliness written by Radclyffe Hall in 1928 was so controversial that the author was taken to trial for obscenity – in spite of the fact that "there are no descriptions of sex in it, no rude words." However, the historians also note "…and the lesbian lovers do not live happily ever after," which apparently was a mitigating factor for the Defense. In spite of this supposedly moral lesson, the book was banned in the UK until 1949.
After the riots at Stonewall, lesbian stories became more focused and began to flourish under the words of writers such as Jeannette Winterson, Rita Mae Brown and Alice Walker to name a few. It is a measure of how accepted lesbian stories are in today's culture that The Color Purple by Walker is now a staple of high school literature and race-relations classes – while at the same time the lesbian and polyamorous relationships of the main characters are simply accepted.
Lesbian Love in Cinema and TV
It was only natural that as lesbian stories became more accepted in literature that they would follow in the movies and on TV shows. It was not a smooth transition, by any means – the spectacle of lesbians kissing on Ellen Degeneres' tv show had conservative critics howling about the end of the world, and attention-getting stunts such as Madonna kissing Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera on the Video Music Awards were considered steps backwards by the queer community.
The portrayal of lesbians as villains or as hopelessly doomed has also been a convenient story device – from the tragedy of the award-winning independent film Aimee & Jaguar to the minor characters in 2009's The Watchmen, who minutes after a passionate onscreen kiss are shown the victims of a brutal murder. Cruel Intentions and Wild Things are other popular film with stereotypical villains played by lesbian characters.
On the other hand, films such as Being John Malkovich and Bound portray happy lesbian lovers and don't gloss over the difficulties and [[Emo Lesbians| emotional drama that can be involved in such relationships. Fried Green Tomatoes, Chasing Amy and Frida also have lesbian relationships as integral but not distracting parts of the story.
On TV, Showtime's The L Word is the ultimate source of lesbian love stories, with many characters intertwining their relationships. Other series such as The Wire also have lesbian relationships co-existing as equal with the hetero relationships of characters, and this normalization helps increase understanding and tolerance, in spite of setbacks for equal rights such as Proposition 8 in California.
Focusing more on the characters and less on the supposed novelty of lesbian relationships may be the future of stories of lesbian romance. "I like to see lesbians happy and sexy and successful..." says Fivestar, a lesbian filmmaker and activist, "not necessarily in love but in self satisfaction and growth." Websites such as Mel's Web provide forums for lesbian women to express themselves in poetry, art, stories, e-cards, and more. With the Internet finally allowing these stories to be told, and the women who create them to connect, a new era of lesbian love is here.
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