Leila Rupp’s article is an attempt to understand how our world defines “same-sex sexuality”. She begins by acknowledging that the term “same-sex” is often very problematic and that there are often very different definitions of it around the world. Differences in age, class, and gender all attribute to the differences in definitions and practices across cultures. These “differences have in more cases than not structures what we call same-sex acts in ways that are far more important to the people involved and to the societies in which they lived than the mere fact of the touching of similar bodies” (288). She gives two examples, one from an ancient Athenian society and one from Japan, where men were engaging in sexual acts with boys and, due to the age differences, this was allowed. Rupp continues on to talk about how “transgenerational same-sex relations” were simply part of the culture and norm. For example, in New Guinea, a boy could not become a man without being inseminated with the semen of an elder. Thus far, Rupp has only given examples of men. One example of women, however, is in Melanesia during which lactating mothers nourish girls who are not their daughters. This nourishment is their way of helping a girl transition to a woman. She notes our commonly thought of construction of same-sex interactions would be a completely foreign idea to these cultures. On page 292 she dives into the issue of a third gender role. She gives many examples and tells us of how they are called different things in different cultures: “mahus” in Polynesian societies, “hijras” in India, “travestis” in Brazil, etc. Each of these different cultures has their own interpretations of this third gender—some underwent surgery and some did not. On page 293 Rupp comments that “sexual relations between two genitally alike (or originally alike) bodies are in many cases better defined as different-gender than same-sex relations”. The second half of her article deals with how we define “sexuality” and what is or isn’t “sexuality” in an interaction. Rupp notes difficulties in figuring out what exactly occurred between many women because people didn’t document it and due to the difficulty in distinguishing a best friend from a lover. She concludes by saying that she has spent the entire article undermining our term “same-sex sexuality”, but believes it is the best one we have right now.
Adrienne Rich notes that lesbianism is often so taboo of a subject that it is not given any consideration by the media, religious groups, etc. Her first section deals with the various books that do not touch on lesbians in society. Some books, such as the one by Ehrenreich and English and the one by Jean Baker Miller, do not deal with lesbianism at all. Others, like Nancy Chodorow’s book, come close to acknowledging the existence of lesbianism. However, Chodorow eventually denies the existence of lesbianism and instead insists that most women are heterosexual. The second sections deals with the male power over women. She lists off Kathleen Gough’s eight characteristics of male power: to deny women their sexuality; to force male sexuality upon them; to command or exploit their labor to control their produce; to control or rob them of their children; to confine them physically and prevent their movement; to use them as objects in male transactions; to cramp their creativeness; and to withhold from them large areas of society’s knowledge and cultural attainments. Rich continues on to describe how the porn industry has negatively affected relationships between men and women because “it widens the range of behavior considered acceptable from men in heterosexual intercourse” (20). Her next example is of how male bosses treat women in the workplace and how women cannot do anything about this if they would like to keep their jobs. Through pornography, sexual harassment, rape, female slavery, etc. women are ingrained with the idea that men are superior to them and that heterosexuality is the only option. Compulsory heterosexuality makes it so we as a society are more likely to stay with the man that abuses us, the man that abuses our children, etc. Section three deals with the terms “lesbian existence” and “lesbian continuum”. Lesbian existence is simply to acknowledge the historical lesbians in our society. Lesbian continuum is including a range, not only through history but also through each woman’s life, of “women-identified experience[s]” (27). If we are to use the lesbian continuum, all women, including heterosexual women, will fall on the continuum somewhere. This, arguably, would allow for more integration into our society. Rich concludes saying, “…the absence of choice remains the great unacknowledged reality, and in the absence of choice, women will remain dependent upon the chance or luck of particular relationships and will have no collective power to determine the meaning and place of sexuality in their lives” (37).
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