Lesbian Porn Magazines and the Sex Wars: Reimagining Sex, Power, and Identity

230 Pages·2023·24.134 MB·English

by  Elizabeth Groeneveld

LESBIAN PORN MAGAZINES
AND THE SEX WARS
Lesbian Porn Magazines and the Sex Wars re-examines the heated debates about the
politics of sexuality known as the sex wars, investigating how they were fundamen-
tally engaged in the complex intersections of gender, race, class, and sexuality.
Groeneveld presents an accessible and fascinating framing of lesbian sex maga-
zines as activist media texts engaged in education, community building, and dia-
logue, amplifying theories or writers and artists across the intersectional spectrum.
Making use of archival material and a cohort of lesbian radical porn magazines, the
book posits that collectively these magazines helped create and circulate new ideas
about sex, power, and identity. The chapters cover lesbian public culture, trans
self-representation, AIDS activism, and issues of consent.
This is an essential intervention into sexuality studies and is suitable for students
and scholars in gender and sexuality studies, sociology, media studies, literature, and
cultural studies.
Lesbian Porn Magazines and the Sex Wars: Reimagining Sex, Power and
Identity is the 2021 winner of the NWSA Routledge Subversive Histories,
Feminist Futures Prize.
Elizabeth Groeneveld is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of
Women’s Studies at Old Dominion University, USA. Her writing explores how
feminist media production both reflects and contributes to social change. Her work
appears in journals and edited collections, including Continuum: Journal of Media and
Cultural Studies, Feminist Theory, and American Periodicals. Her first book, Making
Feminist Media: Third-Wave Magazines on the Cusp of the Digital Age (2016), provides
new ways of thinking about the vibrant media and craft cultures generated within
feminism’s “third wave.”
Subversive Histories, Feminist Futures
Books in the Subversive Histories, Feminist Futures series exemplifies original
research in feminist histories that “subvert” dominant and normative patterns of
historical narrative by centering women, gender, and feminist politics. This excit-
ing series delves into women’s histories, queer histories, people of colour histories
and reclamations of non-western world heritage and cultures through high-quality
research. The series aims to utilize intersectional historical analyses to revitalize
scholarship in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies.
The Subversive Histories, Feminist Futures book prize is in collaboration with the
National Women’s Studies Association. Prize winners represent the best of schol-
arship that delves into women’s histories, queer histories, people of color histories,
and reclamations of non-western world.
When God Lost Her Tongue
Historical Consciousness and the Black Feminist Imagination
Janell Hobson
Worlding Postcolonial Sexualities
Publics, Counterpublics, Human Rights
Kanika Batra
Winner, 2020 Subversive Histories, Feminist Futures book prize in collabora-
tion with the National Women’s Studies Association.
Afro Native Women’s Survivance
Reanae McNeal
Runner Up, 2020 Subversive Histories, Feminist Futures book prize in collab-
oration with the National Women’s Studies Association.
Lesbian Porn Magazines and the Sex Wars
Reimagining Sex, Power, and Identity
Elizabeth Groeneveld
Winner, 2021 Subversive Histories, Feminist Futures book prize in collabora-
tion with the National Women’s Studies Association.
https://www.routledge.com/Subversive-Histories-Feminist-Futures/book-series/SUBFEM
LESBIAN PORN
MAGAZINES AND
THE SEX WARS
Reimagining Sex, Power, and Identity
Elizabeth Groeneveld
Designed cover image: Courtesy of Getty Images, copyright Lina Moiseienko /
EyeEm. Creative # 1334604457
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Elizabeth Groeneveld
The right of Elizabeth Groeneveld to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent
to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Groeneveld, Elizabeth, author.
Title: Lesbian porn magazines and the sex wars : reimagining sex, power and
identity / Elizabeth Groeneveld.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022047749 (print) | LCCN 2022047750 (ebook) | ISBN
9781032417721 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032417714 (paperback) | ISBN
9781003359654 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Lesbian pornography--United States. | Sex--Political
aspects--United States. | Sexual orientation--Political aspects--United
States.
Classification: LCC HQ76.965.P67 G76 2023 (print) | LCC HQ76.965.P67
(ebook) | DDC 306.77/10973--dc23/eng/20221025
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022047749
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022047750
ISBN: 978-1-032-41772-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-41771-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-35965-4 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003359654
Typeset in Bembo
by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)
CONTENTS
List of Figures vi
Preface vii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction 1
1 Letters to the Editor as Frictional Space 29
2 Micro-Theorizing, Pedagogies of Pleasure, and the Sexual
Imperative in Lesbian Sex Advice Columns 54
3 “The Possibility of Freedom”: Black Feminist Sex Radical
Theorizing 80
4 Small Activism: Trans Self-Representation in Lesbian
Sex Magazines 105
5 Making Lesbian/Trans Lifeworlds in Fiction and in Fact 130
6 AIDS Information Activism and Networks of Care 148
7 Consent and Lesbian Porn Magazines 168
Conclusion: The Afterlife of Lesbian Porn 186
Bibliography 191
Index 210
FIGURES
I.1 The first front cover of The Power Exchange (June 1984) 9
I.2 The first front cover of Cathexis (Fall 1983) 11
I.3 The first front cover of Outrageous Women (Winter 1984) 12
I.4 The first front cover of Bad Attitude (Spring 1984) 14
I.5 The first front cover of On Our Backs (Summer 1984) 16
1.1 Honey Lee Cottrell’s “Bulldagger of the Season”
(Summer 1984) 29
3.1 Veneita Porter (July 1988). Photo by Robert Giard,
Copyright Estate of Robert Giard 80
6.1 The first front cover of Black Lace (Spring 1991) 148
PREFACE
I came to learn of the sex wars retrospectively, as a Women’s Studies undergraduate
student at Brock University in the late 1990s. There, I read Kathleen Martindale’s
essay “What Makes Lesbianism Thinkable? Theorizing Lesbianism from Adrienne
Rich to Queer Theory” in a Canadian Women’s Studies textbook. Martindale’s
essay introduced me to the “lesbian sex wars,” a phrase that immediately captured
my imagination for the kind of drama it seemed to invoke.1
I had entered university as a Women’s Studies major at the suggestion of a high
school guidance counselor who knew me only by reputation. I had done a project
on sex with my friend, Sarah, that had wound up in the local newspaper, creating
a stir in my small Ontario town. Sarah and I had a French class with a wonderful
new teacher named Mlle. Duncan. For our final projects, she allowed us to research
and write about any topic that we wanted—so long as it was written up in French.
Sarah and I decided to write about sex, a topic about which I had a high level of
interest and a low level of applied knowledge. We set out to interview as many of
our schoolmates as possible: about their own experiences with sex; about instances
of sexual harassment or assault that they had experienced; and about their attitudes
towards various social issues pertaining to sex and sexuality. We completed our
interviews, compiled some statistics, wrote up our analysis (in French), and submit-
ted our project.
Sarah’s mom worked at the local newspaper and thought that our project would
make an interesting story. We were interviewed by a reporter from the paper, our
photos were taken, and a half-page story ran a couple of days later. The next day,
our small Catholic school was abuzz with the story: parents were calling the school;
the local priest was calling; our classmates were approaching us to ask what all the
fuss was about. We were summoned to the principal’s office to explain ourselves.
Sarah’s mom was called to the principal’s office to explain herself. I imagine that
viii Preface
Mlle. Duncan was also asked to explain herself. Letters to the editor were written
and published in the local paper that included a significant amount of handwring-
ing about teenagers and the sex they were having. A man posing as a news reporter
and, later, as a telephone company technician called our house multiple times,
attempting to meet with me for an “interview,” find out where I lived, and find out
Sarah’s contact information. Because of concerns for my safety, I wasn’t allowed to
go anywhere by myself for a little while.
At the end of the year, my beloved French teacher was not hired back. My mom
called the school when she heard this news: she was concerned that Sarah’s and my
project on sex had cost Mlle. Duncan her job, and, though my mom was reassured
that this was not the case, she never quite believed it. Our principal, also a woman,
was relocated to a different school, as well.
When, as a Women’s Studies undergraduate, I read in Martindale’s essay that the
sex wars elicited strong feelings of “hurt and hostility,” I understood on an experi-
ential level what this meant.2 There was something about my high school experi-
ence of “the sex project” that resonated for me with the sex wars, the ways that sex,
when it enters the public sphere, elicits intense response. When the kinds of sex
people are actually having, or even fantasize about having, become topics for public
conversation, some seem to grow fearful of what such conversations might unleash.
This book revisits some of the conversations that took place within 1980s lesbian
porn magazines about the kinds of sex that people were actually having, and the
kinds of sex they thought they might want to have, using a critical lens to unpack
what these discussions tell us about how the relationships between sex, power, and
identity were constituted during that watershed moment within feminist and les-
bian history known as “the sex wars.”
The year that I graduated from high school, two years after the sex project, Mlle.
Duncan returned to the school one afternoon, just for a visit. It happened to be the
same day that our yearbooks came out. I was sitting in our school library leafing
through my copy, when she walked in the room. It was good to see her, and she was
doing well. I asked her to sign my yearbook, which she did. Years later, in preparing
to write this book, I returned to the yearbook to read her message: “I’ll never forget
what I learned from you guys—especially you!”
This book is dedicated to all my teachers—especially Mlle. Duncan. Je n’oublierai
jamais ce que j’ai appris de vous.
Notes
1 Kathleen Martindale, “What Makes Lesbianism Thinkable? Theorizing Lesbianism from
Adrienne Rich to Queer Theory,” in Feminist Issues: Race, Class, and Sexuality, edited by
Nancy Mandell (Scarborough, ON: Prentice Hall Allyn and Bacon Canada, 1995), 79.
2 Martindale, 79.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book would not have been possible without the generous input of the mak-
ers and readers of and contributors to lesbian sex magazines. Their thoughts and
comments have greatly enriched this manuscript at every stage. I thank Alan Bell,
Jacquie Bishop, Patrick Califia, Madeline Davis, Betsy Duren, Heather Findlay,
Amy Hoffman, Janice Irvine, Jessica, Alycee J. Lane, Caldwell Linker, Cindy
Patton, Veneita Porter, Gayle Rubin, Sarah Schulman, Jasmine Sterling, Susan
Stryker, Courtney Trouble, Nina Wouk, and others who wished to remain anon-
ymous. Three anonymous peer reviewers also provided immensely constructive
feedback on the manuscript that I hope I have honored in writing the final version
of this book.
This project got its start over a writing date with one of my favorite people,
Pamela VanHaitsma, who also provided generous feedback on a late-stage chapter
and who spurred me to develop the idea of frictional space. My early forays into les-
bian sex magazine research were supported by Reveal Digital’s Independent Voices
collection, which allowed me to access digital copies of On Our Backs magazine.
When the magazine was later removed from the online collection, Reveal Digital’s
program director, Peggy Glahn, and information activist, Tara Robertson, provided
helpful insights in our correspondence about the ethics of digitizing lesbian porn.
The research for this book was further supported through a Summer Research
Fellowship Grant from Old Dominion University, a Phil Zwickler Memorial
Research Grant from Cornell University, a Faculty Support Grant from Harvard
University, and a New England Regional Fellowship Consortium Grant from the
Massachusetts Historical Society. This funding made it possible for me to visit
collections at Brown, Cornell, and Harvard Universities, Smith College, and the
Sexual Minorities Archives, and to share my research on the Records of Outrageous
Women with a group of keen Harvard librarians. These research opportunities
indelibly shaped the arc of this book. I thank Brenda Marston at Cornell, Jenny