Sex and Sexuality

Sapphic Salon: Why Lady Gaga is important for gay women

Sex and Sexuality post by Natalie Stein on December 11, 2009 - 12:29pm; tagged Lady Gaga, Sapphic Salon.

When Lady Gaga first told a gay magazine she was bisexual at the end of 2008, she was still a rising star. "Just Dance" had just begun switching over from gay club anthem to mainstream radio hit, and sure, she could probably benefit from using her sexuality as a point of interest about her.

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Since the original statement, she's been back and forth on the statement. In December 2008, she told Popeater: "I'm really free-spirited about love and sexuality, which I think is apparent in my music, and even the visuals, which are all very androgynous" but that she didn't want to label herself."

Then in February 2009, she kissed a female cop in her music video for "Love Game" and shortly after, "Poker Face" became a huge hit, featuring lyrics about women like "bluffing with my muffin" and switching between pronouns from he to she.

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Sapphic Salon: Nicki Minaj and the lesbian problem in hip-hop

Sex and Sexuality post by Natalie Stein on December 9, 2009 - 11:07am; tagged hip hop, Nicki Minaj, Sapphic Salon.

Yesterday, one of hip-hop's rising stars, Nicki Minaj Tweeted something that caught my eye:

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A rumored lesbian (or bisexual, depending on who you ask), Nicki is not "out," but took to Twitter for this random piece of knowledge, which only furthered my curiosity about her and how it relates to closeted women in the hip-hop community. As the "First Lady" of Lil' Wayne's Young Money record label, she recently admitted to feeling a lot of pressure, being a new artist.

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Douchebag Decree: Spencer Morgan and the invention of "The Cheetah"

Sex and Sexuality post by Kelsey Wallace on December 3, 2009 - 12:33pm; tagged Douchebag Decree, misogyny, Spencer Morgan, The Cheetah, The New York Observer.
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Okay, okay. Maybe Spencer Morgan just did it for attention. Maybe he just wanted angry women to comment on his fantastically misogynist piece in The New York Observer so that he could get more attention. Well, guess what? It worked.
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New Moon's success means women hate sex. Obviously.

Sex and Sexuality post by Kelsey Wallace on November 30, 2009 - 12:24pm; tagged Chicago Tribune, female sexuality, Jonathan Zimmerman, New Moon, Stephenie Meyer, Twilight.
OK, I'll be the first to admit that the whole Twilight phenomenon is interesting. Here at Bitch we've written about the movies, the books, the parody videos, and tons of other sparkly vampire stuff over the past year. People are obsessed! It's compelling! However, lately it seems like every single teenage behavior is being connected to the franchise in some way, from negotiating gender identity to interacting with parents. Could it be that Twilight is the compass with which we can navigate the state of Young People Today? Do we never have to think about the nuances and complications of human existence again because Stephenie Meyer has done that dirty work for us? Well, Jonathan Zimmerman at the Chicago Tribune certainly thinks so.

According to Zimmerman's article "Hooking up's gender gap," the number of young women who saw Twilight Saga: New Moon (which was a lot) tells us that, "Girls want love, not just sex." And he got this from New Moon how, exactly?
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Sapphic Salon: We're Here, We're Queer, But Our Successors Think We're Incapable of Change

Sex and Sexuality post by Natalie Stein on November 30, 2009 - 11:49am; tagged Karla Jay, Sapphic Salon.

I think I'd have a love/hate relationship with Karla Jay, were she my professor. As a Distinguished Professor of English and Women’s and Gender Studies at Pace University, and the author of books like The Gay Report: Lesbians and Gay Men Speak Out about Sexual Experiences and Lifestyles and The Amazon and the Page: Natalie Clifford Barney and Renée Vivien, I have no doubts that she is my superior. She was writing about living as an out lesbian before I was born, so my respect for her is a given.

However, Karla Jay assumes that my generation is ungrateful. This isn't the first I've heard of this, but she does put her complaint quite eloquently in the current issue of In These Times. In an open letter to her students (and, presumably, young people everywhere), she writes:

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Sapphic Salon: Sirs and Madames

Sex and Sexuality post by Natalie Stein on November 22, 2009 - 6:24pm; tagged Sapphic Salon.

My girlfriend gets called sir a lot. Every time a stranger refers to her as a guy (sir, buddy, "him"), we give each other a smirky look, and can't help but feel bad for the person once they realize their mistake, as they most often do once she opens her mouth.

There are still times, however, they just can't tell the difference, either because they don't care to look beyond a customer if they're serving us in some way, or they would rather assume she's my boyfriend than believe we're lesbians. I look "too straight" and she, apparently, must be a guy in a T-shirt and shortly coifed haircut. (I call it the lesbian triangle.)

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Sapphic Salon: A Blog for the Lesbian in You

Sex and Sexuality post by Natalie Stein on November 16, 2009 - 1:46pm; tagged bisexual, lesbian, queer.
Welcome to the Sapphic Salon, Bitch's new blog about queer women's representation in pop culture. This includes the good and the bad, truths and myths, and about and of interest to women who love women. Basically, we're right at home with Bitch.
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The Body Electric: The Higher the Hair the Closer to God--Halloween Queers Us All!

Sex and Sexuality post by Page McBee on October 31, 2009 - 4:36pm;

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Peaches Christ (pictured) is probably one of the most famous drag queens on the planet. I'm thinking about Peaches--and a lot of other spectacular queens--today because she regularly deals in the sort of campy, performative drag that blossoms in cities across America--on the straightest of straight men as well as the campiest of queers---on one night only. What, dear reader, am I talking about? You've guessed it: Halloween!

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Early to Rise: Sex Toys for Smart Guys (and Everyone Else)

Sex and Sexuality post by Kelsey Wallace on October 21, 2009 - 5:19pm; tagged advice, Early to Bed, Early to Rise, MEN, queer, sex, sex toys, transgender.
We here at Bitch are longtime fans of the Chicago-based feminist sex shop Early to Bed. Imagine our delight, then (and yours too potentially) when we learned of Early to Bed's new brother venture, Early to Rise! (How cute are those two names, by the way? Sex has never been so adorable!)
While Early to Bed caters mainly to the ladies (which is awesome), Early to Rise bills itself as the place to go for "sex toys for smart guys" (which is also awesome). Sex toys they have, to be sure, but they also have so much more!
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