Page 20
Village Grotto
GERMAN VILLAGE VICTORIAN BAR 622 South High Street Columbus, Ohio
Open 1:00 pm to 2:30 am Daily
Happy Hour 1 pm to 8 pm Mon. thru Sat.
Outdoor Patio
Lighted Dance Floor
Tap Room
Wednesday Nights DJ Disco & 40
Busch Beer
Thursday Nights
60 Scotch
Friday & Saturday Nights
Sundays
NO COVER
DJ Disco Buffet
NOW OPEN ABOVE THE GROTTO
THE HE LOFT
for the leather/levi crowd
COME AND HELP CELEBRATE ...
NIKKI'S BIRTHDAY PARTY
Saturday, September 18
GODMOTHER'S
1014 E. 63rd Street ONE BLOCK NORTH OF ST. CLAIR JUST EAST OF E. 55TH.,
You're Invited!
Feel free to invite ALL your friends
to
THE
WATER MAIN
202 N MAIN STREET PIQUA, OHIO 45356 (513) 773-9277 773-9095
September 12 Jockey Short Dance Contest
September-18 Female Illusionists
September 23 Disco Night
October 2 Female Illusionists
HIGH GEAR
DEFINING LESBIANISM
The following is provided by the New Jersey Lesbian Caucus. It has also appeared in Chicago Gay Life.
In our sexist and sex-oriented society lesbians have generally been defined as women who have sexual relations with other women. We reject this identification on purely sexual terms, just as non-lesbian women hopefully reject their identification only and solely by their sexual activities.
Martin and Lyon in their book Lesbian Woman define a lesbian as "a woman whose primary erotic, psychological, and social interest is in a member of her own sex..." Rita Mae Brown in an article in the now defunct FURIES defined a lesbian as a woman who loves lesbians.
National
We feel that both of these definitions are only partially Ivalid and that lesbianism and lesbians are far more difficult to define. Last year NOW convened a task force on "Lesbianism and Sexuality". We of the Lesbian Caucus disagree with the combination of sexuality and lesbianism as if they were part of the same issue they are not. Lesbianism is a way of being, while sexuality is basically an act.
When women sometimes women-oriented women try to tell us that the only difference between us and other women is what we do in bed, we need to ask these women several questions. For one, what about women who for shorter or longer periods decide to be celibate? Are these women "nothing"? Also, if lesbianism is only a sexual act, then, when a lesbian leaves her bedroom, does she cease being a lesbian? The absurdity of these statements is obvious: a celibate woman is still either a lesbian or
straight, and when I leave my bedroom I am still a lesbian. I do not suddenly become straight because I leave my bed and my bed-partner behind.
Another reason for a need to define what and who we are is the spread of the feminist movement causing women to learn to relate to each other as working partners, friends and possibly more than that. When we work with people and form close relationships, we tend to develop feelings beyond "accepted" limits, including at times sexual feelings. Some. women become frightened when this happens, and leave the movement. Others less
inhibited decide to explore their feelings and get emotionally and sometimes sexually involved with other women. While many of these women explore with other women in similar circumstances, some feel that only a "true" lesbian will do, putting many lesbian sisters in sticky situations where they are damned if they acceed, and even more damned if they refuse the advances of the straight woman. The question naturally arises whether these previously
straight women are now "becoming lesbians", and the attending question is whether lesbianism is something one decides to "become," like joining a party or a club. Also, most of, not all, of these women undoubtedly will eventually return to their previous lifestyle, and men, and the question
SEPTEMBER 1976.
media and who has written books about her life as a "lesbian."
Those of us who have always been lesbians, have lived the lesbian lifestyle for many years and who identify as radical lesbian/feminists,
are un-
derstandably disturbed by these events, because they seriously threaten the credibility of our lifestyle. After all, if Jill Johnston after writing books and being so very publicis returning into the male-female fold, doesn't it prove that lesbianism is just a passing fancy a man-hating phase which will go away as soon as the woman meets the "right" man? Doesn't it prove that "dykes" are sickies at worst, and poor women who cannot bet a man at best? That lesbianism is not a valid and permanent lifestyle? Of course, we reject all such conclusions.
Then, who or what IS a lesbian and what IS lesbianism? We are here trying to formulate some kind of a position, as best we can, because there is, of course, no pat answer to a way of living, relating and loving.
We feel that lesbianism is a "given"; that a woman either IS or IS NOT a lesbian, and that she has basically no choice in the matter. She DOES have a choice as to whether she will ACT upon her lesbianism or not. But she has NO choice in whether she is, or is not, emotionally basically oriented towards women in contrast to non-lesbians who are basicall oriented towards men. This is where the difficulty arises: because in our society the emphasis is on the male-female relationship and many lesbians marry men, have children and try to live a conventional lifestyle. This does not, in our opinion, make these women "straight" it simply means that. these women have opted for a lifestyle not "natural" FOR THEM, but easier (in their opinion) in our society as it is. On the other hand, we see women who have been poorly treated by men ADOPT a samesex lifestyle which also is not natural for THEM adopt a preference for females out of an aversion to males. It is these women who eventually return to the male/female lifestyle, because it is natural for them to do so and "playing" lesbian is not.
-
It must be emphasized that lesbianism is never hating men
(negative), but rather that it is only and solely a positive attitude of loving women.
Lesbianism is then, basically a head trip, and one that is life. We don't know how early, developed early in a woman's but we know some women who were aware of their total involvement with women early in life at age 3 or 4. Others do not
come to this realization until their "teens," and for others the assurance of where their heads and hearts are comes even later, often after some years of
arises whether lesbianism is a "stage" in a woman's life. These questions have become especially urgent in the past months, as we see movement "lesbians" return to a maleoriented lifestyle, such as Jill marriage and several children. Johnson who has been CONTINUED ON exhibited as "Lesbian No. 1" to the American public by the
PAGE 24