picture the scene: 1987 in Glasgow and me, a very curious (in an arms' length, anthropological kinda way) 18-year-old who had read that a film called 'Desert Hearts' was going to be playing in the local cinema.  i justified to myself that since it had been named as 'Film Of The Month' in Film Review magazine, i was going to see it for purely cinematic reasons; the truth was that i went in confused, and came out a lesbian.

having watched the story unfold, i just knew that this was my emotional interior landscape being played out on the screen.  when Cay instructed Vivian to roll the car window "all the way down", i was having an internal dialogue with myself - oh God, she's going to kiss her - and oh God, you really want her to!  looking back, of course i'd been drawn to all things Sapphic from an early age - the hint at age 2 when i asked for a football for my third birthday might just have been a precursor to my tomboy years - and so it wasn't really a huge surprise that it affected me so much. 

 but i still thank Donna Deitch from the bottom of my heart for making that film - and, as a small aside, would beg her never to make a sequel:  she'd never get it right, because for every single person who's seen 'Desert Hearts', they've all got their own idea of what happened next....

lost and delirious.

i didn't know what was so different about me until i saw it on HBO one night when i was 11. now i looooove that movie!

I had seen a few glimpses of lesbians on tv/film and was already somewhat out when I saw gia. I traveled to canada with my parents and I just knew that I had to buy that dvd somewhere, so I literally asked in every store that sold dvds whether they had gia. finally, I found it in a store in vancouver and couldn't wait to watch it. so, when I came home, first thing I did when my parents weren't at home was watch it. I completly loved it and that sex scene was just amazing. these two beautiful woman together made my head spin. I still love the movie, even though it is very sad, but it somehow really convinced me that that was all I ever wanted to experience. except for the drugs. 

"Normal is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from." ~ Jodie Foster

I have been a Stockard Channing fan since I was twelve (Rizzo anyone? Gees), so consciously I thought "hey, I'll watch her new Lifetime move" but my subconscious obviously had ulterior motives because after watching The Truth About Jane I started to cry because I finally realized that the feelings I had for the 3rd baseman of my softball team was actually a crush and I understood what all my friends felt when they daydreamed about Brad Pitt.

You'd have thought I could have caught on with the softball and my love of the Indigo Girls, but no... it took a Lifetime movie. 

probably changed my life. My first: The Children's Hour. I was twelve years old and my mother let me stay up to watch "The Late Show." I'm not sure that she knew the movie beforehand, but she didn't change the channel or make me go to bed. I fell asleep just after the trial verdict. The next day, when I asked my mom what had happened, she told me that Shirley MacLaine's character had killed herself. When I asked why she had to do that when it was all a lie, my mom -- bless her -- said "She shouldn't have had to do it even if it had been the truth. But it's probably better that you not talk about the movie at school today." (Catholic grade school -- smart mom.)

My second: The War Widow, first shown on PBS in 1976. It's a lovely, quiet film, set at the turn of the 20th century -- and it had a happy ending! I was a little more clued in by this point and I've never forgotten it. If you want to know more: http://www.planetout.com/popcornq/db/getfilm.html?802

It made crap sense, but it helped me figure some things out. 

--------------
3waytv.tv Go now, go often.  

all over me was my first for girl likes girl and girl likes punk rock and hello leisha hailey, see you again in a few years: )

Wild Side

I'm not sure if this one counts as a lesbian movie and it's definitely not a good movie but after watching it I thought about it and after a few minutes I realized that I'm gay :-)

______________

check out Sarah Bettens at                                          www.myspace.com/sarahbettens         

Wild Things when I was in 9th grade. It might have been 10th.

Either way, it made me forever love Neve Campbell no matter what. Suzie was basically the hottest person ever, and I adore the pool scene because of its intensity. Plus, she was smarter than everyone else.

my first was better than chocolate when i was about 14. i had no idea it was a lesbian film i just sumbled upon it whilst channel surfing. i was pretty shocked to be honest. but only later i figured out thats because it was so confronting to me and at the time i didnt realise it. 

help SAVE SOUTH OF NOWHERE! www.savespashley.com

I really loved this movie-- my gf showed it to me during her not-so-subtle courtship/flirtation phase. It's part of a trilogy of flims ( the other two are WATER and EARTH, of course), but Fire will always have my heart...

http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/30/fire.html

was Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls In Love. How I adored Randy Dean ... That movie truely changed my life (I even went out and got me some Walt Whitman poetry books so in awe was I).

Better Than Chocolate got me through my first break-up. I watched it every night for weeks just to make me feel better.

My first lesbian thing I saw in the media was of this girl's story in seventeen or some equivalent magazine. It was a basic sob story with a happy ending. Even since then I feel like I have seen a change in the way lgbt media can be played, because it was the whole hook of the article, this girl is gay, I don't think that would work anymore.

Anyways to movies. I think the first movie I saw was But I'm a cheerleader. Maybe before that was Boys don't cry, but that isn't entirly a lesbian movie.

My first book would be Kissing Kate, awh the memories, I rerember crying with the main character's woes.

"So put me on a plane, and fly me to anywhere...with you"-Augustana

I had never been to the movies by myself before, but I went three times to see Patrice Donnelly.  It would still be 10+ years, a marriage and kids before I realized why I had to see that movie again and again, but I never forgot it.  And when I did finally begin to understand myself, Personal Best was where I turned to feel okay about it. 

And how sweet is my wife?  She just gave me the DVD for Valentine's Day.  :-) 

   Lisa

The scene in The Hours where Julianne Moore kisses that other woman caused some stirrings in my fifteen-year-old self that I didn't begin to understand until a year later. I just knew that that movie made me feel moved and unsettled, not in an entirely unpleasant way.

It was so bad, but it was my first so...Well, it was still bad.

I still have not recovered. :-/ 

_________

The Vulcan mating season of Pom-far is upon us!
Exclusive Connections for Geeks (video)

I'm young, come from a liberal family, and live in a country where being gay isn't really a big deal. I was fully aware from an early age that yes, some people are gay and that's perfectly normal - so the first lesbian movie that was important to me wasn't because it was a lesbian movie... it was just a good movie. I was around 14 when I saw Show Me Love (which was a VERY mainstream film here, and I'm sure most kids my age saw it that summer). It WAS the first time I'd seen - or heard of - girls MY age being lesbians, though. It didn't ring many bells at the time - I was just fascinated by it.

A few years later I found Lost & Delirious at the local video store. I convinced my friends to rent it and I swear I held my breath for the entire movie. I still don't know how I managed to spend the next couple of years oblivious to the fact that I was gay.

"Think Sideways"

I went to rural Minnesota schools all of my life, until I trasfered to a boarding arts school near the Twin Cities. Here I found my first GSA; I didn't join, but I went to the events. One of these events was a showing of But I'm a Cheerleader and another film. It was the first time I had gotten to see a lesbian relationship (and the focal relationship at that) on the big screen.

It probably would have had a greater impact on me if Willow and Tara (of Buffy) hadn't already been active members of my small screen family for some time.

Surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet.

Terrific neo-noir flick, and Gershon and Tilly were smokin'.

Patient: There's like this longing ... this pull. I mean, does that make me, you know, like, some kind of...?

Maeby: Homosexual.

Does anyone here know about Nadja? It's a black-and-white indie Dracula remake. Made and set in the 1990's (94, I think.) It focuses on the title character, who is supposed to be his daughter. Her role is the story is pretty much the same as the count's in the original novel, including the falling for and seducing Lucy part. It sounds tacky, but it's actually really beautiful. And seeing the way Nadja loves Lucy- completely obsessive, but so gentle and adoring compared to Lucy's husband- really rang a bell for me. I came across it by accident (I think I was about 12 at the time) and it instantly became my favorite movie. I forced both my mom and my best friend (the girl I was rapidly falling in love with) to sit down and watch it at various points. (They were kind of bored with it, since it's a very slow moving film. But on the bright side, when I worked up the courage to tell my friend how I felt, she felt the same, which was great.) And that's the story of how a snooty low-budget indie film made my world a better place.

When Night Is Falling. I crawled to the tv, to touch the freaking screen when it was over. It had come on late night when I was maybe, 16...i had to watch it very quietly as not to wake the fam.

Runner up, Bound.

I came out in 1980, so for me, "Lianna", "Desert Hearts" and "Personal Best" were my watershed lesbian films.  Watching those films now really makes me feel old and jaded, but they sure do bring back a lot of fond memories too, like what it was like to be young and free in San Francisco in the 80s.  What a great time that was.  "The L Word" and "Exes and Ohs" are good in their own ways, but they don't come close to what being a lesbian was like back then.

Gia.

I have always been attracted to men (wait, keep reading!) but that movie made me realize that I couldn't ignore how I felt about women. It was just too powerful. So I have a special place in my heart for Angie (don't we all?) the woman who taught me what bisexuality was.

I grew up in a very homophobic family, so I didn't get to watch any of the landmark lesbian films until I left home. The first movie that made me really realize that my attraction to women was based on more than admiration was True Lies... with the striptease scene.

I also remember watching the episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine wherein Dax is reunited with her former wife. I was intrigued, turned on, and inevitably moved to tears by the storyline. No one in my family understood. All they could say was "Why did they have to make it two women?"

In later seasons, when they tapped into the alternate universe where Major Kira made out with all the other women in the cast, I was afraid my parents would veto the series, but they never did. I don't think they had any idea how much I got into the show.

More recently, I have to say that Better Than Chocolate is one of my all-time favorites. It's a sweet love story with just the right amount of parental and political conflict... Not to mention Peter Outerbridge who I adore as "Not a F**king Drag Queen".

I'm ashamed that I've yet to see Personal Best and Desert Hearts, though they are very near to the top of my "Rent Next!" list.

Though we choose between reality and madness, it's either sadness or euphoria.

-- Billy Joel

I was 15, my parents were away for the weekend, so I invited my best friend (the only person I'd come out to at the time) and we rented Bound, completely at random, because it was the first lesbian-themed movie we found at the video place, and because we recognized the poster from the wall of our middle school art classroom. I was totally blown away, not only was it a great and exciting movie, but two beautiful women making out (and a bit more) on my TV? Amazing. I still remember the shivers down my spine, and my hands shaking, to think that it. was. possible. to kiss a girl.

It wasn't any kind of great epiphany, though, I'd had those a year earlier when I read Laurie R. King's Martinelli-series and realized that it. was. possible. to be a lesbian; however, reading about it and seeing it were somewhat (like, *totally*) different. Great books, and a great movie!