After reading your preaching I remembered a comment of a colleague at work. She was counting the number of gay colleagues at work (secretary. a friday afternoon in the Netherlands). She said to me that she's always forgetting that I'm gay too. Apparently I look to Girly and won't fit in her stereotype box. So I reacted: guess what I don't want to fit in a box and I am happily married to a woman. So yeah I'm certainly gay. I don't know if right now I'm in your choir, but I'm educating my colleagues (small steps).

But if you turn the question the other way around you'll get the disbelieve that a lesbian can find a men goodlooking or attractive (till a certain point I might add ;-)). That's just as hard to explain to my straight women co-workers. Also out of the box...

*lpce*

I totally agree with you. At least these people are making the effort at all. Other people just want to pretend that the earth is flat and there is nothing that requires thinking-outside-the-box. Great article, btw.

The article implies that all women are bisexual, and that all men are exclusively gay or straight. I get that the magazine caters to a predominantly straight female audience, but that's just bull pizzle.

Also, if I hear about one more columnist slagging on the mind-blowing concept of effeminate lesbians, I am going to shut my head in my desk drawer until 2012. 

This is another example of a certain corner of society de-sexualising us, as if there is nothing edgy and hard about sex between two women. Yah, right. All we do is cuddle and talk about emotions! What a load of nonsense.

As for the butch/femme thing! I thought all that nonsense had stopped now. It just seems so outdated. When I go out on the scene in London I just see most girls looking like the girl next door, with all this butch/femme labelling resigned to the dustbin of history, where it belongs. It's just a product of a heterosexual mindset that can't get its head around feminity been attracted to femininity.

"Female sexuality cannot be reduced to an Almond Joy/Mounds commercial: 'Sometimes you feel like a nut — sometimes you don't.'"  Oh my god, that's hilarious, LMAO.

I'm with you on all your points.  The butch/masculine association is always my biggest pet peeve of these articles as well.  I get that it might be difficult for straight people to get their minds away from the masculine/feminine binary.  But at the very least, PLEASE don't make some kind of quantitative judgment that a woman's lesbo-meter goes up based on how many neckties she owns or how short her hair is. 

"Whenever two lesbians kiss, an angel gets its wings." --Roseanne

At first I thought this was going to be a good thing. I thought they were going to cover straight women and why they leave men for other women, and that straight women need to stop and stay with men. Now that would be good. But of course it had to go the other way around. This is why no one thinks I am a lesbian. I am girly, there are straight women who act like lesbians, or lesbians only exist to please men or to get away from them. Ugh... Not every lesbian looks like a darn man or even close. This is why I have to explain myself. I have never been with a man my whole life, ever! and I don't plan to, so women who are *really lesbians* don't leave men then become queer. I don't understand why women who are lesbians have to bi and women who are bi are straight but then men who are gay are gay and men who are straight are straight and there are no bi men??? I hate that! These so called straight women who leave men and then go back to men because I know they do for the most part are the reason why everyone thinks being a lesbian is a choice. Straight people need to stop looking at gay/lesbian/bi/trans thing from their own eyes and start looking things from our eyes. This would be more relaible if a lesbian woman wrote this, but even with that she dosen't speak for every lesbian either. Notheless a straight woman!

Hate Me, love Me, be my freind or be my foe, I will always just be Me.

Repeat after me and write this on the blackboard 100 times: Not all lesbians are masculine or butch. Furthermore, you can wear skirts, dresses and makeup and still be attracted to women who wear skirts, dresses and makeup. Not all lesbians buck gender norms, and those who do not buck gender norms are just as gay as those who do.

I just wanted to say thank you for this. I sometimes feel like I'm the only one who feels this way so thank you for reassuring me that I am not alone. Excellent post. 

i get where everones coming from but i have to admit that recently it is becoming a trend, at least in my age group (18/teens). or maybe those are the only ladies i seem to be attracting/meeting lately.

Damnit, Oprah...

I love you Grace Chu.

Here's the one thing that tells me they were really trying to understand.... they were specifically talking about "straight-labeled women" being drawn to the more masculine qualities in other women.  These women feel straight, identify as straight, or whatever is the proper way to say it these days, but are still drawn to women as their partners.  I don't think it is offering up an excuse, but more of an explaination as to  why a woman who thinks of herself as straight can choose another woman as her partner.  I get it.  I really do.  maybe that's because I identify as a lesbian now, but 5 years ago, that wasn't the case.

I also am not going to complain that they say it's "almost fashionable"..... because when things are fashionable, it means they are more accepted, and isn't that what we have been fighting for?  

Repeat after me and write this on the blackboard 100 times: Not all lesbians are masculine or butch.

And conversely, not all women who love women are attracted to masculine or butch either.

I'm pretty femme and am generally only attracted to fairly femme women. Androgyny doesn't appeal to me in either men or women, and as for butch, if I want masculine, I'd go for masculine men.

www.myspace.com/lunakiss7.com

Oprah is one of the most open minded souls in the world. If any of you think for one second she competely understands Lesbian/Bisexual or any other Queer womyn you're wrong. She doesn't. She's straight. However, I do see she's making an effort. However, if you don't like the angle  the article was taken,which I have to read the article myself before passing judgement, write her. I believe she may have prepared her audiennce/fans for Ellen's interview with her in the next upcoming issue. It is my only guess to why the article was taken in that format.

I want to let you know it is extemely diffcult for heterosexuals to understand Lesbians, or Gay people or Bisexual people at all. Sometimes you have to approach things in doses (again I'm not agreeing to the way the article presumably is written) to a group i,n this case, a scoiety who simply does not understand. They barely understand their own sexuality let alone anything else different from them. If you come into a challenge with a straight co-worker who is asking questions please don't turn them away. Break it down to them in your own words and let them it is from your own viewpoint. We are all here on earth to learn. So teach!

   Just my two cents.

I still have more to say!

 This reminds me of the articles that were around in the 90s, when that picture of Cindy Crawford and KD Lang came out. There was a whole load of articles about a 'sapphic trend!'

I'm surprised because in many ways America's lesbian community leads the world, with more 'varied' out women than any other country. (Ellen, Portia, Sarah Paulson, Rosie, Lindsay Lohan (bi), Rachel Maddow, Suze Orman etc. )

This magazine seems to appeal to a Conservative daytime audience. (Correct or not?) Is this why it's so outdated in its hetero-sexual and safe portrayal of lesbians? (Maybe they think all heterosexual women can understand a butch and a femme, because they like men!) It's very short-shighted and I'm pretty disappointed that an article sanctioned by Oprah, the supposed oracle, can be so off-the-mark.

I have a friend who askes me everytime I see her if I'm "still gay." She doesn't seem to understand that A) my sexuality isn't going anywhere and B) that there are women who only date women and have never been and never will be attracted to men. I have a hard time explaining to her how that question really offends me sometimes...I should email her this article.

just read the article.... there were a few things in there that would raise a (lesbian) eyebrow, but overall, it seemed to be written with compassion, understanding and inclusion.   Thumbs up, from me.

In fact, this is exactly the kind of article I would have my conservative mom read.  

www.myspace.com/lunakiss7.com

Ok, I just finished reading the online article to this misleading title. The article covered different sexualities. It didn't solely focsed on Lesbians but their partners too. It is simply an inside look to reasons why we see mainly famous celebs who once were with men are now with womyn. It is like I said earlier, it is trying to get an understanding of why womyn like Cynthia Nixon left men to be with womyn. I'm all for trying to understand somethig conpletely different from me. However, I really do not like the title. I think there should be a part two to this theme. Womyn who are just Gay/Who ever been attracted to Men,etc. It will cover all grounds and different types of Lesbian coming outs. 

The article really isn't that bad. The womyn seem to be happy and in love. Love is what counts,right?

Seems like lots of the comments here -  about the O magazine article - are fixating on the straight world only seeing lesbian possibility as butch, or femme.   But instead of defending our own & noting that butch/femme is just a part of our spectrum of who we are as lesbians (continuum anyone? - take a number between 1 and 10 if you like) - some of these comments here have to attack butch and femme as out of date/out of touch etc. 

Didn't anyone read Malinda Lo's recent really smart column here - "Butch Fatale" about Rachel Maddow?  http://www.afterellen.com/notesandqueeries/03-16-09   As Malinda wrote "I wish that those who judge butch women as unnatural would stop.....In my opinion, any woman who chooses to live her life outside the well-worn groove of femininity should be given a medal. It is a difficult path to take, with people at every turn attempting to push you back into the mainstream. "  

Butches are at the frontline of lesbian-bashing and homophobia in the world.  So it seems to me that when we attack our own we're just showing our own Internalized homophobia.  Our own discomfort with butches just mirrors the straight world - who are afraid that women may threaten gender roles.  But - Too Late - the fact that we're Lesbians means we are already challenging gender roles!  (Take a look at this article about GenderPlay exhibit in L.A. http://www.curvemag.com/Curve-Magazine/Web-Articles-2008/Getting-Playful-with-Gender/)   And there will always be and have always been butch/femme/andro... and every other label / possibility /and flavor of lesbian!

I think that as a Western people, we put ourselves into boxes of gender. “This is what a boy is, this is what a girl is” with an expectation to act accordingly. Acting outside of the norm relegates the perpetrator to a level of other, or “abnormal” … hence our entire community.  We tend (I assert) to be much more intuitive and attuned to more than just our prescribed gender box.  Each of us (gay/straight) have masculine and feminine sides. The true difference, is that most of “us” have embraced the opposite side (either consciously or not) in a way that “they” don’t understand; whereas “they” don’t feel comfortable with the opposing side of themselves, again, either consciously or not. Basically, the idea of gender as a fluid, unfixed thing versus gender as an immobile object.

Perhaps it’s not lesbianism that has “become” trendy … perhaps it’s the embrace of the other, opposing self that is suddenly en vogue.

*Please note: I do not use “us” and “they” as dividing language in a mean-spirited way, only to distinguish the difference of our communities.

I feel there is an angel inside of me, she'd say,
whom I am constantly shocking...