Morning Brew – Monday, September 27: Lesbians escape their captors in a music video, Jeanette Winterson writes a memoir

Hi friends! Hope you had a nice weekend.

Jimmy Eat World‘s new video for “My Best Theory” is creepy, but has an endearing moment between the two women who star in it, after they escape from their captors. About half way in, you can see they look happy to be out in the world again, together.

Oranges are not the Only Fruit author Jeanette Winterson is readying a memoir for next fall. It will be called Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal? and “will focus on the author’s early years, which play out much like the protagonist in Oranges.” Since we have until next October, this gives you ample time to re-read her famous novel for reference.

On BellaNaija.com’s profile of out lesbian Z, they note how rare it is for the African press to have first-person stories on sexuality, which is why the piece is so special. In “Queer Till I Quench,” Z writes about life as a gay Nigerian woman. She writes:

I’ve chosen to be open and honest about who I am, instead of hiding aspects of my identity in order to make other people comfortable. I was born in Umuahia and raised in Aba. My preferred pronouns are she/he/they. I have an addiction to orange Nutri-C. I’m a drag king. I wear eye-liner. I bind my chest and wear men’s clothes. I prefer pounded yam to eba or amala. I prefer to not date men. I am not ashamed to be who I am, regardless of whether others approve of it. I am blessed and loved, and I eat my roasted plantain with salted palm oil and pepper.

Sally Martin plays lesbian nurse Nicole Miller on Shortland Street and, on her off time, she wears glittery bras. Along with some other castmates, Sally was part of New Zealand Fashion Week, donning “nude-coloured knickers and diamante-covered bras covered up their modesty and bare skin on their stomach and legs was tattooed with body paint.”

A little different than scrubs!

There’s a wonderful interview with out poet Marilyn Hacker in The Huffington Post in which the talks about her love of the Sapphics and her 1986 urban lesbian sonnet sequence, Love, Death and the Changing of Seasons.

In the Daily Mail‘s article on Humphrey Bogart‘s sexuality, they write that his first wife, Helen Menken, had “‘a lot of lesbian affairs’ and he was ‘keeping score with her’ — and even that they were sometimes both chased by the same women.” Talk about a live triangle (or two or three).

In a new study done by University of California, Santa Barbara sociology professor Verta Taylor and feminist studies professor Leila J. Rupp, they found that girls are kissing each other more now because — why else? — they want attention from boys. “Girls are just doing it so that guys pay attention to them. Girls may hold boys in thrall with openly sexual displays, but they’re still performing for the pleasure of an audience, and the boys are still in the socially dominant position,” they conclude from speaking with several coeds. Imagine if they had done the study at Sarah Lawrence instead of UCSB!

I prefer this piece in The Guardian, which discusses how more lesbian storylines in TV and film are making women “reclaim the lesbian.” AKA it’s not just for male fantasies anymore. Eva Wiseman writes:

Instead of the one-note “And I’ll just watch” fantasies of yesterday’s men, or the icky, over-sexy imitations in pop videos, women are imagining the lingering, complex bliss of both them and their lover enjoying the same TV programmes. Of being able to extend best-friendships into marriages, advising each other on non-frizz hair products, eventually bringing up well-balanced children in a brilliant, bookish house and chuckling on leather sofas at late-night BBC4.

Such a simple idea, really — make lesbians more normal and guys won’t be as interested anymore. All we had to do was talk about our hair, kids and marriages? That’s easy! Guess we should invite all those straight men to our potlucks.

If Brittany and Santana’s version of “Me Against the Music” doesn’t include the Britney/Madonna almost-kiss, then it’s basically sacrilege.

Here’s a look at the scene:

I feel like they should really commit to the kiss and just go for it. Guess we’ll find out this week!

Here’s Roni’s TV tips for tonight: Thintervention with Jackie Warner (Bravo 10 p.m.) and a rerun of The New Adventures of Old Christine “Unidentified Funk” (LIfetime 8 p.m.) in which Megan Mullaly guests and tries to shut down Christine’s gym parent company when she finds out she’s married to Barb (Wanda Sykes).

Come back later today for a Grey’s Anatomy recap and a day in the life of Kirsten Vangsness on the set of Criminal Minds.