# Getting that lesbian toaster oven **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 6, 2005, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-that-lesbian-toaster-oven/324998 "2005-10-06T03:22:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2005, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-that-lesbian-toaster-oven/324998/41 "2005-10-06T15:40:27Z")
> [@hawthorne](#): > > More bluntly, how much can the ‘established’ extort from vulnerable people whilst still feeling smug? > > They just want to wet their beaks, after all. Perish the thought. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![norinew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb9ed0/32.png) [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2005, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-that-lesbian-toaster-oven/324998/42 "2005-10-06T15:48:13Z")
> [@Scott Plaid](#): > > It is completely acceptable. However, it is claimed to happen more then it does. When the false claims of straightness start, then the trouble begins I understand that, but it’s not a matter of sexual identity that’s causing the problem. It’s a matter of honesty. I think we can all agree that dishonesty isn’t desirable in anyone. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2005, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-that-lesbian-toaster-oven/324998/43 "2005-10-06T15:56:44Z")
> [@Scott Plaid](#): > > It is completely acceptable. However, it is claimed to happen more then it does. When the false claims of straightness start, then the trouble begins Right, but being GD, I’m gonna ask, “cite!” It’s one thing to rant about a specific situation where some girl treated another like shit by denying a relationship had any validity, “oh, well, I was just, you know, experimenting. I don’t really like women, so, um, have a nice life.” It’s another to assert that this is generally the case with people who experiment sexually/romanticaly across gender lines without more hard and fast evidence. It just ends up sounding like, well, a rant based on experience or percieved wrongdoing and persecution, as opposed to a rational, debatable point (which, incidentally, is how intra-sexuality infighting and power struggles often seem to me). ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2005, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-that-lesbian-toaster-oven/324998/44 "2005-10-06T16:05:30Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > It’s another to assert that this is generally the case with people who experiment sexually/romantically across gender lines without more hard and fast evidence. I have come across one story of heartbreak after another. Is this evidence that all LUGS are liars and heartbreakers, or just proof that the other cases simply do not get written down? I don’t know. However, I don’t see any national poll asking about claimed straightness v. real straightness, denial of feelings, and the results decades down the line. Until such a poll exists, I am willing to go with the consensus found in other message boards/lesbian stereotypes that the cases I propose are the vast majority. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2005, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-that-lesbian-toaster-oven/324998/45 "2005-10-06T16:10:54Z")
Putting sexuality completely aside, a person who asks themselves if they’re “good enough” to join a group is a _wuss_, and ridiculing wusses is practically a blood sport in this day and age. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2005, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-that-lesbian-toaster-oven/324998/46 "2005-10-06T16:38:50Z")
> [@Scott Plaid](#): > > […]it feeds the myth that all a lesbian needs is an experience with a man.Because they are lesbians, they just hid that part from themselves in order to rejoin straight society, have a stereotypical wedding, etc. > > A few years down the road they find themselves having an affair with the girl’s gym teacher […] First a stereotypical wedding, then a stereotypical lesbian. I guess they’re just confused what stereotype they want to live up to… :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2005, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-that-lesbian-toaster-oven/324998/47 "2005-10-06T16:52:35Z")
> [@Scott Plaid](#): > > Most accounts I have read contain the LUG breaking up with their girlfriend, not because of any good reason, but because of self denial. “OH, I am a girl, and girls can’t really be that way,.” “I was just experimenting”, etc. meets "How could you lead me on like that? :mad: ", "How dare you put down my love for you? :mad: ", “Are you saying the times we shared weren’t real?” > > Also, it feeds the myth that all a lesbian needs is an experience with a man.Because they are lesbians, they just hid that part from themselves in order to rejoin straight society, have a stereotypical wedding, etc. > > A few years down the road they find themselves having an affair with the girl’s gym teacher, move out, get divorced, and screw up the feelings of their children. > > True, it is a big part of them discovering their true identity, but in the meantime the whole family suffers. Or else, they were bisexual in the first place, perhaps? ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2005, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-that-lesbian-toaster-oven/324998/48 "2005-10-06T17:07:33Z")
> [@Scott Plaid](#): > > I have come across one story of heartbreak after another. Is this evidence that all LUGS are liars and heartbreakers, or just proof that the other cases simply do not get written down? > > I don’t know. However, I don’t see any national poll asking about claimed straightness v. real straightness, denial of feelings, and the results decades down the line. > > Until such a poll exists, I am willing to go with the consensus found in other message boards/lesbian stereotypes that the cases I propose are the vast majority. So, Bisexuals don’t exist any more? Personally, I don’t get the whole problem with LUGs. So what? Maybe they aren’t sleeping with women anymore. Maybe one day, they’ll do it again. What’s wrong with that? Have you considered that people sometimes need different things at different points in their lives? I think it’s perfectly reasonable that a girl can find both men and women attractive. There are points in her life when she needs to date a certain kind of person (archetypes–someone stronger than her who can take charge, a confidante, a comforter, someone who needs her, etc.). Sometimes that person is a man, sometimes a woman. And yes, perhaps it could screw up a marriage. But heterosexual people screw up their marriages by marrying the wrong type of person all the time. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2005, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-that-lesbian-toaster-oven/324998/49 "2005-10-06T17:14:16Z")
> [@Scott Plaid](#): > > “I was just experimenting”, etc. meets "How could you lead me on like that? :mad: ", "How dare you put down my love for you? :mad: ", “Are you saying the times we shared weren’t real?” If someone’s sufficiently superficial and self-involved that they’d walk out of an otherwise healthy, satisfying relationship simply because some sort of inner clock said it was time to stop dallying with women, score a husband, and become a soccer mom - who’d want to be involved with that sort anyway?? The problem with such a person isn’t that she’s a LUG; her problem is that she’s got her head up her ass. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2005, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-that-lesbian-toaster-oven/324998/50 "2005-10-06T17:18:57Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > There was a bit of controversy resulting from my quote of Jeanne Adleman: > > “It took me five years of uncertainty to believe that I could be _good enough_ to be a lesbian, could equal the qualities I saw in others. I was helped by recognizing that the particular group of lesbians and nonlesbians I worked with shared progressive political commitments around, for example, race and class.” > > Emphasis in the original. > > Just because someone announces to the world that she’s now lesbian by her own fiat — and I believe she certainly has the right to determine that for herself — to be able to participate in lesbian group cohesion, it isn’t necessarily that simple. I think the underlying issue is “Can we count on you to stick with us when the going gets rough, or are you just a fair weather friend?” If that’s what Adleman meant, then the underlying issue is either- her poor writing skills, or her defining “lesbian” to mean something that it doesn’t. > [@](#): > > Because it isn’t always easy to belong to a minority group that many feel citizens free to despise openly. That’s why Adleman feels it goes along with progressive political commitments. “We want to know if you’ll stick with us in the struggle.” But that is not part of the definition of lesbian. OTTOMH- Lesbian- noun a woman who is exclusively romantically/sexually interested in other women. A woman does not have to belong to any lesbian organizations in order to be a lesbian. She does not have to participate in any struggle for rights, recognition etc in order to be a lesbian. > [@](#): > > To exist with a lesbian identity in society, I needed to build relationships with other dykes based on mutual acceptance and respect. No you don’t. Finding acceptance in a group is not necessary to be a lesbian. It certainly makes life easier, but it isn’t necessary. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2005, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-that-lesbian-toaster-oven/324998/51 "2005-10-06T17:21:21Z")
> [@toadspittle](#): > > So, Bisexuals don’t exist any more? > > Personally, I don’t get the whole problem with LUGs. So what? Maybe they aren’t sleeping with women anymore. Maybe one day, they’ll do it again. What’s wrong with that? Have you considered that people sometimes need different things at different points in their lives? I think it’s perfectly reasonable that a girl can find both men and women attractive. There are points in her life when she needs to date a certain kind of person (archetypes–someone stronger than her who can take charge, a confidante, a comforter, someone who needs her, etc.). Sometimes that person is a man, sometimes a woman. And yes, perhaps it could screw up a marriage. But heterosexual people screw up their marriages by marrying the wrong type of person all the time. I think, **toadspittle** , that the argument being put forth is that these women will actually turn on their ex-lovers, say nasty things to them, and so forth. Which, really, doesn’t seem much different than any other ‘bad’ break-up. And, I still don’t believe that all these relationships end in such a way. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2005, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-that-lesbian-toaster-oven/324998/52 "2005-10-06T17:56:15Z")
> [@Doc Cathode](#): > > > [@Johanna](#): > > > > To exist with a lesbian identity in society, I needed to build relationships with other dykes based on mutual acceptance and respect. > > No you don’t. Finding acceptance in a group is not necessary to be a lesbian. It certainly makes life easier, but it isn’t necessary. However, her point is not whether she will exist as a lesbian. It is whether she can survive “with a lesbian _identity in society_.” I’m not at all sure that I comprehend where one goes to establish an “identity” based on sexuality–I would not dream of asking the sexual orientation of a person with whom I was not planning to have sex–but I believe that the issue becomes more pertinent if one is actively seeking support for various personal situations and the people from whom one is seeking support are drawing lines and boundaries to limit the number of people who can seek or offer support. (I suspect that the poorly delimited “boundaries” of transgendered and hetero- or homosexual “communities” had a lot to do with prompting the OP. I still do not see a debate, here. Of course, we could all sit around and “debate” the various unsupported stereotypes that some posters have bandied about, but that does not seem too productive to me.) ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2005, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-that-lesbian-toaster-oven/324998/53 "2005-10-06T18:01:10Z")
> [@toadspittle](#): > > So, Bisexuals don’t exist any more? Oh, no, that’s _soooo_ last century… :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2005, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-that-lesbian-toaster-oven/324998/54 "2005-10-06T18:15:15Z")
For some reason, this whole discussion about what it means to be a lesbian recalls to mind the image of the South Park kids chewing carpet. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2005, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-that-lesbian-toaster-oven/324998/55 "2005-10-06T18:19:28Z")
The idea that you don’t need to have a particular political ideology to be a lesbian (or a queer of any particular variety) is relevant, but like it or not queer identity is complex and lesbian identity moreso (after all, the Lesbian in College phenomenon doesn’t have a parallel with gay boys.) Frankly I don’t have much of a stomach for the postmodernist bent of queer theory, but I’ve seen the complexity of “lesbianism” in a lot of different ways. My mother divorced my father and was a lesbian for a number of years, with a lot of the stereotypical trappings that go with it: commited feminist, pagan, and so on. Now as far as I can tell she’s completely dropped her lesbian identity and she’s certainly only dating men. I can’t claim to understand this, as my own sexuality is pretty solid and I don’t see myself ever deciding to switch teams. Maybe a lot of these people could be more accurately described as “bisexual”, but I think that’s oversimplistic as well: our own culture’s paradigm of sexual attraction is not reflected in many other societies. In my mother’s case, I think her self-identification as a lesbian _was_ more a political one than anything else, though she certainly had long-term relationships with women. There _is_ a lot of politicking attached to being queer in our society, and the concept of betraying your community by having the wrong politics is alive and well in all parts of the queer community. (But then, hell, I sure as fuck wouldn’t date a Republican. The concept of being gay and politically aligning yourself with a lot of people who really don’t like you is a disturbing one for me.) Anyway, I don’t have any answers here, but I think you’re missing a lot of the social realities of the situation if you use reductionist terms about who a person’s sexually attracted to when sexual attraction exists within the bounds of a culture and seems to be to a great extent malleable by that culture. Add in the various lesbian subidentities - the often-times narrow categorization of “butch” and “femme”, and weird sexual identities like “stone butch” - this stuff is not simple, and it’s missing a lot to look at it as a simple combination of sex organs. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2005, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-that-lesbian-toaster-oven/324998/56 "2005-10-06T18:55:34Z")
> [@toadspittle](#): > > So, Bisexuals don’t exist any more? You know the old saying - a woman without a man is like a fish without a bisexual. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2005, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-that-lesbian-toaster-oven/324998/57 "2005-10-06T19:42:06Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > There _is_ a lot of politicking attached to being queer in our society, and the concept of betraying your community by having the wrong politics is alive and well in all parts of the queer community. (But then, hell, I sure as fuck wouldn’t date a Republican. The concept of being gay and politically aligning yourself with a lot of people who really don’t like you is a disturbing one for me.) Roy Cohn was not a poster boy for Judaism or homosexuality. The fact remains that he was both gay and Jewish. A lesbian who is not accepted by her peers is still a lesbian. Regardless of further subclassifications (butch, femme, etc) she’s still a lesbian. Regardless of how she’s treated by society in general, she’s still a lesbian. > [@](#): > > Anyway, I don’t have any answers here, but I think you’re missing a lot of the social realities of the situation if you use reductionist terms about who a person’s sexually attracted to when sexual attraction exists within the bounds of a culture and seems to be to a great extent malleable by that culture. Add in the various lesbian subidentities - the often-times narrow categorization of “butch” and “femme”, and weird sexual identities like “stone butch” - this stuff is not simple, and it’s missing a lot to look at it as a simple combination of sex organs. Show me where I even once defined sex by genitals. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2005, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-that-lesbian-toaster-oven/324998/58 "2005-10-06T19:42:45Z")
Queer theory may be a useful tool to use for interpreting a text or for generating testable social science hypotheses. Fine. Rational choice theory or poststructural theory can do the same things. Theory is handy to describe human behavior in aggregate. Should it really govern how individuals order their lives or manage relationships with other people? Should the internalization of theory be an admission requirement to join a particular cultural group? I hope not. Perhaps the skepticism that **Johanna** faces is unrelated to her _bona fides_ as a lesbian. I might be more concerned that in her efforts to walk, talk, and read books like a lesbian should, she might be reifying the theory at the expense of the actual living, breathing lesbians around her. If she is so consumed with constructing her own identity, how much does she really have left to give back to the group? To put it bluntly, **Johanna** , is there a chance that your concern about your acceptance is related to your being more Catholic than the Pope? You seem to be very concerned about the _form_ of your lesbian identity, but to me eye, this is at the expense of _content_. I can read Sappho in Greek, too: what is so remarkable about her voice (among other things) is that she is so unencumbered by these kinds of pedantic concerns despite living in a world demonstrably hostile to all things female. Quoting her to prove your _bona fides_ obviously misses the point. Perhaps putting down the theory, putting aside your intense concern for your self-constructed identity, and trying to befriend the people in your circle for their own sakes rather than to gain admission into their club would be a helpful start. Living, loving, and losing like a lesbian might also help. The debate? For the reasons above enumerated, theory is a worthless and harmful guide to ordering one’s personal life. ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2005, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-that-lesbian-toaster-oven/324998/59 "2005-10-06T20:45:37Z")
You know, I just spent way too long reading the other thread, not to mention being in this thread, and I still don’t know what the OPs debate topic was meant to be. ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2005, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-that-lesbian-toaster-oven/324998/60 "2005-10-06T20:49:56Z")
The debate topic is: There is a hijack going on in the thread I (the OP) just linked to. Since the hijack is GD material, let’s start a new thread, rather than polute the old one. I can well underestand the idea. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-that-lesbian-toaster-oven/324998.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-that-lesbian-toaster-oven/324998.md?page=4)