I was looking around today for a Doris Day song called “Secret Love,” which I hadn’t realized was from the musical Calamity Jane, with Ms. Day in the title role. I’d never seen Calamity Jane before, and boy oh boy, was I in for a treat. I think it gives Wicked a run for its money in the “Most Lesbian Musical” category.
Let’s review the gay: Continue reading →
I’ve been more than a little in love with Joan Nestle lately. She co-founded the Lesbian Herstory Archives in 1972, and is a beautiful and fabulous activist, writer, historian, and all-around lesbian. Watch this clip from a documentary about her called Hand on the Pulse (that I will hopefully be able to one day locate and see):
She’s so confident, so articulate about her desires and her entitlement to them. And trust me, that’s not something that lesbians are taught to be. I love this quote by her, from her essay “Butch-Fem Relationships: Sexual Courage in the 1950s,” which I found a few years ago in a book called Queering Religion, and found so moving much that I wrote it down right on my folder, and hadn’t realized until recently that it was by her:
In the fifties, when we walked in the Village holding hands, we knew we were courting violence, but we also knew the political implications of how we were courting each other and chose not to sacrifice our need to their anger.
That last part is my favorite: “we…chose not to sacrifice our need to their anger.” That’s something that queers of all stripes would do well to keep remembering today, as assimilation has become the new order. We’re allowing our identities to become subsumed under the umbrella of capitalistic identity politics, something that we consume, rather than something that we carve out ourselves and wear proudly in the world. Oh, but for a few more Joan Nestles in the world!
And it’s only 20 seconds in length! I just saved you 161 minutes and 40 seconds. You’re welcome.
The Internet Archive amazes me with its continual ability to provide the things I have long been seeking. The most recent case in point:
Lesbian Concentrate, a 1977 anthology of songs by and about lesbians, published by the feminist label Olivia Records. It was released partly as a reaction to Anita Bryant’s crazy crazytalk, and partly because the world can always use another lesbian anthology. Excuse me, lesbianthology. It’s one word now.
The reason I’d been looking so long and hard for it was to find the track by Sue Fink, titled “Leaping Lesbians”:
It’s sort of a lesbian funhouse horror song. My greatest wish in the world at this moment is that I could say there were other songs in this genre. To compensate, please memorize this one and sing it every chance you get: “We’re gonna please you, tease you, hypnotize and tightly squeeze you, we’re gonna get if you we can (Here come the lesbians)! Don’t go and try to fight it, run away or try to hide it, we want your lovin’, that’s our plan!”
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