Linda Rhodes, Arlene Kushner, and Ellen Broidy, May 1970, photographed by Diana Davies.

(loveandzombies:pansexualpride:)

i had a rather heteronormative pride weekend which is pretty historically accurate for me, as marisa would attest. for years she really wanted me to write an essay about my simultaneous teen obsessions: boys and lesbian musicians.

and i almost did! along with joon, we came up with a panel for emp 2009 called “what sluttiness sounds like.” but then, totally expectedly, we were REJECTED by the powers-that-be. of course, all three of us see ourselves as persecuted outsiders, so we thought getting rejected was kind of awesome. we eat your hate like love, etc.

besides, I DID NOT EVER WANT TO WRITE THIS ESSAY, which i at one point suggested calling “things i hope no one i worked with at the times ever knows about me.” but in the spirit of pride weekend, radical vulnerability, and 2010, i am totally posting it! thinking about it no longer “makes me want to faint or vomit,” as i told joon and MM in an email. this actually seems quite tame. the only thing that really embarrasses me now about this proposal is its generally earnest tone, including its super-prissy last line. anyway, enjoy.

In middle school I spent as much time as I could fooling around with the (mean) guy I was infatuated with; by 9^th grade I forced myself to go to a Catholic all-girls school so that I might actually study, though I actually spent most of my time reading Sassy and Alice Walker. Iconic nineties women provided a template for girls like me—obsessed with sex, enraged by sexual politics. But let’s be honest: Alanis sounded a little desperate when she talked about that mid-movie blowjob. Liz brazenly bandied the word “fuck,” but pined for a boyfriend straight out of an After School Special. Tori’s “Precious Things” was a song so painfully true to life I still can’t talk about it unless I am lying on the floor in the fetal position.

I identified with the rage, depression, and sadness of all of these women, who articulated the frustrating collision of desire, ambivalence, cruelty, and romantic aspirations with which I already felt familiar. But Ani DiFranco offered me something they did not: a way out.

When it came to sex, Ani was, in her own words, “shameless.” She was unapologetic, excessive—in her lyrics, certainly, and in her (sometimes cringe-worthy) style. Still, I was taken by both her ethos and her persona: she was the kind of super-smart, gender-bending, politically earnest but sexually suave kind of bisexual (maybe only until graduation, it really didn’t matter) girl that was, thankfully, popular when I was in college. Ani regularly posited trysts or relationships with girls as pleasurable alternatives to politically-burdened relationships with men; her liberatory, polymorphous, playful take on sexuality offered a way of re-imagining sex. In this paper, I would like to explore just what was so compelling and transgressive about her vision.

ps. in college, i was super into lesbian writers like adrienne rich, audre lorde, and rita mae brown—the original lavender menace referred to in the t-shirts in this photo. take that, betty friedan.