I was on the Lesbian Project podcast with Julie Bindel and Kathleen Stock this week to talk about my book.
‘It’s a novel about lesbians trying to create a utopian community on women’s land. They’re separatists, they’re witches, they’re into alternative spiritualities. There are lots of rituals and group sex and quite a lot of fighting. It’s a brilliant book and everybody should buy it.’
We got into the salacious stuff first, and then into utopias, feminism, and lesbian essentialism. We discussed an article about Queers and guns, (we are against it) and then line dancing, which morphed into my Minecraft evangelism.
I especially enjoyed that they both liked the character “Gloria,” who really grew on me as I wrote the book.
When we talked about lesbian literature, I mentioned a paper I wrote for a history of gay activism taught by Vito Russo in 1990. I was able to find it, and you can read it here.
The show notes link to a UK bookstore, but if that doesn’t work for you, order it from your favorite bookstore or Bookshop.org, or the odious online bookstores.
Errata
I mention Libana singing on the music used in one of the book’s rituals, but I forgot to say that A Rainbow Path is composed by Kay Gardner. You can buy the original recording for your own rituals or just to listen to. See Libana’s other work here. My favorite release by Libana is Night Passage.
I misquoted something. What I meant to say was “When you offer a healing tradition, that which is not love comes to the surface to be heal.” I got the sentiment right, but its better said in the original.
Another fantastic interview! I loved it.
The last several years I've been in a bit of an internal crisis about what makes me a lesbian. As I get older and sex and romance isn't at the forefront as much for me, I wondered what actually makes me a lesbian. I thought maybe it was how I related to women, but that didn't seem to fit right. And then your description of lesbians being the only ones who say no to men fit perfectly. In this conversation, I think Kathleen went straight to sex, but that's not it at all. And I think it's easy to think saying no means decentering men, but that's not it either. For me, I think saying no means not making yourself small and opting out of men’s pretend make believe. Not participating in playing along with whatever men are performing. I think sometimes that involves centering men by giving them your full attention and saying, “no, I'm not going to pretend you're a good father or provider or whatever." Ugh, I meant for this to be more about lesbians than men, but here I am. I think in saying no to men, lesbians get "othered” in society. We opt out of the game and then meet other women who are opting out and there's no denying the potential attraction that blooms in mutual recognition, dare I say attunement.
Okay, if being a lesbian is saying no to men, does that mean our existence lies closer to an aversion or men than romantic attraction to women? I'm genuinely asking because I’ve always wondered for myself.
Their fondness for the character Gloria in your book is interesting. My wife has really turned me on to her favorite stories, West Wing and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Through the years, our favorite characters and kingdoms have changed as we've grown. I wonder if Gloria is like that. Will I grow to like her as I grow as a person? Or am I forever destined to not understand her because I will never understand having a family like hers?