Written By: Andy Kovaleski | March 1, 2021

You have probably heard the saying that “lesbians only exist when men are watching.” This joke (or thinly veiled attack) perfectly sums up both the fetishization of lesbian relationships as well as their desexualization. MenTM seem to be obsessed with women who love women; I once met someone who thought ‘lesbian’ was a category of porn, not an identity. He is clearly an outlier, but this does exemplify just how much lesbian porn exists. The vast majority of this porn is also solely for male eyes, not for actual lesbians. Most include sexual acts that any woman could tell you are simply not satisfying but instead intended to appeal to a male gaze. Though this is true of most porn, the relationships depicted generally match up with the audience. Lesbian porn is not made for lesbians, or women in general, but for men.

The desexualization in this joke comes from the implication of what happens when men aren’t watching. The idea is that lesbians are really just gals being pals when they’re alone together, and just really good friends when in public instead of in a serious romantic or sexual relationship. I experienced this personally when my relationship with a nonbinary person was perceived as a lesbian one; I was told that my partner was keeping from finding a “good guy” because I was too focused on them. This person knew very clearly that my partner and I were together, but he didn’t think I could be sexually satisfied in a relationship with someone who was assigned female at birth because that couldn’t be a sexual relationship. In short, he thought of us as “just really good friends”. Unfortunately, this is very common for women in relationships with other women.

TW: rape and sexual assault

There is a much more violent aspect of this fetishization and desexualization: corrective rape. Straight men will rationalize rape by assuming that they can “turn a girl straight” if she just had sex with a man. This is obviously disgusting, but it also implies that straight men don’t think that lesbians understand sex; that they can’t possibly have fulfilling sexual relationships when neither party has a penis. Aside from being transphobic, this also ties into the classic religious argument against queer sexuality: that sex is for procreation. Added to the fetishization that subliminally tells straight men that lesbians exist for their pleasure, this misunderstanding of sex leads to a perfect storm for rationalizing corrective rape.

End TW

Fetishization and desexualization are more than just annoying forms of ignorant homophobia, they can lead to a damaging and sometimes dangerous conceptualization of lesbian relationships. Whether it is men watching lesbian porn but being homophobic in their day-to-day lives or older women seeing wedding photos on Facebook and commenting “How lovely to get married on the same day as your best friend! But where are their husbands?” it is homophobia plain and simple.

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