In today’s Independent on Sunday there is a very odd piece on sexual liberation. It shows how since 1963 society has become more free loving, and less hung up on sex and sexuality. It also notes how we in Britain, and the rest of the Western world, are becoming more comfortable with homosexuality and gay culture.
Except it almost entirely forgets lesbians.
There’s the legalisation of gay sex in there. There’s Grindr in there. There is even the coming out of Green Lantern in, but the word ‘lesbian’ only appears once (when referring to “The first Gay and Lesbian Pride March”.) There is no mention of “the Brookside kiss”, Sugarush, or Lip Service, nevermind The L Word. All these things have gone some way to changing some of the pre-conceptions of lesbian culture and lesbian women, and are clearly a sing of sexual liberation, particularly where women are concerned.
It seems that for all the sexual liberation of the last 50 years, gay women are still frequently overlooked.
