Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

POV: You are a lesbian in pretty much 94% of media fandoms: https://i.postimg.cc/NFzp7N7f/Screen-Shot-2024-01-15-at-5-59-36-PM.png

Part one: 

While I am not saying what they are doing is okay or that their perspective is always correct, I know within fandom spaces at least, there was a survey done and afterwards a woman emailed the person who conducted the survey and she let her post their conversation. Basically, she talked about her reasoning for preferring M/M content and fanfiction over F/F because of it not involving a lot of the sexist elements or discussions most female characters, especially lesbian ones, will eventually have to have.

And that kind of helped me understand because when I looked at it, most popular lesbian media is usually one of the following:

1.Isn't really lesbian the whole time but involves bisexual characters who come out much later in the franchise, ditto if the guy was abusive, which is fine and can be nice...but if you compare that to how many queer men in media get shown to be gay almost right away and have zero plotlines surrounding being attracted or interested in women. The most popular examples of this is the Harley Quinn animated show and how shows like Shameless established their gay male and bisexual characters right away in season one but lesbian and bisexual women weren't revealed until much, much later after multiple storylines focused on their attraction to men and obsession with male attention.

2.Made for children or teenagers and most are in kids tv shows, which can be nice but adults want something too...and when you try to go over to adult-centered queer content with adult characters, most of it's going to be M/M centered and the few that have actual F/F content tend to be pushed towards the background and are portrayed more as cutesy with no mentions of sex. (see point 4 for more info)

3. Focus overwhelmingly on the struggles of being a woman and usually have a plotline involving an abusive man or sexism in (blank) industry. Even romcoms and those that don't end in tragedy will almost overwhelmingly have a scene or episode or chapter dedicated to exploring the horrors women, especially queer women, have to go through...which again, not a bad thing but it can be tiresome when it becomes a trope at this point. While a lot of gay male stories do have focus on homophobia, if we were to make a side by side list, there would be way more stories on the gay man's side that don't focus overwhelmingly on homophobia and a story about a man almost never shows or explores themes of sexism and female hardships. So, a gay romcom could be considered a safer bet for those looking to escape that on movie night than a sapphic romcom if one just wants a fun night instead of having to constantly be reminded of the sexism in every facet of our society or having the main couple be upstaged by a plotline about some unrelated dude.

4.Are either so devoid of sex it's weird and unappealing (See the difference between how the main sapphic couples, the main straight couple, and the main gay couple are portrayed in Netflix's Q-Force...notice how the straight and gay couples have explicit sex scenes and make sex jokes a bunch whereas the lesbian characters are very, very soft and fluffy with almost zero mention of sex) 

5. OR so sexualized it feels like softcore porn

And basically, we have just crossed off every sapphic media in existence just going through this list.

Could you name a single film or tv show or video game or whatever else that doesn't have anything on this list? I know I certainly can't.

While obviously none of these make a storyline bad or good and a lot of these include very well-written stories and characters, you can begin to see certain tropes in lesbian media that keep popping up everywhere which often tie back to the overall trend of having every story that focuses on women have to be focused on the struggles of being a woman and living in a sexist society.

And we haven't even gotten to the other stuff that was on that list, like how a lot of women have a hard time relating to certain lesbian characters because they are played by very gorgeous women and the lack of butch4butch relationships (and just butch characters in media in general), how fandom and review spaces often treat female characters and sapphic-centric media way harsher and with less positive attention than they do male characters and Achillean-centric media (just look at how much more advertising promo videos shows featuring MLM get in comparison to WLW, the best example of this being how much more advertising and videos MLM-centric content gets vs how much advertising and videos  WLW-centric content gets on Amazon Prime's main channel), which leads to shows being canceled before anyone got a chance to hear about it and see it for themselves and so on and so forth.

And one could argue this has to do with the whole "women writing and consuming gay content", which is very well discussed in this video...but even shows and films made by gay men with a gay male audience in mind still attract large female fanbases and audiences. (The Falls, Queer as Folk, pretty much most of the films on GagaOOLala, etc.) which also goes back to how a lot of our content is surrounded by and about stories of men and those that receive the most attention in terms of advertising and media (social, blog, and professional) attention.

I also wanted to add that I have a theory (or at least with the people I have talked to) the whole "there is no good lesbian or WLW content out there" isn't that they don't think that there is literally no good lesbian or WLW content out there or even that there aren't some they have enjoyed, but rather what they actually mean is what I listed in number 2 and number 3. Consuming media is used as an escape for a lot of people, but especially for those impacted by societal structures of inequality. When most of the media made with you in mind is made for kids/teens and/or overwhelmingly focuses on male negative influence and sexism, it can be tempting to start consuming more content that is still queer...just not WLW queer. 

Part two: Why do lesbians in the real world have to go through so much discourse that gay men do not???

A few reasons I have seen:

1. There isn't as much social pressure for men's lives to constantly be surrounded and revolving around sexual and romantic encounters with men. Yes, men are presented with the idea and pressure to become a husband one day, they also have other stuff going on and the society ideal hetro relationship is seen as the man being in charge of things while the woman is submissive.

2. People in high ranking positions of academic, social, and legal power having been referring to lesbians as "non-men attracted to non-men" while gay means "men attracted to men." Even in how we are being talked about we can't  have our experiences not defined by men.

3. There is a lot more...open comphet...or rather the assumption everything is comphet in lesbian spaces than in the gay community. This is likely because women have been conditioned to be nice, understanding, caring, never angry or defensive...otherwise, you are just being super mean and playing into the mean man-hating SJW lesbian stereotype...and no one wants to be that. So when someone comes in a lesbian space and says "I really like sleeping with men. Here's a list of male celebrities I would bone if I had the chance. But I feel like lesbian just fits me better?", not wanting to be seen as mean or unaccepting, we may feel more pressured internally to be like "well, I mean, it could just be comphet. When you said you wanted to sleep with a dude, did you mean in an emotional way or a sexual way? Oh...was that too harsh? Sorry. My bad. I didn't mean to question your identity. Of course, you are welcome back here any time."

4. Lesbians are often taken less seriously when they come out compared to gay men and the homophobia we experience can look different...which can often lead people to come to the wrong conclusion that we don't experience homophobia outside of a few mean comments every now and then and lesbians can just skip around holding their partner's hand and kiss where ever and whenever and...well...laughs in the increased homophobia and lesbaphobia recieved in every facet of my life. But basically, when a gay man experiences homophobia, it often gets reported as such and seen as such. It's a clear distinction. Whereas when a lesbian experiences homophobia, well, it could also be a number of other things involving sexism and a lot of orgs often don't really quite know when something is lesbaphobia.

For instance, here's two common workplace harassment examples. (tw for some mentions of workplace sexual abuse)

Jerry is a gay man who was outted by a co-worker against his will has been experiencing bullying and harassment from a few fellow men at the office. They call him slurs behind his back and to his face, make demeaning jokes demonizing femme people, and sometimes even touch him inappropriately as part of the bullying.

Another werid thing that happens is some of his female co-workers have started treating him like their personal therapist and "best gay friend", often engaging him in conversations about workplace gossip he had previously never heard of and about their outfits. They tell him how bad they find the whole bullying situation, but don't really do anything beyond that to stand up for him or report the abuse. Before being outted, Jerry had this co-worker, Becky, who would constantly drop hints she was interested in him, constantly flirted with him, stalked him, and would often be way too touchy with him despite him asking her to stop. Becky is seen as an annoying and ugly nuisance and her co-workers had no problem letting Jerry now how bad they felt for him that he had to deal with someone like her. After being outted, Becky becomes angry and begins spreading unfounded rumors that Jerry had a secret side career in sex work and constantly talks about how silly she feels about not realizing Jerry was gay soon since "it's so obvious!" She seemingly has lost any interest in him outside of making bitter homophobic comments. A lot of her co-workers now see her as somewhat funny and some of the women in the office misremember Jerry being a bit too harsh with how he went about rejecting Becky but ultimately tell him he can't change who he is.

One day while walking out to his car alone, a supervisor who has been in on the bullying gets behind him, pushes him against the car, shoves his hand down the front of his pants, and talks about how he should be castrated because "he doesn't need a dick if he is going to act like he has a vagina."

Jerry decides he has had enough, punches the supervisor away, and goes to file a complaint the next day which HR ...unlike a bunch of cases like these...actually ends up doing something for once. The company labels this as homophobic bullying and has an entire training about accepting the LGBT community and how to be a better ally. While the homophobic bullying still contains to an extent, it's a lot less than it used to be.

Now, let's change the story.

Jenny is a lesbian who was outted by a co-worker against her will and has been experiencing bullying and harassment from many of her male co-workers since. They say really explicitly sexual things to her, make gross sex jokes about lesbians around her, talk about how they could change her if she just slept with one of them, and have even started to openly touch her inappropriately.

Before being outted, Jenny had this co-worker, Brad, who had been asking her out, stalking her, flirting with her, and being way too touchy with her despite her asking him several times to stop it. Everyone knows about the Brad situation at this point and everyone seems to have different reactions and ideas on how to handle it. Most of the female co-workers she has agrees he is acting creepy and have even offered some assistance like walking her out to her car or switching shifts so she doesn't have to work with Brad. Her other female co-workers think she is being a bit too harsh with Brad and constantly feel the need to remind her that "guys have feelings too." Almost all her male co-workers treat the whole thing more like a joke and one day when arriving late to work, her male supervisor jokingly tells her...in a non-joking way...how he is going to make her work with Brad for the whole day as punishment. After being outted, Brad becomes ten times more aggressive with the previous sexual harassment, now getting more brazen with the touching and sex talk, telling her about how hot he finds lesbian pron and how she wouldn't be a lesbian anymore if she spent just one night with him. She also is isolated from the few female co-workers she has, who now interpret a lot of their previous interactions they had with her as just her hitting on them and that previous support for getting her away from Brad has disappeared.

One day, she comes in a bit earlier than her shift and overhears a female co-worker who had previously offered to walk her out to her car how much she regrets doing so and tells an untrue story about how Jenny had tried to kiss her that night. One day, while walking out to her car, Brad corners Jenny, shoves his hands up her shirt and gropes her and gets up close and aggressively tells Jenny how much she is missing out on not being with him. Jenny legit thinks Brad is about to rape her and has to nice her way out of the situation and somehow gets away.

Jenny skips work the next day but then decides she has had enough and goes to HR three days later to file a complaint about Brad, leaving out the parts about the other stuff happening since it seems kind of trivial compared to what Brad did, and HR actually for once does something. They move Brad to another location, the report gets filed under "workplace sexual harassment" and has an entire training about sexual harassment in the workplace. While the homophobic bullying still continues, Jenny feels she can't really say anything because at least Brad isn't around anymore.

5. Gay men, in general, seem to be more well-liked in queer spaces (and I'd even go as far as to say in general in certain parts of the world) than lesbians are. This leads to a lot of people seeing us as bitchy or whiney when we point out misogyny and lesbophobia. Not to mention the whole "lesbians are boring people who like to sit inside reading with their hundreds of houseplants and cats and may give a chaste kiss to their partner every three months while gay guys are out doing cool shit and having wild nasty sex" is a common stereotype still used in a lot of different parts of the internet and the real world, even and especially in a lot of queer spaces and media. Seriously. Just go to any thread on r/AskGayMen about "sexism in queer spaces" and "sexism by gay men" and almost every single comment being upvoted is being incrediably dismissive. (ex: "Well, I have never seen that. "Straight men are worse than us." "I am not like that" and on and on and on and on and on) 

6. A woman's sexuality is seen as something of private property of men by conservative men to only be used for her future husband and as something of public property for men to enjoy by liberal men as part of being...sex positive or something. Lesbian sexuality is also either very porno sexualized for men's wet dreams or so vanilla-ed down that it isn't talked about at all.

Even in media we see these trends. Most sapphic couples on tv are in children's movies and shows and in the rare case they are in an adult show or film, they are often the "wholesome background characters" or the "cheerleaders in a gay man's story" or a great deal of their build-up to their coming out involves abuse by a man and a lot of commentary of a sexist society that a lot of the straight and gay male audience can't really relate to and a lot of the overall female audience is trying to use tv to escape from. Anyone who doesn't like it is somewhat understood since why would you want to watch a show where the first season is dedicated to watching the bisexual protag get over her abusive ex and then wait til the end of the next season when she finally kisses another girl?

Whereas outside of the "my two gay dads trope" most gay male couples are in adult shows and films, often as the "raunchy comic relief" or the "cheerleader in a straight woman's story" and a lot of their coming out involves themes that connect to a wider straight male audience of feeling like a failure of a man, connects to the straight and bisexual female audience of liking penis...but in a way that feels "new" and they feel less bad about sexualizing than they would with a guy and a girl, and tends to be written in a way that is a lot more "exciting" and "interesting" in a way that doesn't hit too close to home for the lesbians in the audience and the gay dudes can enjoy. Anyone who doesn't is seen as a party pooper or someone dealing with internalized homophobia.

Take the show Q-force for instance. While the two gay male leads have extremely graphic sex and tell very graphic sex jokes...the two lesbian characters are seen as very chaste and soft and their interactions with their partners are very "sweet, wholesome, and non-sexual." Now don't get me wrong...I love Q-force...it's one of my favorites...but come on...

Part three: Not All Doom and Gloom 

I agree. It can be frustrating.

I did want to leave some helpful resources for finding more F/F and female character content:

List of 100 Fandoms With Over 20 Works Where F/F is the Top Category on Ao3

Top 100 Femslash Ship Categories for Ao3 in Summer of 2023

Femslash Revolution Tumblr Page

Mylesficfavs (Femslash Blog)

iheartsapphicfic (review site for sapphic literature, formerly iheartlesfic)

The Lesbrary (review site for sapphic and occasional non-binary sexuality/romance books) (Tumblr Page)

The Lesbian Review (blog, review site, and podcast on lesbian and sapphic literature) 

LezReviewBooks List of Lesbian Publishers

LezReviewBooks (review site for lesbian & sapphic literature) 

sapphicbookreviews.com (blog website that reviews various lesbian and sapphic literature in short, easy-to-read summaries, also features interviews from authors!)

WLWFilmReviews (one reviewer's quest to watch and review every single WLW film in existence!)

the-sappho-of-lesbos (tumblr page that mainly discusses lesbian-centric history but also does a lot of reviews and summaries for older lesbian pulp fiction) 

lesbireviewed (review site that focuses on reviewing WLW romance fiction and sometimes general women-centered LGBTQ+ fiction) 

booksandbesitos (reviewer and blog for soft sapphic novels) (Tumblr Page) 

LesbiansonScreen (review and ranking-based site that mainly focuses on films, tv, and books but also has articles on other media like games and comics)

Masc sapphics in books (book list with 100 titles that focus on or have a masc lesbian or sapphic love interest) 

Naughty Librarian Sheets (different category and genre lists of lesbian and sapphic novels by Naughty Librarian) 

Crimsonfemme's Butchfemmemasterpost (list mostly focuses on non-fiction in relation to butch-femme relationships but also has a few fiction and poetry pieces that are an interesting read)

LesbianMAX (shitty movie recap channel. Their reddit is here) 

Sapphic Underground (youtube channel that focuses on reviewing and discussing lesbian and sapphic movies & tv)

a sunny nook book (youtube channel that has a large focus on reviewing and discussing lesbian and sapphic books) (podcast) (Goodreads reviews) (Substack)

Femslash Events:

Femslash February: Event on Ao3 that takes place in February dedicated to increasing the number of F/F fanworks (Ao3 Page) (Ao3 Collection) (Tumblr Page) (Fanlore Page)

Femslash Fridays (currently on hitatus): Every Friday, creators all over create and post fanworks surrounding a different femslash-centered prompt (Tumblr Page) (Ao3 Collection)

Yuri Shipping Olympics: Submissions take place throughout the year and the actual event happens in summer, focuses on a bunch of people writing or creating femslash content and then voting on the "best" one for each fandom that gets presented on the blog (Tumblr Page) (Ao3 Collection)

F/F and lesbian fandom subreddits:

r/femslash

r/LesbianBookClub

r/LesbianWriters

r/LesbianLiterotica

r/LesbianPoetry

r/LesbianGamers

r/LesbianGamersPS4

r/LesbianClub

r/LesbianFilms

r/lesbianmedia

r/GWASapphic

Inactive/Archived lesbian fandom subreddits: 

r/LesbianMoviesnShows

r/LesbianMuses

r/LesbianArtists

r/LesbianBooks

r/LesbianLiterature

Essays for Further Discussion: 

The Problem With Lesbian Romance Novels (video by a sunny book nook on lesbian romance genre) 

IS THERE HOPE FOR F/F IN FANDOM? (video by Obviously Queer on history of F/F in fandom, lesbaphobia in fandom and media, common lesbian media tropes, and the importance of both canon and non-canon F/F ships in fandom)

Tropes in Lesbian Media that are Getting Real Old... (video by Sapphic Underground discussing common overused, frustrating, and even dangerous tropes used in lesbian & sapphic media)

It's Complicated: Possible Reasons for the Lack of Femslash (survey results for top given reasons for lack of F/F fanfiction on 2013 Ao3 collected and compiled by centreoftheselights)

Why M/M? (companion piece by centreoftheselights to Possible Reasons for the Lack of Femslash, asks why M/M was so popular on 2013 Ao3, particularly with queer women) 

Why Are So Many TV Shows About Queer Women Getting the Axe? (article from Them.us that discusses why 21/30 canceled queer tv shows were about queer women)