Bisexuality & Heterocriticism: A Primary Source
Notes re: heteropessimism, from an essay printed in the Summer 1978 issue of the women's newspaper, 'Hera.'
Most people I've talked to about their experience in the ‘70s and ‘80s have told me that bisexuality did not really come up until later in the century. At most, women who had children or who had been married might have been seen as less trustworthy and indecisive. But, I have been told, bisexuality wasn’t a very common label. So I was surprised to find this essay by Judy Mendelsohn in the Summer 1978 issue of the women’s newspaper, Hera, available in the John J. Wilcox, Jr., Archives at the William Way LGBT Center. She describes her experience as a bisexual in the lesbian feminist community
In light of Indiana Seresin’s recent article in The New Inquiry, ‘On Heteropessimism,’ I’ve highlighted Mendelsohn’s critique of heterosexuality—her heterocriticism, if you will—that comes at the end of the article. Writing for The New Inquiry, Seresin writes:
Heterosexuality has long been a neglected object of study, elbowed out of sexuality studies right after the field emerged by the sexier and cooler project of queer theory. Queer theorists look smugly at heterosexuality over their shoulders as the thing that they have—thank God—left behind. In doing so, they remain outdatedly attached to a moment in which heterosexuality was widely understood to be an idealized form of life.
Mendelsohn’s essay calls out biphobia in a language that I recognize from today, but what struck me was her call for a critical reexamination of heterosexuality. You can read a typed version of her full text here.
Bold emphasis is mine.
My Boyfriend Dropped Me Off At The Lesbian Coffeehouse
by Judy Mendelsohn
Summer 1978, Hera
While lesbianism resolves the problem of intimate relationships for many women, it is not the answer for all women. Many hostilities that lesbians feel toward heterosexual women are totally justified and must be vindicated, but not at the price of the freedoms for which we are all fighting.
[…]
Heterosexuality, in and of itself, does not produce male supremacy. It is male control of the economic aspects of women’s lives today that gives them power over our sexuality and every other part of our lives. We must seize that power ourselves and establish ourselves as independent women financially to begin to break through male supremacy.
If we interpret heterosexuality as ‘men first’ we are accepting men’s definition of the female-male sexual relationship. Thus we abandon a part of our own sexuality by allowing men to determine what form it should take. We must throw out their definition and create our own. IT IS TIME TO RECLAIM OUR BODIES AND THE SEXUALITY OUR ANCESTRESSES ENJOYED IN ALL ITS INFINITE ASPECTS!
A bisexual woman has the same feminist goals as other committed women. Her primary energies are devoted to women. Although she may spend some time with men, she realizes that ‘every woman is one man away from welfare,’ in other words, the ‘privileges’ of heterosexuality are so temporal that they are not to be considered serious alternatives. Since they can be snatched away at will by men, there is no point in accepting them in the first place. Feminist women have no time to play cat-and-mouse with men or women.
The woman’s movement needs every sister who is woman-identified, regardless of her sexual orientation. Instead of mimicing [sic] patriarchy, we must renew our attack of that system which oppresses us all.
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