A feminine TRAGEDY: The Sexualization of WLW

This Halloween, as it so often does, brought with it a flood of questionable social media posts: Pictures of straight girls kissing their straight friends. I’m not talking about a peck on the cheek. I’m talking passionate embrace and lips on lips. The girls in the pictures laugh through their kisses, seeming as surprised and uncomfortable as I am as the viewer. 

Every time I see pictures like this, first I feel angry. It’s frustrating to see my peers who I know to be straight fetishizing lesbianism. Sometimes I turn around at a party to see a circle of men around two straight girls who are kissing, and it makes me sick. I just want to scream: It’s not a trend! Women who love women (WLW) don’t perform their sexuality for the enjoyment of men. Same sex relationships are not some fetish to be played with at parties or in night clubs. 

However, the more I think about it, the harder time I have blaming my ignorant and naive peers for posting pictures like this. This idea that lesbianism is a kink that’s performed for the entertainment of men is perpetuated by the media. 

Songs like PnB Rock’s “I Like Girls,” and Drake’s “Girls Want Girls” push this concept that women loving women is sexy and fun. Movies such as “Blue is the Warmest Color,” a highly controversial film in the LGTBQ+ community, promote a hypersexual concept of lesbian relationships. It’s no surprise that our generation has a warped perception about what is means to be a same-sex oriented woman. 

In July 2021, psychologists Laura R. Ramsey and Arienne Annati published an essay titled “Lesbian Perceptions of Stereotypical and Sexualized Media Portrayal.” In their research, they found that “The predominance of the hot lesbian subtype seems due to the centering of the males gaze… previous research has found sexual minority women women are primarily sexualized by men.” 

Furthermore, they explain that “The performative quality of lesbianism for a heterosexual male audience is widely accepted in music, movies, and television… Heterosexual men are seemingly both intriguied and fearful of the prospect of same-sex attraction among women.”

This is tragic for same-sex oriented women for two reasons: The first being that, ny nature, female homosexual relationships entirely exclude men. This acceptance of male fetishization is the acceptance of male invasion in lesbian relationships.

The second, and perhaps most tragic outcome of this phenomenon, is the way that straight women use it to their advantage. As mentioned above, too often I see straight women kissing for the entertainment of their male peers, or posting pictures and videos of themselves kissing other straight women. This is heartbreaking because, under the patriarchy, all women are sexualized in some way. It is one thing for men to sexualize women, but for women to sexualize each other feels like a betrayal. It’s a mockery. 

This is a call to arms for all women, regardless of sexuality. As the LGBTQ+ community continues to step into its power, straight allies are of the utmost importance. All women should know how it feels to be objectified and sexualized, and we should work to mitigate the influence that the patriarchy has over our identities.