Women Sexuality-Discussion

II

‘I’m Straight, but I Kissed a Girl’: The Trouble with American Media Representations of Female–Female

Sexuality

Lisa M. DIAMOND

Nearly 20 years ago, Kitzinger (1987) argued that the shift in psychological research in the 1970s and 1980s toward a liberal-humanistic view of lesbians and gay men as ‘just like’ heterosexuals (rather than intrinsically deviant and patho- logical) was not, in fact, as positive and progressive as it might have seemed. Rather, she noted that this conceptualization actually reinforced the dominant social order by presenting same-sex sexuality as a matter of private lifestyle, thereby neutralizing its political challenge to heterosexuality. This was, of course, an insidiously effective way of maintaining the social institution of heterosexual- ity, given that outright condemnation of homosexuals had gradually become less socially acceptable.

An analogous critique can and should be made regarding the ‘positive’ and ‘accepting’ portrayals of female same-sex sexuality that have increasingly pro- liferated in American entertainment media. Over the past 5–10 years, there has been an upsurge of openly lesbian (and less often, bisexual) characters and rela- tionships on American films and television shows (recent films include The Hours, Chasing Amy, But I’m a Cheerleader; Gigli, Lost and Delirious, Everything Relative; television shows include Ellen, ER, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, NYPD Blue, All My Children, Friends, JAG, Melrose Place, Popular, Once and Again, Nip/Tuck, K Street, Coupling, Queer as Folk). More interest- ingly, however, there have also been numerous depictions of presumably hetero- sexual women hinting at or experimenting with same-sex sexuality, a phenome- non that has been called ‘heteroflexibility’ (Essig, 2000) (films include Kissing Jessica Stein; 8 Women, Laurel Canyon; Heavenly Creatures, television shows include Ally McBeal, Friends, Will & Grace, Party of Five, Sex and the City – see also the recent Madonna/Britney Spears and Madonna/Christina Aguilera kisses on the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards: ‘Madonna smooches with Britney and Christina’ [MTV, 2003]).

On the one hand, feminist psychologists might hopefully surmise that these mass

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media representations signal a new appreciation and celebration of women’s sexual freedom and diversity. On the other hand this is not necessarily the case, particularly with regard to depictions of ‘heteroflexibility’. As noted by Wilkinson (1996), such depictions can have the effect of trivializing and depoliticizing same- sex sexuality by portraying it as a fashionable ‘add on’ to otherwise conventional heterosexuality. Consistent with this view, a close reading of contemporary media depictions reveals that they (1) package heteroflexibility in a manner designed to specifically attract and titillate young male viewers; (2) reify outmoded, dichoto- mous models of sexuality by presenting same-sex experimentation as a means of confirming one’s essential heterosexuality; and (3) obscure the sociopolitical context of ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ (Rich, 1980) by portraying heterosexual identification as a trivial matter of free choice and personal preference. Given the dominance of American films and television shows on the world entertainment stage, and the increasing tendency for advertisers and producers to actively court young and impressionable viewers, these troubling conceptual trends deserve close scrutiny and critique by feminist psychologists.

HETEROFLEXIBILITY FOR THE HETEROSEXUAL MALE CONSUMER

Observing sex between otherwise heterosexual women has long been a staple of male fantasy, but only recently has this fantasy graduated from the shelves of pornographic video stores to mainstream movies and television shows. This puts feminist psychologists in a quandary: on one hand, images of female–female sexuality between attractive, ‘heterosexual-looking’ participants (perhaps better called ‘femme–femme’ sexuality) may have a powerful positive influence on young women by countering stereotypes of lesbians as unattractive, masculine, and hostile. On the other hand, these images typically take pains to clarify that the participants are not, in fact, lesbians (exemplified by Ally McBeal, in which two of the three ‘lesbian kisses’ featured during the show’s run were undertaken by the participants to ‘trick’ heterosexual male onlookers, and the third was purely experimental), in order not to spoil the ‘interloper fantasy’ of the heterosexual male viewer. Thus, such images implicitly convey that the most desirable and acceptable form of female–female sexuality is that which pleases and plays to the heterosexual male gaze, titillating male viewers while reassuring them that the participants remain sexually available in the conventional heterosexual market- place.

One salient example is the young female pop duo, Tatu, who decline to openly categorize themselves as lesbians or bisexuals but openly display and discuss their long-standing sexual and romantic relationship with one another in inter- views, posters, videos, and publicity photos. Notably, much of the marketing of Tatu exploits the heady combination of youth and female–female sexuality, for example by posing them embracing one another while wearing young girls’ underwear and undershirts: in fact, their manager has openly admitted to the BBC

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that Tatu represent an ‘underage sex project’ marketed toward men who enjoy ‘underage entertainment’ (BBC, 2003). Thus, any potential for Tatu to provide a positive model of open and exuberant same-sex sexuality for young lesbian and/or bisexual women is counteracted by the commodification of youthful same-sex sexuality to appeal to the fantasies of adolescent boys and potentially predatory adult men.

Finally, the ‘fantasy’ nature of contemporary depictions of heterosexual experimentation with same-sex sexuality is further underscored by the fact that these ‘experiments’ are almost always portrayed as occurring between white, middle-class women, unencumbered by the realities of race or class oppression. This reinforces a safe sense of sexual ‘Utopia’ in which sexual feelings and behaviors have no political dimension. When women of color are involved (as in the Asian character ‘Ling’ on Ally McBeal, discussed below), such characters typically possess considerable class privilege, thereby creating safely exotic com- modities for white male viewers that neatly avoid questions about the inherent power differentials linked to race, class, and gender.

SAME-SEX ‘TESTING’ AND THE ERASURE OF BISEXUALITY

Another common theme in depictions of heteroflexibility is the verification of the participants’ ‘authentic’ heterosexuality. For example, after Ally and Ling (two female lawyers working in the same firm) kissed on Ally McBeal, they acknow- ledged to one another that, although it was enjoyable, it simply reinforced that what each of them really wanted from a relationship was ‘a penis’. Both also described relief at discovering that they were, in fact, heterosexual. Thus, they are portrayed as having rejected the possibility of lesbianism or bisexuality not because they are closed-minded and sexually repressed, but because it is simply not natural for them, which they know for a fact because they tried it. In a cultural context that prizes self-exploration and open-mindedness, this is a more appealing and legitimate way to establish one’s heterosexual credentials than to reject the idea of same-sex sexuality out of hand.

Notably, the possibility that the heterosexual protagonists might actually be bisexual is rarely considered. This is not surprising, considering that bisexuals are still widely stereotyped in the mainstream media – and even, still, among many lesbians – as sexually voracious, confused, predatory, and emotionally unstable (reviewed in Rust, 2000). Consequently, the only way for mainstream films and television shows to create an erotically appealing – and hence economically rewarding – image of two women authentically enjoying one another’s bodies and avoid the quagmire of bisexuality is to have the participants conclude that their enjoyment of same-sex contact was the wrong type of enjoyment. Thus, whereas instances of heteroflexibility might have created valuable opportunities to challenge the dichotomization of sexual orientation, the opposite tends to occur.

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There are, however, some exceptions. After Madonna kissed both Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera during a musical number during the MTV 2003 Video Music Awards, both Spears and Aguilera spoke glowingly about the experience to the media. Spears said (quoted in Warn, 2003b) that the kiss would ‘last her for a while’, and that ‘This is something I’ve dreamt about since I was a little girl. I cannot believe this just like freakin’ happened. I am on a major high right now. I feel very cool.’ Of course, she backtracked slightly in the days after the event, pointing out that ‘I didn’t know it was going to be that long and everything’ and that she probably wouldn’t kiss a woman again, unless it were Madonna. In this formulation, Spears is able to discount (and politically neutral- ize) her enjoyment of the kiss by attributing it to the specific and circumscribed allure of Madonna (as Spears said, ‘I mean, come on . . . If you can kiss any girl in the world, that has to be her’) rather than a generalized openness to same-sex contact. It also bears noting that the event specifically courted the male gaze by explicitly casting Madonna in a male-identified role, dressing her to represent the older, black-clad ‘groom’ with a frilly, young, ‘virginal’ bride on each arm.

Thus, the potential of these kisses to challenge rigid, dichotomous models of sexuality was altogether lost on a viewing public that is all-too-accustomed to the economically motivated packaging and marketing of sexual controversy. In one teen-oriented chatroom devoted to discussing the MTV kisses (http://www. yoink.org/cgi-bin/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=4336), perhaps the second most common comment (behind male and female exhortations of how exciting and titillating they were) was how phoney they were:

Easy there, boys. Don’t you realize when your chain is being jerked? Madonna . . . is just trying to be as outrageous as possible to stay in the headlines. Britney is desperate to become more ‘adult’. Is Britney a lesbian? Not a chance . . . Is Madonna? No. She is an aging, pre-menopausal British housewife.

MTV depends on this kind of material to promote their awards shows. By Madonna and Britney kissing, MTV now has tons of material to show the world how ‘exciting’ their programming is.

I got nothing against REAL passion-driven kissing between any two humans. It’s just that these are not real people, they are products. Britney © Madonna ® Christina™.

Clearly, contemporary youths are not easily taken in by media exploitation of supposedly ‘cutting edge’ or ‘controversial’ behaviors. At the same time, their cynicism may have the undesirable side-effect of precluding serious questioning of the boundaries between heterosexuality and homosexuality.

TAKING THE ‘COMPULSORY’ OUT OF COMPULSORY HETEROSEXUALITY

Finally, most media images of heteroflexibility tend to cast these struggles as inherently apolitical, depicting a Utopia in which questions about sexual orienta-

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tion and identity are fundamentally personal choices about love, desire, and ful- fillment that have little or no social context. Thus, whereas Rich (1980) called attention over 20 years ago to the pervasive but often invisible sociopolitical forces rendering heterosexuality a cultural imperative for women rather than a natural ‘state of being’, such open acknowledgement of the status of hetero- sexuality as a hegemonic social institution is altogether missing from media portrayals of heteroflexibility.

This is no surprise: just as many heterosexual women took offense over 20 years ago at Rich’s contention that the ‘naturalness’ of their desire for men might reflect false consciousness, contemporary women are similarly inclined to reject the notion that they have been unwittingly tricked into considering themselves straight. Thus, just as some women come away from encounters with hetero- flexibility claiming that it proves that they ‘can’t help’ their heterosexuality, others maintain that they could, in fact, happily pursue same-sex relationships if they wanted to, but they simply decided otherwise (of course, this perspective nicely sidesteps the fact that such ‘decisions’ could never be freely undertaken for working-class women, who might critically depend on heterosexual relationshps for economic survival). Notably, an increasing number of female celebrities have described their own sexual histories and possibilities in these terms. As reviewed by Warn (2003a), American celebrities such as Drew Barrymore, Angelina Jolie, Lisa Marie Presley, and Alanis Morrisette have openly discussed attractions to – and sometimes prior relationships with – women, although all of them claim that they doubt they will pursue such experiences in the future. Again, the political context of such decisions (for example, the risk that same-sex sexuality might pose to their careers) is not explicitly mentioned, and instead these decisions are entirely idiosyncratic and personal.

The mainstream ‘romantic comedy’, Kissing Jessica Stein, provides another example of the depoliticization of heteroflexibility. In this film, heterosexual Jessica answers a personals ad placed by bi-curious Helen and they end up in a full-fledged sexual and romantic relationship that both women clearly enjoy. However, the sexual spark eventually fades on Jessica’s part, as she discovers that her feelings for Helen are more affectional than erotic. She returns to dating men, while Helen continues to date women. Each of these outcomes is portrayed as a fundamentally personal decision with no sociopolitical context or implica- tions. Notably, this apoliticism appears to have been one of the main selling points of the film. Reviewers tended to emphasize the ‘fresh spin’ that the film took on the romantic comedy genre, and took for granted its depiction of a world in which choosing men versus women is entirely idiosyncratic (rottentomatoes. com, 2003). As one reviewer noted, ‘Kissing Jessica Stein is refreshing precisely because it has no sexual politics. Its overriding message is that there’s no explain- ing sexual attraction, and there’s no way (or need) to justify who turns us on and why at certain points in our lives’ (Zacharek, 2002). Again, such an observation might ideally spark serious questioning of the social and political ends served by categorical models of sexuality, but this does not appear to have taken place.

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Rather, a more Pollyanna conceptualization of sexual flexibility appears to have taken hold, one in which the political dimensions of same-sex versus other- sex sexuality (and the similarly obscured race and class dynamics of sexual ‘choices’) would simply spoil the fun.

CONCLUSION

Just as positive, ‘liberal-humanistic’ conceptualizations of gays and lesbians effectively regulate the status of same-sex sexuality in contemporary culture while appearing not to do so (Kitzinger, 1987), the same is true with regard to the recent ‘positive’ portrayals of heteroflexibility in contemporary American enter- tainment media. These media images serve the same basic functions that have historically been served by open stigmatization of same-sex sexuality, yet in a guise that is more palatable to a generation of women that reflexively spurn notions of sexual repression and embrace self-determination. Specifically, the proliferation of positive and titillating depictions of heteroflexibility reflect the fact that in the contemporary social climate, promotion and maintenance of female heterosexuality is best accomplished when packaged – and sold – as freedom and sexual choice (see also Doty and Gove’s 1997 discussion of the normalization of same-sex sexuality via media representations). Just as an increasing number of celebrities claim to have the option to pursue same-sex rela- tionships, but reliably decline to do so, young women consuming media images of heteroflexibility will continue to be reliably channeled toward heterosexuality, yet may come away with the notion that this outcome was an entirely personal choice based on their ‘natural’ predispositions, rather than a heterosexist socio- political context.

This is not to suggest that we should go back to a time in which the only media images of same-sex sexuality were negative ones. Rather, feminists must not be lured into thinking that just because contemporary images of same-sex sexuality are ‘positive’, they are socially and psychologically benign. Perhaps the best approach for feminist psychologists and educators is to continue to encourage heterosexual and lesbian-bisexual women to be critical consumers of all media depictions of sexuality, and to bear in mind that whether positive or negative, such depictions reliably serve a dominant social order that continues to prioritize the regulation and control of female sexuality.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Portions of this article were presented at Women’s Sexualities: Historical, Interdisci- plinary, and International Perspectives, sponsored by the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, November, 2003, Bloomington, ID.

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Doty, A. and Gove, B. (1997) ‘Queer Representation in the Mass Media’, in A. Medhurst and S. Munt (eds) Lesbian and Gay Studies: A Critical Introduction, pp. 84–98. Washington, DC: Cassell.

Essig, L. (2000) ‘Heteroflexibility’, salon.com, 15 November, accessed 1 October 2003. Available: http://dir.salon.com/mwt/feature/2000/11/15/heteroflexibility/index.html

Kitzinger, C. (1987) The Social Construction of Lesbianism. London: Sage. MTV (2003) ‘Madonna smooches with Britney and Christina’, accessed 1 October 2003.

Available: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1477729/20030828/story.jhtml Rich, A. (1980) ‘Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence’, Signs 5(4): 631–60. rottentomatoes.com (2003) ‘Kissing Jessica Stein’, accessed 1 October 2003. Available:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/KissingJessicaStein-1112862/ Rust, P.R. (2000) Bisexuality in the United States: A Reader and Guide to the Literature.

New York: Columbia University Press. Warn, S. (2003a) ‘Bi with a Boyfriend: The Latest Hollywood trend?’ afterellen.com,

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Warn, S. (2003b) ‘VMA’s Madonna–Britney–Christina Kiss: Progress or Publicity Stunt?’ afterellen.com, September, accessed 1 October 2003. Available: http://www.afterellen. com/TV/vmakiss.html.

Wilkinson, S. (1996) ‘Bisexuality “a la mode”’, Women’s Studies International Forum 19(3): 293–301.

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Lisa M. DIAMOND is Assistant Professor of Psychology and Gender Studies at the University of Utah. Her research focuses on adolescent and young adult social and sexual development, as well as on the psychobiology of affectional bonding over the life course. She is particularly interested in multiple environ- mental and psychosocial factors that influence the emergence and expression of sexual and affectional feelings for same-sex and other-sex partners at different stages of life. ADDRESS: Department of Psychology, University of Utah, 380 South 1530 East, rm. 502, Salt Lake City, UT 84112–0251. [email: [email protected]]

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