Female homosexuality in literature

Female Homosexuality in the Contemporary Arabic Novel

by
Jolanda Guardi

Give specify to the nameless so it can be thought (Audre Lorde)

Abstract

In recent years, a set of novels published in the Arab society have a lesbian (gay or lesbian) as their main character. Studies on homosexuality and literature in the Arab world recently published tend to study the subject in a dichotomist way, i.e., they look after to be based only on a historical perspective and offer a monolithic image of homosexuality and Islam and its literary statement. In this manuscript, I will scan some of these novels to underline how the female homosexual character is still bound to a binary structure of society, thus preventing these novel from being LGTB ones in occupied, but setting the basis for recent developments, the development of a brand-new aesthetic form, and a rethinking of the literary canon.

In recent years, several novels have been published in the Arabi

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Since the Renaissance, countless writers have been magnetized by the notion of love between women. From Renaissance love poems to twentieth-century novels, plays, and short stories, The Literature of Lesbianism brings together hundreds of literary works on the subject of female homosexuality. This is not an anthology of "lesbian writers." Nor is it simply a one-sided compendium of "positive" or "negative" images of lesbian experience. Terry Castle explores the emergence and transformation of the "idea of lesbianism": its conceptual origins and how it has been transmitted, transformed, and collectively embellished over the past five centuries.

Both male and female authors are represented here and they display an astonishing and often volatile range of attitudes. Some excoriate female same-sex love; some eulogize it. Some are salacious or satiric; others sympathetic and confessional. Yet what comes ac

Female Homosexuality in a Heteronormative Narrative. From "The Bell Jar" to "Sex and the City"

Both "The Bell Jar", a novel written by Sylvia Plath which was published in the year shortly before the author's death, and accepted HBO series "Sex and the City" feature - at least at some point in the story - minor lesbian characters. Whether those characters function as the protagonists' admire interests or not, they pose a severe threat to the heteronormative narrative of the stories.

Gender and sexuality are historically intertwined in several ways. Often, the legitimacy of “real” male- or womanhood has to be proven by heterosexuality. Hence, homosexuality can threaten those concepts of a stereotypical gender identity. According to Judith Butler, gender is something that is constructed rather than something we simply own; thus it is not ensured and can be dismantled either by oneself or someone else. Focusing on female homosexuality as a perceived threat to heteronormativity and femininity as well as femaleness, this paper will predom

Graphic by Kel Yu/OutWrite

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Content warning: homophobia, homophobic violence

My first June after discovering sapphic literature was one of eager anticipation. I had loved sapphic novels from the moment I picked up “The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics” the year prior, and waited all year for Pride Month so that I could acquire new recommendations. Sure enough, they started rolling in! Scrolling through TikTok, I saw video after video advertising “queer book recs.” But what I saw was disappointing at best. In these videos, the word “queer” seemed to be synonymous with male-loving-male (MLM); every single video was full of nothing but MLM novel recommendations.

Where were the novels for us sapphics?

It seemed enjoy this was not an isolated occurrence, since I saw numerous other sapphic individuals (such as @readbyfin on TikTok) complaining about this phenomenon. I started to wonder about the actual arrive of this underrepresentation; was this something that extended throughout the medium of literature?

Let’s turn to Goodreads, a popular book review website. Under the tag “LG