Lesbians Talk Safer Sex

by Sue O'Sullivan, Pratibha Parmar

Libro usado en buenas condiciones, por su antiguedad podria contener señales normales de uso

Genres: LGBT, Nonfiction, Lesbian

Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

Reviews

[Scott JB · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the best of the Lesbians Talk pamphlets, but an interesting record of its time (1991/1992). You can see the writers struggling to theorise how neglect of, and oppression towards, women and gay people means that lesbians get ignored or collapsed into single categories - the idea that lesbians might only have one kind of sex, for example, and not engage in riskier types of sex or be drug users and contract HIV this way. At its heart this is the argument for a sort of "identity liberation" - for queer people to be allowed a complex, varied series of identities, and to define and expand these on their own terms, rather than to be defined or constrained by official report language.

(Less gone into is the consequence of the sex wars on lesbians during the initial AIDS crisis - how hard certain women fought for lesbian sex to be non-penetrative really does affect how sexual healthcare deprioritises you.)

It's worth noting, though, that this pamphlet as a whole seems to assume that the reader isn't already HIV+, it's very much pitched in the prevention/education side of sex. That's fine, and there are some great moments in Beth Zemsky's contribution- but it feels like an oversight to say "lesbians can have risky fluid-swapping sex and use dirty needles" while always treating the reader like they haven't.