LESBIAN LEISURE LIFESTYLES

Lesbian leisure lifestyles are as diverse as the leisure lifestyles of any other segment of American society, and in many ways reflect the same behavioral choices and experiences found among heterosexual women. Lesbian women's leisure, like other people's leisure, is influenced by age, ethnicity, past experiences, personality, and a myriad of other factors, as much as it is by sexual orientation. Because sexual orientation can remain hidden, lesbians are not always distinguishable from nonlesbian women. These factors make it impossible to offer a general description of lesbian leisure lifestyles.

One factor shared by all lesbians, however, is their awareness that American culture views homosexuality as deviant. As such, lesbians (and all nonheterosexual individuals) live in a society that marginalizes and stigmatizes them through social processes that award or withhold privilege based on sexual orientation. This process also privileges men over women, whites over blacks, the young over the old, and so forth. Thus, although lesbians and gay men share an experience of discrimination because of sexual orientation, lesbians face added marginalization due to their gender, and lesbians who are black or old are marginalized even further. Any discussion of lesbian leisure lifestyles must therefore examine the ways in which lesbians have been affected by, and respond to, those unique discriminatory discourses that label them as deviant.

The Significance of Leisure

The relevance of leisure stems from the ways that leisure links to identity and community. Unlike many other facets of one's daily life, leisure is unique in the degree to which it promotes self-expression and facilitates selective interaction with others. For many people, leisure offers social validation and a sense of community that no longer comes through family, church, or neighborhood connections. This understanding of leisure has been premised upon studies of normative heterosexual individuals, leading researchers to posit a multitude of beneficial outcomes associated with leisure. Until recently, researchers overlooked people such as lesbians, whose leisure experiences might be replete with messages that marginalize, stigmatize, and devalue their identities. For those individuals, social validation is often scarce, and unguarded self-expression could be dangerous. This makes leisure a much more complex phenomenon for lesbians than what is represented in the leisure literature.

Historical Foundations

Prior to the mid-twentieth century, the label "lesbian" was relatively unknown. Same-sex desire has existed throughout the centuries (the lesbian poetry of Sappho dates back to 630 BC), but homosexuality referred to sexual activity and was not subsumed as a category of identity. The difficulty in exploring the historical foundations of lesbians' leisure is therefore compounded by a lack of visible record about who those early lesbian women were. One indirect link between leisure and lesbian identity can be found in discussions in the early twentieth century that warned women to limit their participation in sport lest they were perceived as "mannish" and become unattractive marriage partners for men. American culture still uses this threat to restrict girls and women from participating in sports. In a more positive light, the early twentieth century also produced many women in the arts who had open relationships with other women (such as author Gertrude Stein, poet Emily Dickensen, or musician Bessie Smith). Their visibility undoubtedly bolstered the courage of countless other women who sought validation for their own lesbian lifestyles. Thus, heterosexual discourse has been intertwined with, and challenged by, leisure venues for a long time.

Historians often refer to the Stonewall Riots of 1969 as the beginning of the modern gay and lesbian movement. Gay bars had long been a cornerstone in the lives of urban gays and lesbians, representing one of the few public places where they could openly assemble. The Stonewall Inn in New York City was a gay bar, and the riots ensued when patrons fought back during a police raid (raids were common at that time to deter the "immoral" lifestyles of homosexuals). That the patrons rose up in defense of a bar reveals the cultural significance that this leisure setting had within the gay community.

Also influential during this period was the passage of Title IX, federal legislation that opened up sports and related programs for girls. Because access was legally mandated, the stigma of sports as "mannish" began to erode. Ironically, by providing an expanding array of sport opportunities for girls and women, Title IX also increased the visibility of lesbian athletes. Prominent figures such as Billy Jean King, a lesbian tennis professional, became visible role models for lesbian girls, and sports and physical recreation began to offer forms of social validation that had previously been denied.

Lesbians also benefited from the larger women's movement that resulted in new freedoms for women in general. As societal norms changed, it became more common for women to visit parks, attend movies, eat out, and engage in other public activities without a male escort. These changes opened many leisure venues for lesbians, offering an increased opportunity to engage in public leisure with less danger of revealing their sexual identities. Unfortunately, the necessity of passing as heterosexual maintained the stigma associated with being lesbian.

One other significant event from this era was the emergence of women's music festivals. Much more than a concert, these events would last for days while concert-goers camped out in nearby fields. These concerts promoted a feminist agenda in an all-women environment, creating a culture of acceptance that lesbians found freeing and invigorating. The social validation and affirmation provided by those events was influential in building a sense of community among young lesbians nationwide.

Stigma and Discrimination

One way to highlight the unique elements of lesbians' leisure is to examine the effects of stigma and discrimination at different points in their lives. Starting with adolescence, a period defined by sexual questioning and insecurity, leisure is a powerful arena that reaffirms the hetero-normative expectations of society. Sex-segregated activities such as girls-only organizations reinforce the cultural uniqueness of girls as girls while promoting an expectation that girls' emerging sexual awareness would be aimed at boys. In a similar fashion, sex-mixed activities such as dances and dates are also entrenched in the expectation of heterosexual attraction. While offering opportunity for heterosexual girls to examine and become comfortable with their emerging sexual identities, these leisure events provide some of the earliest stigmatizing messages to lesbian adolescents that their own sexual feelings are wrong. Lesbian girls learn that it is dangerous to openly reveal their attraction to other girls, and leisure contexts are often less-than-hospitable environments.

Lesbian adolescents learn the importance of passing as heterosexual, a survival strategy that carries over into adulthood, where the dangers of homophobic aggression are increased. In addition to homophobia, lesbians also face the broader forms of sexism and violence aimed at women in general. All women are vulnerable to sexual harassment in public, but a form of symbolic protection occurs when women are with men. Because lesbians are less likely to be in the company of men, they are at increased risk for this type of harassment. Even gay bars, the symbolic core of gay solidarity, cater more frequently to the interests of gay men, and the male clientele sometimes resent the intrusion of lesbians into "their" space.

Passing as heterosexual becomes more problematic when lesbians move out of anonymous public space and into leisure settings where they are likely to be recognized. Lesbian teachers, for example, often face a threat of losing their jobs if their sexual orientation were to become known. For those women, public leisure engagements are characterized by a dynamic tension between the comfortable validation of shared leisure and the concurrent need to hide the nature of their relationships. Common events such as parties and community gatherings carry an expectation of bringing, or at least talking about, a male partner—which adds to the complexity of a simple conversation. Lesbians have been known to "borrow" male friends, who pose as dates, in order to make these events more tolerable.

It is not unusual for women to come out as lesbian well into their adult years, after having had a traditional marriage and raising children. For these women, long time leisure patterns are often destroyed. They might be excluded from holidays and family gatherings unless family members are accepting of their new partners; likewise, social invitations that had been common during marriage often disappear when a woman takes on a lesbian partner.

An added burden for older lesbians is their consequent rejection by the younger lesbian community. Ageism is as salient among lesbians as it is in other segments of society. Leisure venues within the lesbian community are often developed with younger interests in mind, and older lesbians find themselves marginalized by the very community they initially worked to establish.

Proactive Leisure Responses

For most lesbians, leisure choices are relatively indistinguishable from those of heterosexual women. They go to movies, dine out, shop, hike, and attend public events. They also sit at home, read books, watch TV, and at times get lonely or bored. In these ways, lesbian leisure lifestyles mimic the leisure routinely seen in other segments of the population. Since social validation might be lacking and self expression is often guarded in public leisure venues, however, lesbians have created a rich network of alternative leisure opportunities including, most importantly, the common dinners and informal get-togethers that occur in their own homes. In addition, sites such as feminist coffee shops and bookstores facilitate lectures, concerts, and other events that promote a sense of community among lesbians. In many large metropolitan areas, local groups have established gay and lesbian sports leagues. There is a broader national response as well. An underground network of lesbian-owned campgrounds has existed for years. More recently, a profitable tourism industry has emerged, promoted by books and websites that list gay-friendly lodging, restaurants, and tour operators (such as the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association at www.iglta.org).

By establishing leisure alternatives away from the public gaze, lesbians have found ways to facilitate self expression and social validation that is denied them in more public leisure contexts. The essential characteristic of these sites is an absence of stigma, replaced instead by an atmosphere of acceptance and affirmation. Because of the pervasive discourse that marginalizes lesbians in other aspects of their lives, these private leisure contexts provide an important place to build identity and community.

See also: Gay Men's Leisure Lifestyles, Women's Leisure Lifestyles

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Diane M. Samdahl