Feminism and Lesbian Art by CherryJ

December 14 in Kyoto

I went to Kyoto Seika University and had a great time with some people (mostly students there).
Here is an outline I planned to speak to them...(and as usual I talked too long and forgot to emphasize some important parts, though.)

1. What is Lesbian Art?

* What is an art? - An artist, creates something through a chosen medium by herself, and it is expected to be interpreted/appriciated by others. Sometimes the creator hopes feedback from the audience. It is not only a simple object, but also an artistic work itself is a messenger. So that in my mind, an art is a way to communicate with the other people - outside of oneself - society.

* What is "lesbian" art then? - Lesbian art could be an art for lesbians, but I intend to say this phrase when the creator is a lesbian-identified artist.

* Just for my ease, a lesbian is a woman-identified woman who sexually attracted to another woman-identified woman. The point isn't whether having sex with a woman or not.

2. What is "Lesbian identity"? How do you identify yourself as a lesbian?

* I'll say an identity is something that is part of yourself that is shared by an enough number of people who has some similarity with you, that has not changed easily through time goes on. And also that there must be other group(s) you cannot be a member - i.e. Lesbians aren't men, heterosexual women, or man-identified women (transgender, transsexual) who is sexually oriented toward to woman-identified women, either.

* Suppose there is 3 phases of one gets gay-identity. At first, you just feel it wondering maybe you're gay, then you start to behave like gay, having the same-sex sexual partners, etc., finally you'll find a gay-community as your place and you even get some social role in there. Since the gay-community is inside the ready-made society, being gay is stigma (socially negatively labeled). [DuBay, William H. 1987. Gay identity: the self under ban. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co.]

* However, it's hard to find a lesbian community in Japan. Can you apply this three-phase-model for yourself while you're in this country? If you don't have any access to the internet and stay in countryside?

As long as I see, the lesbian communities aren't easily accessible for someone who is too young or old to know about them through the 'net. Generally speaking, socioeconomic status of women (compared to men) makes more difficult to make up continuous lesbian communities outside of metropolitan areas like Tokyo or Osaka.

3. Gradations/Spectra of sexuality elements

* Define "sexuality" --- contains "sex," "gender," and "sexual orientation - some people prefer to say sexual preference, though."

But meanwhile, the borders of such as "sex and gender" and "gender and sexual orientation" are ambiguous, and also for every individual, each element (sex, gender, sexual orientation) is an ambiguous position on its gradation/spectrum.

* From this point of view, only the way we might be able to explain the reality of our sexuality is each person is different.

Even you're a lesbian and the word for our identities are the same, but we two are different to each other (so that's why we can make a community, and lesbian art is vary enough for having fun for us ;-)

4. Sexual rights

* The very basic concept of human right is all the people are equal. And each of us needs one's own safety, privacy, and freedoms to live on.

* To be as yourself including your sexuality, you should have your safety and protected privacy, and having freedoms of choice about your own soul and body.

* I've experienced difficulties to start this "Feminism and Lesbian Art Meeting in Shiga." (Yes, I have lots of stories of Shiga-people who didn't realize they discriminated against sexual minorities.)

A challenging but the most necessary realization for those people who've never questioned being "normal" in Japan is that they have human rights (as we do ;-P) from the very young age.

Janis Cherry [cherryj_l@yahoo.com]
Don't forget to put your name on your e-mail to me!

English Home