"Why Lesbians Marry"

Have you all seen this article that Jet Magazine published January 1, 1953??

credit http://www.flickr.com/photos/vieilles_annonces/

Observation #1- Beyond the obvious problems with language, I AM impressed that they were even talking about this in the 1950s, and in BLACK AMERICA in 1950s. Sanitized history will have us believe that everyone was very conservative back then and this was not a “polite” or acceptable topic.

Observation #2- It seems interesting that it implies that for most, lesbianism isn’t a choice, barring those that do it for the thrill. Remember this is the era of gay as a psychological disorder, so this implication is pretty advanced.

Observation #3-  I think some of the theories about why some lesbians marry are interesting and may hold true today.

Observation #4- This article distinguishes between feminine-presenting lesbians and masculine-presenting ones. By acknowledging that feminine-presenting outnumber masculine (is this true today..hmm?), it dispels the typical close-minded ideas that women are lesbians because they either want to be men or were abused somehow. Again, this flies in the face of what we believed about people “back then.”

Observation #5- We really have romanticized views of how conservative people were in the past. Most of the time, the past is colored as the “good ole, moral days” and that nowadays we’re just two light bulbs away from an orgy. But when I read articles like this, read East of Eden by Steinbeck with my mouth agape, and recheck the publishing date of Manchild in the Promised Land by Claude Brown, I realize that our remembering of history is just fantasy and that we are doing nothing new AT. ALL.

What’s your take on this article?