When celebrated American thinker and writer Susan Sontag died recently, her obituaries all noted her marriage in the 1950s to Philip Rieff and the son they had together. In a double standard that seems odd now that obituaries routinely acknowledge same-sex survivors, few media outlets touched on her intimate relationships with women—including one with photographer Annie Leibovitz that lasted almost three times longer than Sontag's heterosexual marriage.
A big part of this omission has to do with Sontag's fierce, lifelong rejection of the identities of lesbian or bisexual—or 'queer,' a term that even some academically chic straight people have claimed. The media, then, can simply say they're respecting Sontag's 'privacy.' But the other part of the silence about Sontag's sexuality has to do with the limited and negative way U.S. culture defines the word 'lesbian'—notably when it is coupled with 'writer.'
Sontag's refusal to acknowledge her sexuality went way beyond the desire for privacy; it was also about the desire for power and influence. After all, being a lesbian writer—or even just a writer who is a lesbian—has not been a wise career choice in our culture. In fact, it's been almost a guarantee of obscurity, with a few notable exceptions like novelist Rita Mae Brown and playwright Paula Vogel.
A big obstacle for lesbian writers is that the concept of 'lesbian' still brings to people's biased minds an image of dumpy women who dress badly and hate men—and who wants to hear what they have to say? Curiously, many of the same obituaries that skipped over Sontag's sexuality extolled her glamour and attractiveness, her 'luxurious' hair and 'ravishing' smile—traits not commonly associated with lesbians.
Because of the prevailing stereotype of lesbians, then, many straight people—and some gay men, too—have decided that our writing couldn't possibly possess the depth and breadth of that of straight and gay male writers, whose art is expansive and 'universal.' ( Lesbians are often dismissed simply as purveyors of girl-on-girl romances, although heterosexual romance is a staple of straight publishing. ) In a telling comment on the limited reach of even the most well-known lesbian writers, Sontag claimed never to have heard of Camille Paglia when the latter excoriated her in an essay titled 'Sontag, Bloody Sontag.'
To quote her obituaries, Sontag was indeed 'fearless' and 'a hero'—she achieved fame as a critical thinker in a culture that has rarely associated intellectualism with women. But still, she was terrified of being construed as a dyke. When Carl Rollyson and Lisa Paddock detailed her same-sex liaisons in their unauthorized biography of her, she threatened legal action. The authors and their publisher didn't back down, so Sontag circumvented the supposed damage the book would cause by writing about her sexuality in The New Yorker as an 'open secret'—a gratingly offhand phrase used by outed celebrities who had absolutely no intention of coming out on their own. ( 'What? Oh, that! Gee, I thought everybody knew.' )
In a strange way, though, Sontag's closeted-ness is less annoying than the fact that some famous gay male writers, themselves out for many years, have deemed her sexuality inconsequential. Larry Kramer, for example, called Sontag an ''Intellectual' with a capital 'I,'' who was 'beyond being a lesbian' and didn't belong in 'that category' ( my emphasis ) . Edmund White saw her as 'first and foremost a citizen' ( lesbians aren't citizens? ) , a woman for whom identity politics were too 'provincial.' Even radical Michael Bronski wrote an extensive tribute to Sontag, rhapsodizing about her intellectual achievements on such gay-interest topics as camp culture and AIDS, but jarringly avoiding the question of her own queerness.
It's hard to imagine, however, that any contemporary gay male writer would opt to keep his sexuality under wraps for career purposes—and what's more, that he would be casually excused by other gay writers for doing so. Would Larry Kramer really label any prominent man known to have sex with other men as 'beyond being gay'? It's doubtful, since the phrase reduces 'gay' to something trifling and inconsequential ( like, say, 'lesbian' ) . If you have any doubts, just contrast Kramer's thoughts about Sontag with his passionate attempts to 'gay' Abraham Lincoln—even though the latter lived in an era when the concept of 'gay' didn't exist and there was no sexual identity as we know it today.
Sadly, all this points to the fact that lesbian writers experience a peculiar double sexism—not just as women, who have a more difficult time being taken seriously as writers and thinkers than men do; but also as women who are independent of men.
Martinac is a Lambda Literary Award-winning author of eight books and editor in chief of Q Syndicate. She can be reached care of this publication or at LesbianNotions@qsyndicate.com .