"Oh, that's a compliment [ that people think I'm gay ] . I love that. I'm very flattered. A lot of people think I'm gay, because I'm tall and I'm not married. I think the Star said I was gay because I was dancing with Ellen DeGeneres at a party, which I was. I had the best time dancing with her. Whatever. They can think whatever they want. I'm, you know, a sexual woman." -; Actress Allison Janney who plays press secretary C.J. Gregg on NBC-TV's The West Wing to The Advocate, Feb. 13.
"Even seeing Lili Taylor and Courtney Love swap tongue isn't enough to lend [ the new film ] 'Julie Johnson' more edge, let alone nutritional value, than a boxful of Twinkies." -; Variety, Feb. 2.
"Eminem is obsessed with gay sex. Almost every track on his album has some reference to homosexuality. This fascination with gay sex begs the question: Is Eminem a repressed, self-loathing gay man?" -; Leading British gay activist Peter Tatchell in a Feb. 4 e-mail to this column.
"FOR A LESBIAN to openly convey her passions on a canvas intended for public view was in fact new in the art world. The erotic female body had always been painted from the point of view of the male gaze. But Romaine Brooks, a wealthy American heiress, who lived and worked among the avant-garde of Europe most of her life, was fashioning a public lesbian identity. During the next 15 years, she continued to develop her signature style: stark and dark-toned images of women, some of whom were her lovers—a circle of women who, during and after World War I, were discovering the possibilities of living openly with female lovers." -; Ms. magazine editor Gloria Jacobs writing about Romaine Brooks, February/March 2001 issue.
"ON MY college campus, it was clear: racism, sexism, homophobia always came together under feminism." -; Chutney Popcorn filmmaker Nisha Ganatra in Ms. magazine.
"JUST AS lesbians have had to fight to ensure that this movement acknowledged their presence, included their voices, issues, and sensibilities, so too do women of color struggle—and many have decided to go their own way. Change can't come without a willingness to own up to some difficult truths. ... We can't afford to avoid this, any more than we can avoid addressing classism and heterosexism within our movement." -; Ms. Magazine editor-in-chief Marcia Ann Gillespie on the women's movement.
" [ AS ] long as sexual abuse still exists, and as long as hatred and violence against lesbians still exists, there is no sexual freedom for everyone. And the hate crimes against lesbians and transgendered people is, I think, such a huge impediment to people being able to do what they want. For everyone—straight, gay, bisexual, trans, whatever—these are things that impede everybody's ability to enjoy themselves and be joyful sexually." -; Riot GRRRl leader and Le Tigre bandmember Kathleen Hanna in a conversation with feminist icon Gloria Steinem in the Winter 2000 edition of Bust ( For Women With Something To Get Off Their Chests ) .
"I AGREE. We're still fighting the revolution of trying to separate sex and violence. If we could just agree not to use those words together in one phrase, as if they had to come together or were equally a problem, it would be a big advance. In the '70s, we were trying to say that rape is not sex, it's violence. Now some of us are trying to say that pornography is different from erotica. Not that either should be censored, but pornography-;which, since porné means female slavery, means violence against women—should be looked at in the same way, say, as racist literature. You may want to preserve the right to publish it, but you also may want to use your First Amendment rights to protest it. In the '70s, people confused the sexual revolution with feminism, and the sexual revolution really was about making more women sexually available on men's terms. Now, there's a better understanding of what feminism means sexually. But there's great resistance to it, and it comes from the same source as the resistance to end violence against gays and lesbians, as Kathleen points out—resistance to the right to separate sexuality from reproduction. Since women need to do that to preserve our health and freedom, regardless of our sexual choices, and since gay men and lesbians are also using sexuality as a form of procreation—we have to understand that the resistance is all connected, and has to be fought at the same time." -; Gloria Steinem in Bust.
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