Out/look

a journal of lesbian seethe

From 1988 to 1992—that is, in the midst of the worst of AIDS—some PC gays and lesbians tried to have a magazine together: Out/look (what’s the slash doing? is that a lesbian thing?). There’s some fun stuff in here (I bought the whole run), but also many reminders why gay men and lesbians are not after all one community and maybe shouldn’t share a publication.

This issue with the Tom of Finland cover story drew some predictable irate letters to the editor from lesbians (as I said earlier re: the dumb recent NYRB story on how ToF is problematic but maybe ok because some transmasc likes his stuff, there’s nothing new under the gay sun), but before I get into what’s wrong with the ladies, I want to take a second to appreciate the often cool cover (and back-cover) art of Out/look—unlike the continually hideous Gay and Lesbian Review, it’s an object you wouldn’t be ashamed, aesthetically speaking, to have on your coffee table.

There were also occasional fun cartoons inside:

But unfortunately at least 50% of every issue is lesbians either struggling to have fun or complaining that gay men, what with sodomy laws, fag-bashing and AIDS, are stealing all the attention. Here’s the former, with a piece on lesbian ‘style wars’ (a supposed sequel to the lesbian ‘sex wars’ of the early 80s, when lesbians, including a young Judith Butler, wondered if it was okay to get tied up by another woman or if that were not yet another reenactment of the violence of patriachal snoooooooore!):

I’m sorry mommas, but what style? These outfits are not worth debating.

When not politicizing their ‘fashion’ choices lesbians are tarrying in the ambivalence of even being lesbian:

Wishing they were gay:

Having sex with men and processing about it, or as Butler would say, opening up the very concept of lesbian through parodic resignifications:

TERFy lesbians may understandably hate that for example the lesbian subreddits now are all transbians, the lesbian feminist project having collapsed into a male display of will-to-power (“look into my eyes; I'm the lesbian now”), but some blame for the present inability to give meaningful boundaries to the concepts of “lesbian” and “woman” must go to twilight girl here.

Lesbian theorists now are saying that “actually, lesbian identity has always/already been figured as dead/dying, and today transbians are giving new life to lesbian culture 😀”: https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/lesbian-death

which is also the line in the recent books about how dyke bars and queer nightlife are collapsing but actually it's fine/good/better because they're being reimagined more inclusively and fluidly. We did burn down your house, but don't worry, we're giving the ruins to someone else.

Somehow the dorky lesbian style and humor in Out/look (earnest and lamely well-meaning even when they’re trying to be fun and free) and handwringing about the infinite complexity of lesbian-being set the ladies and their daughters up to be unable even to preserve a minimum of self-respect and group coherence.

Well that's their problem but unfortunately the other side of lesbian processing is political seething that gay men are too busy dying to pay attention to their problems like being tired of AIDS:

The mass death of gay dudes really was an expression of patriarchy when you think about it huh? If next time lesbian feminists want to die instead of us, then go for it, girls!

Women of course are free to hate men… in which case they might as well avoid us too! But lesbians do also want to be gay men, as the Duggan article reminds us—and the careers of Fran Lebowitz, Sandra Bernhard, and Jenny Livingston. Speaking of the latter Out/look ran some of her photos from before the release of Paris is Burning:

Well I can’t hate too hard—lesbians did record gay men doing cool shit, so thanks!

But if only gay men themselves weren’t so often lesbo-brained (if cool lesbians want to be drag queens, loser gay men, especially in academia, want to be uncool lesbians). Take Jeffrey Escoffier offering a lesbified genealogy of gay studies, in which we owe everything to the brilliance of women:

This is scarcely less complicated than the infamous Powerpoints that lost us the war in Afghanistan!

Working in coalition with lesbians whose political and aesthetic thinking—naturally enough!—is totally different from our own is already tough, but gay men really shouldn’t make it worse for ourselves by trying to think like lesbians or through the canon of lesbian theory. One of the few sensible articles Out/look ever ran was, of course, by Michael Denneny, cautioning gay writers against appealing to straight audiences—he ought to have warned about bulldaggers too!

Sadly today’s gay writers seek straight and queer women’s approval (who else reads let alone publishes novels?) and what remains of a gay male public reads well Hanya Yanigahara, or her technically male equivalent Garth Greenwell whose new novel Chubby Rain is sure to get rave reviews :(