Recently I joined a “queer book club.” It explores the classics of the queer canon—Zami, Giovanni’s Room, Stone Butch Blues—as well as more contemporary titles, like My Boyfriend Is The President’s Son. This month we read Rubyfruit Jungle, the revolutionary 1973 lesbian novel by Rita Mae Brown. I came out during a time when reading books was a big part of lesbian culture, so I knew the lore of this book years before I actually read it. When I was in college, the site of Jungle poking out of a backpack meant a fruit was ripe for the picking. Even now, far too beaten down to believe in serendipitous beginnings, a glimpse of the cover makes my face light up. But despite (or perhaps because of) my many youthful positive associations with the book, I never got around to actually reading it until this week.
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This book is, to put it mildly, completely insane. The protagonist, Molly Bolt, is repeatedly pounced on by archetypal hot straight girls (cheerleaders, sorority sweethearts) who quickly Turn into the most reckless dykes imaginable. Later, on an arc of claiming autonomy and confronting lingering mommy issues, Molly seduces a much older straight woman who has Gay Guy Role Play Fantasies. Their affair ends explosively when the woman’s young adult daughter reveals that she, too, has been sleeping with Molly. At other points, Molly is openly cruised by older butches and wooed with an offer to join a wealthy lesbian’s harem. There is zero Lesbian Longing,* and I cannot overstate how shocking it is to encounter a lesbian character with a sense of humor.
My favorite scene comes toward the end of the book. Molly absconds to New York, determined to become a film director, but struggles to keep a roof over her head. One of her lovers urges her to give up on film school and allow the lover’s wealthy lesbian benefactress (!!) to provide for them both. “[A]ll those doors [will] shut in your face,” the lover warns, if Molly swallows “whatever lie it is they're telling to Blacks and Puerto Ricans and women that day.” Then, suddenly, the lover softens. “I go around being beautiful and having fun, yeah, but I don't have anything for me, really mine, and you do, and it fucking kills me.”
This is an argument I’ve had with so many women in my life. If we’ll never be paid the value of our labor, why not just give up and focus on enjoying ourselves? Brown’s answer reveals a lot about how she thinks about her own embattled feminist art. We try because to try is to be. It’s part of becoming a full person. Molly doesn’t care about being “accepted” or loved. She doesn’t even really care about being successful. What she wants is to create and to be heard. This reminded me of what Audre Lorde wrote twelve years later: “For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action.” This also reminded me of a video where a reporter asked Zendaya which Challengers co-lead her character really wants, to which she deadpanned: “What she wants is to play tennis.”
On Thursday I went to see Krista Burton speak at Dorothy about her 2023 book, Moby Dyke: An Obsessive Quest To Track Down The Last Remaining Lesbian Bars In America. Now, a bit of background. This book came out last summer when I was juggling a heterosexual breakup and bar prep. This breakup has been a source of significant intrigue for people tuned in to my life. Many people assume that, since I had only dated women before him and since we had a visibly unhappy relationship, we broke up because I am a lesbian. Though I get where these people are coming from, I find this take very irritating. We broke up because he was terrible. He was completely indifferent to my well-being and often treated me with open hostility in public. Whether or not I’m a lesbian is irrelevant. A straight woman would also have found that dynamic unbearable to sustain. And she probably would have bailed sooner!
Why I entered into or remained in that relationship is a story for another day, but when it ended, I felt humiliated and bone-tired. Enter Moby Dyke. I heard about this book on Lesbian Substack and went to two different Streeterville bookstores to get my paws on it, embarrassing two different clerks with the title. The book features a series of vignettes from Burton’s 2021-2022 travels to the “last” lesbian bars in the country. Now, a word of explanation for those coming out in our current cultural moment, where a new lesbian bar, event, or celebrity debuts every seven seconds. During the Obama years, all anyone ever talked about was how lesbian culture was disappearing. The year that I came out, Kait and I went to the farewell party for Wall Street, one of two lesbian bars in Columbus. The following year, when I was living in DC, Phase 1 closed. I used to feel like gay people existed only in young adulthood—we rubbed shoulders in bars, we reached twenty-five, the bars shuttered and we disappeared.
The scene at Dorothy Thursday was living proof that queer culture moves at the speed of light. This book came out barely a year ago. It was written about a year before that. But the world it depicts is disappearing faster than a Long-Haired Butch with two femmes on the line. Burton addressed a packed house at one of Chicago’s THREE newly minted lesbian bars.** I used to joke that lesbians and gay guys are switching places—for years, we were the huge bummers whose bars were closing and who had to read Anne Carson to impress first dates, while gay guys got to party and stan pop stars. Now, gay guys’ bars are closing (RIP Berlin) and they have to at least pretend to read Ocean Vuong, while lesbians can’t seem to stop collecting new bars and pop stars. I give it six months before lesbians start doing G and gay guys start getting Long COVID.
Both the book and the event were very touching, though I wish Burton had made more of an effort to analyze the trends she identifies. The strongest chapters are on the red state bars (Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona), where she writes with poignant vulnerability about navigating familial homophobia and lesbian stand-offishness. At the event, I got a sweet surprise. For a few weeks now I have been in the grip of a gut-wrenching loneliness, which is tricky to navigate because, to borrow from Hanif Abdurraqib, I never want my loneliness to become anyone else’s problem. I don’t usually mind going out alone but I felt vulnerable going to this. I was in no mood to be surrounded by boisterous groups of happy couples casting me curious glances and asking if I am “okay”. But I wanted to hear Burton speak, so I gritted my teeth and went. A quarter of the way through, I spotted my hottest and most romantically successful friend across the room, snapping approvingly at a reference to vegan spanakopita. They were also alone! We chatted briefly after and I learned that they had also psyched themself up to come. It was sweet and strange relating to someone whose life seems so different from mine. It was Very that episode of Glee where the cheerleader poses for Lea Michele’s nose job while they do a duet of Unpretty by TLC.
In closing: I know you’ve all put up with a lot of talk about dreary lesbian books, BUT. I am pleased to announce that Herstrionics will soon be covering an Evil Gay Guy Play for a change. Tune in next time to see me sing for my supper (press pass).
*I am infamous for hating Lesbian Longing but I stand firm in my truth. It’s not that Longing is inauthentic to the lesbian experience. There are plenty of lesbians who are emotionally impotent losers. It’s just that it’s so much more fun to have a character like Molly who, despite facing constant and extreme abuse, takes control of her own desire and takes herself seriously as a woman and a lesbian. Take notes, writers!!
**I only write about Chicago here but Burton addresses the nationwide resurgence of lesbian bars in a brief epilogue, you should read it! There’s still a long way to go. I learned at this panel that there were 45% fewer “queer bars” (including gay men’s bars) in 2023 than there were in 2002.
yeah I need to read rubyfruit jungle ASAP thank you for the rec!!