I've complained about a certain issue (is 'issue' the right word? I don't even know), namely that on the covers of lesbian stories, the couple is often represented with one of them in a dress, and the other in a pant suit.
I'm sure, in the minds of lesbians, the 'One woman Butch, the Other woman Femme' paradigm has been replaced, or just removed. I admit that I just don't have this matter resolved in my own mind to my own satisfaction. Is there something more specific than merely being a lesbian that specifies who's going to wear the pants, and who wears the dress? I have never been openly gay, to have the experience of observing fellow lesbians in a social setting, to be able to say: Oho, that's how it goes. If anyone thinks that having been openly gay for at least a year should be a pre-requisite for writing lesbian fiction, I'd have to agree with them. I have watched them to a certain extent, and there were several friends who knew what I was and were perfectly fine with it (and I had small crushes on most of them, but that's beside the point) but we hung out in situations where it was not organized socializing. Most of the time, all of us wore jeans or shorts; or most of us, anyway. I was often the exception; I would wear a skirt and sweater, or some sort of knit top.
But after all these years, I'm still sort of oblivious of the little clues that girls use, to signal that they're lesbians. I have to essentially drop a broad hint (that I prefer the company of women), to elicit a remark from my friend that would indicate which team she played for. Dress was only a tiny part of this negotiation; as I said, most of them wore jeans or pants.
Kay
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