bookishgalpal:

I looked over to see Robert whispering in Celia’s ear. She was laughing as if he actually had anything funny to say. But it was me who got her those diamonds, me who got her that gorgeous picture of the two of us that would make headlines the next day. Meanwhile, she was acting as if he was about to charm her dress off. All I could think was that he didn’t know about the line of freckles on her hip. I knew about them, and he didn’t.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

diabeticlesbian:

My mother had started reading the graffiti written in the wall of the bathroom cubicle. We hooted at each of her dramatic renderings. Then she said (not breaking rhythm, since we all know timing is everything), “Here’s one I haven’t seen before – DYKES UNITE.”

There was that profound silence again, as if the frames of my life had ground to a halt in a projector. We were in a freeze-frame, and options played themselves out in my head in a rapid succession: Say Nothing? Say what?

I laughed and said, “Yeah, but have you seen the rubber stamp on my desk at home?” “No,” said my mother, with a slight bit of puzzlement, “What’s it say?”

“I saw it,” my grandmother called out from her stall, “It says Lesbian Money.” “What?” “LESBIAN MONEY,” Lydia repeatedly loudly over the water running in the row of sinks. “I just stamp it on my big bills,” I said tentatively, and we all screamed with laughter.

- Jewelle Gomez in Forty-Three Septembers (1993)

angstbotfic:

“They really fear lesbians. Because in some strange level, let us never forget the ever-expanding gaseous state of the male ego. Which is men still believe that women do everything in response to them. Therefore, for a lot of these guys, a woman’s a lesbian because she hasn’t had him. He will change this dolorous experience and she will of course love men because of him. The truth is, women aren’t lesbians because of men. Women are lesbians because of women: they love women! And that’s what drives them crazy, they don’t want to accept that central fact of lesbian life, which is it has nothing whatsoever to do with men. And never will.”

— Rita Mae Brown, The Celluloid Closet (via unicornery)