Ask Me Anything #3

Celebrating Three Years of the Newsletter By Answering Your Questions

This is the Sunday Edition of Paging Dr. Lesbian. If you like this type of thing, subscribe, and share it with your friends. Upgrade your subscription for more, including weekly dispatches from the lesbian internet, monthly playlists, and a free sticker.

Welcome to the first Sunday Edition of the year. To celebrate three years of this newsletter, I asked you to send in your burning questions. Frankly, I don’t even like that I have to use my real name on here or that anyone on the internet knows anything about me, so opening myself up to questions like this is always a big ask for me. (An ask that I’ve asked of myself, of course.) So consider this a gift for all your support over the years – this newsletter works because of you, the readers. If you’d like to support my writing further, consider upgrading to a paid subscription, which will get you more posts and help sustain the work I do here. Cheers to 2024! Now, on to the questions.

If you had complete creative control to design a stamp that would be issued nationwide, what design would you want people to slap on letters?

I love this question. I lack any sort of visual or artistic talent, so it’s hard for me to get that creative with this. It would probably be something obvious, like maybe an image of Sappho in the color purple. Or perhaps a visual representation of the Lavender Menace, which is my favorite-named lesbian group. As you can tell by my poorly photoshopped header images, this area is not where my skills lie.

How much time do you spend on each post? (And thanks for the newsletter and for covering Gaza) <3

You’re welcome. The time I spend on this newsletter depends on what kind of post it is. If the piece involves research, it might take up to eight hours to complete, including editing and formatting. Once I have notes and research done it usually only takes me a couple hours to write, unless it’s an especially long piece. In my opinion, notes and outlines are the most important part of the writing process – sometimes I end up writing full sentences in my outlines that make it directly into the piece, which makes the final writing process quicker. I often try to finish the Sunday Edition sometime mid-week and then read it over several times and do any edits in the days leading up to publication.¹

My mid-week dispatches from the lesbian internet don’t normally take more than an hour or so. I have a Notes app document where I compile links that I see online throughout the week, so when I sit down to write the post on Wednesdays I already have a lot to pull from.

How do you feel about the loss of IRL lesbian spaces? Is the internet enough?

The loss of IRL spaces is very disheartening! Ideally, both online and IRL spaces should be accessible to people, though it seems like both modes – the utopian idea of the early (queer) internet and community-driven lesbian spaces of the 20th century – no longer hold the same promise they once did. It seems to me like to turn to queerness as a sort of broad, catch-all term/idea has affected lesbians much more than gay men, especially in terms of the spaces available to us and the sense of community some feel is being lost. I don’t necessarily think this means things can’t change for the better or transform in positive ways. The discussion around the loss of lesbian spaces has brought more visibility to the issue, and it’s possible things could turn around (though I do sometimes worry this narrative might become a self-fulfilling prophecy.)

I think everyone is looking for connection and community, and those things can happen both online and IRL. But so many queer communities online emerged because queer folks felt isolated in their towns or cities, and I don’t think building community exclusively online has the same effect, at least in an emotional sense, as building community in person does. Nonetheless, there is something to be said for accessibility in terms of the digital world, especially when it comes to the pandemic and disabled folks’ ability to safely congregate in public.

I’m very interested in the topic of loneliness, and much of the research on this indicates that loneliness is primarily about perception rather than material reality. Constant access to other people’s lives through social media certainly doesn’t help these feelings, though digital connection can sometimes serve as a balm. This sense of loneliness can be quite acute for lesbians and queer folks, and I know the idea of loss or disappearance feels very trenchant for many.

In my experience, contemporary ‘lesbian spaces’ tend to be ephemeral and often unnamed as such – a concert thrown by a queer artist, maybe a local coffee shop or clothing store. While old-school lesbian bars were unnamed or unmarked for safety reasons, now there’s a sense that such labels are unnecessary, though these discussions about disappearing spaces indicate that not everyone believes this to be true.²

What do you feel like is missing when it comes to queer movies, books, tv etc.? What should there be more of?

In general, movies tend to be way behind TV and other forms of media when it comes to “representation.” It was heartening to see two lesbians as main characters on the big screen this year in Bottoms, but this is still such a rare occurrence. In general, I wish there were more support for lesbian media from the public writ large. There have been several times when I’ve seen lesbian movies in cinemas – Carol and Disobedience, for example – where the theaters were nearly empty. It often feels like no one rides for the lesbians except for the lesbians themselves, while there is a certain group of (straight) women who devour media involving gay men. On the other hand, I’ve been really excited by all the lesbian books that have come out in the last couple of years, and I look forward to more – that’s where some of my favorite lesbian stories have come from recently.

What is your favorite superhero and how do you think the modern age of superheroes fits into the various forms of identity that exist? (Nonbinary and lesbian and asexual and the like?)

My favorite superhero growing up was Spider-Man, and I still love that little guy. I’m a big Wonder Woman fan, though I think there is so much more interesting stuff happening in the comics than we’ve seen on the big screen, which is a shame. (I don’t love the whole “Diana is a demi-god” narrative they chose for the movies.) I’m very into Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, although they are usually villains, not heroes. Semantics!

I think the superhero genre is a great place to explore identity. In fact, comic book superheroes have been exploring the concept of identity from their very inception, if you think about it. From my cursory knowledge of the comic book world, it seems like there are a lot of really cool things happening in comics that don’t often make it to TV or film. We’ve been having lots of discussions about queer superheroes lately, as they rarely exist in the movies. But they do exist on the page, and they have for years! The whole idea of hiding your identity from the world or having dual identities is one of the core narratives of the superhero story, and the queer resonances here are blatantly obvious.

In your opinion how has the increase in diverse labels (Non binary. Queer. Asexual. Transgender) affected the world of superheroes. Do you think we'll see more superheroes coming out in the future? and if so who do you think it would be? hope you are doing well.

Interesting that I got two different questions about this! I’ll expand on what I said above. Thus far, the effort to include LGBT folks in the MCU and the DECU has been pretty cringe-worthy, in my estimation. But there are so many inherent connections between queerness and transness and these fantastical worlds/characters, and the notion of difference is such an essential part of these stories. Though lately, much of this representation has felt like a means to appease a diversity quota rather than a thoughtful examination of how identity fits into these worlds.

Frankly, I think the contemporary superhero landscape needs a revamp, so I’d love to see new queer characters on screen rather than familiar ones come out (I think the ship has sailed on characters like Captain Marvel, I’m sorry to say.) As I said earlier, I’m a big Poison Ivy fan and I would love to see her in the movies at some point – Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn reuniting with Ivy would be incredible. I would also love to see a bisexual Wonder Woman (she is canonically bisexual in some of the comics), though maybe we can wait a few years before we revamp that particular property.

Which stove burner is your favorite (everyone has one)?

Great question. Mine is the front right burner. The furthest away from the wall in my kitchen.

Just wondering how you think lesbian culture will evolve in 2024? It feels like cottagecore and lesbian became indistinguishable in 2023, and near the end of the year I’m seeing a lot of pushback online with comments like “where’s our grindr???” Not all lesbian culture is staying home knitting!

Love this observation! I’ve seen these discussions happening as well. I think there’s a particular image that has emerged online over the last decade of lesbians as “soft,” which isn’t a bad thing necessarily but certainly doesn’t encompass the experience of all lesbians. This image seems especially endemic to white lesbian culture online, which, again, is not representative of the entire community.

I have often wondered if Grindr would work for lesbians, and I’m not sure! For some reason, HER is not a very good app (at least in my experience) and the vibes on there feel off, so I wonder how a lesbian Grindr would fare. The hornyposting on Lex gets wild sometimes, which perhaps indicates a need for something like this.

What I hope is that lesbians remember their radical activist roots, which I have seen a bit within recent organizing for Palestine. Organizing to make the world a better place is a great way to build community – lesbian and otherwise – and I hope we continue to do that in 2024. I love pop culture, obviously, but I also hope we can think more about material conditions and how we can build community locally.

It feels like we’ve also had a resurgence of monoculture this year – with Barbie and The Eras Tour, for example – and it’s been interesting to watch lesbians find themselves in these mass cultural moments. I can’t say whether this trend is good or bad, but I wonder if 2024 will go bigger or more niche in terms of pop cultural moments. Imagine if Barbie was a lesbian…

How do you feel about sad period films, like The World To Come or Ammonite or Portrait of a Lady on Fire?? Because I LOVE THEM!! They are my jam.

I like lesbian period pieces! Ages ago I wrote an article (and a video essay) about why I think there are so many of them, and I stand by the conclusions I came to there. I’m a huge Portrait fan, I had mixed feelings about The World To Come (though I found it wonderful to look at), and I did not like Ammonite. Desert Hearts is one of my all-time favorites (though it has a happy-ish ending) and I think Summerland is incredibly sweet (though I wouldn’t call it sad). Sometimes when things feel tragic for tragedy’s sake it pisses me off – I hated Atonement so much when I saw it at 13 that I still haven’t rewatched it – but I also love the sweeping heartbreak of something like Titanic (which is about lesbians, if you squint).

What is sexy about the Ice Queen trope – and would you go there if Miranda Priestly beckoned?

Thank you for asking if I would f*** Meryl Streep. I actually think Meryls’ hottest role is Donna in Mamma Mia – she rocks tf out of those overalls – but Miranda Priestly is hot, it’s true. It would be hard to turn her down, no?

I feel like the ice queen thing is an offshoot of the lesbian MILF obsession.³ There’s something alluring about someone confident and composed, and in the case of an ice queen, also a little aloof or withholding. There’s certainly a kinky power dynamic there. It also seems related to the whole “step on me” idea – people begging for hot celebs to injure or mame them in some way. An ice queen would be a prime candidate for this kind of thing.

Did you like the L Word: Generation Q? I enjoyed it but now I'm sad that it's not streaming anymore 😕

I have to say I really did not enjoy The L Word: Generation Q. I didn’t like any of the new characters apart from maybe Gigi, and that’s mainly because Sepideh Moafi is insanely charming and gorgeous. I only followed the increasingly deranged plotlines of the series through Maddy Court’s recaps. I had a guest writer share their thoughts on the show, but I have no other takes on it because I had to stop watching. It’s crazy that it’s no longer streaming though! My friend and I bought the original series on DVD recently because we were afraid it would disappear completely.

Are there any genres (in any kind of media, books, film, etc.) in which you’d love to see more queer stories/voices?

I would love to see more lesbians and queer characters in action films. Like imagine if Rebecca Ferguson or Vanessa Kirby or Hayley Atwell (just one of them!) played a lesbian in the Mission Impossible series. Or if Mackenzie Davis’ buff/butch character in Terminator was canonically gay and not just implicitly gay. There’s long been an affinity between queer women and women action stars, and it would be amazing if that was more explicitly recognized.⁴

I wrote about this ages ago but I grew up on crime procedurals (all the CSIs, NCIS, Bones etc.) and there’s nothing I love more than a TV slow burn. Scully and Mulder from The X-Files are one of my all-time favorite TV couples, and Fringe also really does it for me. But there has never been anything close to a slow burn like this for lesbian characters! (Kate and Lucy from NCIS: Hawaii briefly had their slow burn moment, but I wouldn’t really count that.) Honestly, if I could be granted one wish to greenlight a project, that would be it. That’s another reason thinking about Rizzoli & Isles makes me feel so insane – we could have had it all…

1. If anyone would be interested in a longer piece about my writing process, let me know.

2. Jesus, that was a long-winded response – My editor

3. Fun fact: I lost several subscribers after I published that MILF article. Some people just can’t handle the truth 😪

4. The recent French Netflix action film Wingwomen – starring Mélanie Laurent and Adèle Exarchopoulos – has a lesbian main character, which is cool.