This article takes a look at an intriguing topos in women’s erotic fiction: cross-gender queer sex, that is, sex between women attracted to women and men attracted to men. I offer a reading of three stories that revolve around this theme, and analyze it both as a manifestation of ‘queer’ as a non-gendered identity formation, and as a product of the adoption of the gay male model of sexual subjectivity in lesbian pornography and lesbian sex culture in general. Finally, I evaluate this topos from the viewpoint of women’s rewriting of fantasy in the field of pornography, and explore its political implications. I argue that while the phantasmatic investment in gay masculinity has played a facilitating role in the articulation of female sexual subjectivity, its drawbacks include leaving the equation of subjectivity and masculinity intact. I conclude that the topos of cross-gender queer sex in pornography by women demonstrates both the promise and the limitations of pornographic resignifications.
BlakeN (1995) Tom of Finland: An appreciation. In: CreekmurCDoteyA (eds) Out in Culture, London: Cassell, pp. 343–353.
2.
BrightS (1992) Introduction. In: BrightSBlankJ (eds) Herotica 2: A Collection of Women’s Erotic Fiction, New York: Penguin, pp. ix–xvii.
3.
ButlerJ (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, New York: Routledge.
4.
ButlerJ (1993) The lesbian phallus and the morphological imaginary. In: ButlerJ (eds) Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex, New York: Routledge, pp. 57–91.
5.
Califia P (1988) The surprise party. In: Macho Sluts. Boston, MA: Alyson Publications, pp. 211–242.
6.
CalifiaP (1996) Gay men, lesbians, and sex: Doing it together. In: CalifiaP (eds) Public Sex: The Culture of Radical Sex, Pittsburgh, PA: Cleis Press, pp. 183–189.
7.
CalifiaP (2002) ‘Scylla, I’d like you to meet my friend, Charybdis’: An introduction. In: CalifiaP (eds) Speaking Sex to Power, San Francisco, CA: Cleis, pp. xi–xxiv.
8.
ChodorowN (1971) Being and doing: A cross-cultural examination of the socialization of males and females. In: GornickVMoranB (eds) Women in Sexist Society, New York: Basic Books, pp. 259–291.
9.
CowieE (1990) Fantasia. In: AdamsPCowieE (eds) The Woman in Question, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 149–196.
10.
FeinbergL (1993) Stone Butch Blues, Ithaca, NY: Firebrand.
11.
FletcherJ (1989) Freud and his uses: Psychoanalysis and gay theory. In: ShepherdSWallisM (eds) Coming on Strong: Gay Politics and Culture, London: Unwin Hyman.
12.
FoucaultM (2000) Sexual choice, sexual act. In: RabinowP (eds) Essential Works of Michel Foucault 1954–1984, Volume 1, London: Penguin, pp. 141–156.
13.
HaleJ (1997) Leather dyke boys and their daddies: How to have sex without women or men. Social Text15(52–53): 223–236.
14.
JamesEL (2012) Fifty Shades of Grey, London: Vintage.
15.
JeffreysS (1994) The Lesbian Heresy, London: The Women’s Press.
16.
JenkinsH (1992) Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture, New York: Routledge.
17.
KennedyEDavisM (1994) Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community, New York: Penguin.
18.
KustritzA (2003) Slashing the romance narrative. Journal of American Culture26(3): 371–384.
19.
MacKinnonC (1989) Sexuality, pornography, and method: Pleasure under patriarchy. Ethics99(2): 314–346.
20.
MartinB (1998) Sexualities without genders and other queer Utopias. In: MerckMSegalNWrightE (eds) Coming out of Feminism?, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 11–35.
21.
MerckM (2000) The lesbian hand. In: In Your Face: Nine Sexual Studies, New York: New York University Press, pp. 124–147.
22.
NewtonE (2000) ‘Dickless Tracy’ and the homecoming queen: Lesbian power and representation in Gay Male Cherry Grove. In: NewtonE (eds) Margaret Mead Made Me Gay, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 63–89.
23.
PenleyC (1992) Feminism, psychoanalysis, and the study of popular culture. In: GrossbergLNelsonCTreichlerP (eds) Cultural Studies, New York: Routledge, pp. 479–500.
24.
PenleyCShimizuC (2013) The politics of producing pleasure. Introduction. In: TaorminoTShimizuC (eds) The Feminist Porn Book, New York: The Feminist Press, pp. 9–20.
25.
ProsserJ (1998) Judith Butler: Queer Feminism, Transgender, and the Transubstantiation of Sex. In: ProsserJ (eds) Second Skins: The Body Narratives of Transexuality, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 21–60.
26.
QueenC (1994a) After the light changed. In: CalifiaP (eds) Doing It for Daddy, Boston, MA: Alyson Publications, pp. 24–32.
27.
QueenC (1994b) The next morning. In: CalifiaP (eds) Doing It for Daddy, Boston, MA: Alyson, pp. 152–161.
28.
QueenC (1995) Sexual diversity and bisexual identity. In: TuckerN (eds) Bisexual Politics: Theories, Queries, and Visions, New York: Routledge, pp. 151–160.
29.
QueenC (1996) Ganged. In: FordM (eds) Best Gay Erotica 1996, Pittsburgh, PA: Cleis Press, pp. 38–50.
30.
QueenC (1998) The Leather Daddy and the Femme, San Francisco, CA: Cleis.
RocheT (1996) What he did. In: FordM (eds) Best Gay Erotica 1996, Pittsburgh, PA: Cleis, pp. 65–76.
33.
RubinG (1975) The traffic in women: Notes on the political economy of sex. In: ReiterR (eds) Toward an Anthropology of Women, New York: Monthly Review Press, pp. 157–210.
34.
RubinG (1992) Of catamites and kings: Reflections on butch, gender, and boundaries. In: NestleJ (eds) The Persistent Desire: A Femme Butch Reader, Boston, MA: Alyson, pp. 466–482.
35.
RubinG (1998) ‘Sexual Traffic,’ an interview with Judith Butler. In: MerckMSegalNWrightE (eds) Coming out of Feminism?, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 36–73.
36.
SaboA (2011) After Pornified: How women are transforming pornography and why it really matters, Winchester: Zero Books.
37.
SedgwickE (1990) Epistemology of the Closet, Berkeley: University of California Press.
38.
SandlerH (1999) Big Deal, London: Sapphire.
39.
SaraL (1993) The triangle. In: AntoniouL (eds) Leather Women, New York: Rosebud, pp. 167–201.
40.
ZivA (2009) Shameful fantasies: Cross gender queer sex in lesbian erotic fiction. In: HalperinDTraubV (eds) Gay Shame, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, pp. 165–175.
