Sports and Lesbian Culture.

BLEDSOE, Lucy JANE ; JAY, KARLA ; ROGERS, SUSAN FOX 等

The three participants in this panel discussion are all women who have had a lot to say about the role of sports and outdoor activities in lesbian culture and in individual development. All three, as it happens, have contributed to this publication in the past, and all three have written or edited books on the place of physical activity in lesbian culture.

Lucy Jane Bledsoe recently spent three months in Antarctica as a recipient of a National Science Foundation Artists and Writers grant. She is the author of the novel Working Parts (1997) and of Sweat: Stories and a Novella (1995), along with four sports and adventure novels for young people. She teaches creative writing at the University of San Francisco.

Karla Jay's most recent books are Tales of the Lavender Menace: A Memoir of Liberation (1999) and Dyke Life (1996). She is currently at work on a mystery and on a collection of satires called "Migrant Laborers in the Fields of Academe." She is a professor of English at Pace University in New York City.

Susan Fox Rogers is the editor of nine anthologies, including SportsDykes: Stories from On and Off the Field (1994). She teaches at Bard College in upstate New York.

The discussion took place on-line, in real time, using a private listserv set up expressly for this discussion.

Gay & Lesbian Review: A popular stereotype would have us believe that all lesbians are athletes and all women athletes are lesbians. Is there a grain of truth to this stereotype? What importance do sports--and other outdoor activities--have for lesbian culture? How widespread is the phenomenon? How do you account for the connection (if any) between lesbians and physical activity?

Karla Jay: Of course, not all athletes are lesbians and vice versa. We're just the best athletes. But seriously, I think there is some connection between being a lesbian and being athletic. Many lesbians, but certainly not all, were athletic as children and still are. In my generation, girls were not encouraged to engage in physical activity, so being athletic or a tomboy was one form of gender rebellion. I can still remember my mother warning me, "Don't beat the boys at bowling." But since I was a semi-professional bowler, it was hard for me not to beat them. Today, young women are encouraged much more to jog and to keep in shape, but I think that when it comes to team sports and competitive sports, lesbians are more interested in them as a culture, and not just as a way to stay in shape. Lesbians also seem much more interested in hiking and communing with nature.

Lucy Jane Bledsoe: It is definitely not the case, nor has it ever been, that even the majority of lesbians are athletes. However, it may have once been the case that most women athletes were lesbians. Not too long ago, it was considered so unfeminine to be an athlete, or even an outdoorswoman, that many straight women stayed away. Title IX, and the pioneering of many early women athletes, changed all this. I would say the majority of women athletes now are definitely straight. A huge part of being a lesbian-for me, anyway-is having the opportunity to redefine how I view, and also how I use, my body. That means being a wild mountain woman if I want. It means playing basketball until I'm sweaty and exhausted. Not having to worry about what men think of our bodies is very much still a huge difference between many (not all) lesbians and straight women.

Susan Fox Rogers: It's so hard to know what's happening in sports, because we can't talk about sports in general. It's so different for tennis (because of Martina, perhaps) than it is for golf, or than it is for mountain biking. Outdoor staff like rock climbing and backpacking are also different from the rest, partially because there's no money there-we don't have sponsored backpackers. Some days I think that the lesbians and sports issue has become smaller--the stigma attached to it, that is. But then again, some days I think that being a lesbian is almost a nonissue, and then I meet the nice liberal straight folks who say something that makes me know we are so not out of the woods, as it were.

Bledsoe: I have to admit I actually miss the covert part of being a lesbian athlete in the 60's and 70's, how inspiring it was to find this entire culture of strong, tough women. I remember being in high school and playing basketball on a city league. A couple of lesbians were coaching us and I was so in awe. One night we got a flat tire and I nearly swooned watching my coach actually change it!

Jay: I don't think I ever thought of the athletes I knew as a lesbian "culture. The butchy camp counselors with their duck-ass haircuts were simply the ones I wanted to grow up to be like. But I didn't have any word for them.

Bledsoe: That's just the feeling I had about my coaches or older teammates or camp counselors. My reaction was entirely from the gut. At nine years old, I didn't really think, "Ah! Finally women who are smashing the stereotypes." I just wanted to be close to them. I guess that's how I knew I was a lesbian!

Jay: Susan's right in that we have to distinguish between professionals and amateurs. I don't agree with her, though, because most of the lesbians in tennis are in the closet and the same seems to be true in golf and the WNBA. I have season tickets to the Liberty, and the cameras seem to avoid panning in on the lesbians in the audience. To watch at home, you'd think there was no one there except heterosexual families with small babies.

Rogers: Really, you mean it's not just families with babies? I couldn't play sports in high school--I'm not a team person--but also it scared me, all those blond girls who knew how to swing their hockey sticks. So I started rock climbing, which at the time was an unknown sport. I was the only girl around, which was safe ... though my mother didn't know that--and, in fact, neither did I. But it was a way for me to be physical without being sexual. I was terrified of my sexuality, ran from it for years (which got me in good shape to climb). But I'm wondering if younger lesbians, who have access to other lesbians via the Internet, or youth groups, are as physical out of "need." I know there's the pleasure of sports, but I'm talking about climbing to save my life, literally.

GLR: So it sounds as though the connection between "lesbian" and "girljock" may be getting weaker--as more straight women are getting into sports and many lesbians feel less compelled to do so. Is this a fair statement?

Jay: Yes, I think the connection now is less about lesbian versus non-lesbian than about issues of race and class. When prize money becomes appetizing for female athletes, women of color and lower-class women begin to see professional sports as an opportunity to get ahead. It sure beats joining the armed forces!

Rogers: Karla's right, though. The top paid women athletes are closeted, and they "have" to be (much as I don't really believe that). But if that keeps them malting money and playing for all the families with babies--then hooray. Do the families care? I don't know. Do they know their favorite forward is a dyke? I don't know that either, but in its own way it makes a difference. These women are not being booted off their teams, at least. It is still irritating that the women we celebrate have a public image as being not just married but married with children.

Jay: What's more, openly lesbian figures are still mocked--as in that stupid brouhaha over the size of Amelia Mauresmo's shoulders. Hingis called her "half a man." Some of the non-lesbians, such as Serena Williams, have broader shoulders, so it's a way of ostracizing and diminishing lesbians on the court or playing field.

Bledsoe: What's painful about the whole WNBA straight image for lesbians is that lesbians did so much to pave the way for women in sports, only to be erased from the picture.

Rogers: Right. Historically this is sad. I'm thinking, too, about soccer, which I think of as a real dyke sport. And there is gorgeous Mia. Would it have been so hard for the poster girl to be a dyke?

GLR: This being the "body culture" issue, I'm wondering if there's a connection between physical activity and fitness, appearance, or the creation of an "ideal body" image (as there is for gay men). Do women get into sports and the outdoors to be sexier?

Jay: There's no doubt that a healthy-looking lesbian is a sexy-looking lesbian (as far as I'm concerned), but I think lesbians are looking for others with common interests and also for the social interaction, as much as for the body benefits.

Bledsoe: I see a difference between sports culture, outdoors culture, and then the whole gym thing. I do think the gym scene is about physical image and attractiveness. I would venture to say that women who are into the outdoors and/or sports are primarily getting off on being in their bodies as opposed to creating a body type for others to view.

Jay: I agree with Lucy that men are more apt to work out to achieve a certain look that they believe will be attractive, and women are more likely to work out in a gym to feel better.

Bledsoe: Actually, I know lots of women who are totally into the gym scene, working out with weights to enhance their sexiness and checking out other women at the gym.

Rogers: It would never occur to me to do something just to be sexier. I just go climbing because I love it. But I remember at one of the Gay Games, the way to meet someone was to walk up and ask, What sport do you play? My guess is there is a women's body culture--but hell, I live in Thcson, Arizona. It's 100 degrees here today and the point is to sit as still as possible, inside, in air conditioning.

Jay: For a few years, I belonged to a gay and lesbian tennis group. The men were often (though not always) there looking for action on and off the court. Quite a few were into specific body types or ethnic types that they hoped to find in the group. The women were more into trading in their current partners (sexual and tennis) for better players. For a good many, it was their entire life, and I found that part hard to relate to.

Bledsoe: But what about the whole eroticism of playing sports (or being active outdoors) with other lesbians? Supposedly, that's not something that happens for straight men or women playing together on teams. Which makes it a unique--and very wonderful--experience that only lesbians (or gay men on teams) get to have.

Jay: I never found playing sports to be erotic. Maybe I should have gone in for touch football!

Bledsoe: Really, Karla? Wow. Did you try basketball? Soccer?

Jay: Please! I'm from the Jurassic age when women played half-court basketball.

Bledsoe: Well, then, you're entirely excused. Half-court basketball (which I also played, by the way) is utterly unsexy.

Rogers: Lucy, since you ask the question, do you have any ideas on this eroticism? That's the private story, right? I think that's one thing that gets lost in the public debate.

Bledsoe: Sure, I have lots of stories, and they aren't that private, but maybe this isn't the time and place. I just think of sports, and many outdoor activities, as a dance, as well as a full-body, out-of-mind experience. Or an experience where the mind fills the whole body. That's the whole beauty of it: you get to experience your body "thinking." And when that happens with other lesbians, who may be more willing to acknowledge an intense physical connection, it's very exciting.

Rogers: I think sports can be key for any woman, straight or gay. It's where we're allowed to sweat and yell and be strong. Then we take showers together. In other words, I think we like sports because we're free when we play. Boys have physical freedom from an early age. I'm stereotyping again, but largely that's true.

GLR: Most gay guys hated gym class, but now they pump up just for the look. In contrast, lesbians seem genuinely to like sports. Which leads to a question: what role do sports play for girls who later come out as lesbians?

Jay: Playing sports is a cultural connection for young lesbians. They can find friends and perhaps an erotic charge in the same place. I would like to point out, however, that I cannot think of a single one of my lesbian or bisexual students who is even slightly athletic. I actually find that teenagers are in pretty sad shape today.

Rogers: I agree. My lesbian students want to smoke cigarettes with me, not go on a bike ride.

GLR: How do sports intersect with the butch/femme roles that many lesbians talk about--or is that too just a stereotype?

Jay: I don't see a butch/femme connection here. When I went on one of those Club Lez vacations, almost all the women participated in some of the sports.

Rogers: I'm not sure I've ever identified as butch or femme, but if you ask my exes (and there are too many at this point), they'd probably say femme, only because they identify as butch. But in reality I'm sort of a chronic tomboy--and many jock lesbians are. But have you ever been to a softball field? It's always the femmiest girls who can really sling the ball.

Bledsoe: I know more couch potato butches than couch potato femmes, and I know more athletic femmes than athletic butches, for whatever that's worth.

Rogers: I know more couch potatoes, period. I love what you said, Lucy, and I think that through the years of talking about lesbians and sports, the issues haven't changed, really, have they? But it's how we talk about it that changes.

GLR: So being athletic is not part of a deep-seated "tomboy" personality of proto-lesbians?

Rogers: I don't think so. I think the "proto-lesbian" is living outside in some ways, pushing against what is, defining herself as something of an outsider, whether through words or images or her body. Sports was that outside realm for a time, but now there are more options. I think. I hope.

Bledsoe: Yes, exactly. And here I want to launch into a whole thing about age. It's so different for younger dykes than it was for us (the three of us are around the same age). The issues do stay the same, but they take some weird dips and turns.

Rogers: Yes, I'm sure some younger dyke will read this and wonder--and then maybe bring in her own issues. I hope that happens, actually.

Jay: Not all tomboys turn out to be lesbians and not all lesbians were tomboys. That's too simplistic, I think. As I said, today's young lesbians are likely to be pale, cigarette-smoking Goths.

GLR: If, as Karla says, "today's young lesbians are likely to be pale, cigarette-smoking Goths," it almost sounds like an antibody culture (as it were). Can we speak of a "body culture" at all when it comes to lesbians?

Rogers: Body culture? It's such a fascinating idea, but I'd have to answer "no." I wonder why this is. Maybe because women's bodies have been so controlled, so manipulated by the media, by fashion, etc., that the one thing we're not going to do is create our own such culture--or buy into any other culture of the body. Of course, many lesbians do buy into body culture(s), but that seems counterintuitive.

Bledsoe: The issues that women have with their bodies are so vast and multifarious that I'm having trouble responding to that question--which is to say it's a very good one. Do we as lesbians have a body culture? If we do, I guess I would say it is one of reclamation, and that can take many, many forms.

Jay: Indeed, lesbians are such a diverse group that there's no one thing we can point to and label it "lesbian."

Rogers: I agree, but gay men are also diverse. And yet, you could talk about a gay male body culture. I don't think we even have that, do we? Should we start one right now?

GLR: All of this suggests that lesbians comprise a kind of "counterculture" to mainstream values, notably the commodification of women's bodies--precisely the rejection of this (male?) fetishism.

Jay: Yes, I think there is a rebellion against normative body images. Many women of substance are proud of being fat. But I also know gay men who belong to groups like Girth and Mirth and who abhor the gym culture around them.

Bledsoe: And yet, plenty of lesbians do not reject mainstream notions of what women's bodies should be. On the other hand, I for one value good pizza more than I do a svelte body image!

Rogers: I'm with you, Lucy, about the pizza. But for four years before I came out I weighed ninety pounds. I said it was good for climbing--and it was. I could do a lot of pull-ups--but it also served to make me vanish, almost literally. I didn't want to be sexual or appealing to men. We use our bodies to communicate. Goth girls do it too, but I don't understand their language as well.

Bledsoe: Right, I think women have a lot of ways to make their bodies disappear, to become or remain invisible.

Jay: One thing that everyone---queer or not-has in common is that we live in a schizoid society. On one hand, we are urged to curb our appetites to have healthy (i.e. thin) bodies, but then there are those Krispy Kreme outlets springing up everywhere, like greasy waits on the face of America.

Rogers: I think that many lesbians don't want to be objectified--it's about not being noticed, seen, revealed. So we work with our bodies differently than straight women do, who seem (grossly stated) intent on being seen. I think the only thing you can say about the lesbian body is you never know what you're going to find, which is what makes it so exciting.

Bledsoe: Yes! It's about having a wider range of choices than straight women have. It's reason enough to be a lesbian!