I don’t want to alarm anyone, but if my calculations are correct, it seems we are entering a sapphic-heavy cultural moment.
I’ve been a lesbian for several decades, and at no point in my memory have I ever seen such a saturation (the collective noun) of queer women in pop culture. A Homo-moment, if you will. It feels like it all kicked off with the Women’s World Cup last year, which drew the gaze of thousands of queer women to Australia.
Now we are saturating the rest of culture. There’s always been a sprinkling here and there of course, but it’s never really been fashionable to be a lesbian before now. I don’t mean clothes-wise; I still exclusively wear jorts. But it feels like queer women are having a “moment”.
As they say in Derry Girls (imagine the accent): “You can’t move for lesbians. It’s wall-to-wall lesbians out there!”
You’ve got Kristen Stewart embracing her queerness more than ever before in the very fun and gay Love Lies Bleeding, alongside smaller but specifically queer women-driven comedies like Bottoms and Drive Away Dolls. Danni Minogue is in on it too, hosting the new reality dating show I Kissed A Girl. For once, we are allowed to be seen having fun, and it feels like the spotlight is on full blast.
Rising singer and actor Reneé Rapp, who played Regina George in last year’s Mean Girls remake, is an outspoken and flirty lesbian who just had original cast members of The L Word introduce her at the California festival Coachella. Billie Eilish, one of the biggest pop stars in the world, previewed her latest song Lunch, with the lyrics “I could eat that girl for lunch / Yeah, she dances on my tongue / Tastes like she may be the one / And I can never get enough”. Then there’s 26-year-old Chappell Roan and her breakthrough song Good Luck, Babe!, which has become unexpectedly important to me.
Although I’ve been an incredibly well-adjusted and out lesbian woman for ages now, there is a part of me that finds the sudden inclusion of queerness into widespread culture in recent years slightly complicated. On the one hand (the MUCH bigger hand, a freakishly large hand), this has been wonderful and heartwarming to witness. I’m so deeply glad that younger queers can grow up with a much broader view of what’s possible.
On the other teeny tiny baby hand, I’m jealous and a bit sad for people my age and older, who didn’t grow up with all of that.
Of course, queer women have always been releasing music and breaking down barriers.
Like every good closeted lesbian using her family’s one computer in the late 90s, I hunted down everything I could. I became obsessed with Ani DiFranco because she was the first artist I heard singing about women. I was horny for the open swagger of Meshell Ndegeocello, and for kd lang’s voice and that photo of her getting shaved by Cindy Crawford. More recently, we’ve had artists like Hayley Kiyoko and Janelle Monáe expressing their gender and sexuality with some very hot songs. It’s always existed, but I’ve always had to look hard for the music I relate to. Then I heard Roan’s Good Luck, Babe! Unlike most other queer songs that are important in my life, this one found me.
She sings:
You can kiss a hundred boys in bars
Shoot another shot, try to stop the feeling
You can say it’s just the way you are
Make a new excuse, another stupid reason
Good luck, babe, well, good luck, babe,
You’d have to stop the world just to stop the feeling
It’s about a woman denying her queer feelings and living her life as prescribed: with a man. It’s a certified banger about the concept of compulsory heterosexuality. It’s some sort of musical miracle, like an indie rock hit about polyamory. Roan herself says it’s about “someone who is denying fate”.
Like, I’m sure, many queer women out there, the specificity of this song hit me hard. Right in the lesbian guts (like cows, we have a second stomach). When I was 19 and closeted and living in regional Queensland, I had the beginnings of a secret romance with another also-closeted woman. She froze me out, and I had to watch as she hooked up with a guy in front of me. It destroyed me.
I have no idea if she regrets that now, but I do think she regretted it even then. This Chappell Roan song, with its similar storyline, took me immediately back to that time, to that disgusting bar and the Tequila Sunrise in my hand, in a way that’s never happened. In a good way – a way I didn’t even know I needed. Perhaps it’s obvious to say it, but music helps you process things, and I’ve never done that for those particular feelings.
Straight people have always had access to relatable songs about all sorts of things; they can pour out their emotions in the bedroom, or on stage at karaoke, crying until security is called. It hasn’t been that easy for me.
Now, a huge pop song is being performed at Coachella by a popular and cool queer artist, about the effects of compulsory heterosexuality, and its life-changing effect. It’s so deeply specific, but so heart wrenchingly familiar to many of us. It speaks precisely to feelings and experiences I have written about, talked about, cried about, but have never been able to process this way before. Even though I am very far from 19, very openly gay, very happy with my girlfriend, and very over it, this song has been cathartic.
To be able to sing along with Roan about the exact emotions experienced in this niche situation has been healing. Of course I’ve related to songs before, but I’ve always had to do some adjustment in my head. They don’t feel quite right, like wrong-sized jorts. Or it’s me in my bedroom listening to a sad lesbian song. Roan’s song fits like a gay glove. It’s about heartbreak and sadness, but it’s joyous, spirited, and a bit smug. It’s a celebration of the choice to be yourself. It’s affirming, even for someone many years older than Roan. The song was a salve for an unhealed wound, and helped me realise I shouldn’t be jealous of what the young people have – because I still need it too.
