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Popular Culture Review
identity are obscured. By necessity, all models are oversimplified, but the
dominant coming out narrative is problematic not only because it generalizes,
but because its generalizations are often based on experiences that only
correspond closely to the socially dominant segment of the lesbian and gay
population—that is, gay men. Researchers who focus carefully on the lesbian
experience have found that it frequently does not match the dominant comingout model. Whether described as “primary” and “elective” (Golden), “bom” and
“chosen” (Ettore), or “exclusive” and “bisexual” (Burch), many studies have
noted two paths by which women come to see themselves as lesbian.
The first (“primary”/“bom”/“exclusive”) is similar to the gay male model in
that these women are aware of their homosexual attractions by puberty, and as
adults tend to have fairly solidified lesbian identities. The second
(“elective”/“chosen”/“bisexual”) describes women who had heterosexual
attractions or identities during puberty, and as adults tend to have more fluid,
problematized, and sometimes bisexual identities. In many cases, contact with
feminist or lesbian communities plays a direct role in the elective lesbian’s
development of sexual identity. This stands in direct opposition to the notion of
sexuality as an immutable, biological drive implicit in the dominant coming-out
model. For example, in an influential study of “new gay” lesbians (women who
came out through the second wave feminist movement), Lillian Faderman stands
Troiden’s identity model on its head. While he describes homosexual identity
formation as a long and difficult struggle from self-hatred toward eventual
acceptance of one’s sexual attractions, Faderman describes the experiences of
many new gay lesbians as a sudden, discontinuous, and relatively painless shift
whereby women learn about lesbianism through contact with lesbians or
feminists, come to value it, and then take on the label, and only then “become”
lesbians (86).
One result of the continued dominance of an essentialized coming-out
narrative is that it judges many women’s experiences3 according to male
standards of development, so that the fluidity of elective lesbians’ identification
process looks immature or fickle in comparison (Esterberg 63). Because elective
lesbians’ social identities are consolidated before their personal identities (Stein
57), and because they often report that, for them, identity preceded desire
(Faderman 86; Stein 78; Whisman 63), one result of the dominance of the
biological coming-out model is that elective lesbians are often derided as “fake”
lesbians (Whisman 26). Given the asymmetry with which boys and girls are
encouraged to explore, discuss, and recognize their sexuality, it seems
particularly unfair to presume that women who assume a lesbian identity upon
adulthood somehow possess less integrity, bravery, or intelligence than those
who arrived there earlier.4
The biologizing understanding of homosexuality is extremely prevalent on
talk shows, and is so strongly presumed that it often overrides alternative
understandings. For example, an early episode of Ricki Lake, called “My Family
Hates That I’m Gay .. . Too Bad!,” illustrates the rhetorical work necessary to