Beforehand sorry for the length, dive in at your own risk. There’s a tldr at the end.

We have been talking recently about how much bad representation of lesbians there is and we've mentioned some bad imagery of lesbian sex: Below her Mouth, Blue is the Warmest Colour.

We can lay deeper into why they are bad: the underlying belief that sex is not sex without penetration with a dick or dildo, the fact that aggression and heterosexual standards in general are so celebrated in the mainstream while a more equal dynamic has little to no rep etc., but I feel other users can explain that better.

What I would like to explore is what constitutes good representation. First and foremost, it can't be monolithic - there is no one lesbian in possession of the last word on lesbian sex (or maybe there are a few: Buckskin, Strictly, Florasis :)). While not monolithic, I think lesbian desire and sex have a few common defining characteristics.

Joy. True joy is something shared. The joy we take in each other’s bodies and minds. Desire for women seems inextricably linked with the personality of the partner and how they play off each other. When I desire a partner, behind the urge to kiss her neck or caress her face, there is always the undercurrent of desiring to see manifest her sense of humour, her personality in the choices she makes when taking pleasure. A whole host of memories, a shared history is behind this alchemy. And each memory can enhance desire for one particular body part, and every body part represents the whole. So when you caress her neck, in this simple act you express your love for the whole of her, body and mind. Compare that with the more fetishistic male sexuality, where the focus is on parts alone.

Inventiveness. Female bodies are one big erogenous zone. Unlike in heterosexual intercourse where the action, the "not so big bang" (forgive the pun :) ) is inevitably focused around the man's pelvic area and, alas for the woman, is of short duration and uncertain outcome, lesbian sex is engaging everything at once. It can be sliding your hand over her thigh, on her belly, hands etc. It can all come alight, so much so that you have to be careful which places you caress first not to set her on fire too soon lol. So by definition Lesbian sex is Inventive. There is a joy to this invention and to finding the myriad of combinations of kisses and caresses, of positions and movement, that will take you both to the pearly gates and back, over and over again.

A great example of an attempt to represent this inventiveness is Portrait of a Lady on Fire. In it there's a shot of a closed armpit - that looks like a you-know-what and fingers gently going in. No doubt Celine Sciamma tried to show fingering without actually showing it. A symbolic evocation, if you will.

I didn't get it the first time and it bothered me. The thing is that to be able to understand a symbolic image you have to first be used to seeing the very act the symbol is trying to evoke. And because I haven't seen it onscreen, in fact fingering is the last thing I expect to see on screen, Celine's evocation flew over my head. But I think it is quietly revolutionary. It establishes the two characteristics of lesbian sex: inventiveness (based in the specifically female way of experiencing pleasure) and joy in each other. To me, it is the first qualitative (i. e. symbolic) building block in the history of lesbian imagery on-screen. We cannot develop a complex and beautiful visual language of lesbian desire without setting out some foundational stones. And Celine gives us a history of lesbian imagery as well, her armpit shot is inspired by a passage from the first book in France that describes lesbian love-making in all its scortchingly hot goodness: Therese and Isabelle by Violette Leduc. Talk about standing on the shoulders of those who come before us.

In view of the above, what do you think about representation of lesbian desire on screen? How do we avoid having it associated with male fetishism? Do you have some memorable scenes in mind or some scenes you think would be symbolic/good to see? Perhaps there is literature (I’m thin on that) that is leading the way?

TLdr: Complex representations of lesbian sex = good; one-sided, hetero inspired sex = bad. Look at Celine Sciamma, now back to the mainstream, now back to Sciamma. What type of visual representation of lesbian desire/sex do you think is good, and you would like to see more of?

Edit: damned spelling

Edit 2/ PSA: Do make sure you have your NSFW preferences turned on on Saidit, that is check the 18+ box in your prefs. Apparently if I tag the blasted thing as nsfw, it will only show to the people who have checked the box, which is unchecked by default.