II

‘I’m Straight, but I Kissed a Girl’: The Trouble with

American Media Representations of Female–Female
Sexuality
Lisa M. DIAMOND

Nearly 20 years ago, Kitzinger (1987) argued that the shift in psychological
research in the 1970s and 1980s toward a liberal-humanistic view of lesbians and
gay men as ‘just like’ heterosexuals (rather than intrinsically deviant and patho-
logical) was not, in fact, as positive and progressive as it might have seemed.
Rather, she noted that this conceptualization actually reinforced the dominant
social order by presenting same-sex sexuality as a matter of private lifestyle,
thereby neutralizing its political challenge to heterosexuality. This was, of course,
an insidiously effective way of maintaining the social institution of heterosexual-
ity, given that outright condemnation of homosexuals had gradually become less
socially acceptable.
An analogous critique can and should be made regarding the ‘positive’ and
‘accepting’ portrayals of female same-sex sexuality that have increasingly pro-
liferated in American entertainment media. Over the past 5–10 years, there has
been an upsurge of openly lesbian (and less often, bisexual) characters and rela-
tionships on American films and television shows (recent films include The
Hours, Chasing Amy, But I’m a Cheerleader; Gigli, Lost and Delirious,
Everything Relative; television shows include Ellen, ER, Buffy the Vampire
Slayer, NYPD Blue, All My Children, Friends, JAG, Melrose Place, Popular,
Once and Again, Nip/Tuck, K Street, Coupling, Queer as Folk). More interest-
ingly, however, there have also been numerous depictions of presumably hetero-
sexual women hinting at or experimenting with same-sex sexuality, a phenome-
non that has been called ‘heteroflexibility’ (Essig, 2000) (films include Kissing
Jessica Stein; 8 Women, Laurel Canyon; Heavenly Creatures, television shows
include Ally McBeal, Friends, Will & Grace, Party of Five, Sex and the City – see
also the recent Madonna/Britney Spears and Madonna/Christina Aguilera kisses
on the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards: ‘Madonna smooches with Britney and
Christina’ [MTV, 2003]).
On the one hand, feminist psychologists might hopefully surmise that these mass

Feminism & Psychology © 2005 SAGE (London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi)
Vol. 15(1): 104–110; 0959-3535
DOI: 10.1177/0959-353505049712
Observations & Commentaries 105

media representations signal a new appreciation and celebration of women’s

sexual freedom and diversity. On the other hand this is not necessarily the case,
particularly with regard to depictions of ‘heteroflexibility’. As noted by Wilkinson
(1996), such depictions can have the effect of trivializing and depoliticizing same-
sex sexuality by portraying it as a fashionable ‘add on’ to otherwise conventional
heterosexuality. Consistent with this view, a close reading of contemporary media
depictions reveals that they (1) package heteroflexibility in a manner designed to
specifically attract and titillate young male viewers; (2) reify outmoded, dichoto-
mous models of sexuality by presenting same-sex experimentation as a means of
confirming one’s essential heterosexuality; and (3) obscure the sociopolitical
context of ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ (Rich, 1980) by portraying heterosexual
identification as a trivial matter of free choice and personal preference. Given the
dominance of American films and television shows on the world entertainment
stage, and the increasing tendency for advertisers and producers to actively court
young and impressionable viewers, these troubling conceptual trends deserve close
scrutiny and critique by feminist psychologists.

HETEROFLEXIBILITY FOR THE HETEROSEXUAL MALE CONSUMER

Observing sex between otherwise heterosexual women has long been a staple of
male fantasy, but only recently has this fantasy graduated from the shelves of
pornographic video stores to mainstream movies and television shows. This puts
feminist psychologists in a quandary: on one hand, images of female–female
sexuality between attractive, ‘heterosexual-looking’ participants (perhaps better
called ‘femme–femme’ sexuality) may have a powerful positive influence on
young women by countering stereotypes of lesbians as unattractive, masculine,
and hostile. On the other hand, these images typically take pains to clarify that the
participants are not, in fact, lesbians (exemplified by Ally McBeal, in which two
of the three ‘lesbian kisses’ featured during the show’s run were undertaken by
the participants to ‘trick’ heterosexual male onlookers, and the third was purely
experimental), in order not to spoil the ‘interloper fantasy’ of the heterosexual
male viewer. Thus, such images implicitly convey that the most desirable and
acceptable form of female–female sexuality is that which pleases and plays to the
heterosexual male gaze, titillating male viewers while reassuring them that the
participants remain sexually available in the conventional heterosexual market-
place.
One salient example is the young female pop duo, Tatu, who decline to openly
categorize themselves as lesbians or bisexuals but openly display and discuss
their long-standing sexual and romantic relationship with one another in inter-
views, posters, videos, and publicity photos. Notably, much of the marketing of
Tatu exploits the heady combination of youth and female–female sexuality, for
example by posing them embracing one another while wearing young girls’
underwear and undershirts: in fact, their manager has openly admitted to the BBC
106 Feminism & Psychology 15(1)

that Tatu represent an ‘underage sex project’ marketed toward men who enjoy
‘underage entertainment’ (BBC, 2003). Thus, any potential for Tatu to provide a
positive model of open and exuberant same-sex sexuality for young lesbian
and/or bisexual women is counteracted by the commodification of youthful
same-sex sexuality to appeal to the fantasies of adolescent boys and potentially
predatory adult men.
Finally, the ‘fantasy’ nature of contemporary depictions of heterosexual
experimentation with same-sex sexuality is further underscored by the fact that
these ‘experiments’ are almost always portrayed as occurring between white,
middle-class women, unencumbered by the realities of race or class oppression.
This reinforces a safe sense of sexual ‘Utopia’ in which sexual feelings and
behaviors have no political dimension. When women of color are involved (as in
the Asian character ‘Ling’ on Ally McBeal, discussed below), such characters
typically possess considerable class privilege, thereby creating safely exotic com-
modities for white male viewers that neatly avoid questions about the inherent
power differentials linked to race, class, and gender.

SAME-SEX ‘TESTING’ AND THE ERASURE OF BISEXUALITY

Another common theme in depictions of heteroflexibility is the verification of the

participants’ ‘authentic’ heterosexuality. For example, after Ally and Ling (two
female lawyers working in the same firm) kissed on Ally McBeal, they acknow-
ledged to one another that, although it was enjoyable, it simply reinforced that
what each of them really wanted from a relationship was ‘a penis’. Both also
described relief at discovering that they were, in fact, heterosexual. Thus, they are
portrayed as having rejected the possibility of lesbianism or bisexuality not
because they are closed-minded and sexually repressed, but because it is simply
not natural for them, which they know for a fact because they tried it. In a
cultural context that prizes self-exploration and open-mindedness, this is a more
appealing and legitimate way to establish one’s heterosexual credentials than to
reject the idea of same-sex sexuality out of hand.
Notably, the possibility that the heterosexual protagonists might actually be
bisexual is rarely considered. This is not surprising, considering that bisexuals are
still widely stereotyped in the mainstream media – and even, still, among many
lesbians – as sexually voracious, confused, predatory, and emotionally unstable
(reviewed in Rust, 2000). Consequently, the only way for mainstream films and
television shows to create an erotically appealing – and hence economically
rewarding – image of two women authentically enjoying one another’s bodies
and avoid the quagmire of bisexuality is to have the participants conclude that
their enjoyment of same-sex contact was the wrong type of enjoyment. Thus,
whereas instances of heteroflexibility might have created valuable opportunities
to challenge the dichotomization of sexual orientation, the opposite tends to
occur.
Observations & Commentaries 107

There are, however, some exceptions. After Madonna kissed both Britney
Spears and Christina Aguilera during a musical number during the MTV 2003
Video Music Awards, both Spears and Aguilera spoke glowingly about the
experience to the media. Spears said (quoted in Warn, 2003b) that the kiss would
‘last her for a while’, and that ‘This is something I’ve dreamt about since I was a
little girl. I cannot believe this just like freakin’ happened. I am on a major high
right now. I feel very cool.’ Of course, she backtracked slightly in the days
after the event, pointing out that ‘I didn’t know it was going to be that long and
everything’ and that she probably wouldn’t kiss a woman again, unless it were
Madonna. In this formulation, Spears is able to discount (and politically neutral-
ize) her enjoyment of the kiss by attributing it to the specific and circumscribed
allure of Madonna (as Spears said, ‘I mean, come on . . . If you can kiss any girl
in the world, that has to be her’) rather than a generalized openness to same-sex
contact. It also bears noting that the event specifically courted the male gaze by
explicitly casting Madonna in a male-identified role, dressing her to represent the
older, black-clad ‘groom’ with a frilly, young, ‘virginal’ bride on each arm.
Thus, the potential of these kisses to challenge rigid, dichotomous models of
sexuality was altogether lost on a viewing public that is all-too-accustomed to the
economically motivated packaging and marketing of sexual controversy. In one
teen-oriented chatroom devoted to discussing the MTV kisses (http://www.
yoink.org/cgi-bin/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=4336), perhaps the second most
common comment (behind male and female exhortations of how exciting and
titillating they were) was how phoney they were:
Easy there, boys. Don’t you realize when your chain is being jerked? Madonna
. . . is just trying to be as outrageous as possible to stay in the headlines. Britney
is desperate to become more ‘adult’. Is Britney a lesbian? Not a chance . . . Is
Madonna? No. She is an aging, pre-menopausal British housewife.

MTV depends on this kind of material to promote their awards shows. By

Madonna and Britney kissing, MTV now has tons of material to show the world
how ‘exciting’ their programming is.

I got nothing against REAL passion-driven kissing between any two humans.
It’s just that these are not real people, they are products. Britney © Madonna ®
Christina™.

Clearly, contemporary youths are not easily taken in by media exploitation of

supposedly ‘cutting edge’ or ‘controversial’ behaviors. At the same time, their
cynicism may have the undesirable side-effect of precluding serious questioning
of the boundaries between heterosexuality and homosexuality.

TAKING THE ‘COMPULSORY’ OUT OF COMPULSORY HETEROSEXUALITY

Finally, most media images of heteroflexibility tend to cast these struggles as

inherently apolitical, depicting a Utopia in which questions about sexual orienta-
108 Feminism & Psychology 15(1)

tion and identity are fundamentally personal choices about love, desire, and ful-
fillment that have little or no social context. Thus, whereas Rich (1980) called
attention over 20 years ago to the pervasive but often invisible sociopolitical
forces rendering heterosexuality a cultural imperative for women rather than a
natural ‘state of being’, such open acknowledgement of the status of hetero-
sexuality as a hegemonic social institution is altogether missing from media
portrayals of heteroflexibility.
This is no surprise: just as many heterosexual women took offense over 20
years ago at Rich’s contention that the ‘naturalness’ of their desire for men might
reflect false consciousness, contemporary women are similarly inclined to reject
the notion that they have been unwittingly tricked into considering themselves
straight. Thus, just as some women come away from encounters with hetero-
flexibility claiming that it proves that they ‘can’t help’ their heterosexuality,
others maintain that they could, in fact, happily pursue same-sex relationships if
they wanted to, but they simply decided otherwise (of course, this perspective
nicely sidesteps the fact that such ‘decisions’ could never be freely undertaken for
working-class women, who might critically depend on heterosexual relationshps
for economic survival). Notably, an increasing number of female celebrities have
described their own sexual histories and possibilities in these terms. As reviewed
by Warn (2003a), American celebrities such as Drew Barrymore, Angelina Jolie,
Lisa Marie Presley, and Alanis Morrisette have openly discussed attractions to –
and sometimes prior relationships with – women, although all of them claim that
they doubt they will pursue such experiences in the future. Again, the political
context of such decisions (for example, the risk that same-sex sexuality might
pose to their careers) is not explicitly mentioned, and instead these decisions are
entirely idiosyncratic and personal.
The mainstream ‘romantic comedy’, Kissing Jessica Stein, provides another
example of the depoliticization of heteroflexibility. In this film, heterosexual
Jessica answers a personals ad placed by bi-curious Helen and they end up in a
full-fledged sexual and romantic relationship that both women clearly enjoy.
However, the sexual spark eventually fades on Jessica’s part, as she discovers
that her feelings for Helen are more affectional than erotic. She returns to dating
men, while Helen continues to date women. Each of these outcomes is portrayed
as a fundamentally personal decision with no sociopolitical context or implica-
tions. Notably, this apoliticism appears to have been one of the main selling
points of the film. Reviewers tended to emphasize the ‘fresh spin’ that the film
took on the romantic comedy genre, and took for granted its depiction of a world
in which choosing men versus women is entirely idiosyncratic (rottentomatoes.
com, 2003). As one reviewer noted, ‘Kissing Jessica Stein is refreshing precisely
because it has no sexual politics. Its overriding message is that there’s no explain-
ing sexual attraction, and there’s no way (or need) to justify who turns us on and
why at certain points in our lives’ (Zacharek, 2002). Again, such an observation
might ideally spark serious questioning of the social and political ends served by
categorical models of sexuality, but this does not appear to have taken place.
Observations & Commentaries 109

Rather, a more Pollyanna conceptualization of sexual flexibility appears to have

taken hold, one in which the political dimensions of same-sex versus other-
sex sexuality (and the similarly obscured race and class dynamics of sexual
‘choices’) would simply spoil the fun.

CONCLUSION

Just as positive, ‘liberal-humanistic’ conceptualizations of gays and lesbians

effectively regulate the status of same-sex sexuality in contemporary culture
while appearing not to do so (Kitzinger, 1987), the same is true with regard to the
recent ‘positive’ portrayals of heteroflexibility in contemporary American enter-
tainment media. These media images serve the same basic functions that have
historically been served by open stigmatization of same-sex sexuality, yet in a
guise that is more palatable to a generation of women that reflexively spurn
notions of sexual repression and embrace self-determination. Specifically, the
proliferation of positive and titillating depictions of heteroflexibility reflect the
fact that in the contemporary social climate, promotion and maintenance of
female heterosexuality is best accomplished when packaged – and sold – as
freedom and sexual choice (see also Doty and Gove’s 1997 discussion of the
normalization of same-sex sexuality via media representations). Just as an
increasing number of celebrities claim to have the option to pursue same-sex rela-
tionships, but reliably decline to do so, young women consuming media images
of heteroflexibility will continue to be reliably channeled toward heterosexuality,
yet may come away with the notion that this outcome was an entirely personal
choice based on their ‘natural’ predispositions, rather than a heterosexist socio-
political context.
This is not to suggest that we should go back to a time in which the only media
images of same-sex sexuality were negative ones. Rather, feminists must not be
lured into thinking that just because contemporary images of same-sex sexuality
are ‘positive’, they are socially and psychologically benign. Perhaps the best
approach for feminist psychologists and educators is to continue to encourage
heterosexual and lesbian-bisexual women to be critical consumers of all media
depictions of sexuality, and to bear in mind that whether positive or negative,
such depictions reliably serve a dominant social order that continues to prioritize
the regulation and control of female sexuality.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Portions of this article were presented at Women’s Sexualities: Historical, Interdisci-

plinary, and International Perspectives, sponsored by the Kinsey Institute for Research in
Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, November, 2003, Bloomington, ID.
110 Feminism & Psychology 15(1)

REFERENCES

BBC (2003) ‘BBC denies Tatu video ban’, bbc.co.uk, 4 February, accessed 1 October
2003. Available: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/2723941.stm
Doty, A. and Gove, B. (1997) ‘Queer Representation in the Mass Media’, in A. Medhurst
and S. Munt (eds) Lesbian and Gay Studies: A Critical Introduction, pp. 84–98.
Washington, DC: Cassell.
Essig, L. (2000) ‘Heteroflexibility’, salon.com, 15 November, accessed 1 October 2003.
Available: http://dir.salon.com/mwt/feature/2000/11/15/heteroflexibility/index.html
Kitzinger, C. (1987) The Social Construction of Lesbianism. London: Sage.
MTV (2003) ‘Madonna smooches with Britney and Christina’, accessed 1 October 2003.
Available: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1477729/20030828/story.jhtml
Rich, A. (1980) ‘Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence’, Signs 5(4): 631–60.
rottentomatoes.com (2003) ‘Kissing Jessica Stein’, accessed 1 October 2003. Available:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/KissingJessicaStein-1112862/
Rust, P.R. (2000) Bisexuality in the United States: A Reader and Guide to the Literature.
New York: Columbia University Press.
Warn, S. (2003a) ‘Bi with a Boyfriend: The Latest Hollywood trend?’ afterellen.com,
July, accessed 1 October 2003. Available: http://www.afterellen.com/People/bicelebs.
html
Warn, S. (2003b) ‘VMA’s Madonna–Britney–Christina Kiss: Progress or Publicity Stunt?’
afterellen.com, September, accessed 1 October 2003. Available: http://www.afterellen.
com/TV/vmakiss.html.
Wilkinson, S. (1996) ‘Bisexuality “a la mode”’, Women’s Studies International Forum
19(3): 293–301.
Zacharek, S. (2002) ‘Kissing Jessica Stein’, salon.com, 15 March, accessed 1 October
2003. Available: http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2002/03/15/kissing/

Lisa M. DIAMOND is Assistant Professor of Psychology and Gender Studies at

the University of Utah. Her research focuses on adolescent and young adult
social and sexual development, as well as on the psychobiology of affectional
bonding over the life course. She is particularly interested in multiple environ-
mental and psychosocial factors that influence the emergence and expression of
sexual and affectional feelings for same-sex and other-sex partners at different
stages of life.
ADDRESS: Department of Psychology, University of Utah, 380 South 1530
East, rm. 502, Salt Lake City, UT 84112–0251.
[email: diamond@psych.utah.edu]