ABSTRACT
This chapter will examine lesbian feminist theorising of heterosexuality and political lesbianism. The idea that heterosexuality requires its own explanation and analysis rather than being just a natural and biological sexual preference was a fundamental insight of lesbian feminism. Lesbian feminists pointed out that heterosexuality as an institution is created and enforced under male dominance to enable the extraction of women’s labour and to effect the control of women and children. Many lesbian feminists went further than criticising heterosexuality and argued that lesbianism is also socially constructed and can be chosen as a political tactic and form of resistance in the struggle to end women’s oppression: feminists can become ‘political lesbians’. This chapter will focus on the controversy that surrounded the 1979 ‘Political Lesbianism’ paper and the light that this throws on attitudes towards lesbians in the Women’s Liberation Movement.
