ABSTRACT
In 1975, Adrienne Rich's reputation was secure. She might have eased up and toyed with honors. Lesbian'. For many, heterosexual or homosexual, the word still constricts the throat. Those 'slimy' sibilants; those 'nasty' nasalities. 'Lesbian' makes even 'feminist' sound lissome, decent, sane. Heterosexual institutions damage both sons and daughters, but, Rich insists, in the crucial axiom of feminist theory, they damage women far more than men. In the 1970s, her theories were influenced by, and influences on, the cultural feminism that was a powerful strain in feminist thinking, particularly about sexuality, culture, and identity. In part, her transgressions of genetic conventions are the deconstructive gestures of post-modernism without much manic play or lucid romps. Deftly, Rich's theories of female sexuality invert the accusatory slander that lesbianism is 'unnatural'. Some of Rich's most ambitious lesbian/feminist poems speak for all women and mourn their suffering, affliction, and powerlessness: 'From an Old House in America', 'Culture and Anarchy', 'For Julia in Nebraska'.
