ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the way in which the lesbian feminist critique of role-playing was opposed by the rise of a new form of the practice in the 1980s. The rejection of sex roles was ubiquitous across radical political movements in the 1960s and 1970s. Role-playing was rejected by lesbians and gay men involved in gay liberation, a movement which was influenced by feminist politics. Lesbian feminists argued that role-playing was based upon the stereotyped roles of female-subordinate and male-dominant heterosexuality. As a result of this understanding, lesbian feminists eschewed both the outward appearance of ‘gender’ and the role-defined behaviour that went with it. The return to lesbian role-playing was a significant aspect of the rejection of lesbian feminism in the 1980s. It offered a form of ‘sadomasochism light’, with no obvious violence but very obvious eroticising of power difference.
