ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with identifying and analysing the sparse references to, and images of, women’s same-sex sexuality within the magazines. The chapter examines these references in terms of their potential to disrupt the dominant hetero-monogamous script. Articles such as “The new lesbians” (1993) and “Girl-on-girl confessions!” (2003) suggest an increasing comfort with female–female sexuality moving into the 21st century. Yet despite increasingly playful and eroticised mentions of women’s same-sex desire across the decades, the chapter reveals that from the 1990s onwards, female–female sexuality is increasingly presented as an adjunct to heterosexuality. This analysis draws on a close examination of engaging examples within the dataset to provide the first comprehensive and longitudinal analysis of same-sex sexuality in women’s magazines, thus providing an overdue addition to a body of literature that has heretofore focused overwhelmingly on heterosexuality. In an era charged by questions surrounding LGBTQIA+ rights and representations, a comprehensive understanding of the ways in which pop culture portrays same-sex attracted women is imperative.
