Sex and Sensibility: Stories of a Lesbian Generation

by Arlene Stein

In the first book to analyze shifts in lesbian identity, consciousness, and culture from the 1970s to the 1990s, Arlene Stein contributes an important chapter to the study of the women's movement and offers a revealing portrait of the exchange between a radical generation of feminists and its successors. Tracing the evolution of the lesbian movement from the bar scene to the growth of alternative families, Stein illustrates how a generation of women transformed the woman-centered ideals of feminism into a culture and a lifestyle.

Sex and Sensibility relates the development of a "queer" sensibility in the 1990s to the foundation laid by the gay rights and feminist movements a generation earlier. Beginning with the stories of thirty women who came of age at the climax of the 70s women's movement―many of whom defined lesbianism as a form of resistance to dominant gender and sexual norms―Stein explores the complex issues of identity that these women confronted as they discovered who they were and defined themselves in relation to their communities and to society at large.

Sex and Sensibility ends with interviews of ten younger women, members of the post-feminist generation who have made it a fashion to dismiss lesbian feminism as overly idealistic and reductive. Enmeshed in Stein's compelling and personal narrative are coming-out experiences, questions of separatism, work, desire, children, and family. Stein considers the multiple identities of women of color and the experiences of intermittent and "ex" lesbians.

Was the lesbian feminist experiment a success? What has become of these ideas and the women who held them? In answering these questions, Stein illustrates the lasting and profound effect that the lesbian feminist movement had, and continues to have, on contemporary women's definitions of sexual identity.

Genres: Nonfiction, Lesbian, LGBT, Queer, History

268 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[fausto · Rating 2 out of 5]

While the book have some very interesting chapters and issues, I really dislike the author's emphasis in liberal/queer perspective of the herstory of 70's lesbian feminism/separatism. Stein seems to enjoy the new queer/postmodern perspectives of the lesbian community, while in the introduction she says the book is going to put lesbian-feminism in their own terms and contributions (and in a very narrow way is the case) she ends up underestimating those elements that do not fit in her vision of a dislocated and amorphous lesbian identity

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

fascinating! grateful to have come across this. have some lingering questions, but all in all i learned a lot for the low low price of $6

[Mira Lora · Rating 4 out of 5]

originally i had read a couple of excerpts of this as readings for my oral history in lesbian subjects course and found myself having epiphanies and different understandings of my own identity and the way perception around a sexual identity forms. this book being organized as a summary of interviews with lesbian-feminists essentialists and social-constructionists alike made it a diverse representation of 70s and 80s understandings of lesbians. it repeated its findings a lot which i found to be monotonous in moments but there were so many A-HA! moments for me where something was said so plainly but i resonated with it deeply. it’s definitely changed my understanding of what sexuality is and how identity politics work.

i think we can learn a great deal from such a different understanding of sexuality, community, feminism, and lesbianism…and so many things that were talked about as big pot-stirrers in the 80s are subjects i consistently talk about w my friends now. so funny to think we still talk about the same dilemmas of identity.

long live lesbians 🤭

[Meg Jenkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for diss but quite interesting

[Chloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with the other book I finished reading today, Lillian Faderman's Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, I'm glad to have been able to read this in the context of my class on lesbian history. The amount of contextualization for the period of lesbian history covered in this book, as well as lesbian history in the preceding decades, helped me enormously as I read Sex and Sensibility (speaking of which, what an A+ title).

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought this early Feb 2015. haven't read it but a scan looks really good.

[Haley · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars for Berkeley sociologists as usual. Very helpful in understanding the links between lesbianism and radical feminism as movements/identities