brockr’s Reviews > Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence > Status Update

The denial of reality and invisibility to women’s passion for women, women’s choice of women as allies, life companions, and community, the forcing of such relationships into dissimulation and their disintegra-tion under intense pressure have meant an incalculable loss to the power of all women to change the social relations of the sexes, to liberate ourselves and each other.

“I have had very bad relationships with men—I am now in the midst of a very painful separation. I am trying to find my strength through women— without my friends, I could not survive.” How many times a day do women speak words like these or think them or write them, and how often does the synapse reassert itself?