I don’t know if it was my butch appearance that made me seem exotic. VICE spoke to lesbian women to understand just how dangerously obsessed some straight men might get with them, and the many misconceptions they harbour. In her statement to the media, she said that though she’d accepted homophobia and violence as a part of her life, it continued to give her panic attacks and triggered her anxiety. In 2020, a lesbian woman was punched in the face in the city of Sunderland in England. When the couple refused, they were viciously beaten up. In 2019, four male teenagers forced a lesbian couple to kiss on a London bus after figuring out they were queer. In the real world, the price that lesbian women often end up paying when faced by men who solely view them in a fantastical, voyeuristic light can be near-fatal. “So it has this voyeuristic, naughty, fantastical element.” “They (straight men) are desiring a view of a sexual experience in which they cannot, by definition, take part,” Timaree Schmit, a sexuality researcher, told NBC News.
According to data released by PornHub and YouPorn, lesbian porn remains the most searched category globally.
The sex scenes in Blue is the Warmest Colour, which won best picture at Cannes in 2013, were criticised by the film’s own lead actors who “ felt like prostitutes” shooting sex scenes directed from a male gaze. For lesbian women, fetishisation takes on a different, darker hue altogether.
