Karla Jay

A woman rides crocodiles like horses. A queen gives up her throne for her dignity. And Prince Charming is not who you might think . . . The Woman of the Wolf and Other Stories, written in 1904, is perhaps the finest work by sapphic poet Renee Vivien. Blending myth, fairy story and biblical tale, Vivien creates powerful portraits of strong women who stand up for what they believe in - and of the aggrieved men who trail behind them. Bold, defiant and suffused with a unique poetic voice, this scintillating collection of short stories offers a radical alternative to traditional lore.

Karla Jay's memoir of an age whose tumultuous social and political movements fundamentally reshaped American culture takes readers from her early days in the 1968 Columbia University student riots to her post-college involvement in New York radical women's groups and the New York Gay Liberation Front. In Southern California in the early 70s, she continued in the battle for gay civil rights and helped to organize the takeover of "The Ladies' Home Journal" and "ogle-in" - where women staked out Wall Street and whistled at the men.

Written by lesbians of different ages, races and religions,and compiled by one of the gay movement's best-known writers and activists,these original essays give vibrant voice to the diversity of the lesbian experience. Celebrating the many ways in which the lesbian experience is unique from all others, many of these pieces focus on specific lesbian concerns such as sexual practices, raising children and higher incidence of certain illnesses. Beyond pointing out these differences, the essays also provide a comprehensive view of the many phases of lesbian life by covering diverse topics like body piercing, coming out and work. Short narratives, To Mother or Not to Mother," Confessions of a Lesbian Vampire," About Being an Old Lesbian in Love," and more,complement and enrich the main essays, adding a unique personal tone to the collection. A mix of the serious and the irreverent, Dyke Life is an important contribution to gay and lesbian literature.

The first anthology to investigate cultural production of lesbian sexuality The question of whether lesbians have sex, how they have sex, and when they began having sex has long obsessively preoccupied the heterosexual imagination. Today, discussions of lesbian sex abound with such terms as romantic friendships, stealth lesbians, and genitally sexual. As we approach the end of the twentieth century, lesbian sexuality remains hotly contested ground. What exactly qualifies as lesbian sex? What is the relationship, if any, between lesbian erotica and heterosexual pornography? How did the issue of sex in lesbian communities come to be such a fiercely debated subject? Lesbian Erotics is the first anthology to investigate the cultural production of sexually charged images of lesbians in film, law, literature, and popular culture in general. The contributors address an enormous range of sexualities and fora in which these sexualities flourish. In her chapter, Not Tonight, Dear, I'm Deconstructing a Headache: Confessions of a Lesbian Sex Therapist, Marny Hall illustrates how difficult some women find it to maintain erotic tension in lesbian relationships. Elizabeth Meese grapples with increasingly complex sexual identities in cyperspace. Kitty Tsui, cover model for On Our Backs, relays how she developed her own body into an art form in order to combat stereotypes of passive and invisible Asian women. This work, as Karla Jay writes in the introduction, invites readers to consider the implications, variations, and complexities of lesbian erotics. In the end, it is our sexual lives that mark us as outlaws. Therefore, we need to investigate and engage representations of our sexuality to define for ourselves, if we so choose, the scope, shape, and permutations of lesbian erotics.