Le Sommeil [The Sleepers], which depicts two women entwined in a post-coital embrace, caused a stir when it was first shown in the 1870s. The police were called in, and the painting was not shown again until the 1980s. But its brief showing had an influence on a number of contemporary artists, and helped challenge the taboos associated with lesbian relationships. For modern audiences it’s a good reminder that people in the 19th century were not ignorant of lesbian relationships, as we tend to believe. And it’s pretty damn sexy, don’t you think?
They called the police on this lesbian painting.
The best part is, the lesbian embrace isn’t even the biggest thing that made the painting so controversial, it was the art style. People in the artistic community at the time were wholly familiar with sapphic relationships being portrayed in art, but were used to these scenes being portrayed in the ‘academic art’ style, which consisted of smooth, simplistic, idealised versions of the nude female form. This often went hand in hand with the depiction of Roman & Greek allegories to illustrate certain ideals (think Cabanel’s Birth of Venus). Courbet’s journey into realism was met by heavy critique from the academic movement, as the women he painted were, well, more realistic. Leaving in details such as the rolls of fat around the ribs acted as a blunt reminder to the audience that these were not euphoric goddesses caressing in ecstasy, but ordinary women having a nap together after making love. Other realist paintings suffered the same controversy, Manet’s Olympia is a perfect example, where the problem was not that the painting depicted a nude woman in an erotic pose, but the fact that she was just an ordinary courtesan, given an identity & portrayed in a place of power & control. Realism humanized the female form in art, & removed it from its previous role as a representation of the ideal.
So what disgusted people about the painting wasn’t so much that Le Sommeil depicted two women, but rather that it depicted two ‘real’ women.
i am so fucking exhausted i don’t even know where to start with this
for marsha p johnson and sylvia rivera and other lgbt people being out in public was literally illegal. cops would check your genetalia and if your clothing didnt match what was deemed “right” you got arrested, you got your picture in the paper. youd lose your job, often your family, youd be harassed on the street. being gay was illegal. being trans was illegal. stonewall was a riot against police brutality on the basis that self expression for lgbt people was entirely illegal and there were few fucking places people felt even moderately comfortable enough to go and be openly themselves.
no cishet aro or cishet ace was rolling up to stonewall to dance. no cishet aro or ace was ever stripped of their dignity in front of their entire world and incarcerated for being aro or ace. you dont have stonewall “heros” because it doesn’t apply to you. the biggest “asexual activist” is a cishet white man named david jay who is openly homophobic and firmly believes in the inclusion of kink as a subsection of the lgbt community lmao
im not saying there were no cishet asexual people fighting for gay rights and all that shit but asking for an ace “”stonewall hero”” is completely ignoring the fact that stonewall wasnt for cishet aces!!! it had nothing to do w cishets and claiming it did, claiming that any sort of cishet involvement is as or more important than trans women of color or any lgbt people is offensive and ridiculous
also marsha p johnson was murdered. happy fuckin pride month
Maybe the fact that ace people don’t have anyone dating back to stone wall isn’t because we weren’t persecuted… Maybe it’s because no one ever accepts that asexuality is real. At that time anyway. Ace people have been told over and over that their sexuality isn’t real. That’s being persecuted. Torn apart. Invalidated. For that, we deserve to show our pride and our belonging to the queer community. Even if an ace person has one type of attraction to same gender, doesn’t mean they aren’t oppressed for another type of attraction they have…
this is such an incredibly ignorant and self involved response i’m not even going to engage. cis hetero aros and cis hetero aces do not and never will belong in the lgbt community.
hey btw the reason lgbt bars in particular are the most common lgbt venues and a staple of lgbt culture is because a huge chunk were owned by the fucking mob
the mafia in new york in particular (yknow where the stonewall inn is) founded and owned lgbt venues because new york state liquor laws were against “disorderly premises” and “homosexuals soliciting partners” counted as disorderly and the mafia saw a profitable market in lgbt people who had no place to go. they gave them a place to go. the liquor served at stonewall was traded underground or stolen, because they couldnt operate with a liquor license. the mob payed off the police monthly, but there were still deputies who refused this money and raided anyway.
there were no fucking cishet aces or aros at stonewall because it wasnt just a “fun venue where ur free to be urself :)” it was a fucking illegal operation with shitty bootlegged alcohol and no running water for dishes. the only people there were gay people, trans people, and the mafia.
im sure there were ace and aro people at the time who were activists but i would bet my entire fucking right arm that NONE OF THEM were at the stonewall inn the night the riots started, because not only were the patrons already breaking the law and under threat of assault by being openly gay and trans and being at an lgbt venue, but they were also literally in the middle of the fucking crossfire between the mafia and police.
you lot only fucking joined it when it got safer and profitable. THATS WHY you dont have any fucking ace or aro or demisexual stonewall heroes.
But I’m A Cheerleader is the best movie because the line “you think when other girls look at girls that they are thinking the same things as you, but they’re not” like there is no better summary of growing up lesbian
lavenduers 