Captured at a time when homosexuality was considered taboo, these remarkable images defiant women who flouted convention in the nineteenth and twentieth century. I come from a queer universe where traditional butch/femme identities seem old-school and retrograde, second-wavey, practically heteropatriarchal. There’s a lot wrong with that perspective — for one thing, a lot of the modern queers who shit on butch/femme dynamics aren’t from the working class, where those identities were born — but it’s one I still sympathize with, especially as someone who’d previously been hesitant to claim femme identity as my own. To my pleasure and amazement she was already out of my dads study and was hopping towards the stairs. She had heard the screaming and commotion from the office, which to her didn’t sound like a game, and was able to hop to the door, open it with her hands still taped and hop to the foot of the stairs. Normally this would have been amazing, but considering my sister was upstairs in pain I had to let her out. I grabbed some scissors and cut the tape off of her wrists and ankles and she ripped the tape off of her lips.

I’m determined to do something showstopping, but our offerings are comically limited. No Sheryl Crow, no Michelle Branch. Not even “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” The secrets of the ultimate roast potato: TOM PARKER BOWLES digs deep to find the answers, and reveals how top chefs including Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver make theirs As a response to some of the questions people have had, no I wasn’t able to tie up my aunt again. I tried, but it never happened. Survivors are trapped in a cycle that delegitimizes their experience: first by downplaying the likelihood that it could happen at all, then by not validating it once it happens, and finally by not analyzing the data—and therefore creating awareness—after it does. Relax, you two. Do you really think I would do that to you? How mean do you think I am? But your protestations remind that I need to gag you," Marie said as she went to her "gag and blindfold" stash and took out a pair of old yet clean tights.

Arts

At dinner, we wondered why we couldn’t have both: explicitly lesbian spaces that also explicitly love, and welcome, trans and gender-nonconforming people. Our identities shouldn’t be opposed, but in communion with each other: butch and femme, trans and cis, lesbian and queer.

Before the game began though I needed supplies. I don’t remember if we had any rope, so I used some scotch tape I had found in my dad's study. No it wasn’t the greatest, but it had to do. Note: if you’ve read my previous story about my aunt, this was before I started using shoe laces. Before I left, I talked to a few of my reporter friends about it, just in case a hookup opportunity should present itself and I decided to partake for, um, research purposes . We decided that my Olivia story fell in some sort of weird journalistic in-between, just like my own job does. I sometimes do reporting, but I’m not strictly a reporter; I’m a writer, editor, and cultural critic. Plus, I wasn’t assigned this story to go and passively report out what everybody else was doing on the cruise; I was supposed to immerse myself in the experience (while, of course, disclosing to anyone I spoke with that I was writing about the trip). And the thing a lot of women on the cruise were looking to experience was, yes, getting laid. Although some of the fascinating women pictured are understood to be lesbian couples, in some cases there is little information about their sexual orientation - nonetheless it is quite extraordinary that these images survive as many old photos of same-sex couples are believed to have been destroyed by family members.

Food

That night, Matie and Jamie convinced me (against my natural inclination to avoid live entertainment) to go to the evening’s scheduled attraction, a comedy set by Elvira Kurt. Before Elvira performed we were welcomed by Tisha, Olivia’s VP and our cruise director, who greeted the “ladies of Olivia” and announced a few of the events coming up over the next few days, including a meetup for the “Older, Wiser Lesbians,” or “OWLs.” (“Date me, OWLs!” Matie whisper-yelled next to me.) She sat on the edge of her bed and began pulling the tights up one leg. She loved the feeling of how the tights caressed her legs from the tips of her toes, then slowly up her leg. She did the same for the other leg, slowly pulling up the tights until the band reached its destination at her waist. She adjusted them until they felt just right. She made sure the seam was perfectly aligned along the tips of her toes. She sighed with pleasure as she ran her hands up and down her nylon covered legs. The tights were completely opaque and oh so soft and smooth. It overwhelmed me, just then, the sudden force of my wanting. I wanted my own big, strong butch. Someone who wasn’t looking for someone to help them grow, because they’ve done most of their growing already.

Erin sat next to Marie on the bed, and Amanda brought Marie's desk chair over and sat on it, crossing her legs. Amanda was still in her school uniform, except for her shoes. She was wearing the required white shirt, blue blazer, blue pleated skirt, and navy blue tights. These gender norms can directly contribute to distrust of a victim's claims, says Lisa Langenderfer-Magruder, co-author of a recent study of LGBTQ intimate partner violencein Colorado. "When someone is confronted with a situation that doesn't quite fit that major narrative, they may question its validity," she says. All of this amounts to a culture in which most research on partner violence focuses on heterosexual relationships. "So, in some ways, we're playing catch up." But even though I’ve been out for years now, I’ve still never spent much time around older lesbians. The lesbian bars and events I frequent in New York — the gay capital of the world! — are almost overwhelmingly populated by young people. The older women I did meet tended to be coupled up. I knew that hot older butches, even single ones, were out there, in my city and beyond, but I didn’t know where to find them. Finally I caught Brittney and the game came to a halt. Now that she was captured I was to take her to my hideout for her to be my prisoner. Good.” I then ripped off a few pieces of tape and started to place them onto her mouth. Once she was gagged I asked her one more time if everything was good. She could speak just fine, but “mmphed” for the games sake.Friend groups can become divided and the survivor may fear losing her only LGBTQ support network," Kauffman says. "This can be especially challenging for survivors who live in areas where the community is small or there is a more hostile climate towards LGBTQ people." To me, Olivia was getting the chance to spend an afternoon with a 73-year-old who’d worked for 11 years as a bartender at my favorite lesbian bar in Brooklyn. Olivia was hearing an American explain U-Haul jokes to a confused, elderly Australian woman. Olivia was my long talk with Lynette about anti-trans feminism in the UK, and being impressed with her easy command of they/them pronouns — yet again proving my worries about older lesbians wrong.