‘Girl-on-girl confessions!’ Changing representations of female–female sexuality in two Australian women’s magazines

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This article undertakes a feminist discourse analysis of references to female–female sexuality in selected editions of two Australian women’s magazines published in 1993, 2003 and 2013. It identifies three distinct phases in the discursive evolution of female–female sexuality: the lesbian chic era of the 1990s, the rise of heteroflexibility at the turn of the century and the advent of the girl crush discourse in the 21st-century. The article examines each phase chronologically, showing that despite seemingly offering acceptance, in reality these discourses portray female–female sexuality as an adjunct to heterosexuality. In this way, they fail to disrupt heteropatriarchal sexual norms, instead privileging male desire and presenting lesbian sexuality as both a performance and a vehicle of self-objectification designed to garner male attention, or as a heterosexual flirtation that is easily discarded.