‘The New Lesbian Sexual Revolution’: Lesbian Sex Radicals in Sydney during the 1980s and 1990s

Abstract

Lesbians in Sydney during the 1980s and 1990s faced a range of barriers to expressing their diverse sexual desires and identities: from the male dominance of the commercial gay scene and its associated sexual subcultures, to an overarching cultural idea that lesbians do not – therefore why would they want to – engage in promiscuous or hedonistic sex. In this article, I trace how, despite these barriers, Sydney became a locus of lesbian sex radicalism from the early 1980s through to the late 1990s as lesbians created spaces to explore their sexual subjectivity and to expand possibilities for living a lesbian life. While activism, feminist networks and a commitment to sisterhood and separatism had defined Sydney lesbian feminism from the early 1970s, the confidence gained from these years propelled some lesbians to locate other ways of being a lesbian by the early 1980s. Sexual experimentation was one specific avenue through which some attempted to expand an already strong feminist agenda of enhancing lesbian visibility.