Not Tonight Dear, I'm Deconstructing a Headache

Abstract

The meanings attributed to sexual encounters are notoriously fluid. At the beginning of the twentieth century, eroticized contact between two women was widely regarded as evidence of moral and physical degeneracy-even by those women engaging in such contact. By the end of the century, a significant proportion of self-identified lesbians had come to regard same-sex erotic contact as a healthy expression of love. In fact, the meanings ascribed to same-sex erotic contact had changed so dramatically that, by 1979, the absence of such contact in lesbian relationships was considered un-healthy-a condition for which couples often sought “treatment.” In this article, the author, a longtime San Francisco Bay Area lesbian sex therapist, chronicles the evolution of these treatments and reflects upon the twenty-five years she spent adapting and administering them.

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