Not Your Average Prom Queen: Why “The L Word” Should Be Banned
“The L Word” is a hit show with gals of varying sexual identities, but I’ve recently started to believe that “The L Word” is not a healthy habit for the lesbian community. It has created a sense of delusional hope for its viewers. The writers and directors of this show can’t be saying that West Hollywood is a magical place in which these scenarios are likely to occur. West Hollywood must have shared characteristics of other cities. I’m assuming that living in other liberal, decent sized cities I must have enjoyed some similarities to “The L Word” universe. So, in taking my experience from both living in Washington, DC and Chicago, here are some myths that this show unfairly perpetuates.
Myth #1: 90% of the women you meet are lesbians.
Truth: I search far and wide for lesbians. Sure, there are a couple in the vegan Cafés in Andersonville, or maybe a bike shop in DC’s Takoma Park, but other than that – gay women are not swarming around big cities. I don’t know where they are, but they aren’t at every bar, party, job, dentist appointment and haircut I’ve ever experienced.
Myth #2: Of that 90%, at least 87% of them will want to sleep with you.
Truth: If you do get the chance to meet a lesbian, she’s in a relationship. Or she barely looks at you. In real life, you do not have the option to take home any same-sex lovin’ gal you meet. Lesbians actually go on dates, they don’t just take their tops off in the bathroom of every bar in town after a few moments of sexy eye contact. I mean, maybe some do, but I would venture to say it’s not the majority. At least from my experience. Don’t worry about the rest of the percentage – straight women – because although in “The L Word” pretty much all straight gals hook up with a lesbian at least a few times (they can’t help themselves, you know?), this is not something we really need to worry about.
Myth #3: Hot Lesbians rarely wear bras.
Truth: Some women don’t wear bras, that is true. If a woman has small enough breasts, it might not really be a necessity, but most women do. Even hot lesbians. This rogue bralessness in the world of “The L Word” is perhaps just an unfortunate exaggeration. Because most women wear a bra on a regular basis, if you are in the lucky position to be with a girl taking her top off, don’t be shocked and surprised when she’s wearing something underneath. Maybe the show uses this little trick to cut valuable minutes off of the already hour-long show. If every sex scene required a bra-removal, the show might be twice as long, and substantially more frustrating.
Myth #3b. If those hot lesbians are wearing bras, they are wearing incredibly sexy, lacy bras that match their underwear – on a daily basis.
Truth: Oh. Come. On. Women would need storage units to hold all that lace if they really wore a sexy lacey bra and matching underwear every single day. If you’ve ever been on more than 3 dates with a woman, you would know this.
Myth #4: All your lesbian friends have sexy, glamorous jobs, such as movie executives, underwear models, acclaimed writers, museum curators, successful musicians, etc.
Truth: Because lesbians are women, they are underemployed and underpaid. Most lesbians I know have regular jobs like customer service representatives, baristas, or accountants. Not so glamorous. Well, I guess accountants are kinda sexy.
Myth #5: You should definitely have a chic place to hang out everyday with all your friends for coffee or lunch. This is the place where all the lesbians in your city hang out.
Truth: This one isn’t totally unique to “The L Word” —“Friends” did it to us, as well. It’s a lie. Because we all work real jobs, we can’t always be hanging out at some hip social spot. In addition, the only place lesbians congregate en mass are softball games and Ani Difranco concerts – there is no bar or coffee shop where you can roll in 24/7 and be greeted like Norm by all of your past and future girlfriends.
Myth #6: You can sleep with whoever you want, to the point of tracking your dalliances on a website (The Chart) and never once contract a sexually transmitted disease.
Truth: In the United States alone, 19 million people are diagnosed with some form of a sexually transmitted disease every year. That much sex is bound to get you in trouble – and I’ve never once seen any protection used in a hot braless sex scene on “The L Word.”
Myth #7: Everyone you know, and everyone you meet, is good looking (even those people who are not that good looking.)
Truth: The only place everyone is good looking is Calgary, Canada. I think its something in the water up there.
Myths like these crush the very hopefulness of being a gay woman. Of course, “The L Word” is fiction, and fiction exists because we like to feel a part of things that are not within our reach. I need to remind myself that watching “The L Word” is just like watching Benjamin Button or Apocalypse Now. It’s not real, no matter how much I want it to be.
In addition to my acknowledgment that I appreciate fiction, I’d also like to point out that I don’t really want to sink into a show about hot lesbians where there are more bras, fewer sexy hookups and less glamorous jobs. Admittedly, I don’t know all this information about the show from savvy search-engining. I totally watch – and love – the show, but when the credits roll at the end of each episode I look down at my Cheeto splattered lap, my rolled-at-the-ankle sweatpants, as I sit on a hand-me-down couch, flanked by two sleeping cats, and I wonder why I even bother to wake up in the morning.
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From day one, I’ve always been shocked at how stereotypically hot all the L Word ladies are. What’s funny is that, where Queer as Folk exploited all the gay stereotypes, The L Word ignored all the lady-gay ones. Basically, it seems like The L Word IS QAF, but with women instead of men. WTF?
I for one am sick of inaccurate portrayals of queer persons in the media. Let’s start a TNG TV show showing the world the gritty, Cheeto-dusted underbelly of queer America!
Oy, Jean. Yes. I agree. I think that the pure unadulterated pleasure I get from watching these women (some dykes, others are TOTALLY passable as dykes) make out, touch each other, and spread around the drama is totally worth feeling like a celibate, unwashed lesbian in a cave. Awesome, funny article–as always.
Really funny article!
All these anomalies can be explained quite easily: it’s a TV show! The sex appeal, the wealth and glam, it all looks sooo good on the screen : )
I wholeheartedly second Myth #6. Women who sleep with women are too often overlooked or glossed over in dicussions of safer sex practices, and I have noticed a pervasive false sense of “safety” from STIs among members of this population.
Also, on the topic of bras, I and all the queer women I’ve dated wear sports bras and/or binders, and let me tell you, it’s really hard to be suave while dislocating your shoulder to extricate yourself from what amounts to a lycra straightjacket. That said, I would pay good money to see Kate Moennig try to wriggle her way out of an Underworks Tritop (http://www.underworks.com/983.html). Ha!
If you would have hung around Austin a little longer I could have shown you the sexy side of the lesbian world! I can safely say all of my friends are hot. ; )
great article, jean. does this make you more or less freaked out about the atrocities in store for Chaiken’s next endeavor – The Real L Word???
I graduated from college a year ago and the L Word played a huge part in my coming out process. I grew up in the SOuth and wasn’t even really aware of gay people until high school, and didn’t even think it was viable to my world until I went to college. Like the straight girls watching Sex & the City, my new-found lesbian friends and I would sit around watching the L Word and giggling. Though it may a superficial and unrealistic show, it set the stage for my potential reality of what life could be like.
Just like Queer as Folk, it paved a way in television that had not done. GLBTQ characters were Will and Jack from Will & Grace and characters that were not taken seriously.
I am thankful for the creation of the show, it gave me a peek into possibilities I thought were not possible.
Nick and I commonly joke about the distinction between lesbian fiction and what we call “lesbian reality.” One we often chuckle about the process of brushing our teeth. We giggle, thinking about how if it were some reality show/movie/porn, the two women would lock eyes, drop their toothbrushes, kiss erotically, and be naked on the bed within just a few moments. Instead, we stand next to each other (unless either is tired, in which case that person sits down on the toilet) looking exhausted, glancing at each other in the mirror, spitting our paste out every couple of seconds. We think it’s pretty hilarious.
Great article, as usual.
Fun read and yes I agree. I met some stunning women in my life but it wasn’t all so condensed and filled with mindless drama, as it is in the L Word. I was very disappointed in the show although it was fun to watch the bevy of beauties.
What idiot compares a TV show to real life?
Er, um – oh, I guess those of us that have lives don’t. Oooops.
Nancy, this is obviously just commentary on a tv show that was groundbreaking for the community-for better or worse. I think it was a funny, insightful article. Thanks again, Jean.
Well. I loved this article. I do not think L Word should be banned tho. . .
Maybe we shall learn from all the major mistakes in this 1st lesbian drama series and if we should endure another drama series lets try to hit up with real issues that involve lesbians, women and culture!
oh gawd, why are people taking jean’s title so literally? is it also a myth that lesbians can have a sense of humor?
good post – i particularly agree with myth #1
that last line seems awfully familiar….perhaps even spoken by a cat or two? in an awesome poem you heard once? i love it. great article as always
-rolls eyes-
I’m so sick of people saying crap like this. Whether it’s a joke or not, a lot of people seriously complain about these issues. It’s a television show. A TELEVISION SHOW. They never made any promise to be realistic. NO TELEVISION SHOW IS REALISTIC. The L word is just as frickin’ valid as any straight-centric television show on these days. The portrayals of straight dalliances and relationships in TV are just as full of myth. Everyone knows this. Criticizing the L word for the same issues that nearly every other television show is just dumb, hypocritical, singling them out. Why the hell should “gay shows” be any different than “straight” ones?
For example, this comment: “I for one am sick of inaccurate portrayals of queer persons in the media. Let’s start a TV show showing the world the gritty, Cheeto-dusted underbelly of queer America!”
Here, let me just edit this to what I personally think it should be, yeah?
“I for one am sick of inaccurate portrayals of PEOPLE/LIFE/RELATIONSHIPS in the media. Let’s start a TV show showing the world the gritty, Cheeto-dusted underbelly of ALL America!”
No one thinks that West Hollywood is really like that, that all lesbians are glam that way, etc. Just like no one thinks that New York is just like in Sex and the City! I don’t think you can GET more unrealistic than Carrie Bradshaw. There’s TONS of other shows just like that as well, where’s their criticism? Anyway, it’s not like there’s a plethora of gay shows. What do you expect? We should appreciate the L word for all the good that it did, despite it’s many problems. Instead, the extremely few queer shows there are are getting crap like this, and the billions of straight tv shows that are the same way are not.
I completely understand being sick of the completely insane unrealistic portrayal of life in the media. But if you’re saying that shit about queer shows and not all the other ones(which, in my experience, is exactly what tons of people ARE doing), then you are just adding to the mindset that gay is somehow different and not lumped in with everyone else, which in my opinion, it absolutely should be. We have enough separation.
Once again, this isn’t directed really to the people who don’t take it that seriously, but there’s so many that DO take it extremely seriously and I don’t think that should be encouraged.
then i guess everything that doesn’t accurately portray people and gives them false hope should be banned. starting with disney.
I must tell you, despite the myth of “L Word” lesbians – they do exist. I used to live in NYC and there were a few categories of lesbians. There were the dykes who were often hipsters. The lesbians who mimic the L-Word. And a group of women in heterosexual relationships looking for a third with their male partners. I’ll write a guide about it and where to find each one! Thanks for the inspiration. Keep up the good work.
I really agree with you, I have just been to new york to one of the hottest and most famous lesbian bars there, and let me tell you it was not the L-word-like at all. Pretty normal people, and the L word, seems more to me like a show made for straight guys who like watching women have sex all the time, bra-less, with the best bodies, so they can complete their fantasy. This show does not portrait reality, but at least narrow-minded people seem more open to our L-WORLD! than before this show was aired. So I kind of respect the statement…
Very funny and entertaining article! I just keep hearing Homer Simpson saying, “See Lisa, it’s funny because it’s true!” Thanks!
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