Lipstick lesbian

Participants at this 2007 Dyke March in Toronto exhibit both gender-neutral and feminine characteristics.

The expression is slang, used to describe lesbian and bisexual women who exhibit extremely feminine gender attributes, such as wearing make-up (thus, lipstick), wearing dresses or skirts and having other characteristics associated with feminine women. Most female same-sex sex scenes in mainstream pornography are portrayed in this way.

The term was used in San Francisco at least as far back as the 1980s. In 1982, Priscilla Rhoades, a journalist with the gay newspaper The Sentinel, wrote a feature story on "Lesbians for Lipstick". In 1990, the gay newspaper OutWeek covered the Lesbian Ladies Society, a Washington, D.C.-based social group of "feminine lesbians" that required women to wear a dress or skirt to its functions. The term is thought to have emerged in wide usage during the early 1990s. A 1997 episode of the television show Ellen widely publicized the phrase. In the show, Ellen DeGeneres's character, asked by her parents whether a certain woman is a "dipstick lesbian", explains that the term is "lipstick lesbian", and comments that "I would be a chapstick lesbian."

In 1999, columnist Mark Steyn called actress Anne Heche, who was dating DeGeneres at the time, "the world's most famous lipstick lesbian."

An alternate term for "lipstick lesbian" is "doily dyke".

Stevie Kitts-Beck, an artist originally from San Francisco California, has created a lipstick pride flag. She used her wife's lip print for the center and the colors pink, lavender, and turquoise, rather than the traditional colors of the gay pride flag.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Butch and femme
• Lipstick feminism
• Girly girl
• Soft butch

References

• Butler, Judith (1999-09-01). Gender Trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity. (Paperback ed.). New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-92499-5. 

External links

• The Lipstick Lesbian Page
• Lipstick Lesbian Life