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" [Adrienne Rich] was one of the only major intellectuals since Freud to assert that homosexuality was anything other than a problem. She is also notable for describing a continuum, like Kinesey's, of lesbian love - a continuum that begins with the intimacy of a mother nursing her daughter and ends with a nurturing, egalitarian love relationship between two women. While this theory eventually contributed to the stifling stereotype that lesbians only cuddle and nuzzle in bed, supporting each other and drinking chamomile tea, Rich was savvy to link same-sex love - so taboo, so unnatural - with a role for women seen as unassailable: being a mother. "

Jennifer Baumgardner , Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics


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Jennifer Baumgardner quote : [Adrienne Rich] was one of the only major intellectuals since Freud to assert that homosexuality was anything other than a problem. She is also notable for describing a continuum, like Kinesey's, of lesbian love - a continuum that begins with the intimacy of a mother nursing her daughter and ends with a nurturing, egalitarian love relationship between two women. While this theory eventually contributed to the stifling stereotype that lesbians only cuddle and nuzzle in bed, supporting each other and drinking chamomile tea, Rich was savvy to link same-sex love - so taboo, so unnatural - with a role for women seen as unassailable: being a mother.