Lipstick lesbian

In 1982, Priscilla Rhoades, a journalist with the gay newspaper Sentinel, wrote the feature story "Lesbians for Lipstick".

[7] The term lipstick lesbian became popular when used by writer Deborah Bergman, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times.

For example, Jodie Brian, in Encyclopedia of Gender and Society, Volume 1 (2009), states, "A common depiction of lipstick lesbianism includes conventionally attractive and sexually insatiable women who desire one another but only insofar as their desire is a performance for male onlookers or a precursor to sex with men.

[9][10][11] They commonly modify a typical feminine style to make it less heteronormative; Inge Blackman and Kathryn Perry gave the example of "twinning short skirts with Doctor Martens (DMs) or lacy underwear with men's trousers".

"[12] Although some authors have said that the existence of lipstick lesbians is a destabilization of heterosexual ideals, by breaking the assumption that a feminine person will always desire a masculine person, and vice versa, others have said that the lipstick lesbian emergence simply fails in this regard,[10][13] as lipstick lesbians are still subject to the male gaze, and still found acceptable due to their femininity.