ilvs strauss

L E S B I A N  F A N T A S Y

(first photo by molly sides, others by ilvs)

LESBIAN FANTASY is an ongoing visual and performance art project in collaboration with Jenna Eady. I intentionally chose term LESBIAN (over queer) for the title because of its attention getting attributes, and while I have your undivided attention, I can begin to redefine what LESBIAN FANTASY is outside of the narrow frame of pornography made (by and) for straight men. These are snapshots of what FANTASY means to me, an actual womyn who loves other womyn. I'm interested in exploring the depth of what fantasy can be, the complexity of what goes on in my head when I'm with someone intimately, my daydreams when I'm alone, my general and sometimes generic hopes and fears, the writing out of which often reveals to me what it is I really want and/or what's important to me in relationships. Turns out it's more than just sex.

I've never identified as LESBIAN. For me it's always felt too harsh a term, too often used against us, too radical, too old school, to restrictive, too this, too that. I choose queer as an identity because of its fluidity, its digestibility, the larger embrace of it as a cultural identity and its revolutionarily non-binary ways. I choose queer because I am not just the LESBIAN sex I have. 

And I choose queer for its ambiguity. I choose it because I can hide in it, I can hide behind it. 'I'm not a LESBIAN! I'm queer!’ It's been an easy out (well, easier out) in situations where i've felt uncomfortable, unsafe or uncool.

I chose LESBIAN for the title of this project I don't like being called LESBIAN. I chose it because I want to call myself out for being a LESBIAN, as a way to call attention to my profound and inherent (inherited) love of other womyn. 

I chose LESBIAN because I choose my family. These lovers, friends, sisters and others whom I hold dear, those that I laugh with, cry on, run from, and ultimately return to.

And I chose, with deepest gratitude, the word LESBIAN because without LESBIAN there would be no QUEER.