Her First Older Woman - Tales Of Older/Younger Lesbian Love- Part 1: If You Go Down To The Woods Today...

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Public discussions of sexuality had occurred in Germany since the late 19th century. However, the social atmosphere during the Weimar Republic created more space for these conversations. There were discussions about homosexuality at the time. 1 Physician and sex researcher Magnus Hirschfeld and others organized gay and lesbian “friendship leagues” ( Freundschaftsverbände ), which also included heterosexual members. These groups advocated for the decriminalization of sexual relations between men. In this endeavor, they found allies on the political left and center. Among the supporters were: Her husband reacted surprisingly well too, suggesting that they enrol in therapy to help both of them exit their long-standing relationship. I took this as my cue to make a commitment and said I would move to the suburbs to be with her and her three children, once her husband had moved out. The women, experiencing stirrings of feminist thought without a vocabulary to express them as well as a desire for each other, find intellectual and emotional support on afternoons when their husbands are away.

Large numbers of Germans were opposed to these public discussions of sex and sexuality. They viewed such debates as decadent, overly permissive, and immoral. Many were disturbed by the increased visibility of sex in advertising, film, and other aspects of daily life. For these Germans, gay and lesbian communities were one symbol of what they saw as the degeneration of German society.

Over the course of the 1930s, Nazi actions targeting male homosexuality became more systematically oppressive. In 1935, the Nazi regime reformed Paragraph 175. The statute now criminalized any and all sexual intimacy between men. The Nazis also increased the severity of the punishment for these crimes. They instructed prosecutors to argue for harsh sentences in court. Judges often complied. Some women engaged in sexual relations with their fellow female prisoners. It is important to note that such relations do not always fit neatly within the category of “lesbianism.” This is because not all women who engaged in same-sex relations were lesbians. Some women developed same-sex relationships and later described them as a source of comfort in the camps. Others even saw them as necessary for survival. Hirschfeld and others also sought to educate the public about sexuality. For example, they promoted Hirschfeld’s ideas that homosexuality is inborn and not a vice or perversion.

It is difficult to know what role lesbians’ sexuality played in their detention. Sometimes their arrest had little or nothing to do with the fact that they were lesbians. At other times, their sexuality may have played a role. This was especially the case regarding arrests prompted by denunciations. Denunciations frequently affected people considered social outsiders. Denunciations of Lesbians

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Faderman came out while living in Los Angeles in the mid-1950s, after she attended the University of California, Berkeley, for her undergraduate degree.