lesbian deck

afrosaxon

Grizabella said:
A little comment on Motherpeace and Daughters of the Moon. I respect the Motherpeace, but I don't like it. The in-your-face crotch shots hit me like a sexually abusive man's "here it is, take it whether you want to or not" and I don't think that's necessary or helpful to women's issues. I think the DOM is much more beautiful, sensitive and respectful of women than the Motherpeace. Again, just me telling my own story. I realize many people will disagree. :)

:laugh:

I wholeheartedly agree, Griz! That was one of my main beefs when I picked up the DOM again afteer 10 years. Seeing more bush than a landscaper was just not my cup of oolong at this stage of the game...and I'm not a prude! :D

T.
 

Cat*

(First of all, this is addressed to everyone, not just to the people I quoted. I have also sometimes picked quotes from one person about issues that other people have addressed as well, so please don't feel left out or singled out.)

About the relation of feminism and lesbianism: I actually learned to understand "feminist" as a "code" word for "lesbian" in many cases. But maybe that's a German thing (the developments of feminist and lesbian movements have been quite different in the US and in Germany, after all)?

shaveling said:
I personally like to view the knights and pages of the Ancient Tarot of Lombardy as the butches, and the queens and female trumps as the femmes of that deck. Except for the Queen of Staves and The Star. Definite butches, those two.
Now I'm curious... :D *checking out Ancient Tarot of Lombardy*

Actually, I do that with all of my decks - if I read the depicted gender as important at all. (After all, I can identify with Kings, too, even as a queer femme.) Which might or might not be what Fulgour had in mind with this:

Fulgour said:
Remember the scene... "I am Spartucus!"
ALL decks are Lesbian! And I say Hooray!

~Fulgour - all possibilities exist within me.
:)

NightWing said:
I'm also uncertain what a "lesbian tarot" would look like. Would it include "butch" women in lumberjack shirts, jeans, and very short hair?
*drool* Oh, yes, please! See, that's my biggest problem with the decks I own: there is such an extreme scarcity of butches all around - and at times I do get tired of revisioning feminine women and/or men as butches, no matter how used to it I am by now (it's not like I do that with tarot only).

NightWing said:
As much as that is stereotypical, there is also some reality to it. Surely lesbians are so diverse that one particular deck could not hope to capture images that speak to/for all?
Uh, is there any deck out there that is able to speak for all heterosexuals?

NightWing said:
And I agree that such a deck should be created by lesbians to reflect their reality, or part thereof. Actually, it may well be that such decks HAVE already been created; just not identified as such, but fully reflecting a given woman's reality nonetheless.

I'd love to see a deck that was openly presented as "lesbian" though.
As I said above, I understood most "feminist" decks to be thinly veiled lesbian decks. Which doesn't mean that I think they do or ever did represent a general lesbian reality (as if there was any such thing) accurately.

the_surfacer said:
It wouldn't be my place to create it, but like many others, I really would like to see a deck like the Gay Tarot for lesbians that represents a broad variety of everyday lesbians doing the things that all people do.
I don't get it. In what ways would such a deck be different from any other? Okay, it could feature some butches, and maybe have some "lesbian-specific" imagery (although I'd be hard pressed to say what that could be). But why not include some gay/lesbian imagery in a regular deck, say, in 10% of the cards ;), and market it to everyone interested in a diverse deck? Like for example the Sensual Wicca tarot, only without the paganism (and possibly with a lot less sex).

I wouldn't know how to recognize a lesbian tarot, if not by its title. All-women/-goddess decks have been around for a while now, so featuring only women can't be the decisive factor (not to mention that most lesbians do have some men in their lives, and possibly would like to find them in their deck, too). Depicting all the many lesbian stereotypes also can't be the way to go, at least not for a deck that wants to be more than a novelty item.

shaveling said:
I've tried to let go of this thread. But I can't stop the feeling. I'm yearning, pining, aching for an all majors deck drawn by Alison Bechdel, the creator of Dykes To Watch Out For. Ms. B., are you reading this?
That might be just the solution to the dilemma above: Using an artist who's strongly associated with lesbian culture and will be recognized by many. She can do a whole deck while she's at it. Maybe with regular updates as the lesbian world changes on... ;)

I'd personally prefer a deck by Diane DiMassa of Hothead Paisan fame(?), but I'd still buy a Bechdel tarot.

sharpchick said:
And you'd have to actually look at the artwork to see that the cards do not depict gay men engaged in sexual activity - to the contrary, the vast majority of the cards depict men going about daily life.
Then how can you even recognize them as gay? I mean, aside from assuming they are because the deck creator said so (no offense, Lee!). ;)

sharpchick said:
What the cards do show is the angst, fear, and sadness of people who are snubbed (and worse) for being different. In that context, the deck has broad ranging application to people who are not gay men.
I'm really quite "different," and sure not just because I'm queer. But I've never found that the Gay Tarot appealed to me in any way. This might simply be a matter of taste in artwork, but I suspect I just don't see (my) queerness as dominated by angst, fear, or sadness. Not even during my coming-out way back when. The same goes for my other "differentnesses."

The Hanged Man said:
I do not consider myself to be anxious, frightened, sad or snubbed and nor do I feel at all 'different' on account of my homosexuality. It is this sort of presumption about who I am merely on account of my sexuality alone that I dislike, and the Gay Tarot propogates this sort of attitude.
I think it's interesting that neither of us can relate to the deck - you, because you feel the deck sets you up as "too" different due to your homosexuality, and me, because I find the deck too "mainstream homosexual" and not "different" enough. })

The Hanged Man said:
I feel that the Gay Tarot is probably for a certain type of 'gay man'. Before you ask 'what type of gay man?', I mean someone who feels that this deck illustrates who they are and what they're about. They just don't speak to me, depict my life, or illustrate my thoughts, concepts or opinions about what homosexuality means. They're just not my cup of tea, that's all. It's no big deal.
That would be true of any gay or lesbian deck, I believe. I mean, just read the letters to the editor that gay/lesbian magazines get: they're full of complaints about representing the wrong kind of queer people in the wrong way - no matter who is represented how. Which just goes to show that sexual preference/orientation isn't enough of a common denominator to serve as a basis for a common taste. But that's not any different with heterosexuals, is it? There just aren't any magazines that are truly marketed to all heterosexuals the way queer media are...

Grizabella said:
I have mixed feelings about a "lesbian" tarot. Why not a "genderless" tarot?
I'd be curious to see how that would look. I believe the International Icon Tarot comes close to this (there are very few hints at gender in that deck). Actually, this gender-neutrality is part of its appeal to me.

Grizabella said:
I do understand that being a lesbian and using a deck with only men shown involved in love and sex isn't really right. But there are also the transgendered people---how do we include them? Drag queens, how about them? LAMBDA---how about them? Making separate decks based on sexual preferences misses the mark in so many ways.
Yep. There will always be people who fall between all the neat categories. And thanks for mentioning some of the "other others." :)

Then again, how much sex and love actually is in a tarot deck?

Grizabella said:
The fact that most of society confuses sex with love is where we go wrong with this Tarot thing, you know, just like we go wrong with it in life. Why not a deck that's genderless and just portrays people for whom sex is a part of life but isn't love and that just portrays life as it pertains to us all, but without leaving anyone out? We're all people, no matter what floats our boat in the bedroom. Whether I choose to achieve orgasm with a man, woman, b.o.b. or however just isn't all of me any more than my choice of food is when I'm hungry. I'm far greater than what I do to satisfy that urge.
Yes and no. I agree that sex is only a small part of life, although an important one. What I haven't been able to express properly here is how queer people are at the same time very much the same as heterosexual ones, and very different from them. But maybe that's a bit too big a task for me in this forum...

Oh well. Sorry for this monster post. It's a fascinating topic, what can I say? ;) Even though I'd rather not be the one who gets the job of designing a lesbian tarot deck, much less The Lesbian Tarot. And please, please, please, let us NEVER have an L-Word tarot!
 

thorhammer

To Cat*'s entire post:


Standing ovation!!!!!

\m/ Kat
 

Cat*

thorhammer said:
To Cat*'s entire post:


Standing ovation!!!!!
*blush* *curtsy* It's been my pleasure! :)
 

shaveling

Cat* said:
I'd personally prefer a deck by Diane DiMassa of Hothead Paisan fame(?), but I'd still buy a Bechdel tarot.
A Hothead Paisan Tarot would be fantastic. So would a DiMassa deck using new images not taken from HH. And it would provide new fodder for our occasional discussions here about what is and is not a "dark" deck. But her deck would have to have a Nine of Eyeballs. There wouldn't have to be an eyeball suit, it could be an extra card. But we would need that card.

Chicken Rules!
 

Cat*

shaveling said:
A Hothead Paisan Tarot would be fantastic. So would a DiMassa deck using new images not taken from HH. And it would provide new fodder for our occasional discussions here about what is and is not a "dark" deck. But her deck would have to have a Nine of Eyeballs. There wouldn't have to be an eyeball suit, it could be an extra card. But we would need that card.

Chicken Rules!
Woohoo! Other Hothead fans on AT! :D

Wow, I had completely forgotten about that scene with Sharquee and the Nine of Eyeballs. Time to get out the big old Hothead collection, it seems...

I posted in another thread that I'd love to have a deck illustrated by DiMassa with the companion book by Kate Bornstein. She threw in such gorgeous ideas about tarot into her book "Hello, Cruel World"! I wouldn't need a Hothead deck (although the Ten of Coffee Cups might be fun ;)), since I also much like other DiMassa artwork I've seen. Oh well, she can maybe do two decks? })

And: what you said.