The hetaera’s lesbian love is both sensual escape and revenge on male domination

Evidence

Eroticism often has only a very small part in these unions; sexual pleasure has a less striking character, less dizzying than between man and woman, it does not lead to such overwhelming metamorphoses; but when male and female lovers have separated into their individual flesh, they become strangers again; and even the male body is repulsive to the woman; and the man sometimes feels a kind of bland distaste for the woman’s body; between women, carnal tenderness is more equal, continuous, they are not transported in frenetic ecstasy, but they never fall into hostile indifference; seeing and touching each other are calm pleasures discreetly prolonging those of the bed. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1076 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Lesbian eroticism lacks the dizzying estrangement but also the hostility of heterosexual coupling — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1076; Lesbian hostility toward men fuses feminine resentment with a masculine inferiority complex

Broader Connections

• Lesbian eroticism lacks the dizzying estrangement but also the hostility of heterosexual coupling #expands (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1076
• Lesbian hostility toward men fuses feminine resentment with a masculine inferiority complex #qualifies (0.80)