Renaissance Tag

Berlin’s lesbian bar, (lip) service22 Images “In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female”, feminist film critic Laura Mulvey wrote in her now legendary articulation of the ‘male gaze’, back in 1975. It’s a pervasive truth, one that has fostered a constant state of female self-surveillance under the regime of compulsive heterosexuality. But what happens when this process is queered, transforming women from passive visual objects into active agents of desire? Today, the answer can be found within the lesbian* community, where a queered gaze is redefining beauty and desire for a new generation. While the community isn’t immune to dominant beauty standards, its rejection of normative gender roles gives rise to alternative...