Forbidden love stories between women? Literature, film, music, art, your own story perhaps?

Question

JaperMoon · Answer

Wild Nights with Emily: Molly Shannon as Emily Dickinson.

It’s a little loose for a period piece which I really appreciated. A bit of a romp but also romantic and whimsical.

Dylan · Answer

Blue Jean (2022): A closeted PE teacher struggles to lead a double life amid Margaret Thatcher's Britain in the late 1980s.

A tense, heartwrenching, and authentically captured snapshot of queer life under conservatism.

The directorial debut of Georgia Oakley, a queer woman. A must-watch.

Dylan · Answer

But I'm a Cheerleader (1999): Hilariously camp & aesthetically satisfying but I just simply refuse to believe Natasha Lyonne is straight

Dylan · Answer

D.E.B.S. (2004): They're calling you a hero, when really you're a slut...A GAY SLUT!!!

Rewatched this iconic camp-lesbian-teen-spy masterpiece recently, and it did not disappoint. So silly and so gay.

JDJ · Answer

Carol (2015): Also doubles as a melancholic Christmas movie

Gabriela Riccardi · Answer

Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker: The forbidden love is between the protagonist and her twin sister (of the titular wedding). Definitely forbidden, but not in a weird way. An overly-attached sister way. Nasty, sardonic, affecting. I love it!

Spines, Flicks, and Wax · Answer

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (Jeanette Winterson): I realized I recommended Like Water for Chocolate when the rec was for forbidden love between women!

This autofiction book by Jeanette Winterson is wonderful and is a coming of age story about a young, Enligsh teen coming into her sexuality. She grapples with the strict teachings of her Pentecostal upbringing as she explores sex and love with multiple partners.

Lizzie · Answer

Olivia (Dorothy Strachey): Lesbian call me by your name (by Andre Aciman’s own admission)

Lily · Answer

the safekeep: I’ve read (and forgotten) a lot of books in the past few years, but this one SHOOK me in a way I cannot explain. Don’t look up any synopsis or background info, just dive in blind and be patient. I swear the payoff goes crazy.

Lily · Answer

the seven husbands of evelyn hugo: idk if it’s bc I was on an edible when I finished this book but I cried…….humiliating. the cover and concept look corny but I’m personally glad I powered thru that

rory · Answer

imagine me and you: semi forbidden but not tragic, closest thing we have to Notting Hill imo

Lily · Answer

fingersmith: it’s amazin

Molly Sullivan · Answer

Movies!: Movies : The Handmaiden (2016) , Personal Best (1982), Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), The World to Come (2020), Carol (2015)

watched all of these films and they are beautifully done!

Chiara · Answer

Matrix by Lauren Groff: Gay nuns essentially create their own society and it’s less the gayness/love that’s forbidden and more that they’re just really doing their own thing in general that’s forbidden. It is excellllllent.

Jamie · Answer

fragments of sappho: the originator of the genre! love these ancient lesbian poems

Lida Richardson · Answer

Carmilla (Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu): Editing for this request to add that Carmilla isn’t a love story, and as it is on the page it’s pretty messed up. But it’s also in many ways the blueprint for the lesbian vampire and has inspired much more romantic adaptations, and I just found it pretty fascinating as an older “depiction” of queerness and the precursor to a lot of queer horror. This version is edited by Carmen Maria Machado, and I’ve heard it’s really great and handles the problems and complexities well.

What’s tough about Carmilla is you want it to be romantic but Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu wants you to think that lesbians are scary. And that’s a really interesting tension to hold while reading. There’s also a kind of fascinating correlation I never noticed before between vampirism and chronic illness, with disability and queerness both as a sort of contagion. I don’t know if anyone’s ever written about Carmilla and hysteria, but I imagine there’s a lot to work with.