Dear Drake: Stop Fetishizing Lesbians

Story by Mia Walsh

Examining the culture that allows the objectification of women who love women.

Design by Mia Walsh of the lesbian pride flag.

For my college admission essay, I was told to write about something personal. So, I wrote about being gay, growing up gay and what the closet meant to me. That was two years ago in the fall of 2019, but it feels like a lifetime ago for me now as I settle in for my second year of college. I feel I have grown so much — largely because I came out as lesbian. With my newfound pride in my identity, I feel safe to say that Drake’s recent song “Girls Want Girls,” has caused a stir since on the track he calls himself a lesbian. While many people called out Drake for fetishizing lesbians, I think that the harm he is doing with that song is so much wider.

​​I am angry. I am a lesbian, and I am angry. Drake's new song on the Certified Lover Boy album puts lesbians at risk and in harm's way.

From my experience, saying I am gay when a man approaches me does not make him turn away; it turns him on. I become a sort of prize that he could sway or “change” to better his chances of me going home with him. When a non-straight woman turns down a straight man and he says, "Oh, I'm a lesbian too", that creates a dangerous space. When he relentlessly pursues the clearly unwanted interaction and she continues to say no, this is how she and other lesbians get hurt, become hate crime victims and end up dead.

In 2019, a photo of a lesbian couple from the United Kingdom went viral, according to Time magazine, because they had been victims of hate-crimes by a group of four teenage boys while on a bus. One of the lesbians who was attacked, Melania Geymonat, blamed herself for kissing her girlfriend and sparking the attack. The criminals were 15, 16 and 17 years old. When I was in the ninth grade, I tried to come out to my mom as lesbian and she looked at me and told me the world would be cruel to me because of it. Unlike Ellen ​​DeGeneres, who was able to build a life and a name for herself while accommodating to the rest of society, my family was scared I would never have that, even as a 13-year-old child.

There has been a long history of fetishizing lesbians and making them into something to consume. Even now, as I write this, my grammar-checking AI is asking me to add an “a” before the word “lesbian.” Because you can come out as gay, bi, trans, or ace, but you cannot come out as “lesbian” only as “a lesbian.” By making lesbianism a token instead of an identity, very dangerous things can happen.

The further fetishization of lesbians happens every single day on adult-content websites like PornHub. In 2019, the last time the website released a year-in-review report, “lesbian” was the third most searched term on the website and the number one most searched term in the United States. A Men’s Health article explaining the review reads, “Note: There is lesbian porn that caters to actual lesbians, as well as lesbian porn that’s more performative and less realistic, catering to the male gaze.”

The male gaze, coined by filmmaker Laura Mulvey, is the perspective of a notionally typical heterosexual man considered the intended audience for media, which leads to objectification or sexualization of women. This media theory crosses into our culture. The male gaze makes lesbians a commodity to be consumed at their leisure. It is sickening, as a lesbian, to know that some people only associate the word I use to define how I love as a porn category. I am not alone in this sentiment.

If I could convince you of anything, I would ask that you become an ally. If you are already an ally, I ask you to reflect on what it means to stand with a marginalized group so vast and beautiful as the LGBT community.

After Drake dropped “Girls Want Girls” I begged all of my friends to not stream the song or entire album, not as a matter of cancel culture, but because I was so hurt. One of my closest queer friends, who was a longtime listener of Drake, said that every rapper fetishizes lesbians so they would continue streaming it. Later, after seeing my post about the song, that same friend messaged me saying, “I am a supporter of the community, but I sometimes forget that means all of it, not just areas that I identify in.”

If you are a part of the LGBT community, please remember the history. Each letter was added with care and precision to prove we could have a place to belong and yet, we choose to fight amongst ourselves over the same discourse from years ago (he/him lesbians are valid). To be an ally is more than waving a flag in June and shopping at Target and getting rainbow Vans. To be an ally is to celebrate with us, get angry and share in our sorrow when we are hurt.

In September, a pastor preaching hellfire and brimstone came to Ohio University and stood outside of Baker University Center for hours while dozens of students gathered as counter-protesters against his rhetoric. I spoke to the preacher face to face, him holding a Bible and me clutching my sunset lesbian pride flag. I challenged him on his knowledge of scripture and beat him. I and all of the other brave people standing against him were radically accepting ourselves in a way that was new to most of us. To hold your ground as someone spits and shouts in your face that you are a sinner is a strength seemingly inherited by the LGBT community. It is another thing that bands us together.

There is something so tender about being a lesbian. There is also something so inherently resilient and powerful in lesbianism as well.

We are more than one song or website can fetishize but that does not reduce the harm from these as well. When you only see a lesbian as a sexual object, you are putting her in danger. I only wish that you consider that next time a girl you approach says, “Thanks, but I’m a lesbian.”