Joyous

Utopia is the only place where being gay is completely possible. The name Lesbian carries this dream. We are citizens of an imaginary country on the Mediterranean Sea, where love between women exists in profusion, in the open air, sun-washed and bright. 

Henri Matisse, Joy of Life, 1906

Lesbians everywhere approximate this Utopia with whatever resources we can muster. This picture made by Matisse for lesbian writer Gertrude Stein evokes a world for women that can include ebullience, sensuality, freedom of movement, and a voluntary relationship of equal partners. Walt Whitman writes: 

“I dreamed of a city where all the men were like bothers,

O I saw them tenderly love each other –

I often saw them, in numbers,

walking hand in hand;

I dreamed that was the city of robust friends –

Nothing was greater than manly love –

                        it led the rest.”^[1]

He evokes a world for men that can include tenderness, loyalty, and open affection. These are utopian visions, homeless in the world we know. Each time we represent ourselves and our desires in public language, visual culture, personal space and social relationships, we invoke this joyous Utopia.

Shadow: Gays and lesbians get used to defending their relationships from criticism and hostility by stressing their positive values. It can be hard to let others know when relationships are not working, and find the help we need to seek change or to leave abusive relationships.

Related Figures and Attributes: Friend, Secret

 For more writing on this symbol, see these chapters of Orientation: Mapping Queer Meanings: Another Country, Wildness

Butch

Clown

Decadent

Depraved

Diseased

Disguised

Effeminate

Evil

Exotic

Fairy

Friend

Godless

Hero

Innocent

Joyous

Lonely

Pedophile

Perverse

Predator

Secret

Sensitive

Stranger

Submissive

Suffering

Superficial

Unethical

Unnatural

Unstable

Victim

Wild Man

Witch