Or are we supposed to believe that he attempts his “cures” out of genuine (if deeply misguided!) care for his patients, rather than to flatter his own vanity?
That at least would absolve him of the Renaultian sin of self-deception, although personally I think it's reading against the text.
Faderman is also quite annoyed that till the end of their lives, Renault and her lover Julie Mullard “continued to conceive of themselves as ‘bisexual’ despite the fact that for the last thirty-five years of Mary’s life and of their domestic partnership, neither woman had erotic relations with men.”
Oh, good, policing the sexual self-identification of the dead didn't start with Tumblr after all!
if Renault had embraced the word lesbian she might have also embraced the gay liberation movement
As far as I can tell, if Renault had embraced the word "lesbian," she would have been Not Like Those Other Lesbians and we would still be screaming at her forty years after her death.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2022-07-10 07:30 pm (UTC)That at least would absolve him of the Renaultian sin of self-deception, although personally I think it's reading against the text.
Faderman is also quite annoyed that till the end of their lives, Renault and her lover Julie Mullard “continued to conceive of themselves as ‘bisexual’ despite the fact that for the last thirty-five years of Mary’s life and of their domestic partnership, neither woman had erotic relations with men.”
Oh, good, policing the sexual self-identification of the dead didn't start with Tumblr after all!
if Renault had embraced the word lesbian she might have also embraced the gay liberation movement
As far as I can tell, if Renault had embraced the word "lesbian," she would have been Not Like Those Other Lesbians and we would still be screaming at her forty years after her death.