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It was mentioned in class that the playful and creative use of language in "Lifting Belly" can represent the poem as a "comfy" conversation between two women. While I agree that "Lifting Belly" can be viewed as a more covert expression of lesbian sex, I still regard Stein's sinuous poem as a lesbian memoir of sexual activity--be it covert or exposed. It is a specific word, a specific metaphor for lesbian love, that challenges the idea that "Lifting Belly" illustrates anything more than lesbian sex.

The word I am referring to is...fire. Stein says: "We like a fire and we don't mind if it smokes (66)." It was said in class that a sexy, erotic relationship between two women posits concern or alarm or attention of smoke that is caused by fire. Stein's choice of the word, fire, worries me. When I read the above mentioned quote in the poem and reconsidered the quote again in class, I could not help but associate it with a Hindi (south asian) film about lesbian relationship that is expectedly titled: FIRE. While the close reading done in class does provide an accurate explaination of lesbianism (provoking smoke), it amazes me that there is a sort of commonality or generality in the word, fire--even across regional and cultural boundaries. Are there no other words in the English language that posits the same effect as "fire"?

Then, it leads me to the question I posed in class--one about lesbian love poems and the generalized theme of lesbian sexual activity. "Fire" seems like universal term that arouses an image of hot lesbian sex. With this it can be said that lesbianism can be reduced to a physical attraction. I guess I have always had the understanding that lesbianism is one woman's attraction--not necessarily a physical or sexual attraction--to another woman. In heterosexual relationships, though, it is not always--but more often than not--a physical attraction to someone else. I have trouble viewing lesbianism as a preference of sexual interest/physical attraction as opposed to something...well, less superficial. I want to believe that lesbian woman, and gay men for that matter, have attractions to woman and male, respectively, to each other as individual human beings more--not bodies. If lesbianism is nothing more than sexual pull towards women, well, then I guess it reduces humanity to physical, biological frameworks. This insists that we are nothing but our bodies.