This synopsis contains light spoilers.
Lesbian Crushes and Bulimia is a real-life diary portrayal of an obsessive nineteen year old lesbian, Natasha, whose internal homophobia, alongside infatuations with other women, bring her condemnation in both her gay and straight environments and drive her into a state of compulsive binge-eating and purging.
This true story is set in 1989, one year after the infamous Section 28 was introduced, according to which it was not permitted to “promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.” Lesbian Crushes and Bulimia is the first book to present a diary account of living as a lesbian with an eating disorder.
Natasha is obsessively, unrequitedly in love with her former teacher, Miss Williams (names have been changed), a love which she declares openly as a tattoo on her wrist. She meets Alex, a girl her own age, who questions her about the tattoo, revealing her own remarkably similar obsessive love for her former teacher, Miss Wilson. A romance blossoms between the two girls. Alex is slim and beautiful, Natasha is not.
Alex, who does not want to be gay, claims that she believes she is heterosexual. Natasha decides to experiment with boys.
When Alex, influenced by her mother’s homophobia, rejects Natasha, the latter, in her characteristically obsessive fashion, starts to fall into an alarmingly bulimic lifestyle in an attempt to lose weight to feel worthy of winning Alex back.
As the months of bulimia unfold, Natasha engenders disapproval in the gay scene’s hardcore lesbians and spends her time compulsively weighing herself, starving herself, and experimenting with methods of ridding her body of food.
Does Natasha succeed in feeling attractive enough for Alex? Does she succeed in winning Alex back?
Synopsis of Lesbian Crushes and Bulimia
This synopsis contains light spoilers.
Lesbian Crushes and Bulimia is a real-life diary portrayal of an obsessive nineteen year old lesbian, Natasha, whose internal homophobia, alongside infatuations with other women, bring her condemnation in both her gay and straight environments and drive her into a state of compulsive binge-eating and purging.
This true story is set in 1989, one year after the infamous Section 28 was introduced, according to which it was not permitted to “promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.” Lesbian Crushes and Bulimia is the first book to present a diary account of living as a lesbian with an eating disorder.
Natasha is obsessively, unrequitedly in love with her former teacher, Miss Williams (names have been changed), a love which she declares openly as a tattoo on her wrist. She meets Alex, a girl her own age, who questions her about the tattoo, revealing her own remarkably similar obsessive love for her former teacher, Miss Wilson. A romance blossoms between the two girls. Alex is slim and beautiful, Natasha is not.
Alex, who does not want to be gay, claims that she believes she is heterosexual. Natasha decides to experiment with boys.
When Alex, influenced by her mother’s homophobia, rejects Natasha, the latter, in her characteristically obsessive fashion, starts to fall into an alarmingly bulimic lifestyle in an attempt to lose weight to feel worthy of winning Alex back.
As the months of bulimia unfold, Natasha engenders disapproval in the gay scene’s hardcore lesbians and spends her time compulsively weighing herself, starving herself, and experimenting with methods of ridding her body of food.
Does Natasha succeed in feeling attractive enough for Alex? Does she succeed in winning Alex back?