Essence web feature on the wedding of Aisha Mills and Danielle Moodie — the first time the magazine highlighted a lesbian couple — was well received by the magazine’s readership, says web editor Emil Wilbekin: “A lot of the comments were, you know, this is not something I would normally think about or I would normally know about, but I think it’s amazing because I think what translates in this story is that this is really a story about love. And I think that regardless of your politics, and regardless of your values, you have to look at that and see that these two women love each other and are very happy.” [Jezebel; NPR]
reader response
Essence‘s Readers Loved Reading About Two Ladies Getting Married
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Ray
Lovely looking couple. Sweet story.
jason
Now let’s have Essence show a male-male couple. It would be interesting to see what the reaction of readers is. I wonder what Emil Wilbekin would think of it.
Frankly, I don’t think you have a genuine persecution paradigm with two women. It’s two men who have been persecuted through history to a far greater extent, both legally and culturally.
the crustybastard
@jason:
I’m getting sick of your misogyny.
Get down off your cross.
gomez
@jason:
jason, essence is a magazine for women.
and tell that to the lesbian couple who was burned out of their house in tennessee recently
you often have a good point about the double standard, but your hostile dismissals for everything lesbian or female-bisexual is consuming you and has made you a jerk.
you’ve been told this many times. here and elsewhere.
methinks you have a deep strain of misogyny running through you
Hilarious
@gomez: Before that it was blatant racism. If he wasn’t bashing their gender he’d be bashing their skin color. Nothing has changed.
All he does is troll for a reaction.
jason
I am not a misogynist. In fact, I’m all for empowered women as in genuine empowerment, not female-enabling-of-male-heterosexual-fantasy dressed up as empowerment.
I maintain my point about the persecution paradigm. If you go through the historical record, you will find that anti-gay legislation was directed against men, not women. It was a gender-specific law.
Women have been persecuted for their sexuality but it pales compared to what men have had to go through. Look, I know this shouldn’t be a contest to see who’s been persecuted the most. However, I do get resentful when women attempt to hog the limelight on the issue of sexuality oppression.
Dalton
@jason: Well, seeing that Emil Wilbekin is OPENLY GAY and was OPENLY GAY when he edited Vibe magazine, Emil Wilbekin would probably “think” very good things about two men together.
But why would Essence run photos of two men marrying? It’s a women’s magazine?
dizzle
@jason, um…no one needs to ‘hog the limelight’ for sexual repression. I can’t imagine getting so worked up over anything. Sheesh.
Matthew
“you will find that anti-gay legislation was directed against men, not women. It was a gender-specific law.”
A) By and large, the law was not gender-specific. It was, however, written with men in mind. But that leads directly into-
B)That’s the case with MOST legislation. Women have been ignored by and large by law, science, medicine, etc. It shouldn’t be even vaguely shocking that legislation would focus on men.