I think I'm gonna start making zines.

It's pretty sad when I'd rather buy Bust's "Men We Love" issue than the latest from Girlfriends. I went to the bookstore to do my monthly magazine run and came up with nothing. I did end up buying the Bust issue, mainly because Mary-Louise Parker did one of the interviews, and I've been in love with her since I was fourteen (mothers, don't let your daughters watch and/or read Fried Green Tomatoes!).
Girlfriends calls itself "the word on lesbian lifestyle", to which I respond with a resounding WHAT-THE-FUCK-EVER. This month's issue features insightful articles on which Fortune 500 company I should work for (cause I so have a chance to work for Lucent Technologies); how to come out once at said lesbian-friendly office space; the wonders of places I've never been to and won't likely visit any time soon, such as MichFest and the Yukon; which over-priced wine I should drink; reviews of movies I'll never get to see, TV I don't watch anyway, Hollywood rumors I don't care about, and books I'm not interested in reading. Then they put it all behind a frankly insulting cover--am I supposed to find anorexic models on a bender attractive? Because historically, I tend to go for girls who weigh twice as much as that topless office chick.
I guess I'm accusing them of targeting wealthy assimilating white 30-something dykes who live in San Francisco; which is ironic, as this month's letters-to-the-editor has a rant from a 50-ish woman accusing them of pandering to horny 17 year-old lesbians. I wish.
Bust has its flaws--it's a little too lipstick for my tastes, and at the end of the day, it's written by and for straight girls--but at least it's not as fluffy as Girlfriends. When Andrea Dworkin died I couldn't believe a lesbian magazine published such a flippant and sneering obit--repeating the old "she said all straight sex was rape! What a prudish freak!" myth. Maybe it was Curve that published it; I don't know, they're pretty indistinguisable (I am not even going to get into the Gwen Stefani cover that Curve published).
So, why do I keep reading magazines that have all the political conciousness of a sorority girl? Because they're the only ones out there. I know there are other queer rags--I've heard Fierce is pretty good--but they don't sell them here. And I can't afford a subscription, I can barely afford to buy Bitch and Bust every few months. And sometimes they're decent; last month's Girlfriends featured butch fashion, and how often do you see a butch girl in a tie on a cover? I ate it up. Besides, beggars can't be choosers. But I keep fantasizing about a magazine with a feminist conciousness like Bitch and Bust, that's written for queer women like Curve and Girlfriends, and--this is the pie-in-the-sky bit--speaks to my experience as a financially strapped midwestern dyke who did all her coming out in a rural red state. Or at least acknowledges my existence. Because I'm glad that New York and California have a queer culture and resources that I can only dream of. Good for them. Doesn't do me a whole lot of fucking good, it just makes me feel even more isolated than usual. Thank goddess for the internet, that's all I can say. I wish that whole "all feminists are lesbians" stereotype were true; it would increase the number of actual dykes I actually know from 1 to 3.
I did a little net searching and found there are at least two queer magazines in France: Tetu, which seems to be their version of The Advocate, written by men, with men on the cover, and maybe a sidebar on for lesbians inside somewhere; and a dyke mag called La Dixieme Muse. Whether I'll actually be able to find them at tabacs remains to be seen.
Clearly, I'm going to have to become a media mogul and start my own goddamn magazine.