NATALIE CLIFFORD BARNEY : WAS SHE OR WASN'T SHE KEEPING OTHER WOMEN?

    Natalie Clifford Barney (1876-1972)

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"When you're in love you never really know whether your elation comes from the qualities of the one you love, or if it attributes them to her; whether the light which surrounds her like a halo comes from you, from her, or from the meeting of your sparks."  - Natalie Barney

As gay marriage becomes more acceptable (and legal) we may soon forget that lesbians have long had to live in a secretive manner in order to survive. 

Gay life compared to heterosexual life is rather undocumented. 

It's only in our contemporary culture that coming out or being out has been popularized. So, when you try to find literature or news or some documentation of lesbians who lived openly and kept other women it's a hard go.  Really you must listen to whispers, speculations, and read around the subject to get a clue. 

When I do this one of the names that comes up is NATALIE CLIFFORD BARNEY, an American who grew up in Ohio, accepted her lesbianism at a young age, became an independently wealthy heiress who took herself to Paris, France and lived the expatriate life there among the creative who understood. 

Natalie Clifford Barney was highly involved in the artistic and literary scene there, running a Salon for about fifty years. Because she was rich, she was in position to reach into her money and give it to women who were both amorous and deserving of help. They weren't all also independently wealthy heiresses or rich from their own creative pursuits.  It was worse then than it is now for women in the arts; the arts may be one of the most discriminatory areas to work in.

Natalie had affairs that are well known and long term with other literary and poetical lesbians such as Renee Vivien and Romaine Brooks, but she was seductive and, if not promiscuous, and she may've been that too, unapologetic about being polyamorous with other women.  She sometimes seduced women who were primarily heterosexual, and those whispers extend to the dancer Isadora Duncan as well as the Courtesan Liane de Pougy.  SInce Liane would accept financial help from men, why not women?

Isadora Duncan, never a greedy or materialistic person, was always broke, always in need of the help of friends or rich patrons for her dancing schools, and once tried affirmations to bring a rich man into her life*, and it's my strong suspicion that there may've been a financial aspect to her affair with Natalie.  Saying there is a financial aspect is not to say it was only financial just that realistically Isadora always needed money.

July 2011 was KEPT GAY MEN MONTH here at MISTRESS MANIFESTO... 

This month I'd like to focus a little on WOMEN KEEPING WOMEN.  I hesitate to say Lesbians keeping Lesbians because sometimes a Woman Keeps a Woman who is straight, bisexual, or not sexual at all.  Sometimes it can be a situation such as the late heiress Doris Duke who Kept a younger woman, Ms. Hefner, adopted her as a daughter, had a falling out, but who gave millions to this younger women, both in or out of a good relationship.

If mistresshood is a well-kept secret among the heterosexuals, imagine if you will being a man who is married to a woman who also keeps another woman as a mistress. It happens just as it happens that married to heterosexual women men have boyfriends they also keep on the side.  With gay marriage more acceptable and legal it's my notion that fewer people than will ever be marrying "for cover" and perhaps these kinds of "arrangements" will die out.

From what I hear listening to those whispers, lesbians keeping lesbians have an emphasis on mentoring, patronage, and helping another person achieve their life's work, just like gay men do.  There are women who give mentoring and patronage to other women without it being a very personal, romantic, or sexual relationship. But since men, straight or gay, make so much more money than women - still - lesbian women couples continue to be marginalized enough to face having two low incomes!  Therefore, by my way of thinking it's less likely that a lesbian is kept by another lesbian than other couple combinations because of this financial fact.

That's where independently wealthy lesbian women heiresses are exceptional and can keep other women.

NATALIE CLIFFORD BARNEY moved to Paris in 1920.  Paris itself has sometimes been called A MISTRESS AND A MUSE to artists!

* I read Isadora Duncan's memoir in which she accounts saying affirmations to attract a rich patron into her life.


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