April 2, 2025 • 43 mins
Are you ready to expand your reading horizons and discover the transformative power of sapphic literature? Join host Alesia and special guest Sarah in Wanderland as they unravel the complexities of lesbophobia, celebrate queer representation, and explore the transformative power of diverse love stories.
Sarah has dedicated their platform and voice to dismantling the shame and guilt that can often be associated with reading romance, and to promoting queer romance. After deconstructing from religious purity culture several years ago, they have been on a mission to take the taboo out of finding pleasure in self-exploration and kink, and to find the power that comes from freedom of expression and fulfilled desire.
In this episode, we're discussing:
- Understanding Lesbophobia: Learn how lesbophobia intersects with homophobia and misogyny, and why inclusive language matters
- Diverse Representation Matters: Discover why reading sapphic romances from authors of various backgrounds is crucial
- Must-Read Authors: Explore recommendations from Kaylin Baron, Jazz Hammonds, Heather Nicks, and more
- Reading Challenge: Join Sarah's 2025 Sapphic Reading Challenge and expand your literary world
- Therapeutic Power of Reading: Understand how queer literature can be a healing and transformative experience
Challenge yourself to read at least one sapphic romance book this month. Every book you read is an opportunity to understand, empathize, and celebrate the beautiful diversity of human love and experience.
CONNECT WITH SARAH:
BOOKS/AUTHORS MENTIONED:
This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron (Amazon)
We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammonds (Amazon)
Thirsty by Jas Hammonds (Amazon)
Seventh Star Series by Lily X (Amazon)
Heather Nix (Amazon)
Tamara Jerée (Amazon)
The Curse of the Goddess by C.C. González (Amazon)
Down South Bayou by Aricka Alexander (Amazon)
Mistakes Were Made by Meryl Wilsner (Amazon)
Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashely Herring Blake (Amazon)
Sapphic Reading Challenge (StoryGraph)
The Tenth Muse Anthology (Amazon)
Running list of books mentioned (Doc)
Thank you for listening to the We Read Smut Podcast! If you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot of the episode to post in your stories and tag @WeReadSmut. Don’t forget to follow, rate, and review the podcast.
Connect with Alesia:
Storygraph
This podcast was produced by Galati Media.
Proud member of the Feminist Podcasters Collective.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Alesia Galati (00:00):
Get ready for a conversation that will open your
heart and challenge yourassumptions. We're joined by
Sarah in Wonderland to discussthe beauty of sapphic love and
the importance of fighting forinclusivity in the romance
space. Listener discretion isadvised this podcast contains
mature content intended foradult audiences only. Sarah, I'm
(00:25):
so excited to have you on thepodcast. I remember when I
didn't even know how I firstfound your account or what, but
I remember seeing you all overthe interwebs, and then we went
to a bookish event, which wewill not name, because they are
(00:46):
not good anymore, but we went toone before we knew what their
values were, and I was like,You're Sarah, you're also a lot
taller.
Sarah In Wanderland (00:59):
I didn't realize I gave off short person
energy. No,
Alesia Galati (01:03):
I so I for people to understand I'm five, five,
and so I always just assumepeople are around my height.
That's just me. Yeah, I was justlike, Oh, hi, hello, Sarah. Nice
to meet you. And you were justlike, hi. I don't know who in
the world you are. And I wasjust like, yeah, Sarah, sorry. I
(01:25):
was super awkward. I'm part ofwe read smut. And you were like,
okay, yeah, I've seen some ofyour stuff. So that's how we
met, and then we just stayedconnected from there and
chatting the DMS. But we'regoing to be talking today about
something that is near and dearto your heart and also really
important to my heart. Andbefore we get into it, I want
(01:50):
people who might feel triggeredor activated by some of these
things that we're talking aboutsit with it. We're going to get
through it together. It's okay.
Sarah's a therapist, so Sarah'sgonna help us through all of
this. It's not gonna bedifficult. It might feel a
little difficult in the moment,a little sticky, but we're gonna
get through to the other sidebefore we get into it. Tell me a
(02:14):
bit about your adult readingjourney. So
Sarah In Wanderland (02:19):
I was that kid whose mom was like, reaching
up to the top shelf to get booksat the library. Because I
started reading adult sciencefiction when I was like 10,
Isaac, Asimov, Ray Bradbury, andI stayed in the science fiction
paranormal I liked. I don'tthink I've ever read a my age
books as a teenager, I now readYA, but I I've been reading
(02:44):
adult paranormal romance since Iwas like 13 or 14, and never
wanted to read school, assignedwork, but I always wanted to
disappear into paranormalscience fiction worlds. And then
in my probably late 20s, I foundthat the spicy contemporary
(03:07):
books that I was reading therewere spicy paranormal and spicy
fantasy and science fiction, andso that was very exciting. So
I've been reading I'm 40, soI've been reading for 30 plus
years like I was readingchildren's books in elementary
school, but always adult, andthen I added ya into my reading
(03:29):
as an adult, probably about sixyears ago.
Alesia Galati (03:34):
Nice, before we hit record, I was talking about
how I don't really tend to readYA, but I think I might need to
dabble a bit. I want to say thelast YA book, and this was not a
queer one at all. Was that Iread was probably something like
(03:54):
Twilight or Hunger Games, likethe very predominant ones, and I
was like 19. That was the lasttime that I read some of those.
But there are so many good ones,especially from authors that I
already know and love that haveadult, romance, contemporary
stuff, that I could easily seemyself enjoying their stories as
(04:17):
well. I'm thinking I knowRebecca Weatherspoon has one,
and Galati hibert, yep, has one,and so something like that,
where it's I already know I likethis author. It's so dabbling in
that might be a good idea, anoption for me. I
Sarah In Wanderland (04:32):
also think in terms of ya, especially queer
ya, there's so much healing thatcan be done for queer adults.
Alesia Galati (04:43):
So I love it, yes, and that's what I love
about all of this, is thatreading is not just. And
obviously we talk about romancea lot here, but reading, it is
such a therapeutic way toprocess some things to real.
Things, find our values, findwhat's important to us,
(05:04):
especially if we didn't haveanyone to raise us up, to show
us what our values are, orinstill good values in us, then
it can be really difficult asadults, trying to figure out,
What in the world am I doing?
And I know even as a parent, I'mconstantly like, Am I doing any
of this right at all? HopefullyI'm still one of our I hope so.
(05:26):
But topic at hand today is goingto be talking about the power of
sapphic romance, really gettinginto why it is important that we
are reading sapphic romances,and so we're going to jump right
into the sticky bits. What islesbophobia And how does it
manifest in the romancecommunity? So
Sarah In Wanderland (05:51):
lesbophobia is generally understood as the
intersection of homophobia andmisogyny, and like we know about
all oppression, it exists on anaxis. So lesbophobia, I think
it's very important tounderstand that lesbophobia is
not exclusive to women who onlyexperience attraction towards
(06:13):
other women. If you look at thewords functionality and how the
behaviors the word describes areoften manifested, there's value
in considering the impact ofother femme loving femmes, which
includes bisexuals, pansexuals,transgender women. But
ultimately, if you think aboutthis idea that men fear what
(06:38):
they can't have, and that's avery generalized idea, but
lesbophobia, if you think oflesbophobia as a man acting out
violence towards a woman becauseshe doesn't want him, there's an
ownership there, and ultimately,our discussions in acknowledging
the Violence Against nonheterosexual women should always
(07:01):
be inclusive. So thinking aboutthat concept of lesbophobia
being like, I'm afraid you're alesbian and I cannot possess
you, that can be said of abisexual woman. Again, we know
there's no actual ownership inthat. But the Violence Against
(07:23):
non heterosexual women shouldalways be inclusive, and I don't
think an expansion on ourunderstanding of lesbophobia
would automatically discount ortrivialize the experiences that
lesbians as individualsexperience. Nor am I suggesting
that bisexuals and gayindividuals have identical
struggles. I'm not even sayingthe use of the word lesbophobia.
(07:45):
Using the word lesbophobia toexplicitly talk about negative
attitudes towards lesbians is anincomplete use of the word. A
lot of people have usedhomophobic misogyny to talk
about it. But what it boils downto is that there's a lot of
people who feel erased whenpeople use the word lesbophobia.
(08:08):
Bisexuals feel erased.
Pansexuals feel erased becausebisexual women and pansexual
women are often overlooked inthe LGBTQ spaces and targeted
outside of that space. Soisolation from the discussion of
homophobic oppression doesn'thelp if we think about
lesbophobia as the intersectionof homophobia and misogyny, as
(08:31):
opposed to the dislike ordisgust of lesbians, it becomes
an inclusive term, and I thinkthat's often what's missing, the
nuance and the understandingthat comes from, like, the
history of the experience ofwomen and femme attraction
(08:54):
towards other women and femmes.
So going back to that, like, menacting out hatred towards
lesbians or women who aresexually available to them is
disgusting. You're using
Alesia Galati (09:09):
bunny ears here for people who can't see you,
right? Yeah, quote,
Sarah In Wanderland (09:12):
quote. It's disgustingly misogynistic across
the board, but it's definitelylike further proof that we do
need to revamp how we talk abouthomophobic misogyny, because we
need to ensure that bisexual andpansexual individuals feel
included in lesbo phobia. I haveso many big feelings about this,
(09:34):
because there are so many fightsin online communities, and so
many people feel left out whenthe term lesbophobia is used,
that they forget that alloppression exists on an access
and so trying to understand whatthat access is and how we
(09:54):
bisexuals, how lesbians, howtransgender women who. To
experience a multitude of typesof attraction, how pansexuals,
how we all fit in that axis. Andso I think taking away that fear
of and boiling it down tohomophobia and misogyny is a
(10:15):
better way to understand it thatis really long. No, I
Alesia Galati (10:18):
love it because I think that it explains it. And
someone who is bisexual, I getit that's not even going into
this whole like, there's thehyper sexualization of bisexual
women that, oh, if a man ismarried to a bisexual then he
needs to be worried about hercheating on him with everyone
(10:39):
and, like, no, that's that isnot how that works at all. That
the how a healthy relationshipworks. And so I agree. I think
that seeing it in that light asmore of an intersection between
misogyny and homophobia makes alot of sense, and also is more
inclusive in making sure thatwe're incorporating all of that
(11:02):
now. How does that show up inthe romance readers and author
space?
Sarah In Wanderland (11:08):
This is a high horse, a soapbox that I
like to get on. We see a lot ofrepresentation of I hesitate to
even call them achillianromances, because there's a very
specific subset of cis women,cis white women, really writing
(11:28):
men, loving men romances, whichtypically is, if that's all
they're writing, it it becomes afetishization. And so we see all
of these women running to thisgenre of romance and claiming
that they read inclusively, andclaiming that they read queer
while not reading any otheridentities within the spectrum
(11:52):
of the queer community. So I seelesbophobia showing up in
comments like, I just don'trelate to that, because I'm
straight and I'm attracted tomen, and so I can read that, but
you can read about like aMinotaur and a human woman.
You're not attracted toMinotaurs. Also, they don't
(12:14):
exist. But you can read that,but you can't read a sapphic
romance. I've even heard I amnot into that, and they won't
read stories that have secondaryor tertiary characters with
sapphic identities. And then Ialso see it, like I said, in
comment sections, when I callout lesbophobia, I see a lot of
(12:37):
bisexual women coming into thecomment section with a
misunderstanding of whatlesbophobia is, and then I
experience lesbophobia fromthem. And so that's why i I want
to emphasize the importance ofunderstanding that bisexuals.
When I say bisexual, I also meanpansexual, but it's very like a
(12:59):
very long history of bisexualsbeing erased from the sapphic
community. Bisexuals women tendto accidentally engage in either
microaggressions or outrightlesbophobia when they're trying
to say, hey, what about me? AndI want to provide education, but
(13:22):
I also am a human and again, Igo back to this is where the
nuance is lost, and so it's hardagain. Not all this is a
reminder. Not all bisexual wounddo this, but it is happened to
me, I would say dozens of timeswhen I've called out something
(13:43):
that's been lesbophobic threads,is the platform that I do that
most on, and so I see it showingup in those two ways, in women
and femmes. I'm just gonna saywomen, cis women refusing to
read sapphic romance becauseit's not their identity. And
(14:04):
then I see it in someindividuals who identify as
bisexual, interest andmisunderstanding. And I will
also say, Are you readingromance to masturbate, or are
you reading romance for a lovestory, because we experience
love the same way that thestraights do. We just have
(14:26):
different body parts than youdo, or we have different gender
identities and expressions thanyou do, or we have different
communities and different likesocial rituals than maybe the
straight people do. But ifyou're solely reading romance
simply to get aroused and thenmasturbate, sure, okay, I could
(14:47):
buy it. But I don't think that'sthe sole reason that you're
reading romance,
Alesia Galati (14:51):
yeah, especially if you're reading some of the
popular fantasy books, romanticybooks, right? Like with two
pages. Pages of sexy time, andthen the rest is all
storytelling. 100,
Sarah In Wanderland (15:05):
yeah, pages
Alesia Galati (15:08):
of war. So I don't read those. I don't need
that. But it's true. I mean, youmentioned Achillion. What do
Would you consider a Killian?
Because I know I've seen thatword tossed around. I've not
personally looked it up to seewhat it means. I have maybe a
very basic understanding. I'mguessing it's like the war of
(15:28):
Troy kind of thing, yeah, butwhat is the basis of that? Oh,
Sarah In Wanderland (15:35):
gosh, you know what? I had a whole post
about it, and now I can't offthe top of my head. Remember, I
did it during pride month lastyear. Okay, here we go. Okay.
Achillian romance. The termstems from the Greek hero
Achilles. Achilles is said tohave a romantic relationship
with petroclus, Patroclus, Idon't want to say that, and it
(15:56):
is quoted in Homer's Iliad, theman I loved beyond all others.
And so like Sappho, who was abisexual, not a lesbian, to a
lot of people'smisunderstanding, we derive
women, loving women, femmes,loving femmes. And so that's
where the term Achill, which isnewer, is derived from, is
(16:18):
petroquis and Achilles, but itencompasses men and mask. Loving
men and masks. And the reasonwhy I wouldn't, in a literal
sense, those books that I talkedabout are achillian books, but I
hesitate to put a book or anauthor into a category that
(16:38):
listening to gay men listeningto queer masks say that this is
harmful. And I'm not saying thatevery single cis woman or every
single femme who writes menloving men books is fetishizing
them, because I could give you adozen examples of women or
(17:00):
femmes who have written booksthat are not but gay men get
excluded from this conversationso often because we live the
Internet is a microcosm. And sowe see this statistic of queer
and trans people exacerbatedbecause they are identified as
(17:20):
1% of the world. And so the whatif? What if they're exploring
their identity? And I have anauthor friend who I've met and
gotten to know, who realizedthat she was trans while
writing, and I think that'sincredible, but to say that
every single woman who iswriting a man, loving man story
(17:40):
is going to realize that they'retrans, just mathematically and
statistically doesn't add up.
And the content, it's alwayssomething very taboo, Step
Brothers, Father, Son, uncle,son, and it's very just not
rooted in something that isrealistic. So listening to those
men, just like I want people tolisten to me when I talk about
(18:02):
lesbophobia and I talk aboutsapphic romance, these men and
masks want to be listened to aswell.
Alesia Galati (18:10):
Yeah, is there anyone in particular, maybe top
of mind that you could think ofthat has these conversations?
Because I know for myself I havea really hard time reading mm
books, not because I don't enjoythem, but because of this. Of is
it just a white woman who's acis heterosexual woman who is
(18:32):
just behind her keyboard, typingaway and fetishizing these men,
and I want to make sure that I'mnot promoting or talking about
those books. And so I do tendto, when I am promoting books, I
tend to go with trans and queerauthors who are writing it, and
so that's my default. But isthere anyone that you know of
that's like top of mind, that issomeone good to follow for
(18:56):
ethical recommendations?
Sarah In Wanderland (18:59):
No, because I only read and it's just a
personal choice. I rarely readM, M books written by women, so
I don't but I could ask a coupleof Oh, Rob, what's his name?
Rod? That's not true. I followhim. His name is Rod, and his
handle is Rod. Lujano, l, u, j,A, N, O, and he has wonderful
(19:26):
recommendations. And there'sanother guy, I can't remember
what his handle is right now. Ican picture his face. No
Alesia Galati (19:33):
worries. No one is fine. Thank you so much.
Yeah, because that's somethingthat like I when I'm reading,
mm, I try to make sure that theauthor is either a man or trans,
usually trans masculine, orsomeone in the queer community
who writes, maybe a variety ofdifferent pairings. And so I
(19:54):
know they're not using as afetish, fetishization. There's a
word and some. Making sure thatI I'm not participating in any
of that, because I've seen theaccounts from men who read a lot
of mm romance and are like, thisis not okay. And so I think that
it's important that one will Iwant to have an episode on this.
We're not going to talk aboutall of that today, but I think
(20:15):
that it is an important aspectthat we're talking about it now.
What are some things that we cando to challenge these
lesbophobic attitudes withinourselves first? Right? We're
not talking about getting on theinternet and bashing people.
That might be something you wantto do eventually, once you work
on yourself first, but whenworking on ourselves, what are
(20:37):
some things that we can do, somebehaviors that we could shift?
Sarah In Wanderland (20:41):
So this is the work. So we exist in a
society that's curated byheteronormativity, catering to
hetero and hetero, presentingrelationships so similar to the
inherent biases embedded in newsand media and literature
regarding white supremacy, wesee these commonalities with
heteronormativity. So it startsthe same way that anti racist
work starts with reading memoirsand educational texts and
(21:03):
exposure to lived experiencesoutside of our own, and learning
the real history of the 2s LGBTQplus community. So I highly
recommend starting with likeicons and pioneers in the field.
Audra Lord, who is a toweringfigure in the LGBTQ feminist
(21:25):
movement. She's a poet and anessayist, Roxanne Gay, who is
currently like a currentactivist, feminist writer,
cultural critic and professor.
It's also important to rememberthe pioneers in our community
who aren't necessarily authors,but people like Barbara Smith,
who was a pioneer ofintersectional feminism and
LGBTQ plus advocacy, so findingbooks and remembering the
(21:49):
importance of listening tointersectional voices, because
combating lesbophobia startswith understanding that the 2s
LGBTQ movement was pioneered bytrans women of color, and so
understanding our community'shistory and then going into very
specific like, clearly, myfoundation is black women and
(22:15):
femmes in The community, Ihonestly can't even think of a
white woman off the top of myhead who is an icon in our
community, besides, like somemusicians, like brandy Carlisle,
like Melissa Etheridge, theIndigo Girls, I can think of
musicians, but the work startsby educating yourself. And as
(22:38):
you do that, you start torecognize and I just I'm
equating it to because I didn'thave to do as much work here as
I did with my anti racismjourney. And so as you're
starting to do that learning,you're recognizing what you need
to unlearn and how thoseinherent biases show up. And
once you recognize how curatedand how much the world is
(23:00):
catered to heteronormativepeople, you'll start to be like
because you're automaticallyassuming the gender identity of
someone. You're automaticallyassuming it's a she or it's a
he, or that a couple is a manand a woman that even ideas of
like, Oh, my spouse stays home.
Oh, she does does she or does heor do they?
Alesia Galati (23:24):
Yeah, I have a spouse who stays home, and he
loves being a stay at home dadand homeschooling our kids, and
you would not catch me doingthat at all, because I'm not
interested in it, and I get nofulfillment from it, but he
does, even that conversationbeing a mom has been pretty wild
(23:45):
with trying to explain to peoplethat I don't want to be a stay
at home parent. Oh, you mightchange your mind. Nope, no,
thank you. I love my kids. Ialso need space from them, and I
need to be able to go to a job.
Thank you very much. And thenpeople see him, they're like,
Oh, he's such a good dad and somuch praise for him. And I'm
like, yes, he's It's welldeserved. And that's other stay
(24:07):
at home mom next door deservesjust as much praise, right?
Being a parent is hard enoughwithout all this stereotypical
stuff added to it all right. Sonow that we have gone through
the sticky bits, let's have somefun. And I want to go through
what are some different types ofsapphic romances that people can
(24:31):
start to explore. And I'm sureyou're going to say, if you like
contemporary, you can find stuffin contemporary. If you like
fantasy, you can find ones infantasy. But what are some kind
of things that we can do infinding these different types of
sapphic romances?
Sarah In Wanderland (24:48):
So first of all, I think it's really
interesting, because people arelooking for tropes, maybe when
they're looking for books, andso some of the tropes are
labeled differently in sapphicromance. So if you're looking.
For a grumpy sunshine, you'relooking for an ice queen. That's
what it's called in sapphicromance. And so there are some
specific besides my own page,and I have hundreds and hundreds
(25:11):
of sapphic recommendations on myInstagram, Sarah and Wonderland,
the lesbary is one really greatwebsite, and I heart sapphic is
another really great website.
And on I Heart sapphic, you canput in a trope or a sub genre of
romance. There's a ton ofoptions, of things that you can
(25:33):
put in, and then I'll give youall the suggestions that they
have in their database. There'salso Facebook groups, and so
these are the places that whenI'm looking for a specific like
I just really want to read adark sapphic romance right now I
am in a dark sapphic romanceFacebook group, and so I'll go
there, and I'll scroll throughto find the recommendations. It
(25:56):
is much harder to find sapphicrecommendations, because sapphic
books are the least read, theyare the least promoted, they are
the least reviewed, they are theleast marketed by PR companies,
and that I have big feelings on,because sapphic books make way
(26:17):
less money than heteropresenting MF books, then MF
books, and then mm books, andthen we have FFM in here. So
that's so understanding that Iwish some of the PR companies
that are the indie PR companieswould offer discounted rates to
(26:37):
sapphic authors, because theirbooks deserve just as much air
time as everybody else is. Butpeople are so disinclined to
read sapphic books, they existanything that you can think
actually, recently, somebodyasked me for a sapphic rugby
romance, and I said, I actuallydon't have one, but I know
there's one coming out by JSJasper, but somebody on threads
(27:00):
was like, I need this vibe in asapphic romance. And I was like,
Oh, I've got that. Just give metwo seconds. It was like an ice
skating I was like, Nicolepyland has an ice skating
sapphic romance. So if you wantit, it likely exists, but you
have to hunt for it.
Alesia Galati (27:19):
Yeah, and that's where I think a lot of us
readers tend to fall short, isthat we are either not following
the creators who are curating,quite frankly, because we're
curating a lot of this content,or they're not interested in
trying to find or like researchor do the work. And I think that
(27:43):
once we've done that initialwork that we talked about at the
beginning, then it's easier tosay, oh, I want a book with this
kind of vibe. Let me pause andthink about that before I jump
to my MF, normativerelationship. Let me see if
there's a sapphic one, or let mesee if there's something else or
something queer that I can readthat still has the vibe that I'm
(28:05):
looking for, and that's I think,once we step back and realize
that it opens up a world ofoptions to us, and stories that
I think are really impactful. Imean, most of the books that I
read in the last year are almostexclusively bipoc authors. I
(28:28):
think my percentage so it wasn'texclusively, but my percentage
was like 75 or something likethat last year, and then 80% of
that was black authors, becauseI realized that I hadn't been
reading as many black authors asI had wanted to. So there goes
the pendulum of over correctingand then trying to find that
kind of middle All right, let'sadd in some Latinx authors.
(28:51):
Let's add in some Asian authors.
Let's add in a bit more varietyhere. But once I started reading
those, I did not miss thepopular books. I did not miss
the books that everybody elsewas talking about, and I was
having a blast reading the booksthat I wanted to read.
Absolutely it's so worth it. AndI think that if we are following
(29:13):
people, it'll help a lot. Now,what are some of those? And we
both have some fun ideas here,but what are some of those must
read sapphic romance authorsthat you're like, everybody
needs to read them.
Sarah In Wanderland (29:28):
Okay? I'm gonna start with my yas. I
actually just sent home thispoison heart and this wicked
fate with my niece, which is asapphic duology by Kaylin Baron.
Cinderella, is dead. There's aSleeping Beauty one. She has a
new one coming out, and all ofher books are sapphic, and all
of her books are gonna give you,oh, you're not supposed to die
(29:50):
at the end, or I'm not supposedto die at the end. That one's a
sapphic ya. Horror, the thing Ilove the most about reading
sapphic ya and you. You willrarely find me reading white
saphi A is that this author'sjob is not to teach me anything.
This author's sole job is towrite whatever story is in their
head. And yet, I learned so muchabout somebody else's lived
(30:13):
experience, like I was readingthis one during this election,
and I had to stop because I hadso much anxiety, because it's
about women getting their powertaken away from them, and then
jazz Hammonds also. So wedeserve monuments and thirsty.
This is jazz Hammonds debut. Wedeserve monuments and thirsty,
the level of anxiety, becausethis one is messy lesbians, both
(30:36):
ya also, and this one has anunderlying story about racism in
the Deep South, and as somebodywho lives in the south and sees
that in my community, and theintersection that our FMC
experiences, both homophobia andracism, the and that misogynoir
is really impactful andpowerful. And I always find that
(30:57):
I walk away from reading theseYA books just like being a
better advocate and knowing howto better support the community
in which I am attempting to bean ally towards. And so those
are two I think go to ya sapphauthors, and then I don't have
(31:20):
the lily X book. She writessapphic Omega verse. And her
North Star Series, I think, haseight books in it, but she has,
she has a solid back list, andwe love a sapphic Omega verse. A
sapphic Omega verse is somethingthat you did not know, that you
needed. And then across multiplegenres, Heather Nicks. Heather
(31:41):
writes dark romance. Heatherwrites monster romance. Heather
writes like sweeping, epic,sapphic fantasies. And Heather
writes lacy books. And then, interms of fantasy, I would be
remiss if I did not mention myfavorite fantasy from 2024 the
(32:01):
fall that saved us by TamaraGerais. They also have a wolf
steps in blood, which came outlast year. And they have, this
is a duology, and they have abook coming out later this year,
and lastly, but definitely notleast, and really not lastly,
but this is all I'm going to do.
The Curse of the Goddess is bookone from CC Gonzales. This was
my top fantasy from last year. Idream of Valda and Maris. The
(32:24):
dream of them.
Alesia Galati (32:29):
I love that. Now those are some good
recommendations, and I don'tthink I've read any of those, so
now I have some to add to my TBRfor sure. And then I've got some
recommendations as well from mybookshelves, I would say some of
these are on my TBR. Let's goahead and do the ones that I've
(32:49):
read, first down south Bayou byErica Alexander. The second book
just came out. This one is spicyand sweet and don't mess with my
girl. I just love it so much.
And then I like Meryl willsnurse books. This one is an age
gap best friend's mom, which isgood. And then I know they have
(33:14):
another one that is a soccerromance as well. They
Sarah In Wanderland (33:21):
have one coming out in a cup. I think it
might be in March, my bestfriend's honeymoon, or something
like that. All right.
Alesia Galati (33:30):
I'm down for it.
I love it. Delilah green doesn'tcare. By Ashley herring Blake
loves this one, and the seriesis good, but that I believe this
one's a by awakening, if I'mremembering correctly, single
mom, yep, so good, and justthat, like opposites attract.
And then the other one that Iread that was not on my TBR back
(33:50):
to me by Katie Duggan. And thisone, it has the diabetes, fat
and ADHD rep. And I just, I loveeverything about this one, and
it's got the spicy bits too.
And, yeah, it's just such afantastic one. And then one's on
(34:12):
my TBR out drawn by Deanna Gray.
I know you've read that one,right?
Sarah In Wanderland (34:19):
Yes. And I got the special edition book box
from Rainbow crate so I couldhave it
Alesia Galati (34:24):
nice. I love that. And then I've got stars
like wings by Chelsea Jay Leone.
This one is a duet. And so I'msomeone that kind of has to wait
for the whole series, oh yeah,because
Sarah In Wanderland (34:37):
this definitely ends on a WHAT THE
FUCK moment. Yeah,
Alesia Galati (34:41):
so I want to wait to read this one. And this one
is, this is a thick girl. I thisone, so this one's a big one, so
I'm gonna wait for the secondone. And then finally, the love
and sports ball by Mika James,and this one's on my TBR as
well. But. But yeah, I am. Ilove reading sapphic romance. I
(35:06):
love reading making sure thatI'm reading diversely across the
board, that it's all differenttypes of folks that are sapphic.
And so I think that it is such amissed opportunity for anyone
who is not reading it, there issomething for everyone. Like you
said you were looking forsomething that was dark. There's
(35:29):
something for sure. All right,we mentioned some places to make
sure that we're looking andtrying to find some sapphic
romances. If we're not surewhere to begin, you are also
doing a challenge for 2025 andif you're listening to this
later, just go back to theInstagram highlights, or you
might be running it again nextyear. But go check that out. It
(35:52):
is a sapphic Reading Challenge.
Tell us a bit about what that isand what people can expect from
it.
Sarah In Wanderland (35:58):
So the sapphic Reading Challenge is 12
initial prompts. And then Ithink there's 13 or 15 bonus
prompts. I can't remember howmany, because I cannot be
expected to choose anappropriate number of books to
put on a challenge, because Iread so much. I think I read 450
books last year, so I thoughtone book a month is a great
(36:22):
start. And then there are bonusprompts. You can find it on
story graph. And there's a heavyemphasis on reading
intersectionally. So sapphicbooks by East Asian, South
Asian, SWANA, Pacific Islander,indigenous black Latinx authors.
And then there's like age gap orpoetry or an anthology. And if
(36:46):
you're looking for an anthologyto read on June 3, my slash hour
Anthology for charity, this 10thMuse, a sapphic anthology comes
out. It is 12 authors, some ofthem are writing their first
sapphic story, but they are allauthors within the LGBTQ plus
community. It's a volume one,and the money goes to the
(37:09):
national queer and transtherapists of color network. As
a therapist myself and assomebody whose values and morals
align with making sure thatunderserved, underrepresented,
historically marginalizedindividuals get access to
services. This charity is trulyremarkable and life changing for
so many people. It connects Qtbipoc individuals with Qt bipoc
(37:34):
therapists that have the sameidentity as them and provides
funding for them to get accessto services. That
Alesia Galati (37:40):
is awesome. And I love that you're doing this
anthology. Because when youfirst mentioned it to me, I was
like, I don't think I have seena sapphic anthology,
Sarah In Wanderland (37:52):
and I have not either, to be honest, it was
born out of, where are they?
Like, why do we keep gettinganthologies about other things
and not sapphic anthologies, andI've seen a few since I
announced ours. I've seen otherspop up, so I'm excited to
they're not charity anthologies,but I'm excited to read those,
(38:13):
get my hands on those, and I'mjust incredibly excited for
ours. I finished all the storiesbecause I'm editing it, and
they're all incredible.
Alesia Galati (38:23):
Yeah, I love that so much. Yeah, isn't there like,
an mm, one that comes out everyquarter? Yeah? For sure. Now you
also have a Patreon. I want tomake sure that we plug that
because you put your heart andsoul into the content that you
create, and so you now have aPatreon where you give even more
(38:46):
in depth content. Can you tellus a bit about what kind of
resources we can expect fromthere, what type of content we
can expect? Yeah,
Sarah In Wanderland (38:54):
so one of the things that I'm really
passionate about, like I justsaid, is making sure that
individuals have access toservices, and I understand how
expensive it can be to see atherapist regularly, so one
thing that I wanted to be ableto provide was access to
resources at a wildly discountedprice, for $7 a month, I post
(39:17):
two or three times A week, andevery month we alternate between
exploring identity and howtrauma might impact that
exploration and exploringpleasure and kink and intimacy,
and dismantling shame around sexand embracing the joy of
intimacy and how trauma impactsall of that. And then there's
(39:40):
resources like how to deal withthe stuff that comes up as
you're maybe reading or asyou're unpacking something. And
then I also have a book club, sodepending on the theme for the
month, the book club pickrevolves around the theme of the
month. So this month we'redoing. Church girl, because the
(40:01):
theme this month is dismantling,oh my gosh, that's so good, so
good. The theme is dismantlingshame around pleasure and like
diving into that. And the reasonwhy I started the Patreon was
because I wrote a book that I'mpublishing the next couple of
months that is a cognitivebehavioral therapy guide to
(40:21):
exploring your sexualorientation, gender and
identity. And I think now in thecurrent political climate, more
than ever, as queer and trans,black, indigenous people of
color identities are beingdiminished and erased by the
United States government, weneed spaces where we can be our
full self and show up with otherpeople who live and love like we
(40:44):
do, that's curated by somebodywho has the knowledge, the
expertise, the skills, the toolsto provide support, education.
And then there's also a, this issounds nuts, but it does not.
There's a $50 tier which getsyou access to a one on one. I
say coaching, because ethically,I can't provide services across
(41:06):
state lines. So it's coaching,but it's coaching by a licensed
clinical social worker. It'scoaching by somebody who has an
MSW, by somebody who's worked inthe field for 15 plus years in
mental health and six as amental health clinician. It's a
drastically discounted price,and then there's, like, lots of
interactions between myself andthe people that I hate the word
coaching, because there's a lotof hacks out there, but this is
(41:28):
a great way to provide peoplewith affordable services. And so
you get sneak peeks of thethings on my Instagram, but we
really dive much deeper into theconversations on Patreon, and
it's a like, there are a lot ofessays. I'm a researcher. I'm a
social worker by nature, and soI write a lot. And then there's,
(41:51):
like, calls to action andprompts, which is very similar
to the format of the book. Love
Alesia Galati (41:57):
that, and yay for your book coming out. We'll make
sure that we have links for thatstuff, all the things that we've
mentioned in the books thatwe've mentioned, for sure, but
if someone's like, I definitelywant to connect with you. Tell
me where to find you. Where canpeople find you and hang out
with you? Yeah.
Sarah In Wanderland (42:11):
So my instagram handle is Sarah in
Wonderland. The Patreon, oh mygosh, I think it's called
Wonderland reads, which is whatmy web. You can find it on my
website, which is Wonderland,reads.com there is a link to the
Patreon there as well as thereis a drop down for life saving
links on my Patreon to make surethat people know where they can
(42:33):
get domestic violence help, likemental health crises. Help,
intimate partner violence help.
There's a bunch of links towebsites that will help you
navigate systems in your ownstate. And there's also a link
to the pre order for the 10thMuse on my website. Literally
everything is this shirt is onmy website. Love it.
Alesia Galati (42:56):
Yes. Go check out the website. Get all the links
that you need. And like I said,we'll make sure we have all of
those linked on the show notesas well to each of those things.
So if you're just on your app oron YouTube, looking at the
description, you can see each ofthose ones listed out. We'll
make sure that we have all thoseavailable to you. Sarah, thank
you so much for being on Iappreciate you. Thank you for
(43:19):
helping us through these stickybits, as well as giving us some
fantastic options and resourcesfor going forward in this work.
Sarah In Wanderland (43:30):
Thanks. I enjoyed our conversation. You.
Get ready for a conversation that will open your
heart and challenge yourassumptions. We're joined by
Sarah in Wonderland to discussthe beauty of sapphic love and
the importance of fighting forinclusivity in the romance
space. Listener discretion isadvised this podcast contains
mature content intended foradult audiences only. Sarah, I'm
(00:25):
so excited to have you on thepodcast. I remember when I
didn't even know how I firstfound your account or what, but
I remember seeing you all overthe interwebs, and then we went
to a bookish event, which wewill not name, because they are
(00:46):
not good anymore, but we went toone before we knew what their
values were, and I was like,You're Sarah, you're also a lot
taller.
Sarah In Wanderland (00:59):
I didn't realize I gave off short person
energy. No,
Alesia Galati (01:03):
I so I for people to understand I'm five, five,
and so I always just assumepeople are around my height.
That's just me. Yeah, I was justlike, Oh, hi, hello, Sarah. Nice
to meet you. And you were justlike, hi. I don't know who in
the world you are. And I wasjust like, yeah, Sarah, sorry. I
(01:25):
was super awkward. I'm part ofwe read smut. And you were like,
okay, yeah, I've seen some ofyour stuff. So that's how we
met, and then we just stayedconnected from there and
chatting the DMS. But we'regoing to be talking today about
something that is near and dearto your heart and also really
important to my heart. Andbefore we get into it, I want
(01:50):
people who might feel triggeredor activated by some of these
things that we're talking aboutsit with it. We're going to get
through it together. It's okay.
Sarah's a therapist, so Sarah'sgonna help us through all of
this. It's not gonna bedifficult. It might feel a
little difficult in the moment,a little sticky, but we're gonna
get through to the other sidebefore we get into it. Tell me a
(02:14):
bit about your adult readingjourney. So
Sarah In Wanderland (02:19):
I was that kid whose mom was like, reaching
up to the top shelf to get booksat the library. Because I
started reading adult sciencefiction when I was like 10,
Isaac, Asimov, Ray Bradbury, andI stayed in the science fiction
paranormal I liked. I don'tthink I've ever read a my age
books as a teenager, I now readYA, but I I've been reading
(02:44):
adult paranormal romance since Iwas like 13 or 14, and never
wanted to read school, assignedwork, but I always wanted to
disappear into paranormalscience fiction worlds. And then
in my probably late 20s, I foundthat the spicy contemporary
(03:07):
books that I was reading therewere spicy paranormal and spicy
fantasy and science fiction, andso that was very exciting. So
I've been reading I'm 40, soI've been reading for 30 plus
years like I was readingchildren's books in elementary
school, but always adult, andthen I added ya into my reading
(03:29):
as an adult, probably about sixyears ago.
Alesia Galati (03:34):
Nice, before we hit record, I was talking about
how I don't really tend to readYA, but I think I might need to
dabble a bit. I want to say thelast YA book, and this was not a
queer one at all. Was that Iread was probably something like
(03:54):
Twilight or Hunger Games, likethe very predominant ones, and I
was like 19. That was the lasttime that I read some of those.
But there are so many good ones,especially from authors that I
already know and love that haveadult, romance, contemporary
stuff, that I could easily seemyself enjoying their stories as
(04:17):
well. I'm thinking I knowRebecca Weatherspoon has one,
and Galati hibert, yep, has one,and so something like that,
where it's I already know I likethis author. It's so dabbling in
that might be a good idea, anoption for me. I
Sarah In Wanderland (04:32):
also think in terms of ya, especially queer
ya, there's so much healing thatcan be done for queer adults.
Alesia Galati (04:43):
So I love it, yes, and that's what I love
about all of this, is thatreading is not just. And
obviously we talk about romancea lot here, but reading, it is
such a therapeutic way toprocess some things to real.
Things, find our values, findwhat's important to us,
(05:04):
especially if we didn't haveanyone to raise us up, to show
us what our values are, orinstill good values in us, then
it can be really difficult asadults, trying to figure out,
What in the world am I doing?
And I know even as a parent, I'mconstantly like, Am I doing any
of this right at all? HopefullyI'm still one of our I hope so.
(05:26):
But topic at hand today is goingto be talking about the power of
sapphic romance, really gettinginto why it is important that we
are reading sapphic romances,and so we're going to jump right
into the sticky bits. What islesbophobia And how does it
manifest in the romancecommunity? So
Sarah In Wanderland (05:51):
lesbophobia is generally understood as the
intersection of homophobia andmisogyny, and like we know about
all oppression, it exists on anaxis. So lesbophobia, I think
it's very important tounderstand that lesbophobia is
not exclusive to women who onlyexperience attraction towards
(06:13):
other women. If you look at thewords functionality and how the
behaviors the word describes areoften manifested, there's value
in considering the impact ofother femme loving femmes, which
includes bisexuals, pansexuals,transgender women. But
ultimately, if you think aboutthis idea that men fear what
(06:38):
they can't have, and that's avery generalized idea, but
lesbophobia, if you think oflesbophobia as a man acting out
violence towards a woman becauseshe doesn't want him, there's an
ownership there, and ultimately,our discussions in acknowledging
the Violence Against nonheterosexual women should always
(07:01):
be inclusive. So thinking aboutthat concept of lesbophobia
being like, I'm afraid you're alesbian and I cannot possess
you, that can be said of abisexual woman. Again, we know
there's no actual ownership inthat. But the Violence Against
(07:23):
non heterosexual women shouldalways be inclusive, and I don't
think an expansion on ourunderstanding of lesbophobia
would automatically discount ortrivialize the experiences that
lesbians as individualsexperience. Nor am I suggesting
that bisexuals and gayindividuals have identical
struggles. I'm not even sayingthe use of the word lesbophobia.
(07:45):
Using the word lesbophobia toexplicitly talk about negative
attitudes towards lesbians is anincomplete use of the word. A
lot of people have usedhomophobic misogyny to talk
about it. But what it boils downto is that there's a lot of
people who feel erased whenpeople use the word lesbophobia.
(08:08):
Bisexuals feel erased.
Pansexuals feel erased becausebisexual women and pansexual
women are often overlooked inthe LGBTQ spaces and targeted
outside of that space. Soisolation from the discussion of
homophobic oppression doesn'thelp if we think about
lesbophobia as the intersectionof homophobia and misogyny, as
(08:31):
opposed to the dislike ordisgust of lesbians, it becomes
an inclusive term, and I thinkthat's often what's missing, the
nuance and the understandingthat comes from, like, the
history of the experience ofwomen and femme attraction
(08:54):
towards other women and femmes.
So going back to that, like, menacting out hatred towards
lesbians or women who aresexually available to them is
disgusting. You're using
Alesia Galati (09:09):
bunny ears here for people who can't see you,
right? Yeah, quote,
Sarah In Wanderland (09:12):
quote. It's disgustingly misogynistic across
the board, but it's definitelylike further proof that we do
need to revamp how we talk abouthomophobic misogyny, because we
need to ensure that bisexual andpansexual individuals feel
included in lesbo phobia. I haveso many big feelings about this,
(09:34):
because there are so many fightsin online communities, and so
many people feel left out whenthe term lesbophobia is used,
that they forget that alloppression exists on an access
and so trying to understand whatthat access is and how we
(09:54):
bisexuals, how lesbians, howtransgender women who. To
experience a multitude of typesof attraction, how pansexuals,
how we all fit in that axis. Andso I think taking away that fear
of and boiling it down tohomophobia and misogyny is a
(10:15):
better way to understand it thatis really long. No, I
Alesia Galati (10:18):
love it because I think that it explains it. And
someone who is bisexual, I getit that's not even going into
this whole like, there's thehyper sexualization of bisexual
women that, oh, if a man ismarried to a bisexual then he
needs to be worried about hercheating on him with everyone
(10:39):
and, like, no, that's that isnot how that works at all. That
the how a healthy relationshipworks. And so I agree. I think
that seeing it in that light asmore of an intersection between
misogyny and homophobia makes alot of sense, and also is more
inclusive in making sure thatwe're incorporating all of that
(11:02):
now. How does that show up inthe romance readers and author
space?
Sarah In Wanderland (11:08):
This is a high horse, a soapbox that I
like to get on. We see a lot ofrepresentation of I hesitate to
even call them achillianromances, because there's a very
specific subset of cis women,cis white women, really writing
(11:28):
men, loving men romances, whichtypically is, if that's all
they're writing, it it becomes afetishization. And so we see all
of these women running to thisgenre of romance and claiming
that they read inclusively, andclaiming that they read queer
while not reading any otheridentities within the spectrum
(11:52):
of the queer community. So I seelesbophobia showing up in
comments like, I just don'trelate to that, because I'm
straight and I'm attracted tomen, and so I can read that, but
you can read about like aMinotaur and a human woman.
You're not attracted toMinotaurs. Also, they don't
(12:14):
exist. But you can read that,but you can't read a sapphic
romance. I've even heard I amnot into that, and they won't
read stories that have secondaryor tertiary characters with
sapphic identities. And then Ialso see it, like I said, in
comment sections, when I callout lesbophobia, I see a lot of
(12:37):
bisexual women coming into thecomment section with a
misunderstanding of whatlesbophobia is, and then I
experience lesbophobia fromthem. And so that's why i I want
to emphasize the importance ofunderstanding that bisexuals.
When I say bisexual, I also meanpansexual, but it's very like a
(12:59):
very long history of bisexualsbeing erased from the sapphic
community. Bisexuals women tendto accidentally engage in either
microaggressions or outrightlesbophobia when they're trying
to say, hey, what about me? AndI want to provide education, but
(13:22):
I also am a human and again, Igo back to this is where the
nuance is lost, and so it's hardagain. Not all this is a
reminder. Not all bisexual wounddo this, but it is happened to
me, I would say dozens of timeswhen I've called out something
(13:43):
that's been lesbophobic threads,is the platform that I do that
most on, and so I see it showingup in those two ways, in women
and femmes. I'm just gonna saywomen, cis women refusing to
read sapphic romance becauseit's not their identity. And
(14:04):
then I see it in someindividuals who identify as
bisexual, interest andmisunderstanding. And I will
also say, Are you readingromance to masturbate, or are
you reading romance for a lovestory, because we experience
love the same way that thestraights do. We just have
(14:26):
different body parts than youdo, or we have different gender
identities and expressions thanyou do, or we have different
communities and different likesocial rituals than maybe the
straight people do. But ifyou're solely reading romance
simply to get aroused and thenmasturbate, sure, okay, I could
(14:47):
buy it. But I don't think that'sthe sole reason that you're
reading romance,
Alesia Galati (14:51):
yeah, especially if you're reading some of the
popular fantasy books, romanticybooks, right? Like with two
pages. Pages of sexy time, andthen the rest is all
storytelling. 100,
Sarah In Wanderland (15:05):
yeah, pages
Alesia Galati (15:08):
of war. So I don't read those. I don't need
that. But it's true. I mean, youmentioned Achillion. What do
Would you consider a Killian?
Because I know I've seen thatword tossed around. I've not
personally looked it up to seewhat it means. I have maybe a
very basic understanding. I'mguessing it's like the war of
(15:28):
Troy kind of thing, yeah, butwhat is the basis of that? Oh,
Sarah In Wanderland (15:35):
gosh, you know what? I had a whole post
about it, and now I can't offthe top of my head. Remember, I
did it during pride month lastyear. Okay, here we go. Okay.
Achillian romance. The termstems from the Greek hero
Achilles. Achilles is said tohave a romantic relationship
with petroclus, Patroclus, Idon't want to say that, and it
(15:56):
is quoted in Homer's Iliad, theman I loved beyond all others.
And so like Sappho, who was abisexual, not a lesbian, to a
lot of people'smisunderstanding, we derive
women, loving women, femmes,loving femmes. And so that's
where the term Achill, which isnewer, is derived from, is
(16:18):
petroquis and Achilles, but itencompasses men and mask. Loving
men and masks. And the reasonwhy I wouldn't, in a literal
sense, those books that I talkedabout are achillian books, but I
hesitate to put a book or anauthor into a category that
(16:38):
listening to gay men listeningto queer masks say that this is
harmful. And I'm not saying thatevery single cis woman or every
single femme who writes menloving men books is fetishizing
them, because I could give you adozen examples of women or
(17:00):
femmes who have written booksthat are not but gay men get
excluded from this conversationso often because we live the
Internet is a microcosm. And sowe see this statistic of queer
and trans people exacerbatedbecause they are identified as
(17:20):
1% of the world. And so the whatif? What if they're exploring
their identity? And I have anauthor friend who I've met and
gotten to know, who realizedthat she was trans while
writing, and I think that'sincredible, but to say that
every single woman who iswriting a man, loving man story
(17:40):
is going to realize that they'retrans, just mathematically and
statistically doesn't add up.
And the content, it's alwayssomething very taboo, Step
Brothers, Father, Son, uncle,son, and it's very just not
rooted in something that isrealistic. So listening to those
men, just like I want people tolisten to me when I talk about
(18:02):
lesbophobia and I talk aboutsapphic romance, these men and
masks want to be listened to aswell.
Alesia Galati (18:10):
Yeah, is there anyone in particular, maybe top
of mind that you could think ofthat has these conversations?
Because I know for myself I havea really hard time reading mm
books, not because I don't enjoythem, but because of this. Of is
it just a white woman who's acis heterosexual woman who is
(18:32):
just behind her keyboard, typingaway and fetishizing these men,
and I want to make sure that I'mnot promoting or talking about
those books. And so I do tendto, when I am promoting books, I
tend to go with trans and queerauthors who are writing it, and
so that's my default. But isthere anyone that you know of
that's like top of mind, that issomeone good to follow for
(18:56):
ethical recommendations?
Sarah In Wanderland (18:59):
No, because I only read and it's just a
personal choice. I rarely readM, M books written by women, so
I don't but I could ask a coupleof Oh, Rob, what's his name?
Rod? That's not true. I followhim. His name is Rod, and his
handle is Rod. Lujano, l, u, j,A, N, O, and he has wonderful
(19:26):
recommendations. And there'sanother guy, I can't remember
what his handle is right now. Ican picture his face. No
Alesia Galati (19:33):
worries. No one is fine. Thank you so much.
Yeah, because that's somethingthat like I when I'm reading,
mm, I try to make sure that theauthor is either a man or trans,
usually trans masculine, orsomeone in the queer community
who writes, maybe a variety ofdifferent pairings. And so I
(19:54):
know they're not using as afetish, fetishization. There's a
word and some. Making sure thatI I'm not participating in any
of that, because I've seen theaccounts from men who read a lot
of mm romance and are like, thisis not okay. And so I think that
it's important that one will Iwant to have an episode on this.
We're not going to talk aboutall of that today, but I think
(20:15):
that it is an important aspectthat we're talking about it now.
What are some things that we cando to challenge these
lesbophobic attitudes withinourselves first? Right? We're
not talking about getting on theinternet and bashing people.
That might be something you wantto do eventually, once you work
on yourself first, but whenworking on ourselves, what are
(20:37):
some things that we can do, somebehaviors that we could shift?
Sarah In Wanderland (20:41):
So this is the work. So we exist in a
society that's curated byheteronormativity, catering to
hetero and hetero, presentingrelationships so similar to the
inherent biases embedded in newsand media and literature
regarding white supremacy, wesee these commonalities with
heteronormativity. So it startsthe same way that anti racist
work starts with reading memoirsand educational texts and
(21:03):
exposure to lived experiencesoutside of our own, and learning
the real history of the 2s LGBTQplus community. So I highly
recommend starting with likeicons and pioneers in the field.
Audra Lord, who is a toweringfigure in the LGBTQ feminist
(21:25):
movement. She's a poet and anessayist, Roxanne Gay, who is
currently like a currentactivist, feminist writer,
cultural critic and professor.
It's also important to rememberthe pioneers in our community
who aren't necessarily authors,but people like Barbara Smith,
who was a pioneer ofintersectional feminism and
LGBTQ plus advocacy, so findingbooks and remembering the
(21:49):
importance of listening tointersectional voices, because
combating lesbophobia startswith understanding that the 2s
LGBTQ movement was pioneered bytrans women of color, and so
understanding our community'shistory and then going into very
specific like, clearly, myfoundation is black women and
(22:15):
femmes in The community, Ihonestly can't even think of a
white woman off the top of myhead who is an icon in our
community, besides, like somemusicians, like brandy Carlisle,
like Melissa Etheridge, theIndigo Girls, I can think of
musicians, but the work startsby educating yourself. And as
(22:38):
you do that, you start torecognize and I just I'm
equating it to because I didn'thave to do as much work here as
I did with my anti racismjourney. And so as you're
starting to do that learning,you're recognizing what you need
to unlearn and how thoseinherent biases show up. And
once you recognize how curatedand how much the world is
(23:00):
catered to heteronormativepeople, you'll start to be like
because you're automaticallyassuming the gender identity of
someone. You're automaticallyassuming it's a she or it's a
he, or that a couple is a manand a woman that even ideas of
like, Oh, my spouse stays home.
Oh, she does does she or does heor do they?
Alesia Galati (23:24):
Yeah, I have a spouse who stays home, and he
loves being a stay at home dadand homeschooling our kids, and
you would not catch me doingthat at all, because I'm not
interested in it, and I get nofulfillment from it, but he
does, even that conversationbeing a mom has been pretty wild
(23:45):
with trying to explain to peoplethat I don't want to be a stay
at home parent. Oh, you mightchange your mind. Nope, no,
thank you. I love my kids. Ialso need space from them, and I
need to be able to go to a job.
Thank you very much. And thenpeople see him, they're like,
Oh, he's such a good dad and somuch praise for him. And I'm
like, yes, he's It's welldeserved. And that's other stay
(24:07):
at home mom next door deservesjust as much praise, right?
Being a parent is hard enoughwithout all this stereotypical
stuff added to it all right. Sonow that we have gone through
the sticky bits, let's have somefun. And I want to go through
what are some different types ofsapphic romances that people can
(24:31):
start to explore. And I'm sureyou're going to say, if you like
contemporary, you can find stuffin contemporary. If you like
fantasy, you can find ones infantasy. But what are some kind
of things that we can do infinding these different types of
sapphic romances?
Sarah In Wanderland (24:48):
So first of all, I think it's really
interesting, because people arelooking for tropes, maybe when
they're looking for books, andso some of the tropes are
labeled differently in sapphicromance. So if you're looking.
For a grumpy sunshine, you'relooking for an ice queen. That's
what it's called in sapphicromance. And so there are some
specific besides my own page,and I have hundreds and hundreds
(25:11):
of sapphic recommendations on myInstagram, Sarah and Wonderland,
the lesbary is one really greatwebsite, and I heart sapphic is
another really great website.
And on I Heart sapphic, you canput in a trope or a sub genre of
romance. There's a ton ofoptions, of things that you can
(25:33):
put in, and then I'll give youall the suggestions that they
have in their database. There'salso Facebook groups, and so
these are the places that whenI'm looking for a specific like
I just really want to read adark sapphic romance right now I
am in a dark sapphic romanceFacebook group, and so I'll go
there, and I'll scroll throughto find the recommendations. It
(25:56):
is much harder to find sapphicrecommendations, because sapphic
books are the least read, theyare the least promoted, they are
the least reviewed, they are theleast marketed by PR companies,
and that I have big feelings on,because sapphic books make way
(26:17):
less money than heteropresenting MF books, then MF
books, and then mm books, andthen we have FFM in here. So
that's so understanding that Iwish some of the PR companies
that are the indie PR companieswould offer discounted rates to
(26:37):
sapphic authors, because theirbooks deserve just as much air
time as everybody else is. Butpeople are so disinclined to
read sapphic books, they existanything that you can think
actually, recently, somebodyasked me for a sapphic rugby
romance, and I said, I actuallydon't have one, but I know
there's one coming out by JSJasper, but somebody on threads
(27:00):
was like, I need this vibe in asapphic romance. And I was like,
Oh, I've got that. Just give metwo seconds. It was like an ice
skating I was like, Nicolepyland has an ice skating
sapphic romance. So if you wantit, it likely exists, but you
have to hunt for it.
Alesia Galati (27:19):
Yeah, and that's where I think a lot of us
readers tend to fall short, isthat we are either not following
the creators who are curating,quite frankly, because we're
curating a lot of this content,or they're not interested in
trying to find or like researchor do the work. And I think that
(27:43):
once we've done that initialwork that we talked about at the
beginning, then it's easier tosay, oh, I want a book with this
kind of vibe. Let me pause andthink about that before I jump
to my MF, normativerelationship. Let me see if
there's a sapphic one, or let mesee if there's something else or
something queer that I can readthat still has the vibe that I'm
(28:05):
looking for, and that's I think,once we step back and realize
that it opens up a world ofoptions to us, and stories that
I think are really impactful. Imean, most of the books that I
read in the last year are almostexclusively bipoc authors. I
(28:28):
think my percentage so it wasn'texclusively, but my percentage
was like 75 or something likethat last year, and then 80% of
that was black authors, becauseI realized that I hadn't been
reading as many black authors asI had wanted to. So there goes
the pendulum of over correctingand then trying to find that
kind of middle All right, let'sadd in some Latinx authors.
(28:51):
Let's add in some Asian authors.
Let's add in a bit more varietyhere. But once I started reading
those, I did not miss thepopular books. I did not miss
the books that everybody elsewas talking about, and I was
having a blast reading the booksthat I wanted to read.
Absolutely it's so worth it. AndI think that if we are following
(29:13):
people, it'll help a lot. Now,what are some of those? And we
both have some fun ideas here,but what are some of those must
read sapphic romance authorsthat you're like, everybody
needs to read them.
Sarah In Wanderland (29:28):
Okay? I'm gonna start with my yas. I
actually just sent home thispoison heart and this wicked
fate with my niece, which is asapphic duology by Kaylin Baron.
Cinderella, is dead. There's aSleeping Beauty one. She has a
new one coming out, and all ofher books are sapphic, and all
of her books are gonna give you,oh, you're not supposed to die
(29:50):
at the end, or I'm not supposedto die at the end. That one's a
sapphic ya. Horror, the thing Ilove the most about reading
sapphic ya and you. You willrarely find me reading white
saphi A is that this author'sjob is not to teach me anything.
This author's sole job is towrite whatever story is in their
head. And yet, I learned so muchabout somebody else's lived
(30:13):
experience, like I was readingthis one during this election,
and I had to stop because I hadso much anxiety, because it's
about women getting their powertaken away from them, and then
jazz Hammonds also. So wedeserve monuments and thirsty.
This is jazz Hammonds debut. Wedeserve monuments and thirsty,
the level of anxiety, becausethis one is messy lesbians, both
(30:36):
ya also, and this one has anunderlying story about racism in
the Deep South, and as somebodywho lives in the south and sees
that in my community, and theintersection that our FMC
experiences, both homophobia andracism, the and that misogynoir
is really impactful andpowerful. And I always find that
(30:57):
I walk away from reading theseYA books just like being a
better advocate and knowing howto better support the community
in which I am attempting to bean ally towards. And so those
are two I think go to ya sapphauthors, and then I don't have
(31:20):
the lily X book. She writessapphic Omega verse. And her
North Star Series, I think, haseight books in it, but she has,
she has a solid back list, andwe love a sapphic Omega verse. A
sapphic Omega verse is somethingthat you did not know, that you
needed. And then across multiplegenres, Heather Nicks. Heather
(31:41):
writes dark romance. Heatherwrites monster romance. Heather
writes like sweeping, epic,sapphic fantasies. And Heather
writes lacy books. And then, interms of fantasy, I would be
remiss if I did not mention myfavorite fantasy from 2024 the
(32:01):
fall that saved us by TamaraGerais. They also have a wolf
steps in blood, which came outlast year. And they have, this
is a duology, and they have abook coming out later this year,
and lastly, but definitely notleast, and really not lastly,
but this is all I'm going to do.
The Curse of the Goddess is bookone from CC Gonzales. This was
my top fantasy from last year. Idream of Valda and Maris. The
(32:24):
dream of them.
Alesia Galati (32:29):
I love that. Now those are some good
recommendations, and I don'tthink I've read any of those, so
now I have some to add to my TBRfor sure. And then I've got some
recommendations as well from mybookshelves, I would say some of
these are on my TBR. Let's goahead and do the ones that I've
(32:49):
read, first down south Bayou byErica Alexander. The second book
just came out. This one is spicyand sweet and don't mess with my
girl. I just love it so much.
And then I like Meryl willsnurse books. This one is an age
gap best friend's mom, which isgood. And then I know they have
(33:14):
another one that is a soccerromance as well. They
Sarah In Wanderland (33:21):
have one coming out in a cup. I think it
might be in March, my bestfriend's honeymoon, or something
like that. All right.
Alesia Galati (33:30):
I'm down for it.
I love it. Delilah green doesn'tcare. By Ashley herring Blake
loves this one, and the seriesis good, but that I believe this
one's a by awakening, if I'mremembering correctly, single
mom, yep, so good, and justthat, like opposites attract.
And then the other one that Iread that was not on my TBR back
(33:50):
to me by Katie Duggan. And thisone, it has the diabetes, fat
and ADHD rep. And I just, I loveeverything about this one, and
it's got the spicy bits too.
And, yeah, it's just such afantastic one. And then one's on
(34:12):
my TBR out drawn by Deanna Gray.
I know you've read that one,right?
Sarah In Wanderland (34:19):
Yes. And I got the special edition book box
from Rainbow crate so I couldhave it
Alesia Galati (34:24):
nice. I love that. And then I've got stars
like wings by Chelsea Jay Leone.
This one is a duet. And so I'msomeone that kind of has to wait
for the whole series, oh yeah,because
Sarah In Wanderland (34:37):
this definitely ends on a WHAT THE
FUCK moment. Yeah,
Alesia Galati (34:41):
so I want to wait to read this one. And this one
is, this is a thick girl. I thisone, so this one's a big one, so
I'm gonna wait for the secondone. And then finally, the love
and sports ball by Mika James,and this one's on my TBR as
well. But. But yeah, I am. Ilove reading sapphic romance. I
(35:06):
love reading making sure thatI'm reading diversely across the
board, that it's all differenttypes of folks that are sapphic.
And so I think that it is such amissed opportunity for anyone
who is not reading it, there issomething for everyone. Like you
said you were looking forsomething that was dark. There's
(35:29):
something for sure. All right,we mentioned some places to make
sure that we're looking andtrying to find some sapphic
romances. If we're not surewhere to begin, you are also
doing a challenge for 2025 andif you're listening to this
later, just go back to theInstagram highlights, or you
might be running it again nextyear. But go check that out. It
(35:52):
is a sapphic Reading Challenge.
Tell us a bit about what that isand what people can expect from
it.
Sarah In Wanderland (35:58):
So the sapphic Reading Challenge is 12
initial prompts. And then Ithink there's 13 or 15 bonus
prompts. I can't remember howmany, because I cannot be
expected to choose anappropriate number of books to
put on a challenge, because Iread so much. I think I read 450
books last year, so I thoughtone book a month is a great
(36:22):
start. And then there are bonusprompts. You can find it on
story graph. And there's a heavyemphasis on reading
intersectionally. So sapphicbooks by East Asian, South
Asian, SWANA, Pacific Islander,indigenous black Latinx authors.
And then there's like age gap orpoetry or an anthology. And if
(36:46):
you're looking for an anthologyto read on June 3, my slash hour
Anthology for charity, this 10thMuse, a sapphic anthology comes
out. It is 12 authors, some ofthem are writing their first
sapphic story, but they are allauthors within the LGBTQ plus
community. It's a volume one,and the money goes to the
(37:09):
national queer and transtherapists of color network. As
a therapist myself and assomebody whose values and morals
align with making sure thatunderserved, underrepresented,
historically marginalizedindividuals get access to
services. This charity is trulyremarkable and life changing for
so many people. It connects Qtbipoc individuals with Qt bipoc
(37:34):
therapists that have the sameidentity as them and provides
funding for them to get accessto services. That
Alesia Galati (37:40):
is awesome. And I love that you're doing this
anthology. Because when youfirst mentioned it to me, I was
like, I don't think I have seena sapphic anthology,
Sarah In Wanderland (37:52):
and I have not either, to be honest, it was
born out of, where are they?
Like, why do we keep gettinganthologies about other things
and not sapphic anthologies, andI've seen a few since I
announced ours. I've seen otherspop up, so I'm excited to
they're not charity anthologies,but I'm excited to read those,
(38:13):
get my hands on those, and I'mjust incredibly excited for
ours. I finished all the storiesbecause I'm editing it, and
they're all incredible.
Alesia Galati (38:23):
Yeah, I love that so much. Yeah, isn't there like,
an mm, one that comes out everyquarter? Yeah? For sure. Now you
also have a Patreon. I want tomake sure that we plug that
because you put your heart andsoul into the content that you
create, and so you now have aPatreon where you give even more
(38:46):
in depth content. Can you tellus a bit about what kind of
resources we can expect fromthere, what type of content we
can expect? Yeah,
Sarah In Wanderland (38:54):
so one of the things that I'm really
passionate about, like I justsaid, is making sure that
individuals have access toservices, and I understand how
expensive it can be to see atherapist regularly, so one
thing that I wanted to be ableto provide was access to
resources at a wildly discountedprice, for $7 a month, I post
(39:17):
two or three times A week, andevery month we alternate between
exploring identity and howtrauma might impact that
exploration and exploringpleasure and kink and intimacy,
and dismantling shame around sexand embracing the joy of
intimacy and how trauma impactsall of that. And then there's
(39:40):
resources like how to deal withthe stuff that comes up as
you're maybe reading or asyou're unpacking something. And
then I also have a book club, sodepending on the theme for the
month, the book club pickrevolves around the theme of the
month. So this month we'redoing. Church girl, because the
(40:01):
theme this month is dismantling,oh my gosh, that's so good, so
good. The theme is dismantlingshame around pleasure and like
diving into that. And the reasonwhy I started the Patreon was
because I wrote a book that I'mpublishing the next couple of
months that is a cognitivebehavioral therapy guide to
(40:21):
exploring your sexualorientation, gender and
identity. And I think now in thecurrent political climate, more
than ever, as queer and trans,black, indigenous people of
color identities are beingdiminished and erased by the
United States government, weneed spaces where we can be our
full self and show up with otherpeople who live and love like we
(40:44):
do, that's curated by somebodywho has the knowledge, the
expertise, the skills, the toolsto provide support, education.
And then there's also a, this issounds nuts, but it does not.
There's a $50 tier which getsyou access to a one on one. I
say coaching, because ethically,I can't provide services across
(41:06):
state lines. So it's coaching,but it's coaching by a licensed
clinical social worker. It'scoaching by somebody who has an
MSW, by somebody who's worked inthe field for 15 plus years in
mental health and six as amental health clinician. It's a
drastically discounted price,and then there's, like, lots of
interactions between myself andthe people that I hate the word
coaching, because there's a lotof hacks out there, but this is
(41:28):
a great way to provide peoplewith affordable services. And so
you get sneak peeks of thethings on my Instagram, but we
really dive much deeper into theconversations on Patreon, and
it's a like, there are a lot ofessays. I'm a researcher. I'm a
social worker by nature, and soI write a lot. And then there's,
(41:51):
like, calls to action andprompts, which is very similar
to the format of the book. Love
Alesia Galati (41:57):
that, and yay for your book coming out. We'll make
sure that we have links for thatstuff, all the things that we've
mentioned in the books thatwe've mentioned, for sure, but
if someone's like, I definitelywant to connect with you. Tell
me where to find you. Where canpeople find you and hang out
with you? Yeah.
Sarah In Wanderland (42:11):
So my instagram handle is Sarah in
Wonderland. The Patreon, oh mygosh, I think it's called
Wonderland reads, which is whatmy web. You can find it on my
website, which is Wonderland,reads.com there is a link to the
Patreon there as well as thereis a drop down for life saving
links on my Patreon to make surethat people know where they can
(42:33):
get domestic violence help, likemental health crises. Help,
intimate partner violence help.
There's a bunch of links towebsites that will help you
navigate systems in your ownstate. And there's also a link
to the pre order for the 10thMuse on my website. Literally
everything is this shirt is onmy website. Love it.
Alesia Galati (42:56):
Yes. Go check out the website. Get all the links
that you need. And like I said,we'll make sure we have all of
those linked on the show notesas well to each of those things.
So if you're just on your app oron YouTube, looking at the
description, you can see each ofthose ones listed out. We'll
make sure that we have all thoseavailable to you. Sarah, thank
you so much for being on Iappreciate you. Thank you for
(43:19):
helping us through these stickybits, as well as giving us some
fantastic options and resourcesfor going forward in this work.
Sarah In Wanderland (43:30):
Thanks. I enjoyed our conversation. You.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.