Abstract

The fictional pieces discussed are Egyptian writer Alfia Rifaat’s “My World of the Unknown” and Rosamaria Roffiel’s “Forever Only Lasts A Full Moon” from Mexico. As Rich contends in “Compulsory Heterosexuality and the Lesbian Existence,” the creation of the lesbian space is at once incredibly difficult to execute within the predominately heteronormative matrix of our global society, yet is mandatory in terms of the nurturing of the lesbian being. In this paper I consider how these authors implement the motif of spritu-sexual pedagogy and the subconscious as lesbian, and utilize religious aspects of their respective communities, both of which explicitly condemn the sexual practices and inclinations of their characters, to subversively create a narrative lesbian sphere.