The feminine touch ("The Guardian" - UK)

Time of publication: 08.02.2003

As the 'are they lesbians or aren't they?' debate continues to fly around tATu, Stephanie Theobald keeps her eye on the playground

Is Daryl Hannah really a mermaid? Is Christina Aguilera really a boxer? Duh! So why then does everyone want to know if tATu are really lesbians?
Aside from the fact that their physical interaction rings pretty true to an old hand like me (and as porn mags continue to prove with their endless pics of blondes snogging other blondes as if sucking lemons, "lesbian chic" is not that easy to simulate), the fact remains that they are encouraging young girls to snog and grope their best friends in rainy weather conditions in front of awe-struck onlookers including an old lady with scary Dame Edna Everage specs.

This is a great thing as far as I am concerned and might even help put a small spanner in the works of the nefarious Clause 28, which is more than the likes of Tony Blair have managed to do.

Richard Madeley branded them "sick" - even though their video is much more loved-up than Britney's take on the sexy schoolgirl - adding, "We are being told that these girls actually have underage lesbian sex in real life." Richard, love, I think you'll find that there is no such thing as "underage lesbian sex" because part of the reason the Lesbian Nation is so sucky and such an underfunded place is that Queen Victoria declared we didn't exist and so nobody legislated about us in the first place.

We never had a sacrificial lamb like Oscar Wilde to bat for our side, which on the one hand means we can have sex with consenting 15-year-olds if that so takes our fancy, but it also means that our clubs are rubbish and the only role models we have are the likes of Melissa Etheridge and kd lang.

The history of pop using lesbianism as part of its gimmick is small. Madonna's Justify My Love video was a lesbian landmark. Then there were 4 Non Blondes (whose lead singer, Linda Perry, produced and wrote much of Pink's platinum M!ssundaztood), L7 and the Well Oiled Sisters - a hardcore country and western band who sang about losing your woman and the logistics of procuring S/M sex sessions.

However, these bands were too gnarly to have any real effect on the mainstream. In the mid-1990s, the LA band Fem 2 Fem gained notoriety as "lesbian shockers". The Fem 2 Fem stage experience was like watching straight-made girl-on-girl porn and the inevitable "are they, aren't they?" question came up.

Although lesbians of the time weren't convinced by Fem 2 Fem, they have been convinced by two weird Russian chicks who look like Manga cartoon characters and who claim to be inverts. My money's on the short-haired one to go the whole course. She, apparently, is a bit of a rebel. She was expelled from her first teen pop group for "unworthy behaviour and depravity of the collective".

Hopefully then, schoolgirls everywhere will take their cue from her and start snogging each other in the middle of netball practice in the pouring rain just to piss Sir and Richard Madeley off. Of course, Sir and Richard Madeley will probably like it and that is precisely why tATu will continue to sell records.

Return to "Articles"