Discussion History Main / PsychoLesbian

To amplify on what Iaculus said, this trope could have been called \\\"Lesbians Are Mentally Unstable\\\". It\\\'s a longstanding perception, with roots at least as far back as the early nineteenth century, that a woman who\\\'s so unnatural as to betray her gender by lusting after another woman must be morally monstrous and/or insane, which will show up in a number of stereotyped ways, such as violent possessiveness, jealousy, or responding to the loss of their lover with florid (often violent) insanity, or suicide.

An early example, from 1895, is Mary Wilkins Freeman\\\'s story \\\"The Long Arm\\\" (probably inspired by the sensationalistic media coverage of the Mitchell/Ward murder case in 1892). Here, Phoebe Dole, a terrifying, powerful, manipulative woman, has been maintaining another woman in subjection for years, and when this woman finally takes steps to leave her for a man, Phoebe bloodily murders the hypotenuse, pinning the crime with diabolical cleverness on another woman. She attempts to justify her crime (in a Villainous Breakdown) by saying that she\\\'s defending her domestic happiness, but this \\\"happiness\\\" is presented as perverted. She\\\'s described as physically monstrous as well as morally -- she\\\'s the one with the abnormally \\\"long arm\\\" of the title -- as one critic put it, \\\"a desperate figure of lesbian evil, a hypocritical, sick, self-absorbed carnivorous flower.\\\"

Here\\\'s another example: in \\\'\\\'Daemon in Lithuania\\\'\\\', some characters put on a play that contains half of all the old-fashioned clichés ever invented. Kinga is found to be pregnant, and: \\\"Enter the Lady-in-Black. She nourished a tragic passion for Kinga, and heaped the most terrible reproaches on her head, striding up and down the stage and drawing on her long cigarette holder. Finally, she tossed it on to the ground, stamped on it, and flung herself on to her frivolous friend\\\'s couch, intending to strangle her...\\\"

So, can you have a character who is a lesbian, and also insane, murderous, or jealous, without it being this trope? I think you can. Luckily, the range of visible lesbian characters in media and real life has expanded greatly. Especially in works that are a little outside the mainstream, you\\\'ll find lesbians who are homemakers or badasses, cheerful or depressive, who either live long happy lives with their lovers or lose them -- the latter is very frequent because, let\\\'s face it, how many relationships are allowed to continue undisrupted in the eternally drama-seeking world of entertainment media? Straight characters may be insane, murderous, or jealous, and so may lesbians. This makes it hard to know what is an example of the old, bad cliché and what isn\\\'t, sometimes. Different people may even perceive the same work differently -- younger viewers may not notice this trope at all while it\\\'ll jump to the mind of older ones. Really, you need to consider each work individually, in terms of its tone. Does anything clearly imply a connection between the character\\\'s sexuality and her psychopathology? Are there many characters of diverse sexuality? Is melodrama par for the course? Does the outburst of Psycho Lesbianism come off as character derailment?

I\\\'d support including borderline cases as examples of this trope, noting that it\\\'s brought to mind in some viewers, even if the author didn\\\'t intend it to be so.

I\\\'ll be the first to admit that I haven\\\'t seen/read almost any of the works that are under dispute here. Let me just discuss two I have, \\\'\\\'Tipping the Velvet\\\'\\\' (1998) and \\\'\\\'Affinity\\\'\\\' (1999), both novels by Sarah Waters, who\\\'s a lesbian herself and fills her books with queer characters of all sorts. In \\\'\\\'Tipping the Velvet\\\'\\\', the main character, Nan, is frankly in love with other women, which does not drive her crazy at all. She goes through a picaresque journey, finally finding true love, political purpose, and a community of kindred spirits with some socialist lesbians. One of her adventures is becoming the lover of a decadent rich woman, Diana Lethaby, who keeps her pampered but dependent and is callous about her personal feelings. When Diana finds Nan in bed with a servant woman, she kicks Nan out in a particularly humiliating manner, and is later seen with a new kept girl. Now, Miss Lethaby is a pretty unpleasant person, but not in any sense \\\"psycho\\\". If anything, her portrayal (and those of her moneyed friends) taps into stereotypes about the heartlessness of the rich, especially in contrast with the virtuous socialists. You can see why I removed this example! Another of Waters\\\'s books, \\\'\\\'Fingersmith\\\'\\\', also ends with a female couple living together in good health and sanity.

By contrast, I left \\\'\\\'Affinity\\\'\\\' in, although with hesitation, wondering whether Waters intended a deconstruction of the trope, by adding realism to it. The main character is Margaret Prior, heartbroken and suicidal after a close female friend of hers marries. She begins volunteering at a women\\\'s prison and becomes fascinated with one of the inmates, a \\\"spirit medium\\\", Selina Dawes. [[spoiler:Selina skillfully encourages Margaret\\\'s obsession, convincing her that they\\\'re soul mates, or \\\"affinities\\\", and eventually manipulates her into helping her escape from prison, only to leave her in the lurch. Margaret, thus cruelly used, kills herself. The last scene is a S/M-tinged one of Selina with her real lover. So, we have two main lesbian characters, one of whom is as perversely wicked as anyone could ask, and the other of whom is unstable, obsessive, and suicidal; in both cases this is (at least somewhat) connected with their sexuality.]]

More briefly, here are three others that I\\\'ve read and don’t recognize this trope in. \\\'\\\'Strangers in Paradise\\\'\\\' (1996 - 2007) has an open and positive lesbian couple at its center, although they go through lots of drama and will-they-or-won’t-they. One of the many troubles they confront is an organization of violent criminals, who are lesbians, but there doesn\\\'t seem to be an implied relation; true, Katchoo’s connection with this organization was big trouble for her, but her lesbian love for the other protagonist is an unambiguously positive thing for her. \\\'\\\'Hothead Paisan: Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist\\\'\\\' (1991 - present) is an over-the-top comedic feminist rant, satirizing many things and partly causing readers to say, when Hothead Paisan blows something up, \\\"Whoa, you go \\\'\\\'way\\\'\\\' too far, but that stuff bugs me too...\\\" As for \\\'\\\'Gunnerkrigg Court\\\'\\\' (2005 - present), I can quote the previous commenter: \\\"Since Zimmy literally needs Gamma to stay in this reality, and to keep what Gamma can\\\'t drain from driving her mad, she\\\'s grown very attached; this is the \\\"lesbian\\\" part. The \\\"psycho\\\" part is a combination of Zimmy\\\'s own crazy-ass personality, and the stress exacerbating her crazy-ass-osity.\\\" In other words, there’s no connection between the \\\"psycho\\\" and the \\\"lesbian\\\" aspects, and the gender of the object of Zimmy’s attachment has nothing to do with it.

And I can confirm that \\\'\\\'Passing\\\'\\\' (1929) does belong on this page: the threatening sexual attraction and the murder are all there. Mrs. Danvers in \\\'\\\'Rebecca\\\'\\\' (1938) also fits perfectly.

So, I\\\'m putting out an appeal to people who are familiar with any and all examples, either the ones I removed or the ones I left. Analyze them and say, is there an implication (intentional or unintentional) that lesbianism is a source or symptom of mental pathology for the character? In particular, does this portrayal resemble the cliché (which you\\\'ll quickly recognize once you\\\'ve seen it a number of times) of the violently possessive lesbian?

To amplify on what Iaculus said, this trope could have been called \\\"Lesbians Are Mentally Unstable\\\". It\\\'s a longstanding perception, with roots at least as far back as the early nineteenth century, that a woman who\\\'s so unnatural as to betray her gender by lusting after another woman must be morally monstrous and/or insane, which will show up in a number of stereotyped ways, such as violent possessiveness, jealousy, or responding to the loss of their lover with florid (often violent) insanity, or suicide.

An early example, from 1895, is Mary Wilkins Freeman\\\'s story \\\"The Long Arm\\\" (probably inspired by the sensationalistic media coverage of the Mitchell/Ward murder case in 1892). Here, Phoebe Dole, a terrifying, powerful, manipulative woman, has been maintaining another woman in subjection for years, and when this woman finally takes steps to leave her for a man, Phoebe bloodily murders the hypotenuse, pinning the crime with diabolical cleverness on another woman. She attempts to justify her crime (in a Villainous Breakdown) by saying that she\\\'s defending her domestic happiness, but this \\\"happiness\\\" is presented as perverted. She\\\'s described as physically monstrous as well as morally -- she\\\'s the one with the abnormally \\\"long arm\\\" of the title -- as one critic put it, \\\"a desperate figure of lesbian evil, a hypocritical, sick, self-absorbed carnivorous flower.\\\"

Here\\\'s another example: in \\\'\\\'Daemon in Lithuania\\\'\\\', some characters put on a play that contains half of all the old-fashioned clichés ever invented. Kinga is found to be pregnant, and: \\\"Enter the Lady-in-Black. She nourished a tragic passion for Kinga, and heaped the most terrible reproaches on her head, striding up and down the stage and drawing on her long cigarette holder. Finally, she tossed it on to the ground, stamped on it, and flung herself on to her frivolous friend\\\'s couch, intending to strangle her...\\\"

So, can you have a character who is a lesbian, and also insane, murderous, or jealous, without it being this trope? I think you can. Luckily, the range of visible lesbian characters in media and real life has expanded greatly. Especially in works that are a little outside the mainstream, you\\\'ll find lesbians who are homemakers or badasses, cheerful or depressive, who either live long happy lives with their lovers or lose them -- the latter is very frequent because, let\\\'s face it, how many relationships are allowed to continue undisrupted in the eternally drama-seeking world of entertainment media? Straight characters may be insane, murderous, or jealous, and so may lesbians. This makes it hard to know what is an example of the old, bad cliché and what isn\\\'t, sometimes. Different people may even perceive the same work differently -- younger viewers may not notice this trope at all while it\\\'ll jump to the mind of older ones. Really, you need to consider each work individually, in terms of its tone. Does anything clearly imply a connection between the character\\\'s sexuality and her psychopathology? Are there many characters of diverse sexuality? Is melodrama par for the course? Does the outburst of Psycho Lesbianism come off as character derailment?

I\\\'d support including borderline cases as examples of this trope, noting that it\\\'s brought to mind in some viewers, even if the author didn\\\'t intend it to be so.

I\\\'ll be the first to admit that I haven\\\'t seen/read almost any of the works that are under dispute here. Let me just discuss two I have, \\\'\\\'Tipping the Velvet\\\'\\\' and \\\'\\\'Affinity\\\'\\\', both novels by Sarah Waters, who\\\'s a lesbian herself and fills her books with queer characters of all sorts. In \\\'\\\'Tipping the Velvet\\\'\\\', the main character, Nan, is frankly in love with other women, which does not drive her crazy at all. She goes through a picaresque journey, finally finding true love, political purpose, and a community of kindred spirits with some socialist lesbians. One of her adventures is becoming the lover of a decadent rich woman, Diana Lethaby, who keeps her pampered but dependent and is callous about her personal feelings. When Diana finds Nan in bed with a servant woman, she kicks Nan out in a particularly humiliating manner, and is later seen with a new kept girl. Now, Miss Lethaby is a pretty unpleasant person, but not in any sense \\\"psycho\\\". If anything, her portrayal (and those of her moneyed friends) taps into stereotypes about the heartlessness of the rich, especially in contrast with the virtuous socialists. You can see why I removed this example! Another of Waters\\\'s books, \\\'\\\'Fingersmith\\\'\\\', also ends with a female couple living together in good health and sanity.

By contrast, I left \\\'\\\'Affinity\\\'\\\' in, although with hesitation, wondering whether Waters intended a deconstruction of the trope, by adding realism to it. The main character is Margaret Prior, heartbroken and suicidal after a close female friend of hers marries. She begins volunteering at a women\\\'s prison and becomes fascinated with one of the inmates, a \\\"spirit medium\\\", Selina Dawes. [[spoiler:Selina skillfully encourages Margaret\\\'s obsession, convincing her that they\\\'re soul mates, or \\\"affinities\\\", and eventually manipulates her into helping her escape from prison, only to leave her in the lurch. Margaret, thus cruelly used, kills herself. The last scene is a S/M-tinged one of Selina with her real lover. So, we have two main lesbian characters, one of whom is as perversely wicked as anyone could ask, and the other of whom is unstable, obsessive, and suicidal; in both cases this is (at least somewhat) connected with their sexuality.]]

More briefly, here are three others that I\\\'ve read and don’t recognize this trope in. \\\'\\\'Strangers in Paradise\\\'\\\' has an open and positive lesbian couple at its center, although they go through lots of drama and will-they-or-won’t-they. One of the many troubles they confront is an organization of violent criminals, who are lesbians, but there doesn\\\'t seem to be an implied relation; true, Katchoo’s connection with this organization was big trouble for her, but her lesbian love for the other protagonist is an unambiguously positive thing for her. \\\'\\\'Hothead Paisan: Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist\\\'\\\' is an over-the-top comedic feminist rant, satirizing many things and partly causing readers to say, when Hothead Paisan blows something up, \\\"Whoa, you go \\\'\\\'way\\\'\\\' too far, but that stuff bugs me too...\\\" As for \\\'\\\'Gunnerkrigg Court\\\'\\\', I can quote the previous commenter: \\\"Since Zimmy literally needs Gamma to stay in this reality, and to keep what Gamma can\\\'t drain from driving her mad, she\\\'s grown very attached; this is the \\\"lesbian\\\" part. The \\\"psycho\\\" part is a combination of Zimmy\\\'s own crazy-ass personality, and the stress exacerbating her crazy-ass-osity.\\\" In other words, there’s no connection between the \\\"psycho\\\" and the \\\"lesbian\\\" aspects, and the gender of the object of Zimmy’s attachment has nothing to do with it.

And I can confirm that \\\'\\\'Passing\\\'\\\' (1929) does belong on this page: the threatening sexual attraction and the murder are all there.

So, I\\\'m putting out an appeal to people who are familiar with any and all examples, either the ones I removed or the ones I left. Analyze them and say, is there an implication (intentional or unintentional) that lesbianism is a source or symptom of mental pathology for the character? In particular, does this portrayal resemble the cliché (which you\\\'ll quickly recognize once you\\\'ve seen it a number of times) of the violently possessive lesbian?

To amplify on what Iaculus said, this trope could have been called \\\"Lesbians Are Mentally Unstable\\\". It\\\'s a longstanding perception, with roots at least as far back as the early nineteenth century, that a woman who\\\'s so unnatural as to betray her gender by lusting after another woman must be morally monstrous and/or insane, which will show up in a number of stereotyped ways, such as violent possessiveness, jealousy, or responding to the loss of their lover with florid (often violent) insanity, or suicide.

An early example, from 1895, is Mary Wilkins Freeman\\\'s story \\\"The Long Arm\\\" (probably inspired by the sensationalistic media coverage of the Mitchell/Ward murder case in 1892). Here, Phoebe Dole, a terrifying, powerful, manipulative woman, has been maintaining another woman in subjection for years, and when this woman finally takes steps to leave her for a man, Phoebe bloodily murders the hypotenuse, pinning the crime with diabolical cleverness on another woman. She attempts to justify her crime (in a Villainous Breakdown) by saying that she\\\'s defending her domestic happiness, but this \\\"happiness\\\" is presented as perverted. She\\\'s described as physically monstrous as well as morally -- she\\\'s the one with the abnormally \\\"long arm\\\" of the title -- as one critic put it, \\\"a desperate figure of lesbian evil, a hypocritical, sick, self-absorbed carnivorous flower.\\\"

Here\\\'s another example: in \\\'\\\'Daemon in Lithuania\\\'\\\', some characters put on a play that contains half of all the old-fashioned clichés ever invented. Kinga is found to be pregnant, and: \\\"Enter the Lady-in-Black. She nourished a tragic passion for Kinga, and heaped the most terrible reproaches on her head, striding up and down the stage and drawing on her long cigarette holder. Finally, she tossed it on to the ground, stamped on it, and flung herself on to her frivolous friend\\\'s couch, intending to strangle her...\\\"

So, can you have a character who is a lesbian, and also insane, murderous, or jealous, without it being this trope? I think you can. Luckily, the range of visible lesbian characters in media and real life has expanded greatly. Especially in works that are a little outside the mainstream, you\\\'ll find lesbians who are homemakers or badasses, cheerful or depressive, who either live long happy lives with their lovers or lose them -- the latter is very frequent because, let\\\'s face it, how many relationships are allowed to continue undisrupted in the eternally drama-seeking world of entertainment media? Straight characters may be insane, murderous, or jealous, and so may lesbians. This makes it hard to know what is an example of the old, bad cliché and what isn\\\'t, sometimes. Different people may even perceive the same work differently -- younger viewers may not notice this trope at all while it\\\'ll jump to the mind of older ones. Really, you need to consider each work individually, in terms of its tone. Does anything clearly imply a connection between the character\\\'s sexuality and her psychopathology? Are there many characters of diverse sexuality? Is melodrama par for the course? Does the outburst of Psycho Lesbianism come off as character derailment?

I\\\'d support including borderline cases as examples of this trope, noting that it\\\'s brought to mind in some viewers, even if the author didn\\\'t intend it to be so.

I\\\'ll be the first to admit that I haven\\\'t seen/read almost any of the works that are under dispute here. Let me just discuss two I have, \\\'\\\'Tipping the Velvet\\\'\\\' and \\\'\\\'Affinity\\\'\\\', both novels by Sarah Waters, who\\\'s a lesbian herself and fills her books with queer characters of all sorts. In \\\'\\\'Tipping the Velvet\\\'\\\', the main character, Nan, is frankly in love with other women, which does not drive her crazy at all. She goes through a picaresque journey, finally finding true love, political purpose, and a community of kindred spirits with some socialist lesbians. One of her adventures is becoming the lover of a decadent rich woman, Diana Lethaby, who keeps her pampered but dependent and is callous about her personal feelings. When Diana finds Nan in bed with a servant woman, she kicks Nan out in a particularly humiliating manner, and is later seen with a new kept girl. Now, Miss Lethaby is a pretty unpleasant person, but not in any sense \\\"psycho\\\". If anything, her portrayal (and those of her moneyed friends) taps into stereotypes about the heartlessness of the rich, especially in contrast with the virtuous socialists. You can see why I removed this example! Another of Waters\\\'s books, \\\'\\\'Fingersmith\\\'\\\', also ends with a female couple living together in good health and sanity.

By contrast, I left \\\'\\\'Affinity\\\'\\\' in, although with hesitation, wondering whether Waters intended a deconstruction of the trope, by adding realism to it. The main character is Margaret Prior, heartbroken and suicidal after a close female friend of hers marries. She begins volunteering at a women\\\'s prison and becomes fascinated with one of the inmates, a \\\"spirit medium\\\", Selina Dawes. [[spoiler:Selina skillfully encourages Margaret\\\'s obsession, convincing her that they\\\'re soul mates, or \\\"affinities\\\", and eventually manipulates her into helping her escape from prison, only to leave her in the lurch. Margaret, thus cruelly used, kills herself. The last scene is a S/M-tinged one of Selina with her real lover. So, we have two main lesbian characters, one of whom is as perversely wicked as anyone could ask, and the other of whom is unstable, obsessive, and suicidal; in both cases this is (at least somewhat) connected with their sexuality.]]

More briefly, here are three others that I\\\'ve read and don’t recognize this trope in. \\\'\\\'Strangers in Paradise\\\'\\\' has an open and positive lesbian couple at its center, although they go through lots of drama and will-they-or-won’t-they. One of the many troubles they confront is an organization of violent criminals, who are lesbians, but there doesn\\\'t seem to be an implied relation; true, Katchoo’s connection with this organization was big trouble for her, but her lesbian love for the other protagonist is an unambiguously positive thing for her. \\\'\\\'Hothead Paisan: Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist\\\'\\\' is an over-the-top comedic feminist rant, satirizing many things and partly causing readers to say, when Hothead Paisan blows something up, \\\"Whoa, you go \\\'\\\'way\\\'\\\' too far, but that stuff bugs me too...\\\" As for \\\'\\\'Gunnerkrigg Court\\\'\\\', I can quote the previous commenter: \\\"Since Zimmy literally needs Gamma to stay in this reality, and to keep what Gamma can\\\'t drain from driving her mad, she\\\'s grown very attached; this is the \\\"lesbian\\\" part. The \\\"psycho\\\" part is a combination of Zimmy\\\'s own crazy-ass personality, and the stress exacerbating her crazy-ass-osity.\\\" In other words, there’s no connection between the \\\"psycho\\\" and the \\\"lesbian\\\" aspects, and the gender of the object of Zimmy’s attachment has nothing to do with it.

So, I\\\'m putting out an appeal to people who are familiar with any and all examples, either the ones I removed or the ones I left. Analyze them and say, is there an implication (intentional or unintentional) that lesbianism is a source or symptom of mental pathology for the character? In particular, does this portrayal resemble the cliché (which you\\\'ll quickly recognize once you\\\'ve seen it a number of times) of the violently possessive lesbian?

To amplify on what Iaculus said, this trope could have been called \\\"Lesbians Are Mentally Unstable\\\". It\\\'s a longstanding perception, with roots at least as far back as the early nineteenth century, that a woman who\\\'s so unnatural as to betray her gender by lusting after another woman must be morally monstrous and/or insane, which will show up in a number of stereotyped ways, such as violent possessiveness, jealousy, or responding to the loss of their lover with florid (often violent) insanity, or suicide.
An early example, from 1895, is Mary Wilkins Freeman\\\'s story \\\"The Long Arm\\\" (probably inspired by the sensationalistic media coverage of the Mitchell/Ward murder case in 1892). Here, Phoebe Dole, a terrifying, powerful, manipulative woman, has been maintaining another woman in subjection for years, and when this woman finally takes steps to leave her for a man, Phoebe murders the hypotenuse, pinning the crime with diabolical cleverness on another woman. She attempts to justify her crime (in a Villainous Breakdown) by saying that she\\\'s defending her domestic happiness, but this \\\"happiness\\\" is presented as perverted. She\\\'s described as physically monstrous as well as morally -- she\\\'s the one with the abnormally \\\"long arm\\\" of the title.

Here\\\'s another example: in \\\'\\\'Daemon in Lithuania\\\'\\\', some characters put on a play that contains half of all the old-fashioned clichés ever invented. Kinga is found to be pregnant, and: \\\"Enter the Lady-in-Black. She nourished a tragic passion for Kinga, and heaped the most terrible reproaches on her head, striding up and down the stage and drawing on her long cigarette holder. Finally, she tossed it on to the ground, stamped on it, and flung herself on to her frivolous friend\\\'s couch, intending to strangle her...\\\"

So, can you have a character who is a lesbian, and also insane, murderous, or jealous, without it being this trope? I think you can. Luckily, the range of visible lesbian characters in media and real life has expanded greatly. Especially in works that are a little outside the mainstream, you\\\'ll find lesbians who are homemakers or badasses, cheerful or depressive, who either live long happy lives with their lovers or lose them -- the latter is very frequent because, let\\\'s face it, how many relationships are allowed to continue undisrupted in the eternally drama-seeking world of entertainment media? Straight characters may be insane, murderous, or jealous, and so may lesbians. This makes it hard to know what is an example of the old, bad cliché and what isn\\\'t, sometimes. Different people may even perceive the same work differently -- younger viewers may not notice this trope at all while it\\\'ll jump to the mind of older ones. Really, you need to consider each work individually, in terms of its tone. Does anything clearly imply a connection between the character\\\'s sexuality and her psychopathology? Are there many characters of diverse sexuality? Is melodrama par for the course? Does the outburst of Psycho Lesbianism come off as character derailment?

I\\\'d support including borderline cases as examples of this trope, noting that it\\\'s brought to mind in some viewers, even if the author didn\\\'t intend it to be so.

I\\\'ll be the first to admit that I haven\\\'t seen/read almost any of the works that are under dispute here. Let me just discuss two I have, \\\'\\\'Tipping the Velvet\\\'\\\' and \\\'\\\'Affinity\\\'\\\', both novels by Sarah Waters, who\\\'s a lesbian herself and fills her books with queer characters of all sorts. In \\\'\\\'Tipping the Velvet\\\'\\\', the main character, Nan, is frankly in love with other women, which does not drive her crazy at all. She goes through a picaresque journey, finally finding true love, political purpose, and a community of kindred spirits with some socialist lesbians. One of her adventures is becoming the lover of a decadent rich woman, Diana Lethaby, who keeps her pampered but dependent and is callous about her personal feelings. When Diana finds Nan in bed with a servant woman, she kicks Nan out in a particularly humiliating manner, and is later seen with a new kept girl. Now, Miss Lethaby is a pretty unpleasant person, but not in any sense \\\"psycho\\\". If anything, her portrayal (and those of her moneyed friends) taps into stereotypes about the heartlessness of the rich, especially in contrast with the virtuous socialists. You can see why I removed this example! Another of Waters\\\'s books, \\\'\\\'Fingersmith\\\'\\\', also ends with a female couple living together in good health and sanity.

By contrast, I left \\\'\\\'Affinity\\\'\\\' in, although with hesitation, wondering whether Waters intended a deconstruction of the trope, by adding realism to it. The main character is Margaret Prior, heartbroken and suicidal after a close female friend of hers marries. She begins volunteering at a women\\\'s prison and becomes fascinated with one of the inmates, a \\\"spirit medium\\\", Selina Dawes. [[spoiler:Selina skillfully encourages Margaret\\\'s obsession, convincing her that they\\\'re soul mates, or \\\"affinities\\\", and eventually manipulates her into helping her escape from prison, only to leave her in the lurch. Margaret, thus cruelly used, kills herself. The last scene is a S/M-tinged one of Selina with her real lover. So, we have two main lesbian characters, one of whom is as perversely wicked as anyone could ask, and the other of whom is unstable, obsessive, and suicidal; in both cases this is (at least somewhat) connected with their sexuality.]]

More briefly, here are three others that I\\\'ve read and don’t recognize this trope in. \\\'\\\'Strangers in Paradise\\\'\\\' has an open and positive lesbian couple at its center, although they go through lots of drama and will-they-or-won’t-they. One of the many troubles they confront is an organization of violent criminals, who are lesbians, but there doesn\\\'t seem to be an implied relation; true, Katchoo’s connection with this organization was big trouble for her, but her lesbian love for the other protagonist is an unambiguously positive thing for her. \\\'\\\'Hothead Paisan: Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist\\\'\\\' is an over-the-top comedic feminist rant, satirizing many things and partly causing readers to say, when Hothead Paisan blows something up, \\\"Whoa, you go \\\'\\\'way\\\'\\\' too far, but that stuff bugs me too...\\\" As for \\\'\\\'Gunnerkrigg Court\\\'\\\', I can quote the previous commenter: \\\"Since Zimmy literally needs Gamma to stay in this reality, and to keep what Gamma can\\\'t drain from driving her mad, she\\\'s grown very attached; this is the \\\"lesbian\\\" part. The \\\"psycho\\\" part is a combination of Zimmy\\\'s own crazy-ass personality, and the stress exacerbating her crazy-ass-osity.\\\" In other words, there’s no connection between the \\\"psycho\\\" and the \\\"lesbian\\\" aspects, and the gender of the object of Zimmy’s attachment has nothing to do with it.

So, I\\\'m putting out an appeal to people who are familiar with any and all examples, either the ones I removed or the ones I left. Analyze them and say, is there an implication (intentional or unintentional) that lesbianism is a source or symptom of mental pathology for the character? In particular, does this portrayal resemble the cliché (which you\\\'ll quickly recognize once you\\\'ve seen it a number of times) of the violently possessive lesbian?

Hello Heartbreak, thanks for answering! I do promise I won\\\'t call you names, no matter how often I disagree with you.