We’ve been digging deep into television history for many many reasons this week (the fruits of some of our labors exist here and here), and I’ve been struck again and again by how goshdarn clever writers are when they title episodes with Lesbian/bisexual/queer lady content, theme or characters! No seriously… some of these are legit genius. And some of these are… something else. Which shows are they from? Some are shows with queer lady characters and some are shows that only entertained our persuasion for one or two episodes. Figuring out where these titles came from could be a fun game for you to play this weekend!
So below, ripped mercilessly out of context from the TV shows that birthed them, I present 60 titles of queer lady TV episodes from 1976-2016.
1. “Flowers of Evil”
2. “From San Francisco With Love”
3. “The Devil Wears Land’s End”
4. “Significant Others”
5. “Guess Who’s Coming Out to Dinner?”
6. “Spermin’ Herman”
7. “Sex With Pudding”
8. “The Deadlier Sex”
9. “Ladies Choice”
10. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
11. “Trial by Prejudice”
12. “Sugar and Spice”
13. “Wish You Were Queer”
14. “Passion Plundered”
15. “Norm and the Hopeless Case”
16. “Oy Vey, You’re Gay”
17. “Three Girls and a Baby”
18. “Lez be Friends”
19. “Ovulation Day”
20. “The Odds Couple”
21. “Woman to Woman”
22. “I Was a Teenage Lesbian”
23. “He’s a Crowd”
24. “Not Particularly Desperate Housewives”
25. “The One With the Lesbian Wedding”
26. “Rough Housing”
27. “I’ll Show You Mine”
28. “What Women Want”
29. “About Being Gay”
31. “Single Fright Female”
32. “Shorties in Love”
33. “Finger in the Dyke”
34. “Riding Bi-Cycles”
35. “The Wiener, the Bun and the Boob”
36. “Passion Fish”
37. “Bring Down the Hoe”
38. “The Penalty Box”
39. “Suzanne Goes Looking For a Friend”
40. “Lesbians Out Loud”
41. “Free To Be You and Me”
42. “Divine Secrets and the ZBZ Sisterhood”
43. “I Kissed A Girl”
44. “Homecoming Out”
45. “Lt. Jane Doe”
46. “P.C.”
47. “Strap-On”
48. “Girl’s Guide to Dating”
49. “New Moon Rising”
50. “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”
51. “Holy Lesbo Batman!”
52. “Two Girls, One Code”
53. “Lesbian Request Denied”
54. “The Rainy Day Women”
55. “Portraits of Lauren Gray”
56. “Coming and Going”
57. “She’s Got A Habit”
58. “A Very Strange Triangle”
59. “It’s Who You Sleep With”
60. “Looks Like A Lesbian Attack To Me!”
I resent #1.
Just because I’ve used my flower as a finger puppet for villainous soliloquies does not mean she’s evil okay.
THE DEVIL WEARS LANDS END
THE DEVIL IS WARM, COMFY AND SUPPORTIVE.
Comfy and supportive but totally chicken in the face of angry Conservatives:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/01/business/catalog-interview-with-gloria-steinem-has-lands-end-on-its-heels.html?_r=0
Not completely chicken, but you were talking about a human company :P
https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/satanists-ambush-anti-planned-parenthood-protests-with-theatrical-milk-bath
“America is not a theocracy. End forced motherhood.”
aka The Devil Warmed My Heart
WAS GONNA SAY SAME, ALSO IN CAPS
tbh “Woman to Woman” is my favorite Tammy Wynette song.
(And my life’s dream is to do an all-lesbian tribute album to Tammy entitled “Woman to Woman” who’s gonna fund my Kickstarter)
finger in the dyke is mine
(I googled just to make sure I hadn’t missed a rare b-side and now I am so bummed that Tammy Wynette does not, in fact, have a song called “finger in the dyke”)
Is there a way to make a watchlist for these on netflix, like it is to make a playlist on spotify?
Those titles are beyond perfection!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRoKiwmgFkw
Oh ho ho ho.
Y’all.
It’s been years since I saw that scene, but I been eating a lot from a place that’s predominantly Lebanese and once ate from another place that happens to have the Lebanese flag which has a cedar tree on it.
My dad thought it was bush and I all I could think of was this scene.
He had no idea what was so funny, he thought I was being mean but I couldn’t compose myself to explain it before he walked off.
xD
But some of my best friends are Lebanese!
Wow, some of these are truly spectacular. I’m resisting the urge to look them up b/c it’s way more fun to try and remember. But only a few are coming to mind:
25. Friends
43. Glee
48. Buffy
53. OITNB
And that’s all I got.
I recognized these four plus 44. Faking It and 54. The OC!
Now that you’ve said it, 44 seems REALLY obvious.
43 is the gay bar ep of Rizzoli & Isles (Jane finds herself pretty much in Maura’s cleavage at one point).
That’s the only one I recognised… O.o
#33 is definitely also Orange is the New Black
39. Designing Women (although it could also be a pretty good OITNB ep)
33. Totally OITNB
32 is Dark Angel!
42 is Greek!
15. is Cheers maybe?
Oh, and 3 is The Mindy Project!
I guess you mean 49 = buffy?
Pretty sure 12 is Picket Fences
May I also nominate “Sperm Whales and Spearmint Rhinos” from Las Vegas, and “The Woman Problem” from Political Animals.
Single Fright Female is from PLL, yeah?
This list is great.
I found the Buffy one! #49 New Moon Rising – it’s the one where Willow comes out to Buffy :)
Of course it is! It sounds magical AND lesbian.
Is it also the one where Oz comes back and *smells* that Willow and Tara are a thing? TBH, that terrified me when I was in The closet, despite the fact that my parents definitely are not werewolves. Still creeps me out. So gross and invasive!
I HATED that episode so much, with a burning fiery passion. It handles Willow coming out to Buffy so badly. It’s fine that Buffy reacts badly at first, but the entire POV is so very, very straight.
I know other people have other criticisms of Buffy’s treatment of its lesbian characters, but as someone who was actually out long before Willow was I felt like that episode was the ultimate example of giving our community crumbs and telling us to be grateful for it.
“Finger in the dyke” was the name of an old trivia team of mine. I was so proud because I thought I had come up with it before anyone else, but then, yeah nah, people had been on to that word play well before me.
Some of these are very clever… And then the lesbian character dies
:(
I saw a tshirt on Instagram that said Wish you were queer, can’t for the life of me remember the company. In fact a few of these would make good tshirt slogans.
I would like to order a “I was a teenage lesbian” shirt, plz.
5. “Guess Who’s Coming Out to Dinner?”
Oh I know I know! That’s South of Nowhere!
25: anything that starts with “the one with” can only be friends.
43. “I Kissed a Girl”
While this could be from any number of shows, because the straight people that make them seem to think this is an ideal queer lady song, I remember this as one of the worst ever episodes of Glee, which is really saying something.
Oh also this was the name of the V. Special Lesbian Episode of Rizzoli and Isles. 1×06
NONE of these are the episode of Young & Hungry where Ashley Tisdale seduces Emily Osment because it made a LOT of my tween dreams come true.
(Episode title: Young & Lesbian)
I’ve noticed that you’ve been using “lesbian and bisexual” in your titles lately! Fantastic! ?
I think “Looks Like A Lesbian Attack To Me!” is from Saving Grace
I recognize a lot of these, too many for someone as young as me lmao
#35 made me LOL at my desk at work.