Life & Wisdom Quote by Rita Mae Brown

Brown’s line reads like a dare to every culture that insists sexuality must be explained as damage control. The phrasing flips the usual defensive posture: instead of “despite” or “in spite of,” she gives “because.” Desire, in her telling, isn’t a symptom or a detour; it’s a rational response to women’s reality. That causal pivot is the quote’s engine. It doesn’t beg tolerance. It asserts attraction as evidence.

The list that follows - “beautiful, strong, and compassionate” - looks simple, almost postcard-ready, but it’s doing political work. “Beautiful” claims pleasure without apology, refusing the old feminist trap where acknowledging female beauty risks sounding shallow or male-defined. “Strong” rejects the stereotype that lesbianism is a retreat from men out of fear or failure; it’s a move toward power. “Compassionate” is the slyest word: it frames women not just as objects of desire but as ethical partners, implying an intimacy built on care rather than conquest. Taken together, the triad also reads like a rebuke to patriarchal scripts that reward hardness and punish tenderness.

Context matters. Brown came of age as a writer in the second-wave feminist era, when lesbian identity was routinely pathologized, fetishized, or treated as a political liability even inside women’s movements. Her intent is both personal and strategic: normalize lesbian desire by refusing to medicalize it, and elevate women as a complete center of gravity - aesthetically, emotionally, and morally. The subtext is unapologetic: if you want an explanation, here’s one that makes women the cause, not the problem.