Capitalist economics and commercialization have also played key roles in developing the modern American LesBiGay identity. The market's impact on gay male identity may be the most evident, if for no other reason than that upper- and middle-class gay men enjoy some of the patriarchy's economic clout. As gays increasingly staked out their own expensive leisure and lifestyle markets over the past thirty years, the commercial marketplace staked them out in turn, colonized and exploited their sexuality, and offered alluring visions of the active, freewheeling, and unfettered commercial pursuit of the "good gay life." The gay male identity has transformed radically from the "sissies," "fags," and "losers" of the '50s and '60s,⁸⁹ as it has been commodified into the newer styles of buffed-out and erotically charged manliness: working out his muscles in the gay gym,⁹⁰ working out his energy in the gay disco, working out his stress on the gay cruise, and working out his libido in the gay bathhouse. "The potency of the modern homosexual male's 'virilization," ' sociologist David Evans posits, "is as much economic as it is sexual, [as he is] allowed to exercise his rights as consumer."⁹¹ Perhaps nothing better captures today's commodified gay male sexuality than the continuing commercial success of the gay bathhouse, backroom, or "jack-off club," all of which still "facilitate the pursuit of homosexual encounters with consummate efficiency."⁹²

Commercial capitalism's impact on the modern lesbian identity is no less substantial, though perhaps less obvious. Though women surely wrapped themselves in each other's arms even when under the unsuspecting eyes of their boyfriends or husbands, it was not until women began to unburden themselves of economic dependency on men that they were free to live as lesbians.⁹³ Once freed in this fashion, many lesbians burned their bras and chucked their makeup, traded their high heels and camisoles for steel-toed work boots and denim shirts, gave up their toasters in exchange for tools, and took to the hills to commune. These lesbian pioneers bought out of commercialism's creed for the conventional woman, but not for long. Today's lesbians have bought right back into fashion faiths, on whichever side of the GAP they choose to tithe. "This [is the] era of 'lipstick lesbians," ' claims Frances Stevens, publisher and editor-in-chief of Deneuve, a lesbian style magazine. "These women are finally deciding that just because they're lesbian, it doesn't mean they have to cut their hair off and buy flannel shirts." And mainstream marketers are paying attention, ready to commodify the trendy lesbian's sexual identity, whether lipstick, butch, or androgynous. Indeed, ad execs bank on the belief that the modern lesbian will pay for a commercially cultivated identity all her own.⁹⁴ "These people don't read Better Homes & Gardens," Stevens posits. "They see an ad for a tampon in Deneuve, they'll change their tampon brand."⁹⁵