Previously from Rush
* The kindness of strangers [December 2000]
* The battle for community [November 2000]
* Desperately seeking Diepkloof [October 2000]

FEATURES

"Lesbian chic" is back in fashion?
Milan and Paris have decided that spring/summer 2001 will be awash with ties, braces, jodhpurs and flat chests, but your lesbian chic will unfortunately not be very fashionable if it is accompanied by flats, no makeup and you are on the wrong side of a size 14.

Truth and dare
Two women have made a prize-winning documentary about South Africa's truth commission. They spoke to Andrew Worsdale

Good vibrationsAccording to Channel 4’s A Girl’s Best Friend, two million vibrators were sold in the UK last year. This equals the total sales of washing machines and tumble dryers and means that, when you take into account the number of housewives who use the fast-spin setting for a knee-trembler, four million quivering electrical appliances were sold to a grateful British public last year.

Girls getting themselves all tied up in knots, and loving it
Daniela, Joanne and Nerina go to a novices evening at the San Francisco Women's Building to learn the ropes

Dirty job for sluts and goddesses
Annie Sprinkle on why women find it difficult to deal with pornography and how the debate about women and porn is still in its infancy. Anita Chaudhuri reports.

Edwardian lesbian trysts in women's movement
The diaries of supporter Mary Blathwayt (1908 - 1913), show how complicated sex ual liaisons created rivalries that threatened discord. Vanessa Thorpe and Alec Marsh dig into the archives

Let's hear it for lesbian hedonism
mindless hedonism for lesbians - a kind of gayboy scene for gaygirls - is still in its salad days and female reactions are bound to be different from male ones, thinks Stephanie Theobald

In search of the (lucrative) orgasm
The pharmaceutical goldrush triggered by Viagra has forced female sexual dysfunction out of the bedroom and into the market place. But is it really all about sex and coming, or is some of it about relationships themselves? Maureen Rice investigates