Rubyfruit Jungle Analysis

1. Introduction
“Rubyfruit Jungle” is a coming of age novel, which was written by American author Rita Mae Brown in 1971 and published in 1973. Being one of the first “lesbian novels”, it is written in the perspective of 1944 born Molly Bolt and deals with her early life and the problems she goes through, which are caused by sexism and homophobia of other people, who have a problem with her being a lesbian and also not fitting in the mold of a typical woman of the 1950s and 1960s.
Even though there are parallels to Rita Mae Brown’s life, the novel is not an autobiography. Some parts are simply fictional.
The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in the United States has been fighting for acceptance, as well as for the social,

I am going to compare Brown with Molly Bolt in a following chapter.
6. Conversion therapy
“Conversion therapy”, which is experienced by several characters in the novel “Rubyfruit Jungle”, was and is a therapy with the intent of changing one’s sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual, or one’s gender identity from transgender to cisgender. Religious beliefs are often a reason why people undergo it.
Techniques include attempting to “repair” the patient’s masculinity or femininity by getting them to participate in activities that seem typical for that specific gender, like sports for men. But things like that have more to do with gender expression than with sexual orientation. A man can play a sport, have a deep voice, and wear clothes that are considered “masculine, and still be attracted to other men.
Another method is the so called aversion treatment, where the patient is exposed to pain while being shown pictures of homosexual acts, for example two men kissing. After a while of experiencing this method, the patient’s psychological response will eventually be changed, and they will actually feel pain when being in contact with anything