Quote - Judith Halberstam

"When Batman and Catwoman try to get it on sexually, it only works when they are both in their caped crusader outfits. Naked heterosexuality is a miserable failure between them .... When they encounter each other in costume however something much sexier happens and the only thing missing is a really good scene where we get to hear the delicious sound of Catwoman's latex rubbing on Batman's black rubber/leather skin. To me their flirtation in capes looked queer precisely because it was not heterosexual, they were not man and woman, they were bat and cat, or latex and rubber, or feminist and vigilante: gender became irrelevant and sexuality was dependent on many other factors....

You could also read their sexual encounters as the kind of sex play between gay men and lesbians that we are hearing so much about recently: in other words, the sexual encounter is queer and the genders of the participants are less relevant. Just because Batman is male and Catwoman is female does not make their interactions heterosexual - think about it, there is nothing straight about two people getting it on in rubber and latex, wearing eyemasks and carrying whips and other accoutrements."


- Judith Halberstam, "Queer Creatures," On Our Backs, Nov/Dec, 1992.

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