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In Search of Pure Lust documents an important chapter in lesbian history that is already being distorted and erased, a time when lesbians were reinventing everything from the ground up. Along with violence against women around the globe, lesbians of the 1970s and'80s were motivated by growing militarism, rampant development, species loss, and living systems in decline. For many, this was the logical conclusion to a state of law/mind/rule that had prevailed for thousands of years — patriarchy.This is a long overdue and unvarnished insider's account of those times. The memoir, centered in the Northeast U.S. and then later in Quebec, combines a personal story with the story of a political movement. The book is full of celebration, but also depicts the shadow side of the lesbian movement, taking the reader into the bitter squabbles that divided women, both personally and politically. On a deeper level, the memoir charts a long and difficult quest for love. Over and over, the narrator dives headlong into rapturous passions that either fizzle out or come to brutal and ugly endings.In the mid-'80s, when a friend invites her to a Zen retreat, she as desperate enough to say yes. A period of difficult self-examination ensues and, over a period of years, she begins to learn an altogether different approach to desire. The last section of the memoir traces the fallout from that collision between hot-blooded lesbian desire and spacious, temperate Zen mind. What the search for pure lust uncovers, in the end, is something that looks a lot like love.

When Lise Weil came out in 1976, she came out into a land that was all on fire. Lesbian desire was the pulsing center of an entire way of life, a culture, a movement. The air throbbed with possibility. At the center of In Search of Pure Lust is Weil's immersion in this culture, this movement: the grand experiment of lesbian feminism of the'70s and'80s. She and the women around her lived in a state of heightened erotic intensity that was, she believed, the source of their most vital knowledge. Desire was their guiding light. But after fifteen years of torrid but ultimately failed relationships that tended to mirror the tumultuous political currents swirling around her, she had to admit that desire was also a conduit for childhood wounds. It reared its head when she was feeling wary, estranged— abused, even. It flagged when she was fondest and most trusting. And it tended to trump love, over and over again. In the mid-'80s, when a friend asked Weil to accompany her on a Zen retreat, she was desperate enough to say yes. Her first day of sitting zazen was mostly hell—but smitten with the (female) roshi, she stuck with it, later returning for sesshin after sesshin. A period of difficult self-examination ensued and, over a period of years, she began to learn an altogether different approach to desire. Ultimately, what her search for pure lust uncovered is something that looks a lot like love.