33 Deeply Enchanting Feelings You Have About Witchcraft

Our Lesbian Stereotypes Survey asked y’all about your affiliations to witchery, as there has been an association between lesbians and witchcraft for many moons. This includes, most legendarily, Pat Robertson’s famous assertion that “the feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”

Although we don’t know the international rates of witchdom, it does seem like a whole lot of you are indeed witches:

In addition to answering the question, 562 used the “comments” section to share various emotions about the question itself and your own experiences with witchery. We’ll talk a little more about the witchcraft you talked about in a serious way in an upcoming post.

Below is a listling of your commentary on the witchcraft question, ripped mercilessly out of context and pasted here for your spiritual enjoyment.

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1. I just burned my ex’s left-behind Tarot cards while chanting “I will not set myself on fire to keep someone else warm”

2. i just made some pasta and it was witchcraft

3. Geez as a lesbian drummer in a doom metal band I get asked this question all the bloody time…

4. Willow from Buffy changed my liiiife

5. Very rarely I’m like “hmm… but what if I did do witchcraft”
but then…
I don’t

6. I WAS A TEENAGE GOTH. IT’S BASICALLY A REQUIREMENT

7. Well, there was a Buffy/Charmed phase

8. I have seen The Craft several times

9. I had a phase when I was 17… which coincides with when The Craft came out

10. I was Wiccan for a year of high school, like any lesbian

11. Show me a person who hasn’t used the evil eye at least once and I will show you a person who clearly has never lived or loved

12. …I don’t practice witchcraft unless you count the time when I read tarot cards to a Russian friend as a pastime, until I realized she took what I dead seriously and called me a “white witch”

13. My abuela decided I am a pussy and didn’t pass the magic to me

14. I light candles and learn herbs and practice good intentions and once officiated a cat baptism so…. sure.

15. I believe that witchcraft is real but I think it’s not a good idea for my white ass to involve forces I don’t understand or have family connection to into my life like that’s literally the plot of every horror movie

16. Gosh, this is why people think lesbians are awful.

17. SECOND WORST LESBIAN STEREOTYPE

18. Witches are hot AF. Don’t want to be one, do want to date one.

19. I mean… I lived right near Salem Massachusetts for 3 years. These things happen!

20. One day I will end up a witch on the corner with thirteen black cats cursing the prime minister

21. I’m totally cool with burning effigies of conservative politicians

22. I don’t do witchcraft, with the exception of the night before the 2016 election. I looked up a practical magic-esque “how to make a bad thing not happen” spell. Clearly that didn’t work.

23. I have lit a candle in the hopes of getting a research assistant job in the past (it didn’t work)

24. I’m not a witch, but I decorate like one.

25. I burn sage and get my tarot read every once in a while because I live in Los Angeles okay????

26. Lord knows I was casting spells and waiting for my Hogwarts letter when I was a kid.

27. I mean, we all wish we were Hermione, but no.

28. Hogwarts forgot to send me my letter

29. A girl (who in hindsight I definitely had a crush on) did convince me I was a witch in third grade

30. I genuinely don’t understand how someone can practice something that isn’t real, but then I guess I think that describes all religions so… you do you, witches.

31. I wrote an essay about lesbian witches one time.

32. DONT BUY WITCH KITS FROM SEPHORA OKAY?? Just… don’t.

33. I’ve just bought a book about it soooo… tbd

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Riese

Riese is the 41-year-old Co-Founder of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in nine books, magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. She's Jewish and has a cute dog named Carol. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3262 articles for us.

37 Comments

  1. I answered no on this one…

    But does bread-making count? Brewing? Pickling?

    …if so I may need to change my answer.

    • We can’t just loaf around waiting for the answer. We knead to know now. If it is, then we have some serious flour power.

      • I see Kristana has ground out more rye puns. But as we barley about which uses of your wheats make you a witch, I hope others will rise to the occasion and help out, possibly while getting baked. It’s the yeast you could dough.

    • Sorry I couldn’t spice this up with great buns and such but yeah; Kitchen witchin is indeed a thing but it’s only witchcraft if YOU feel like it’s witchcraft.

  2. True story: on my first day of high school, where I knew no one, a girl walked up to me and asked me if I was a witch*. And that’s how I met my best friend in high school.

    * I was wearing a black maxi skirt, a long sleeve black cotton top, black combat boots and a chunky black belt with bits of dead animals and pouches hanging off it, plus I had hair down to my butt and make-up two steps shy of The Crow… so in retrospect the question wasn’t entirely unfounded.

  3. My Ex is a witch, she doesn’t identify as queer though, being a trans girl I begged her to transform me, even though I as a science nerd and skeptic don’t believe in magic, I wasn’t going to pass up the chance.

    She refused on the grounds it would be improper.

    That’s really the only experience I have with witchcraft.

    • Priorities, not improprieties.

      That’s what matters <3.

      Like, oh, actually wanting someone you supposedly care about to get to express and be their own selves…

  4. Thank you for the statistical analysis on witches btw…can we have one on magicians too, and find out whether there’s a Top Hat shortage?

  5. It is good to know that we can find some besom buddies here though.

    Switch witches, one might even say.

    • Ah, I twig to what you’re doing there. If we keep twine, perhaps our fellow commenters will be swept away – or else they’ll decide this is the last straw.

  6. I genuinely can’t remember if the teenage goth requirement comment was mine, but it certainly could be.

  7. I am very upset that I can’t remember my answer to this comment but it definitely involved something about my mother cornering me in Central Park last year and asking me point blank if I was a witch and me being like well if you have to ask

  8. I kind of practiced Wicca when I was 13 for a year. I’d call up the four corners and even made a protection charm. I read so many books on the subject too. I stopped because 1. I grew out of it and 2. It was boring doing stuff by myself. I wanted witchy friends.

  9. I am not a witch but I do believe we are meaning-making creatures and performing rituals can be powerful if we commit to them. #1 sounded like a powerful thing to do for that reason, whether or not you believe in a supernatural component (I do not).

  10. I’ve got no idea what I commented but I’m part of that 1.5% up there and it was probably something about worshipping Hecate but not, like, basing my identity around that.

  11. #1 is a hell of a spell

    I’d describe myself as witchy, but I’ve been reluctant to do spell work because the last few times I did so, no matter how many precautions I took, they BACKFIRED SPECTACULARLY. It’s like i have reverse witch power or I’m being stalked by that genie that grants your wishes but in a way that screws you over.

    (And yet the stuff I make joking comments about come true somehow. It’s like if I joke about something hard enough it becomes A Thing TM – HOWWW)

    Also, my approach tends to be more technomagic + pop culture. I’m not really super connected to nature but I find tech and the Internet and that kind of creative connected energy very powerful.

    • I kind of love this – your serious spells backfire but your jokes come true.

      I can’t figure out how to explain it, but I have similar stuff – where I can look back on my life and see where things I said / wanted cakes true, but when I tried to intentionally manifest something it didn’t work at all.

  12. The closest thing I have to magical powers is gaydar. I’m too nervous to try witchcraft without experienced witchy friends.

  13. These are some of the things that are always a little weird for me because I kind of feel like I experience some seminal queer experiences backwards! I was born to a mother who identified as a witch and insisted to ”train” me as pass on the family gift that she said she held from her father. Becoming my own person (at the same time as acquiring a social identity as a gay person) meant getting the hell away from witchcraft and my ”planned destiny” as a witch! I don’t personally associate it with liberation or my gayness at all.

  14. I have no recollection of this, but there is a family story that when I was five, I told everyone I was going to marry my friend Addie, because her mother was a witch.
    As I don’t remember it, I have no idea if Addie’s mother actually was a witch; if Addie told me we were getting married, and backed that up with promises/threats of witchcraft, or if I wanted to be a witch and thought marrying into a witch family was the way to make it happen.

  15. That’s lower than I expected, but we are on the rise so I am optimistic. So many lovely witches out there we need more gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay ones!

  16. i’m late but…who’s the lesbian drummer for a doom metal band?!
    i need to know for…reasons…

Comments are closed.