WHEN SPIKE LEE called lesbian sex writer and educator Tristan Taormino and invited her to be a "technical consultant" on his new film, She Hate Me, she didn't realize that in addition to infusing the script and the actors with dyke realness, her responsibilities would include taking the fall for Lee when lesbians across the country freaked out about his movie.

She Hate Me tracks the downward spiral of Jack Armstrong (Anthony Mackie), a whistle-blowing young African American man who, upon finding himself canned from his Enron-esque job, shamefully consents to impregnating a horde of lesbians for cash. "After seeing the final cut, I knew there [would] be mixed reactions," Taormino remembers. "I said, 'Are we going to screen this?' " She convinced the suits at Sony to gently unleash the film on the sapphic masses, with preview screenings in major cities across the United States. "I felt like there needed to be an opportunity for feedback that was going to be constructive and go directly to Spike."

Village Voice columnist Taormino accompanied the film across the country, facilitating postshow discussions with confused, amused, and super-pissed-off audiences. "There were people who were really angry," she recounts, "and I was there, so that anger got directly put on me." Lesbians have been infuriated by many aspects of She Hate Me, but the central offense is that the gang of baby-hungry lesbians get knocked-up the old-fashioned way – only one woman, stating that she "don't do dick," chooses to go the turkey-baster route, and she fails to get pregnant until she changes her course of action.

Taormino tried to get Lee to incorporate more basters to no avail. "That wasn't really up for debate," she recounts. "We talked early on about [it], and he was like, 'That's not visual – turkey basters, who cares?' I was willing to go there to see what would happen. I know the simple premise offends other lesbians, but it didn't and it doesn't offend me. I'm not the poster child for gold-star lesbians. I know our sexualities can be a lot more fluid, though other people do not agree."

Scenes in which dyke after dyke hits the bed with Jack actually make up the best parts of Lee's rather arduous, occasionally ridiculous, and much-too-long film. A cornrowed bulldagger struts into Jack's home, pronounces him "bitch," and is seen on top, riding him like a shabby pony shortly thereafter. An uptight Smith College student controls the situation with neurotic precision, right down to whether his fingernails are suitably groomed (they're not). A raunchy tattooed rapper – a role originally written for Lil' Kim – hilariously freestyles while getting it on with him in a bathroom.

For her part, Taormino tried to insert as much authenticity into the film as she could. "I had a week before production to spend with the actors who were playing lesbians," she says. "We did this thing called Lesbian Boot Camp where I gave them a packet of readings, [primarily] memoir and first-person narrative. I put together a panel that was mostly lesbians of color from different walks of life, and the [actors] got to grill them and ask them questions. We went out to lesbian bars – that was a nonmandatory field trip. Then I was on the set for most but not all of the days they shot a scene with lesbian characters."

Some criticisms of the movie are accurate and expected: She Hate Me ends with an improbable and, yeah, offensive soul kiss. But other complaints have surprised Taormino, such as one from a viewer who took offense at a character bringing her vibrator along for the ride.

"A woman in the movie says, 'I heard if I have an orgasm it will increase my chance of conception,' " Taormino explains. "I wrote that – that's one of the things I wrote which was translated word for word. I needed someone who was going to articulate, 'If I'm going to do this, I'm going to have a good time.' There's very few representations of vibrators, and the Hitachi Magic Wand is an icon among lesbians. And I feel like it was totally misinterpreted. It was a joke. Some people believe that [idea about orgasm and conception] – it's an old wives' tale – but I like how [the character's] saying, 'My pleasure matters here.' We need to have that message out there more!"

Michelle Tea