50 Shades of Girl Crush.

In the novel, The Color Purple, Shug serves as an initial symbol of sexuality to Ceelie. While this may be taken as Ceelie being a lesbian and having feelings for Shug, their relationship is much deeper than that. Shug is the first person in Ceelie's life to show her that pleasure can come from sex, and that it is just as much for woman as for men. Up until that moment, Ceelie had been used as a tool for sex and she thought that was how it is supposed to be. Because of this, Ceelie then directs her sexual attention only to Shug because Shug is the only one who has shown her pleasure. She doesn't know that men can do that as well. This is similar to if someone only has had one food their entire life and then they are introduced to pizza. The pizza would then be this fantastic new experience which would become an obsession but surprise there are so many more foods that they don't know about! Shug is just the only form of sexual pleasure she has seen in her life which makes her forward all of her emotions to that. This doesn't necessarily mean that she is not a lesbian but it means that her relationship with Shug does not define her as a lesbian. It just introduces the symbol of sexual pleasure to her.