Barbara Smith suggested a reading of Sula’s and Nel’s queerness, not necessarily in terms of romantic affect or sexual practice, but in the deeply lesbian affective contours of their sociality. Smith offered that "Sula" is indeed a piece of Black lesbian feminist literature, because of Morrison’s depiction of Black women living their lives outside of/beyond heteronormative expectations for social interaction, suggesting that Black lesbian affect is a phenomenon that renders men irrelevant or periphery in the Sula’s and Nel’s lives. This reading allows the ending of the novel, Nel’s realization that her most profound relationship was with Sula as opposed to Jude, to be seen as Black lesbian feminist affect.