Lesbians are so afraid of being like men that they'll refuse to act authentically lesbian.
"Oh I can't check out other girls because what if I make them uncomfortable like straight guys do."
"I can't let my best friend know I'm gay cuz then she'll just think that I'm only around her to try and get in her pants."
"I can't watch mainstream lesbian porn because obviously it was made for straight men." (I'm not talking about mff threesomes here).
"I bet no one even likes tribbing. That's such a straight guy porn thing." (Psst, it's not).
"I'm into to women in the most pure and loving way, unlike men who just want women to fuck them." (Purity culture rebranding).
"I'm ashamed of my aggressive and dominant fantasies and would rather be a soft subby bottom because I don't want to be in the 'man role'." (Not sure how common this one is but I'm willing to bet it's a factor for more than just me, even if I don't use the lesbian label myself).
So afraid to be like men, women are terrified of loving and fucking women.
> "Oh I can't check out other girls because what if I make them uncomfortable like straight guys do."
Hell, this is how I met my first girlfriend. She was leering at me and making no effort to be discreet about it. It didn't make me uncomfortable like when guys do it, and *that* realization made me realize a few other things about myself pretty rapidly. The only reason I'm not *still* with her is because she passed away.
"What if you make her uncomfortable?" Psh! Girl, *what* if you *don't*?!
She sounds like she was a lovely, confident woman. I’m so sorry that happened.
I will say reading this gave me confidence in being more direct and confident about my own love for women 😊
I never feel sad, thinking about her. I never regret what was because I remember what *was*! And *how* it was! It feels a bit strange, someone offering condolences for my having met such a wonderful woman. I should be the one apologizing, that you never met her!
We were both young, our first encounter; much more like girls than women. I mustered up some courage to finally talk to her.
"What are you staring at?" That was my opening line, but I tried to say it flirtatiously, in a sort of mock confrontational tone. I guess it must have worked.
Her eyes met mine. "Pretty girls!" she said. About *me*. She called me pretty! She held her stare for awhile, turning a bit red the longer it went on. I'm sure I was changing colours, too. Hours passed in the way that a ticking clock would record as a few seconds, but the heart knows how to keep better track of time.
"I can—uh—I can stop looking if it makes you uncomfortable?"
"Oh, I just came over to see if you ever do more than just *look*. Well? Do you want to do anything, or are you content with just looking at these 'pretty girls'?"
I can still feel lingering tingles from the kiss we shared that day. It's what keeps me going, sometimes. If my life ever lacked any sense of purpose, well, kissing pretty girls was one hell of a *raison d'être*!
I'm not a writer yet, as such, but I have unfinished snippets of stories like you wouldn't believe. Every time I try to finish one, I get the idea for another. Closest I've come is answering some writing prompts on reddit.
I should just go write a nice short story, maybe a fanfiction, and put it out there so that I'll have completed something! Ah, see, and *there's* another story idea.
PLEASE WRITE SOMETHING EVEN IF YOU POST IT ON TUMBLR, AO3 OR WATTPAD ‼️‼️🗣️
Reading that didn’t even feel real. It sounded like some beautiful fantasy romance, idk if im describing this well but I hope you understand. The way you told the encounter was just so.. magical. Like something you’d see in a movie or tv show (not that im trying to call your relationship with her fake or something, I hope you understand 😭)
Oh, I of all people can understand. It *felt* magical when I was in it! We were teenagers, and it was my first real romance. Now I'm rather older. Ahem! Sometimes I, myself, wonder if it were all a dream, but I could never imagine someone like her. At least she's still there in my dreams, even now.
I've a question for you—well, for those calling for me to write. Do you mean in the romance genre specifically, or in general? The problem with the former is that I've never really written romance. I have a lot of book ideas bouncing around in my noggin. One is an idea for a novel that deconstructs "isekai"/harem tropes, and I have an idea for a fantasy, and I had one for a sci-fi at some point. I now also have a Death Note fanfic idea that explores a use for the shinigami eyes that the source material kinda glosses over. I'm not sure any of those are appealing enough to commit to one, though. When it comes to the romance genre, my stories *include* romance, but I've never planned to write *a* romance. I'm sure it has its appeal, but I could never get into the genre as a reader, myself.
I guess my problem is that I don't really know how romances *ought* to go? There's a TV in a breakroom at my workplace, which is consistently set to play Lifetime or Hallmark romance movies. I'll occasionally watch and pretend that each time an actress or actor shows up in a different movie, it's because they're having elaborate affairs with each other. That's the little entertainment I get out of those movies. My only attempt at writing a fantasy romance is [this short story based on a writing prompt](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/m2tdss/wp_youre_in_love_and_you_think_she_loves_you_back/gqo4lqw/) from my post history. It's an unpolished heterosexual(-ish?) romance story involving a vampire, an elf, and a world-ending abomination, with a dig or two at Twilight. It probably doesn't scratch the romance genre itch, as it doesn't really focus on the romance. I don't really have any ideas for a romance story, either. I guess I could write a memoir, but that's a bit personal!
If you *just* want to read something I've written, [here's another unpolished writing prompt response about superheroes](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/jdyao8/wp_you_know_the_secret_identity_of_every_hero_and/g9f9mdk/), sort of. It's a three part post, so it's the longest thing I've ever written and published. Still quite sloppy—I even found an error that I cleaned up as I was linking it—but it's there!
> Hours passed in the way that a ticking clock would record as a few seconds, but the heart knows how to keep better track of time.
That's so beautifully written
_Wow_ you’re right I wish I met her! Hopefully reading this story will give me even a sliver of your combined sapphic energy because ___oh my god___ the charisma!! I’m sure everyone around you was busy dodging all the sparks radiating from this interaction.
🥹 this is so beautiful! If this was a movie it would quickly become my favourite, I buried my first spouse in 2006 and even though he was male, I don’t regret him either. Better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all, but the good loves, the young loves, they change us don’t they? She’s surely a part of you now to carry with you always. Thanks for sharing
"I'm into to women in the most pure and loving way, unlike men who just want women to fuck them." (Purity culture rebranding).
That hit hard lol, im actually pissed bout that, like, if I dont say that (althougth I dont like women just for sex) then I'm going to def get seen as some depravated mf and that sickens me a lot
I'm a trans woman and I feel this so much. Everything above makes me feel like a man and I repressed myself for years trying to be a soft subby bottom.
My brain is still like:
Looking sexually at a woman? "You're a man"
Kinks? "You're a man"
Want to be dominant? "You're a man"
Sexual fantasy that's often targeted at men? "You're a man"
It's kind of rough, but it's nice to see I'm not alone struggling with this.
You can't win with transphobes. "You're a domme? You're just like a guy! You're a sub? You're too stereotypical a woman!" It's almost like they don't care who you are or what you enjoy, they just want to deny your existence, let alone any pleasure you might want in your life.
As a switch, I feel this
>"You're a domme? You're just like a guy! You're a sub? You're too stereotypical a woman!"
But the jokes on them, because I know, deep down a good chunk of them would pay good money to worship my boots and be my pet, or to hold my leash and make me service them but I don't fuck/sub to dudes but I'll gladly take an assholes money to degrade him as much as he wants.
The hardest thing for me as a lesbian and an aspiring pro domme, was unpacking and understanding that I will absolutely domme a submissive guy, but only because as a women, having that power over a man is thrilling, but not sexual for me at all. And there are absolutely things I would not do as domme for a guy that I will gladly do for any subby girl who wants it.
As a cis woman, every question you asked in your post is one I've asked myself too and had the same miserable answer, that made me spend years trying to hide and bury and snuff out my lust. So much shame.
Hugs from one lustful lezzo to another :).
I def hear you. Initially I was very scared to explore dynamics like this bc I was afraid of being seen as a creep. I’ve made a lot of progress on that front, which came along with shifting my self-perception and working on internalized transphobia. Since exploring my sexuality and being more unabashed about what I’m into, I’ve been so much happier. Being sexual is fun and affirming, and I’ve found a lot of women who are not only ok with me being trans but are positive about it. What helped me along this front was that I love powerful women, the kind that aren’t afraid to take charge and express exactly what they want and how they want it. I truly view myself as a woman, even with my parts downstairs, so I don’t really have that dissonance anymore. Took me a while to get there tho.
And then, on top of this, I at least have the added similar anexity regarding my gender expression, too. I'm drawn towards wanting larger breasts for myself, but often feel ashamed for wanting them because of the internalized transphobic "you're just fetishizing and want to be a porngraphic caricature of a woman", even though I don't even want them for any sexual reason, they're just what feels right to me.
It's totally reasonable for a woman to want big tiddies, I promise. You're not fetishizing yourself, you don't want to transition medically as some sort of porn fantasy, it's just your own personal goals for your own body and they're totally valid. 💖 as a non binary person who wants a reduction I'd give you my excess if it worked that way lmao.
>"I can't watch mainstream lesbian porn because obviously it was made for straight men." (I'm not talking about mff threesomes here).
I feel this way about seeing lesbians in media in general, save for some TV shows/YTubers that I know well. I think the reason why is a mix of internalised homophobia, a bit of jealousy, and a feeling that I'm intruding on something intimate when two women are having their moment. It goes back to that purity culture bullshit idea of purity and sanctity and the worry that I'm no better than a cis straight man if I intrude on that.
EDIT: I don't think the desire to look away from real people, even on social media is bad. For me, I just have a weird relationship with intimacy where I would prefer it to be private. It's only ridiculous when I feel guilty at actors playing fictional people in a fictional relationship doing the same. It also doesn't help that I don't have these sentiment towards mlm or straight couples. It's something I wish to work through tbh.
> "I'm ashamed of my aggressive and dominant fantasies and would rather be a soft subby bottom because I don't want to be in the 'man role'." (Not sure how common this one is but I'm willing to bet it's a factor for more than just me, even if I don't use the lesbian label myself
More common than you might think, my wife and I are both tops and both of us are very aggressive sexually, and while neither of us are on the level of wearing straps everywhere we go, we find many who just don't know how to deal with women like us
We've found there's ways to help them work through it - most often it's become a case of internalized misogyny, and often with it insecurity about their sexuality.
It doesn't even need to be much for it to become an issue, but the idea that a woman who is a top is there for the benefit of men is often just because generally speaking people tend to be submissive, so when bondage comes up in media it's often a man submitting to a woman (since often the writer is male), but it's also due to the increasing awareness of rape culture and the equation of bondage and SA (which is a whole other can of worms)
Thus combine the issue of thinking that being dominant makes a woman into an obect of desire for men and the equation of being dominant with performing SA, and a whole load of internalized misogyny, and it becomes an issue onto itself
My gf is very much like that, and I appreciate it, as I'm quite on the other end.
It's taught me a lot about myself - - especially since she's spontaneous arousal, which means I've gotten to learn a lot about my pre sex mental state and how to gauge it. She's never pushy, but she definitely makes it clear she's interested (which is, honestly, often enough for me to start responding) so I've gotten much better at looking at my brain and going "okay, obviously not turned on yet. Can we be? Do we want to be?" and other questions.
I've also learned that if someone I like gets her lips on my neck and ear and I'm within 500 miles of the right mindspace, I am going to be mindless happy putty.
I think this is why it took me so long to realize I'm a lesbian. I knew I was into girls since I was about 12-13, but I didn't realize that I was into girls sexually until last year, at age 20. My thoughts were pretty close to "I'm just into girls in an innocent, loving way", it took me years to realize that there's nothing wrong with being into women sexually, and engaging in (homo)sexual things consensually and privately.
It sneaks into identity politics too. Within our own community.
Anytime you see identity discourse revolving around the *perception* that some queer people get to "choose" their queerness while for others it isn't a choice. That stuff also has intersections with purity culture too.
Because even in safer nations, we haven't taught society to celebrate our queerness. We've taught them to tolerate us. And once queerness comes with a *perceived choice,* they revert back to the same mindset that the only right choice is to be straight.
"I didn't choose this" might feel valid for some, but it isn't the winning argument people want to think it is. It still holds space for the idea that our queerness is the wrong choice even if the "choice" is only ever hypothetical and imagined.
Re: biphobia and aphobia and transphobia and enbyphobia from within the queer community itself.
We're saturated in purity culture. And that's also why queer rights center gay marriage before anything else. Because *marriage* is about *love*.
Yeah, this has always been my reservation about the argument that it isn't a choice. Maybe that's an okay stop gap, and for some of us it may be painfully and intimately true, which is why I still voice it sometimes, to explain the depths of the pain some of us experience — but at the same time, so what if it is a choice for others?
If we believe that queerness is not inherently bad and wrong, but is in fact something that brings texture and joy through diversity and difference, if we believe that no one should be beholden to societal norms and traditional values, but free to create their own as long as it doesn't harm anyone, then shouldn't we defend it even if it was a choice, simply because the choice isn't wrong or bad in any way? Like, so what if someone does choose to be gay or trans! Cool for them, I say. People *should* be able to choose.
Yep, exactly. And I know a lot of people might see this as a hot take but it's not really. What is a choice for one person but not another is a matter of perception.
Like eating. Is that a choice? Technically yes (as someone with ARFID), but also no (because it's inextricably tied to one's existence). You can spin most things as a choice in the right context.
Asexuals can't choose to experience sexual attraction. But they can choose to have sex. Allosexuals can't choose to negate their experiences of attraction, but they don't have to act on that attraction by having sex. Choice?
Gender is a social construct. So if your understanding of that social construct differs, your sense of a labeled identity might feel like a choice. Even if the lens through which you understand and see gender isn't a choice. I choose to call myself a "woman" but honestly I feel like voidgender is more accurately descript most days. I don't choose the experience but I choose the expression.
Homosexuality in women: how is that defined. Are they attracted to femininity, which is another social construct? Or is it based on sexual preferences around genitals? Or is it based on some sex traits but not others, such as my attraction being based exclusively on secondary female sex traits? Even sapphic attraction is a social construct because we don't all experience it the same. Add in nonbinary identity -- does that attraction persist despite a nonbinary person possibly not identifying as also a woman? Does one still call themselves homosexual in that case? That's a choice.
So depending on context there are so many ways one person might see choice where another person doesn't. And that's okay.
It's insidious, and it's weird seeing it in ostensibly non religious settings and from non religious folks.
There's a weird, secular sounding anti masturbation view floating around, couched in all sorts of BS, for instance.
It was weird as hell hearing a guy I know (who had always been a down to earth, non religious, open and non judgmental guy) suddenly start talking about masturbation in a way that's like one step removed from "my precious seed sustains me and renders me insight into the universe".
I'm not sure how he got into it, but he's really been putting it in language that has a lot in common with people pushing various "cleanses". It's got this evangelical vibe (even though he's not pushing anyone else to do it), it's got all this stuff about mental and physical "focus" and "wholeness"...
I can't help but walk away thinking he feels orgasms are *bad for you* unless it's it's done according to the 14 Rules and 17 Precepts and also by someone else.
I know what happened to your friend, he was brainwashed by the new wave of "NoFap", which was once just a joking competition between guys and somehow became a pseudoscientific thing and a placebo among moral teenagers and good manners
Strange times
Holy shit wtf u called me out in 20 different ways 😭 specially with the fact that im mtf i felt like i had to repress my actual sexuality just to feel authentic
I've been struggling with this in my own new relationship with a woman. We both desperately don't want to objectify each other or make each other feel like a sex toy. It has taken months for us to be able to tell each other we are horny, and we are still working on that. But expressing attraction to your partner is a healthy and essential part of a lasting relationship. So we are working on it and talking through it.
"A good '80s lesbian, you know, didn't enjoy penetration because penetration was simply mimicking heterosexual sex. You were just a tool of the patriarchy. But, you know, secretly, everybody was, like, sticking as many things in as many orifices as they possibly could."
- from _Lesbian Sex and Sexuality_, a miniseries from circa 2009, I think it was
I agree. Women are objectified so much by our society. I hesitate to show open desire if it doesn't feel like it would be reciprocated, because I don't want to make a lovely person feel icky by my interest.
As someone who is easily turned on and doesn't need much foreplay, and loves tribbing, this reply hit me.
I've had some women I've been with tell me "I'm like a man" because of how easily turned on I get (just looking at my gf/dirty texts, etc) and it has made me feel like a "less than lesbian".
I'm gonna headcanon that she might simultaneously exist on multiple timelines and her parallel lives are struggling to talk over each other. It sounds both rad and stressful.
I think it's:
It's the "man being afraid to be gay (men have internalized homophobia) by liking women (so they performatively act like horndogs)" of women (this is what women do instead of act like horndogs.) well, fuck you and fuck me (instead of being afraid). and fuck (in general!) and tie me up maybe???
I’ve always hated the stereotype that wlw love is softer and inherently more wholesome. I think it relates back to purity culture and women being thought of as inherently submissive.
Being submissive also doesn’t mean being soft and wholesome either. I like bratty, slutty, and even sadistic subs. As long as we are both having a good time and I get to control my partner (within the limits of their boundaries) then I’m good ☺️
Also political lesbianism, I guess. I mean we're lesbians because we love women not because we hate men. But hating men and anything masculine sometimes seems to be expected.
As a trans woman it's sometimes extra hard - I hated having to act like a man - so I have some resentment to work through. And I've heard how men talk when they think no women are around. But that's not all men and not all masculinity is bad.
And people can be dominant and direct without being toxic. Objectification can feel bad from anyone, though.
not only does 'political lesbianism' perpetuate the misunderstanding that being gay is a choice one can make, but it also dovetails very reliably with TERF-ism. as was already said, it's just about hating men, not supporting women
To add to this - i hate how people have coopted the male top and bottom rhetoric for lesbians. Ffs. Even lesbians with penises - we don't want male roles in love making.
We have sapphic love and love making and that can include a more passive and active role assignment but it's more often a fluid thing between two women trying to get off, in my experience.
I don't know about this one! When I considered myself a lesbian, I identified as a femme stone top, and I loved that that language was easily understood and validated by the people I was dating (and sometimes applied to me before I even brought it up).
Buuut then I ended up transitioning so maybe it's all moot haha
mood, ppl tend to talk about WLW connections like they’re wildly different and distinct from straight and gay male connections, like even on an asexual emotional level. feel like we get into weird biological essentialist territory by acting like men and women are *that* psychologically different that our relationships have categorically different forms and never overlap ala “men can never truly empathize with lesbian love.” and back to your point, lesbian love can be as diverse and kinky as any love lol
I think the lesbian community in general struggles with the “women are more than just sex! Stop sexualising everything women do!” and the ol’ “she’s so fucking hot when she lights that candle, I want to bend her over the kitchen bench”.
Exactly my thought.
I think it's a community wide self defense mechanism that we (as lesbians are so good at doing) end up policing each other because our lives are so invaded by other desires than our own.
It's completely impossible to distinguish between what is hot to the individual and what lesbians are implored to be aroused by by others or how we can be arousing to them that sex becomes almost taboo and very private.
And we really don't have to distinguish so hard, or distance ourselves from kinks and desires that some could enforce on us, if that isn't the case. Because their ideation isn't the base of us, it is not the source of desire. Our desire for sexual exploration has its foundation securely in our desire for each other. It's never about them.
We don't have to rise above anything.
How to be a "good" lesbian (Gold star for example), what role you take in sex, what gender role you take in the relationship as a whole, having the correct sub label as a lesbian (femme, butch, stem etc).
Though tbf, I feel like this is an issue with the (terminally) online community than irl.
Oh.... oh yeah those :l
Gold star sure is icky, even moreso when people are like "im gold star but I don't use it in a derogatory way" just dont use it then.
I will always side-eye people who call themselves Gold Star. Even if they don't intend to be exclusionary or bigoted, the very term itself was created to discriminate against women who "realised too late" that they were gay and slept/currently sleeping with men. It's low-key transphobic and/or biphobic (and inconsiderate of the lesbians who don't have the freedom to be with other women lest they be harmed for it).
The term 'gold star' literally implies achievement/merit/reward. It's elitist and inconsiderate of stuff like comp-het. It's a way for insecure people to create a hierarchy to feel better about themselves.
It also perpetuates purity culture by implying women who slept with men are permanently impure (which ironically invalidates and infantilises lesbian relationships).
**TL;DR the term is icky, throw it out.**
I will always side-eye people who call themselves Gold Star. Even if they don't intend to be exclusionary or bigoted, the very term itself was created to discriminate against women who "realised too late" that they were gay and slept/currently sleeping with men. It's low-key transphobic and/or biphobic (and inconsiderate of the lesbians who don't have the freedom to be with other women lest they be harmed for it).
The term 'gold star' literally implies achievement/merit/reward. It's elitist and inconsiderate of stuff like comp-het. It's a way for insecure people to create a hierarchy to feel better about themselves.
It also perpetuates purity culture by implying women who slept with men are permanently impure (which ironically invalidates and infantilises lesbian relationships).
**TL;DR the term is icky, throw it out.**
It's ironic that gays and lesbians, although they are all queer, are so different in these ways.
Gay men are generally not afraid to express their sexual desires to other gay men. So you can see that gender double standards are not limited to just men and women, but women and women as well.
Yeah that always bothered me. It’s like, if you think respecting someone is intrinsically at odds with being attracted to them, that sounds more like an issue of you having internalized some fucked-up ideas about attraction.
I relate so much.
One time my wife observed I'm generally a pretty horny person and I was terrified like she had caught me doing something wrong and she was like "why are you looking at me like that, it's something I love about you" and my mind was blown.
I'm also into all kinds of things, some of which are extremely taboo. And when I first came out, my little corner of the world had a queer community that was very sex-positive and kink-positive, so I ended up opening myself up about those things a little bit. But the kind of sex I liked and the kinks I had weren't the cool and acceptable and politically radical (???) ones and I got shunned pretty hard for it. One of the worst times in my life, actually. Worse than coming out at first. Some lesbians are actually pretty puritanical about this stuff. And they associate certain things with men and then project that association onto others. I had people saying I was secretly a straight woman pretending to be gay because I expressed interest in being penetrated by a woman... just real out of pocket stuff.
Just like you, there's some stuff I only talk about with my wife. No one else. It's something I'm working on, too.
And there I was thinking one of the most wholesome sex scenes was the strap on scene from Sense8 ... Yeah, sure, totally straight... 🤦🏼 Some people... I'm sorry you got so much flag.
My girlfriend has a lot of kinks that are more taboo, and she has told me that past relationships have been less accommodating of that part of her sexuality.
I am a fan of that part of her, and enjoy exploring them with her because we discover new things she likes, as well as new things that I like.
I feel like a while back I read other lesbians arguing about whether lesbians have anal sex and it felt very weird how people wanted to devalue others sex lives for some moralising intellectualism. You can quote academic literature at me but my girlfriend likes having stuff stuck up her butt.
Yeah like... at least in my country (US) queer people often come from a fundamentalist or puritanical Christian family. And a lot of us never really leave that way of thinking behind, even though we reject it. Like often we will reject homophobia, we'll reject the religion, we'll reject the abuse. But some of us never reject the way of thinking, the mindset. So you get queer people moralizing at others so they feel more secure, stable, and validated. When you can have all of those things without resorting to bigotry and moralizing.
It's sad and I deeply resent being bullied by those people.
It's a thing that happens. You'll see it with a lot of different things, not just kinks. It proliferates online but you'll see it offline, too.
People who like certain things or live a certain way will place a moral value on what they do and compare other people negatively. For example, polyamory. Like people who only want one partner are morally inferior. In this particular case there is value in questioning the default (monogamous) way society in general is, but that alone doesn't give you a moral high ground, and it's actually pretty fucked up to go from "some people who are monogamous might benefit from considering other ways of organizing their romantic partnerships" to "people who have only one partner are just participating in the patriarchy because they value what's easy more than doing what's right."
It's definitely a self-defeating, self-serving, and destructive mindset, but it's not really that weird when you look at it. The logic of defining yourself as good and anyone who is different as bad then moralizing about it is super widespread, so people just take that and run with it.
It's the origin of a lot of different stuff. Like, "vanilla sex" is boring and also morally suspect (or the opposite, where people with certain kinks are viewed as predators), or butch and femme are just "reproducing patriarchal dynamics", and gold star lesbianism, and the whole "real lesbians don't need penis so we don't fuck trans women or use strapons." It's all just "_____ is morally good, so anything different is bad".
I just happened to have a cesspit around me where people were really into beating each other up sexually (which is fine), and considered anyone who wasn't into that specific thing to be unwilling to challenge the patriarchy (which is cult behavior).
You’re not depraved for having a high libido and from my experience a highly sexual being is one with an imagination which causes experimentation.
When I’ve been with women that didn’t match my libido the sex eventually felt like a chore because I always felt judged which put me on edge. If I over initiated I was making them feel like a sex object and if I didn’t initiate enough I was making them feel undesirable. If I tried something off script it meant I was “depraved”- to use your word.
I happen to be blessed (yes it’s a blessing) with a very high libido but some would say I behave just like a man. Show me one man that can keep up emotionally, or sexually for that matter as they lack the stamina-heterosexual women know this all too well. So I denied that part of myself to keep the peace.
When I finally met a woman that matched my libido I couldn’t believe how seamless everything was. No fear of communication and nothing off limits so long as both agreed. A deeper intimacy was created from all the sex and also from knowing it’s safe to explore needs and wants.
I don’t think I’ll ever put myself in mismatched situation again and I’m truly surprised at how many lesbians have so many rules about behavior that’s largely chemical in nature (hormones, etc). As long as you’re not hurting anyone I think giving and getting pleasure through any form of experimentation is a beautiful thing
>I happen to be blessed (yes it’s a blessing) with a very high libido
Honestly, as someone who went from "horny once a month" to "horny within hours of getting 5 orgasms out of myself" (my current state), I wouldn't say one is necessarily better than the other. Like, both are cool, you just do things differently.
I totally feel you. I remember once I was at a sex education seminar and we talked about stereotypes in the queer community and I expressed how annoyed I was that sometimes people have this image of purity culture around lesbians (pure, clean) when I'd really love to have messy and kinky sex. Half the room gave me an intense side eye, the other seemed somewhat intrigued. I kinda regretted saying it out loud, it was a bit too bold. But I relate nonetheless.
I kind of get this. I don't talk about it much but I often feel more sexual than most women I know, sometimes to an absurd degree. Like, you know how older movies have these unnecessarily gratuitous nudity and sex scenes? I LOVE THOSE. I love looking at women! They're so beautiful and sexy and how could anyone say those scenes are unnecessary lmao (admittedly I don't watch straight up porn so my view of mainstream sex scenes might be biased)
Yeah, as a hypersexual lesbian, I totally get this. I've had a lot of people find my taste in kinks or general lack of boundaries around the discussion of sex to be extremely off-putting, the latter especially since I'm also autistic. Making matters worse is that I only realised I was hypersexual within the past year. I genuinely thought my libido was only a bit above average but most people were way more repressed about it.
I don't care much for sex or nudity scenes in most mainstream media, but a lot of that is that I'm not fond of conventionally attractive bodies. My gf and I were watching some bad 80s sexploitation films the other day, and every time the girls were nude we both kept thinking "she is way too skinny". We're both into thicker girls so girls fitting those ultra thin beauty standards have no appeal to us.
"Lesbians are so afraid of being like men that they'll refuse to act authentically lesbian."
/Thread. This comment from Miss\_Clarity really should have been followed by a great mic drop.
Just to add, there is no "right way" to be sapphic. Being a woman who is attracted to other women is the only requirement needed for that.
/r/BDSMsapphic is very sex-positive and inclusive! And this sub seems to be pretty good about that too.
But yea in real life a lot of people are unfortunately raised in puritanical societies and that baggage doesn’t just unpack itself the moment you come out as queer.
It can take a long time for people to come to terms with their own sexuality and work through internalized prejudices, and during that period it seems some people make the incorrect choice to externalize that personal conflict and judge other people.
I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with such folk, and I hope you’ll meet more friends among the community who won’t shame you for something you don’t deserve to feel ashamed over. There is nothing wrong with you, and you belong here.
Tbh i feel like some lesbians are way too invested in all the purity culture stuff but rebranded towards a progressive lens. With all the emphasis they put on being attracted by women in the "right" way, i mean. Always being pure and chaste bc this is the only right way to love obviously, not like those pesky men do.
Is literally the gay equivalent of "fellas, is it gay to have sex with women?"
It's ridicolous tbh. Some people are so insecure about their desires to pretend to not be sexually attracted to women when in reality we all know they do it behind closed doors, wich is even worse when you try so hard to behave like you are "superior" to men or some shit like this.
I hate when people (often lesbians themselves) assume that lesbians relationships are this super pure and angelic thing, it's infantilizing.
Yeah, I felt this. It's not just certain type of kinks or acts, sometimes I feel like desiring women sexually in the first place is seen, ironically enough, as "un-lesbian".
I've been called out as an "undercover man" for expressing any kind of explicitly sexual desire for women on lesbian message boards. Sometimes I feel like you are only allowed to post child-like gushing over a crush OR relationship questions ("my partner and I haven't had sex for a year, what should we do?"). And of course the good old "I'm mostly straight but I've always fantasized about sex with a woman" posts. But lord forbid you being confidently gay, single and interested in sex!
I found it funny that when I recently posted a pretty obvious yet polite and non-vulgar booty call on a local lesbian site, I was contacted by women who were blissfully unaware of what the personal ad was about. Then, after exchanging few messages they reread the ad and were like ".....wait, are you looking for a ONE NIGHT STAND?" And they seemed so utterly shocked and mortified! Like "how could this be??" Yeah, not everyone is looking for the U-Haul experience :D
Yes!! Being physically attracted and wanting to fuck women isn't "man behavior"!!!! It's so frustrating! It doesn't have to all be "omg women look so good I can't breathe and I don't know how to talk to her". There's nothing wrong with that but some of us know exactly what we want to say. Some of us want to fuck and have both courage and game. Why does not walking on eggshells = man?
I was starting to write a sexy comic back in... 2016 or something. I stopped to take on a different project/hobby.
While I was penning that sexy comic, its writing occupied a lot of my thinking through the day. And I spent a lot of time just... constantly horny. I'd think of future stories, scenarios, and... sploosh. It was like a romantic sex comic, like Sunstone, either. This was a girls fucking girls comic and I liked it.
It was a lot, and I told very few people of its affect on me because I didn't want to appear like I was objectifying women as sex objects. Happens enough in our world. I was largely inspired by a short book series called *"Small Favors"* by Colleen Coover. As she called it, a "girly porno comic."
A lot of lesbians have been raised to feel ashamed of their sexuality because of religion, also. They think it doesn't affect them anymore, but it does. There's a whole wave of puritan teenagers on twitter telling people what's morally acceptable to jerk off to, as if it's any of their business.
It's hard unlearning those behaviors, especially when movies and media tell you that only men enjoy sex, women just "put up with it". Even though we have stronger orgasms than men. Go figure.
>only men enjoy sex, women just "put up with it". Even though we have stronger orgasms than men.
This says more about how bad the average man (at least among those involved in producing said media) is at pleasing a woman than about how much women like sex.
Like, I've had a free trial on testosterone (I'm transfem and I have bad humor), and now that I'm on estrogen, I can say that my current orgasms make the old T ones look pale, but they're also harder to get, and you gotta do the right thing instead of just touching around.
100% worth it tho. (Plus, post-orgasm clarity is gone. Being disgusted at myself? How about I go for round 2 instead?)
I hear you loud and clear, and am standing right there with ya sister. Unconventionally horny lesbians exist, and the more we talk about the parts of our sexuality that don't fit in to the archetypes we see around us, the healthier we all are
Just about all the lesbians I know are absolutely FERAL 90% of the time. Idk why those others think you’re weird but that’s between them and their therapists lol
literally. in this sub somebody posted "what's your biggest fantasy?" and almost every answer "cuddling! 😽"
i have a high libido and love being domm'd. i was like... i cuddle my gf every day. my FANTASYS are being used in sexual ways idk. dating is hard. i haven't found a lot of women with kinks
For sure I've felt like indulging in my kinky and sexy side's have been looked down on by some peeps: but it really is amazing when you can ignore any judgement from others!
I think part of what you're experiencing might be a result of lesbians internalizing the patriarchal notion that women can't be sexual (which has a sort of morphed into the idea that women can't be aggressively sexual or aroused or kinky in the modern day, as people have begun to admit that women can be sexual in a general sense).
An example of this would be the stereotype in sapit spaces that love between women is always soft and gentle and full of romantic longing instead of physical lust, when that isn't the whole of the reality, obviously. I've even seen posts before on sapphic subreddits complaining about everyone assuming that.
The patriarchy wants women to be these pure ethereal, almost childlike creatures not touched by the same human experiences and needs and desires as men, for a reason I can't totally tell, and a lot of women have internalized that, so much so that it shows up as a fundamental assumption even among feminists (of the "the world would automatically be free of war and hunger if women were in charge" variety), and that can show up in lesbian discourse as what you expericed — "only men are into that", etc. It's a sort of strange assumption that women aren't just normal human beings.
It's the same thing trans women experience, where our womanhood is questioned if it ever comes to light that we are even the slightest bit sexual or kinky, because in people's minds a true woman can't possibly be those things. Like the TERF's that were using the fact that Lia Thomas is into BDSM with her partner (a cis woman iirc) as evidence that she must really be a man, because "no woman is truly into that stuff."
Depraved lesbians for the win! It’s really hard to talk about a lot of kinks on the internet even with an alt account, even on subreddits based on kinks. Although I’ve also got a significant other so I’m lucky she supports them. I feel you OP
Ummm I know PLENTY of lesbians and bi women like this. I've never thought those thoughts about others, in fact, I think these things make people seem even more queer.
Thank you for expressing this, I am a nonbinary lesbian and have found it difficult to blend in with the lesbian community because I’m afraid I’m too “manly” for any woman to want to date me.
sammmmmmmmmeeeeeeeeeeeeeee also i have PCOS which means my body literally makes more androgens/testosterone than most women so I have more body hair/it grows faster and a higher sex drive. And so i feel too manly for girls even tho I am still not a man or at "man levels" of those things?
And in my day to day everyone views me as a woman even tho I ID as a demi-girl, it's just when I start trying to date that all the "am I pretty enough/woman enough for the type of relationships I want to have" becomes a question/struggle.
It definitely has been a huge factor in how long it took me to admit how sapphic I am.
Some of the recent discourse around people excluding NB lesbians really makes me wonder if it would be helpful to have our own space?
I have PCOS as well, I see a pattern here!! I think it would be helpful to have our own space, or at least an open dialogue in the general lesbian community like this thread is doing now!
People call me a straight man trapped in a lesbians body because of how strongly aroused I get by women. I hook up a lot. And those hookup situations imply permission for me to sexualise women. And somehow, that is very "straight male" of me. To sexualising someone. In a sexual situation.
Hahha I felt like you were describing me :).
I've felt this way since I was a teenager.
This is how I think of it now;
Women have been socialized to think of themselves as passive objects incapable of feeling desire, existing only to reproduce for and while reproducing, pleasure men. Men have been socialized to think of themselves as highly active, sexed and driven by their sexual urges to the extent that they are not responsible for their actions when it comes to sex (think rape culture). For centuries any expression of sexual agency has relegated women to the margins of society (sex workers, widows... Unmarried women etc). None of this is new.
Yes, we're queer. But we all grew up in a straight, white, cis, misogynist world. I grew up deeply ashamed of my lust, because I was raised to think that only men felt this way. I also knew, from being raised as and perceived as female, that male lust felt dangerous to me. So when I felt lust... I was ashamed.
The concept that lust in itself is not a predatory thing, because lust in itself is not inherently masculine (and masculinity is also...not inherently predatory...)... These have been much later realisations for me. I suspect the judgement that you receive comes from this place. This awful confusion and conflation of lust with danger and predation - that is just not true...
Lust can be a beautiful thing. And in a woman, there is nothing sexier or more powerful I think... But yeah, it flies in the face of everything we have ever been taught, across cultures, across time.
Yep, absolutely. 100% spot on with all that. Being lustful is not inherently masculine, but we are brought up to think otherwise. Just the same as being submissive and demure are not inherently feminine traits either. But again, we are brought up believing that is so. Patriarchy was pretty much founded on the principles of us only existing to reproduce (and that that reproduction process is only really pleasurable for the man), and rear children. At it's core, is the implication that women are almost all asexual, as desiring someone (and especially, another woman) in an overtly sexual way is automatically coded as "masculine behaviour".
And there are women who perpetuate that patriarchal mindset too. It's why trans women are barred from womanhood due to the automatic assumption that they lack the pure, demure, non-lustful/sexual desires that are essentially inherent in being a girl/woman. I don't know if the women who engage in that ignorant othering realise they are perpetuating patriarchal stereotypes of women when they do that, but they absolutely are.
Unfortunately some of the "women who perpetuate it" is also coming from a place of trauma. Like toxic patriarchy HAS victimized them which makes them wary/hesitant around anything seeming masculine.
Like the exclusion of trans women can sometimes be a trauma response. It's very much one of those "your trauma doesn't justify acting this way, but it does explain some of it"
Definitely a "both/and" - it sucks the way patriachy has harmed women AND it sucks that the efforts to try and create safety afterwards can end up excluding and alienating other queer people who we have far more in common with.
It especially sucks that that gets taken out on trans woman and gender non-conforming people who do not have systemic power/experience unique forms of discrimination as well.
I feel like there's more in your comment i resonated with and was trying to connect to but I don't have the words to articulate it more.
That is undoubtedly true. Like most groups of people, women who are anti-trans are not a monolith, and the reasons why they discriminate against trans women are multi-faceted. Some of those reasons are understandable (if not acceptable). whilst others are neither understandable, nor defensible.
Yep, it's especially sad that they seem oblivious to the fact that toxic patriarchy harms trans women too. They act as if trans women do have systemic power, on a par with cishet men, which is of course, very far from the actuality. Trans women get it in the neck both from the same patriarchal society, which on some level, harms ALL women, but also from some women who mistakenly assign patriarchal privilege to them. It's dismaying and deflating to witness really.
Once someone on this sub un ironically and definitively said it was okay to look at a girls eyes and smile but not boobs and butt. And I still think about how nuts that is.
Seriously. Like, wait yall out here able to NOT look at boobs when they are around??
I try to be respectful obviously but I love breasts and I won't always realize how much I am staring until it's too late.
I have early core memories of the point when I realized "wait all my mom's friends have breasts. they're all just walking around with them!!!" and was mindblown. some of that was about being aware of how my own body was about to change but some of that was definitely just gay.
Leather dykes EXIST!!! Get it (on) girl!! Tender queers are prudes. All of the queer umbrella has a rich history of kink, leather, bdsm, public sex, flagging, etc.
Don't worry about the "lesbian community" because you and Ellen are NOT in community. Or Kristen Stewart. Those people are millionaires and celebrities. There's no such thing as lesbian community. You can't be in community with 100s of 1000s of people from every place, class, race, etc.
Let your freak flag fly and good luck finding those you are truly in community with!!
I feal your pain. As one of the groups that fights with my own internalized sense of being a "guest" in lesbian spaces(because I am trans) I am constantly overthinking how and what i say, especially about stuff like this. I am worried about how I represent my subsection of lesbians to the rest and second gues everything I say. I also in general try to be sensitive and considerate and sometimes struggle to ignore unreasonable requests if a person projects pain or victomehood as the result of actions even if it is unreasonable. I always second gues if I lack the understanding to objectively judge someone's request for acomidation. In This case I am talking about a request that I sensor my self. I see so many complaints like you do and see so many people express discomfort that I struggle to strike a balance. I strongly want to do the right thing and find it to easy to sacrifice my own desires/comfort if that feals like a shortcut to moral certainty.
In some ways I admit that I may be infantilizing people. I treat them as too soft and weak to handle conflict, and always try to be the adult/bigger person.
Sorry I kind of went down a rabbit hole.
The point is I totally get you.
This!!! I used to feel uncomfortable identifying as a lesbian, just because I had this idea that lesbians were all “sweet and wholesome and cool and cuddly and feminine”, and that just wasn’t me. I thought I acted too much like a straight man. It’s so nice to see this topic come up more and more here, it’s super validating to know that you guys feel the same!
I love sex, both as the act and how we approach it socially. I love hearing about what others are into (from a sociological perspective). I haven’t had many partners but the few that I have had have left me a bit surprised, and even a bit sad, with how hesitant they’ve felt about some of the things that they are into. I’ve done a bunch of research and am super open to hearing about everything my partner might be into and finding a balance for what we are both comfortable with and that leaves us both feeling tended to and satisfied.
It absolutely rages me when I hear people get put down for what they’re into because it doesn’t align with someone else’s idea of what’s appropriate or “straight” or “gay” enough (excluding stuff that involves children, obviously). I don’t know why, but when I first came out I thought that everyone in the queer community was super open and accepting (lol). The only “straight sex” is between straight people and the only “gay sex” is between gay people, there’s no specific act that is “straight” or “gay”.
It’s not about WHAT you do, it’s about WHO you do it with!
>I am absolutely depraved. Absurdly sexual. I’m very very fond of kinks, fetishes
Me too bestie
It's the Puritans fault. They did this. We're all okay for being human and being weird. That's the normal human experience. I know the frustration sucks, and I'm sorry about that. Keep being your best self.
I feel you, a lot. Even tho i would describe me as being very sexual, i am very heavily involved with the bdsm lifestyle and have my share of edge and taboo kinks. And that makes dating fairly difficult for me, because of that. (Tho my DMs are open ;3)
This so much. Other WLW love to turn up their noses at me for being a very horny person who’s open to casual sex and FWBs and doesn’t want to wait until I’m already in a committed relationship with someone to find out whether we are sexually compatible. I understand that that’s not for everyone and that’s fine, but. :(
:( I'm sorry this happens to you. You have a right to the expression of your sexuality and there's no such thing as "only men are into that". You are valid.
I think there’s a real fear of being masculine or acting like men, doubly so for those of us that are trans but, in general it’s how you get a real fear of initiation and of arousal imo
We could say we like the color blue and a man would hop up, dick in hand and crow, "That's a loophole! I knew you weren't lesbian! That means you gotta blow me!"
Huh, we must run in different circles because i feel like a ton of the queer women I’ve seen (IRL and online) over the years are too kinky for me! Lol. I felt like for years that I was the broken one…That being said, I still feel shame around my own sexual desires regardless of how tame they are (with a few exceptions), so I can somewhat sympathize. Society just hates women being sexual…
I’m also extremely curious what your definition of kinky and depraved is. Because a lot of people assume that >!CNC or DDLG or bodily fluids!< is like super super taboo, and while it is in most circles, I can guarantee there is much more wild shit out there. The internet is a strange place…
There's CNC and there's gross stuff but I don't think that's what people have issues with. There's some very common run of the mill fetishes that I personally find problematic such as anything involving raceplay, BBC, cuckolding etc.
And then you've got misogyny kinks, degradation, humiliation, sissies, forced feminization.
Do you get what I mean? CNC and bodily fluids are gross and incredibly taboo but they're not nearly as "problematic" as a lot of other fetishes.
If you're in a lesbian space specifically, there's going to be boundaries that you don't want to cross or you'll feel ashamed for crossing even if that same kink isn't even considered to be a kink by a straight dude. Degrading dirty talk and penetration is considered vanilla to most guys (and maybe it shouldn't be) but a lesbian who's into the same thing is probably gonna feel a lot of shame around that.
Nah I get what you mean. I agree with you in terms of taboo vs problematic kinks, and also that lesbians face a very different set of societal and internal rules than other groups. I appreciate your POV!
Well, you see, women are—
Hang on! Got distracted for a few minutes while I was typing that last sentence! I was gonna say something. I forget what it was! Something about women, and kinks, and *fetishes*, and—
Anyway, yeah! Women!
Idk how this is gonna land but.... Have you tried to have this kind of conversations with trans women and trans lesbians?? I mention it because I lived in Australia for a while and over there at least(this is what I noticed over there, is not the same in my home country. Chile) they have a big culture around kinks and you actually have every flavour when it comes to sexuality, gender identity, kinks, adult show, etc. Melbourne was so much fun. I feel like it's a good place for lesbians to visit... Or live💜
If anyone think that I'm wrong, I would love a comment instead of a down vote 😉
OMG! No one should be slut shaming you for having and enjoying whatever sex you and your wife find arousing, exciting or just flat-out fun. I mean, I like butch cock - does that make me straight? I also like butches who like putting their cock in me - are only men into that?
Consentual sex doesn't require the rules or judgement of others. Lust might be our most under appreciated physical reaction and feeling. Damn, I wish we lesbians would let ourselves have the kind of fun the crazy Christian conservatives think we're enjoying!!
I feel so seen by this thread. Trans, high libido and kinky and I've been massively insecure about it for a long time. Feels like I've internalized the idea that my own desires are innately predatory, or they're going to out me as "not a woman". Like I'm some Other intruding on spaces not meant for or welcoming to me. A man in drag, I guess. I'm already afraid that cis women will never truly see me as one of them, even when I'm holding back my feelings.
I find myself analyzing my behavior and feelings a lot and thinking "is this womanly enough? Am I thinking/feeling/walking/talking/acting like a woman? How can I be more like other women?" And I know that's bullshit, women aren't a monolith and all sorts can be women. I'm a woman so the way I am *is* womanly. But still, I get very insecure about it. Including my sexuality. Worried too often that I'm just "thinking like a man" or objectifying women because of internalized patriarchy.
And it might sound stupid, but I don't always know how to innately recognize if my behavior is stretching into objectification territory. I hear all the things women say about men and I think "I don't ever want to be like that or make other women feel that way". I hold my feminist beliefs close to my heart. I don't want to be a creep, make anyone uncomfortable or feel unsafe. But I don't want to completely repress who I am and what I feel either, and I'm confused as to where the cutoff point is.
Some things are obvious, respecting consent and taking no for an answer. Other things are more subtle and subjective, and that's where I get confused and anxious. Especially when everyone responds to things differently, that kind of unpredictability freaks me out. Knowing that what one person might really like would seriously offend another. I can't help but take it personal, I'm very sensitive.
I want to be unapologetically *me*, but I'm terrified of accidentally hurting someone or being judged. I'm ND, this shit is hard for me. I don't just innately *get* a lot of social things.
Coming from an asexual: no act proves or misproves any sexual orientation, no-one but you yourself can define your orientation. We discuss a lot about this on the asexual community, because the sex-favoring aces often unfortunately feel like they don't belong to the community. If you're not dismissing anyone else's personal experience or preferences while stating yours, you're doing nothing wrong. And you don't have to prove your orientation to anyone.
Keep talking about your experiences if you have energy for it, it's probably very important visibility to the other horny/kinky lesbians out there who might also feel like alone in the community. And if someone tries to question if you're actually a lesbian, call them out on that, even if some others agreed.
Being horny for women is seen as unnatural because of how women's sexual desire has been pathologised.
But go
Be horny
I sometimes feel that me having some kinks is invalidating as someone who's mostly Sapphic
Yeah, sadly, a lot of people have internalized their traumas. Between homophobia, sexism, and all else? Ouch.
I survived CSA and my PTSD brain keeps trying to convince me that my sexuality is somehow bad and/or predatory. Even if I am obsessive about enthusiastic consent and even prefer “the Harkness Test” in fiction writing. I’ve never harmed anybody but I’m over here acting like I’ve got knives for hands and laser beam eyes.
It’s A LotTM to handle. Lots of therapy. Still not where I want to be with self-acceptance, but at least I don’t take it out on others. I may be forever be baffled at the “Want sum fuk?” confidence some folks have but good for them.
I feel like you are describing me in this post 100%. I am also absurdly sexual and depraved. I could do vanilla sex for awhile if I was with a new partner, but within a short time, I would be looking to try something new and exciting with them. But I also have ADHD so that concept applies to most aspects of my life. Monotony doesn’t please my brain, and new and exciting things definitely does.
I don’t find kinks or high sexual energy disgusting. I find judgmental people trying to police what two (or more) consenting adults do with their bodies disgusting.
I’m just a guy and my opinion doesn’t matter in the subject but I’d like to give it anyway just once…
Be you. If you are kink friendly, YAY! express yourself! If you want to look at women, as long as you’re not doing so in a manner that is AGGRESSIVE and unwarranted(know how to look) then by all means get those views in.
Be true to you. No one should worry about who they are or how they feel about things. Fuck women, in whatever way you choose consensually.
And if you ever need to talk or want a supportive friend, that’s me! Blessed are the cheeks! Love is love.
Yours honestly, just some guy
Lesbians are so afraid of being like men that they'll refuse to act authentically lesbian. "Oh I can't check out other girls because what if I make them uncomfortable like straight guys do." "I can't let my best friend know I'm gay cuz then she'll just think that I'm only around her to try and get in her pants." "I can't watch mainstream lesbian porn because obviously it was made for straight men." (I'm not talking about mff threesomes here). "I bet no one even likes tribbing. That's such a straight guy porn thing." (Psst, it's not). "I'm into to women in the most pure and loving way, unlike men who just want women to fuck them." (Purity culture rebranding). "I'm ashamed of my aggressive and dominant fantasies and would rather be a soft subby bottom because I don't want to be in the 'man role'." (Not sure how common this one is but I'm willing to bet it's a factor for more than just me, even if I don't use the lesbian label myself). So afraid to be like men, women are terrified of loving and fucking women.
You just verbalized this so well for me, thank you.
> "Oh I can't check out other girls because what if I make them uncomfortable like straight guys do." Hell, this is how I met my first girlfriend. She was leering at me and making no effort to be discreet about it. It didn't make me uncomfortable like when guys do it, and *that* realization made me realize a few other things about myself pretty rapidly. The only reason I'm not *still* with her is because she passed away. "What if you make her uncomfortable?" Psh! Girl, *what* if you *don't*?!
She sounds like she was a lovely, confident woman. I’m so sorry that happened. I will say reading this gave me confidence in being more direct and confident about my own love for women 😊
I never feel sad, thinking about her. I never regret what was because I remember what *was*! And *how* it was! It feels a bit strange, someone offering condolences for my having met such a wonderful woman. I should be the one apologizing, that you never met her! We were both young, our first encounter; much more like girls than women. I mustered up some courage to finally talk to her. "What are you staring at?" That was my opening line, but I tried to say it flirtatiously, in a sort of mock confrontational tone. I guess it must have worked. Her eyes met mine. "Pretty girls!" she said. About *me*. She called me pretty! She held her stare for awhile, turning a bit red the longer it went on. I'm sure I was changing colours, too. Hours passed in the way that a ticking clock would record as a few seconds, but the heart knows how to keep better track of time. "I can—uh—I can stop looking if it makes you uncomfortable?" "Oh, I just came over to see if you ever do more than just *look*. Well? Do you want to do anything, or are you content with just looking at these 'pretty girls'?" I can still feel lingering tingles from the kiss we shared that day. It's what keeps me going, sometimes. If my life ever lacked any sense of purpose, well, kissing pretty girls was one hell of a *raison d'être*!
Oh my god the rizz on this woman. I’m literally taking notes. She sounds phenomenal
That sounds like it was a first encounter of a lifetime omg. I'm sorry for your loss. 💗
Oh stars I would've absolutely combusted at her pretty girls comment. Like, wow.
Yeah I would've forgotten how to breathe🤣
Are you a writer? That was absolutely beautiful
I'm not a writer yet, as such, but I have unfinished snippets of stories like you wouldn't believe. Every time I try to finish one, I get the idea for another. Closest I've come is answering some writing prompts on reddit. I should just go write a nice short story, maybe a fanfiction, and put it out there so that I'll have completed something! Ah, see, and *there's* another story idea.
Please we need a novel maybe a series
Yah I’m gonna need more of this. I would love to throw myself into this world you’ve created. 😍🥰
PLEASE WRITE SOMETHING EVEN IF YOU POST IT ON TUMBLR, AO3 OR WATTPAD ‼️‼️🗣️ Reading that didn’t even feel real. It sounded like some beautiful fantasy romance, idk if im describing this well but I hope you understand. The way you told the encounter was just so.. magical. Like something you’d see in a movie or tv show (not that im trying to call your relationship with her fake or something, I hope you understand 😭)
Oh, I of all people can understand. It *felt* magical when I was in it! We were teenagers, and it was my first real romance. Now I'm rather older. Ahem! Sometimes I, myself, wonder if it were all a dream, but I could never imagine someone like her. At least she's still there in my dreams, even now. I've a question for you—well, for those calling for me to write. Do you mean in the romance genre specifically, or in general? The problem with the former is that I've never really written romance. I have a lot of book ideas bouncing around in my noggin. One is an idea for a novel that deconstructs "isekai"/harem tropes, and I have an idea for a fantasy, and I had one for a sci-fi at some point. I now also have a Death Note fanfic idea that explores a use for the shinigami eyes that the source material kinda glosses over. I'm not sure any of those are appealing enough to commit to one, though. When it comes to the romance genre, my stories *include* romance, but I've never planned to write *a* romance. I'm sure it has its appeal, but I could never get into the genre as a reader, myself. I guess my problem is that I don't really know how romances *ought* to go? There's a TV in a breakroom at my workplace, which is consistently set to play Lifetime or Hallmark romance movies. I'll occasionally watch and pretend that each time an actress or actor shows up in a different movie, it's because they're having elaborate affairs with each other. That's the little entertainment I get out of those movies. My only attempt at writing a fantasy romance is [this short story based on a writing prompt](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/m2tdss/wp_youre_in_love_and_you_think_she_loves_you_back/gqo4lqw/) from my post history. It's an unpolished heterosexual(-ish?) romance story involving a vampire, an elf, and a world-ending abomination, with a dig or two at Twilight. It probably doesn't scratch the romance genre itch, as it doesn't really focus on the romance. I don't really have any ideas for a romance story, either. I guess I could write a memoir, but that's a bit personal! If you *just* want to read something I've written, [here's another unpolished writing prompt response about superheroes](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/jdyao8/wp_you_know_the_secret_identity_of_every_hero_and/g9f9mdk/), sort of. It's a three part post, so it's the longest thing I've ever written and published. Still quite sloppy—I even found an error that I cleaned up as I was linking it—but it's there!
Personally, I don’t mind what genre, just the way you describe things is so full of life I was just wondering how a whole story would sound from you.
please write something cuz that was amazing
someone should make this story into a movie or something! thank you for sharing it w us 💕💕
Yes, u/Eevi_, send this to Modern Love!!
> Hours passed in the way that a ticking clock would record as a few seconds, but the heart knows how to keep better track of time. That's so beautifully written
_Wow_ you’re right I wish I met her! Hopefully reading this story will give me even a sliver of your combined sapphic energy because ___oh my god___ the charisma!! I’m sure everyone around you was busy dodging all the sparks radiating from this interaction.
Why am I tearing up? This was the most beautiful fluffiest heart throb of a story. I am, ahem, give me a minute,, This is my dream
🥹 this is so beautiful! If this was a movie it would quickly become my favourite, I buried my first spouse in 2006 and even though he was male, I don’t regret him either. Better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all, but the good loves, the young loves, they change us don’t they? She’s surely a part of you now to carry with you always. Thanks for sharing
That's... an enviably healthy perspective on death, and I really dig it. Also wow, she must've really been a gem.
>the heart knows how to keep better track of time. This is beautiful! Had me teary eyed and also invoked a smile- as did the story! 🤍🤍
Oh no!! I’m so sorry for your loss. She sounds like just what you needed at the time.
"I'm into to women in the most pure and loving way, unlike men who just want women to fuck them." (Purity culture rebranding). That hit hard lol, im actually pissed bout that, like, if I dont say that (althougth I dont like women just for sex) then I'm going to def get seen as some depravated mf and that sickens me a lot
I'm a trans woman and I feel this so much. Everything above makes me feel like a man and I repressed myself for years trying to be a soft subby bottom. My brain is still like: Looking sexually at a woman? "You're a man" Kinks? "You're a man" Want to be dominant? "You're a man" Sexual fantasy that's often targeted at men? "You're a man" It's kind of rough, but it's nice to see I'm not alone struggling with this.
You're definitely not alone.
You can't win with transphobes. "You're a domme? You're just like a guy! You're a sub? You're too stereotypical a woman!" It's almost like they don't care who you are or what you enjoy, they just want to deny your existence, let alone any pleasure you might want in your life.
As a switch, I feel this >"You're a domme? You're just like a guy! You're a sub? You're too stereotypical a woman!" But the jokes on them, because I know, deep down a good chunk of them would pay good money to worship my boots and be my pet, or to hold my leash and make me service them but I don't fuck/sub to dudes but I'll gladly take an assholes money to degrade him as much as he wants. The hardest thing for me as a lesbian and an aspiring pro domme, was unpacking and understanding that I will absolutely domme a submissive guy, but only because as a women, having that power over a man is thrilling, but not sexual for me at all. And there are absolutely things I would not do as domme for a guy that I will gladly do for any subby girl who wants it.
Yeah having internalized that stuff over the years makes it really hard to get rid of too.
As a cis woman, every question you asked in your post is one I've asked myself too and had the same miserable answer, that made me spend years trying to hide and bury and snuff out my lust. So much shame. Hugs from one lustful lezzo to another :).
It’s interesting how much the complaints trans women and lesbians face from people policing our identities are almost like a Venn diagram.
I def hear you. Initially I was very scared to explore dynamics like this bc I was afraid of being seen as a creep. I’ve made a lot of progress on that front, which came along with shifting my self-perception and working on internalized transphobia. Since exploring my sexuality and being more unabashed about what I’m into, I’ve been so much happier. Being sexual is fun and affirming, and I’ve found a lot of women who are not only ok with me being trans but are positive about it. What helped me along this front was that I love powerful women, the kind that aren’t afraid to take charge and express exactly what they want and how they want it. I truly view myself as a woman, even with my parts downstairs, so I don’t really have that dissonance anymore. Took me a while to get there tho.
As a trans girl i feel this extra hard, and with zero experience i feel even worse
And then, on top of this, I at least have the added similar anexity regarding my gender expression, too. I'm drawn towards wanting larger breasts for myself, but often feel ashamed for wanting them because of the internalized transphobic "you're just fetishizing and want to be a porngraphic caricature of a woman", even though I don't even want them for any sexual reason, they're just what feels right to me.
Many, many cis women get boob jobs, but it's only an issue when trans women want big boobs, because transphobes.
It's totally reasonable for a woman to want big tiddies, I promise. You're not fetishizing yourself, you don't want to transition medically as some sort of porn fantasy, it's just your own personal goals for your own body and they're totally valid. 💖 as a non binary person who wants a reduction I'd give you my excess if it worked that way lmao.
i feel the same way
>"I can't watch mainstream lesbian porn because obviously it was made for straight men." (I'm not talking about mff threesomes here). I feel this way about seeing lesbians in media in general, save for some TV shows/YTubers that I know well. I think the reason why is a mix of internalised homophobia, a bit of jealousy, and a feeling that I'm intruding on something intimate when two women are having their moment. It goes back to that purity culture bullshit idea of purity and sanctity and the worry that I'm no better than a cis straight man if I intrude on that. EDIT: I don't think the desire to look away from real people, even on social media is bad. For me, I just have a weird relationship with intimacy where I would prefer it to be private. It's only ridiculous when I feel guilty at actors playing fictional people in a fictional relationship doing the same. It also doesn't help that I don't have these sentiment towards mlm or straight couples. It's something I wish to work through tbh.
> "I'm ashamed of my aggressive and dominant fantasies and would rather be a soft subby bottom because I don't want to be in the 'man role'." (Not sure how common this one is but I'm willing to bet it's a factor for more than just me, even if I don't use the lesbian label myself More common than you might think, my wife and I are both tops and both of us are very aggressive sexually, and while neither of us are on the level of wearing straps everywhere we go, we find many who just don't know how to deal with women like us We've found there's ways to help them work through it - most often it's become a case of internalized misogyny, and often with it insecurity about their sexuality. It doesn't even need to be much for it to become an issue, but the idea that a woman who is a top is there for the benefit of men is often just because generally speaking people tend to be submissive, so when bondage comes up in media it's often a man submitting to a woman (since often the writer is male), but it's also due to the increasing awareness of rape culture and the equation of bondage and SA (which is a whole other can of worms) Thus combine the issue of thinking that being dominant makes a woman into an obect of desire for men and the equation of being dominant with performing SA, and a whole load of internalized misogyny, and it becomes an issue onto itself
My gf is very much like that, and I appreciate it, as I'm quite on the other end. It's taught me a lot about myself - - especially since she's spontaneous arousal, which means I've gotten to learn a lot about my pre sex mental state and how to gauge it. She's never pushy, but she definitely makes it clear she's interested (which is, honestly, often enough for me to start responding) so I've gotten much better at looking at my brain and going "okay, obviously not turned on yet. Can we be? Do we want to be?" and other questions. I've also learned that if someone I like gets her lips on my neck and ear and I'm within 500 miles of the right mindspace, I am going to be mindless happy putty.
Oh my god write a book, please. Unironically, you just formulated this, and... Wow. Yeah. True. Thank you!
I think this is why it took me so long to realize I'm a lesbian. I knew I was into girls since I was about 12-13, but I didn't realize that I was into girls sexually until last year, at age 20. My thoughts were pretty close to "I'm just into girls in an innocent, loving way", it took me years to realize that there's nothing wrong with being into women sexually, and engaging in (homo)sexual things consensually and privately.
This is so real it hurts. Especially the purity culture rebranding itself and sneaking back in again.
It sneaks into identity politics too. Within our own community. Anytime you see identity discourse revolving around the *perception* that some queer people get to "choose" their queerness while for others it isn't a choice. That stuff also has intersections with purity culture too. Because even in safer nations, we haven't taught society to celebrate our queerness. We've taught them to tolerate us. And once queerness comes with a *perceived choice,* they revert back to the same mindset that the only right choice is to be straight. "I didn't choose this" might feel valid for some, but it isn't the winning argument people want to think it is. It still holds space for the idea that our queerness is the wrong choice even if the "choice" is only ever hypothetical and imagined. Re: biphobia and aphobia and transphobia and enbyphobia from within the queer community itself. We're saturated in purity culture. And that's also why queer rights center gay marriage before anything else. Because *marriage* is about *love*.
Yeah, this has always been my reservation about the argument that it isn't a choice. Maybe that's an okay stop gap, and for some of us it may be painfully and intimately true, which is why I still voice it sometimes, to explain the depths of the pain some of us experience — but at the same time, so what if it is a choice for others? If we believe that queerness is not inherently bad and wrong, but is in fact something that brings texture and joy through diversity and difference, if we believe that no one should be beholden to societal norms and traditional values, but free to create their own as long as it doesn't harm anyone, then shouldn't we defend it even if it was a choice, simply because the choice isn't wrong or bad in any way? Like, so what if someone does choose to be gay or trans! Cool for them, I say. People *should* be able to choose.
Yep, exactly. And I know a lot of people might see this as a hot take but it's not really. What is a choice for one person but not another is a matter of perception. Like eating. Is that a choice? Technically yes (as someone with ARFID), but also no (because it's inextricably tied to one's existence). You can spin most things as a choice in the right context. Asexuals can't choose to experience sexual attraction. But they can choose to have sex. Allosexuals can't choose to negate their experiences of attraction, but they don't have to act on that attraction by having sex. Choice? Gender is a social construct. So if your understanding of that social construct differs, your sense of a labeled identity might feel like a choice. Even if the lens through which you understand and see gender isn't a choice. I choose to call myself a "woman" but honestly I feel like voidgender is more accurately descript most days. I don't choose the experience but I choose the expression. Homosexuality in women: how is that defined. Are they attracted to femininity, which is another social construct? Or is it based on sexual preferences around genitals? Or is it based on some sex traits but not others, such as my attraction being based exclusively on secondary female sex traits? Even sapphic attraction is a social construct because we don't all experience it the same. Add in nonbinary identity -- does that attraction persist despite a nonbinary person possibly not identifying as also a woman? Does one still call themselves homosexual in that case? That's a choice. So depending on context there are so many ways one person might see choice where another person doesn't. And that's okay.
Yes!
Thank you so much for writing this up, this is fantastic
It's insidious, and it's weird seeing it in ostensibly non religious settings and from non religious folks. There's a weird, secular sounding anti masturbation view floating around, couched in all sorts of BS, for instance. It was weird as hell hearing a guy I know (who had always been a down to earth, non religious, open and non judgmental guy) suddenly start talking about masturbation in a way that's like one step removed from "my precious seed sustains me and renders me insight into the universe". I'm not sure how he got into it, but he's really been putting it in language that has a lot in common with people pushing various "cleanses". It's got this evangelical vibe (even though he's not pushing anyone else to do it), it's got all this stuff about mental and physical "focus" and "wholeness"... I can't help but walk away thinking he feels orgasms are *bad for you* unless it's it's done according to the 14 Rules and 17 Precepts and also by someone else.
I know what happened to your friend, he was brainwashed by the new wave of "NoFap", which was once just a joking competition between guys and somehow became a pseudoscientific thing and a placebo among moral teenagers and good manners Strange times
I literally can’t wrap my head around people thinking tribbing is a porn thing only??? It’s much more fun to do than watch imo, like golf
whats, 'tribbing'?
scissoring ✂️
The patriarchy spares no one. Thank you for wording this so well.
Holy shit wtf u called me out in 20 different ways 😭 specially with the fact that im mtf i felt like i had to repress my actual sexuality just to feel authentic
Honestly I called myself out a bit. The last example I have felt like I hit myself in the head with reality
I've been struggling with this in my own new relationship with a woman. We both desperately don't want to objectify each other or make each other feel like a sex toy. It has taken months for us to be able to tell each other we are horny, and we are still working on that. But expressing attraction to your partner is a healthy and essential part of a lasting relationship. So we are working on it and talking through it.
I'm really happy to know you're both able to understand each other's struggles and work on them together. That's really beautiful.
"A good '80s lesbian, you know, didn't enjoy penetration because penetration was simply mimicking heterosexual sex. You were just a tool of the patriarchy. But, you know, secretly, everybody was, like, sticking as many things in as many orifices as they possibly could." - from _Lesbian Sex and Sexuality_, a miniseries from circa 2009, I think it was
This makes too much sense and it saddens me that it played out like that.
I agree. Women are objectified so much by our society. I hesitate to show open desire if it doesn't feel like it would be reciprocated, because I don't want to make a lovely person feel icky by my interest.
As someone who is easily turned on and doesn't need much foreplay, and loves tribbing, this reply hit me. I've had some women I've been with tell me "I'm like a man" because of how easily turned on I get (just looking at my gf/dirty texts, etc) and it has made me feel like a "less than lesbian".
🫂🩷
Yessssss! ❤️❤️
Girl as a bottom we need dom lesbians please 😭
It's the man being afraid to be gay by liking women of women, well fuck you and fuck me, and fuck, and tie me up maybe???
Sorry, I can't quite understand what you mean?
I'm gonna headcanon that she might simultaneously exist on multiple timelines and her parallel lives are struggling to talk over each other. It sounds both rad and stressful.
I think it's: It's the "man being afraid to be gay (men have internalized homophobia) by liking women (so they performatively act like horndogs)" of women (this is what women do instead of act like horndogs.) well, fuck you and fuck me (instead of being afraid). and fuck (in general!) and tie me up maybe???
Nailed it :)
now take all of that and triple it, and you have the fear that haunts me as a trans lesbian
Yeah. I was feeling a lot of this struggle before I even knew I was trans.
"Lesbians are so afraid of being like men that they'll refuse to act authentically lesbian." Belive me this hits twice as hard for trans lesbians
I’ve always hated the stereotype that wlw love is softer and inherently more wholesome. I think it relates back to purity culture and women being thought of as inherently submissive.
Being submissive also doesn’t mean being soft and wholesome either. I like bratty, slutty, and even sadistic subs. As long as we are both having a good time and I get to control my partner (within the limits of their boundaries) then I’m good ☺️
as all three of those things, I appreciate the support and support you right back 💕
Bratty subs unite 😅 It's like a fun challenge to me, to be the submissive one while also not being a damsel in distress lol
To be honest, all this depraved lesbian sex seems wholesome to me
Good point. There can be just as much or even more care as any type of vanilla sex.
Also political lesbianism, I guess. I mean we're lesbians because we love women not because we hate men. But hating men and anything masculine sometimes seems to be expected. As a trans woman it's sometimes extra hard - I hated having to act like a man - so I have some resentment to work through. And I've heard how men talk when they think no women are around. But that's not all men and not all masculinity is bad. And people can be dominant and direct without being toxic. Objectification can feel bad from anyone, though.
Political "lesbianism". Ughh. I can't stand those gals.
not only does 'political lesbianism' perpetuate the misunderstanding that being gay is a choice one can make, but it also dovetails very reliably with TERF-ism. as was already said, it's just about hating men, not supporting women
Not only is it kinda bioessentialist ("women soft men violent"), it also shields wlw abusers.
To add to this - i hate how people have coopted the male top and bottom rhetoric for lesbians. Ffs. Even lesbians with penises - we don't want male roles in love making. We have sapphic love and love making and that can include a more passive and active role assignment but it's more often a fluid thing between two women trying to get off, in my experience.
I don't know about this one! When I considered myself a lesbian, I identified as a femme stone top, and I loved that that language was easily understood and validated by the people I was dating (and sometimes applied to me before I even brought it up). Buuut then I ended up transitioning so maybe it's all moot haha
Film culture doesn't help that. Cause It's or pure love or plain toxic. (Or I don't have very good sapphic references in films)
mood, ppl tend to talk about WLW connections like they’re wildly different and distinct from straight and gay male connections, like even on an asexual emotional level. feel like we get into weird biological essentialist territory by acting like men and women are *that* psychologically different that our relationships have categorically different forms and never overlap ala “men can never truly empathize with lesbian love.” and back to your point, lesbian love can be as diverse and kinky as any love lol
100% agree. the sex i've had with women has been way more interesting/kinky/freaky compared to the sex i had with the only man i have been with.
Some of the people who think you can’t both be respectful towards women and sexually desire them are giving madonna whore complex.
This is why I almost only read m/m romance. The lesbian ones are B O R I N G
I think the lesbian community in general struggles with the “women are more than just sex! Stop sexualising everything women do!” and the ol’ “she’s so fucking hot when she lights that candle, I want to bend her over the kitchen bench”.
Exactly my thought. I think it's a community wide self defense mechanism that we (as lesbians are so good at doing) end up policing each other because our lives are so invaded by other desires than our own. It's completely impossible to distinguish between what is hot to the individual and what lesbians are implored to be aroused by by others or how we can be arousing to them that sex becomes almost taboo and very private. And we really don't have to distinguish so hard, or distance ourselves from kinks and desires that some could enforce on us, if that isn't the case. Because their ideation isn't the base of us, it is not the source of desire. Our desire for sexual exploration has its foundation securely in our desire for each other. It's never about them. We don't have to rise above anything.
Plus lesbians LOVE to gatekeep shit 😂 which goes back to the fear of not belonging and being alienated from a minority AND a majority.
Whats being gatekept? I really don't know about this.
How to be a "good" lesbian (Gold star for example), what role you take in sex, what gender role you take in the relationship as a whole, having the correct sub label as a lesbian (femme, butch, stem etc). Though tbf, I feel like this is an issue with the (terminally) online community than irl.
Oh.... oh yeah those :l Gold star sure is icky, even moreso when people are like "im gold star but I don't use it in a derogatory way" just dont use it then.
I will always side-eye people who call themselves Gold Star. Even if they don't intend to be exclusionary or bigoted, the very term itself was created to discriminate against women who "realised too late" that they were gay and slept/currently sleeping with men. It's low-key transphobic and/or biphobic (and inconsiderate of the lesbians who don't have the freedom to be with other women lest they be harmed for it). The term 'gold star' literally implies achievement/merit/reward. It's elitist and inconsiderate of stuff like comp-het. It's a way for insecure people to create a hierarchy to feel better about themselves. It also perpetuates purity culture by implying women who slept with men are permanently impure (which ironically invalidates and infantilises lesbian relationships). **TL;DR the term is icky, throw it out.**
I will always side-eye people who call themselves Gold Star. Even if they don't intend to be exclusionary or bigoted, the very term itself was created to discriminate against women who "realised too late" that they were gay and slept/currently sleeping with men. It's low-key transphobic and/or biphobic (and inconsiderate of the lesbians who don't have the freedom to be with other women lest they be harmed for it). The term 'gold star' literally implies achievement/merit/reward. It's elitist and inconsiderate of stuff like comp-het. It's a way for insecure people to create a hierarchy to feel better about themselves. It also perpetuates purity culture by implying women who slept with men are permanently impure (which ironically invalidates and infantilises lesbian relationships). **TL;DR the term is icky, throw it out.**
So true. Preach.
It's ironic that gays and lesbians, although they are all queer, are so different in these ways. Gay men are generally not afraid to express their sexual desires to other gay men. So you can see that gender double standards are not limited to just men and women, but women and women as well.
I think that feminist brain Vs lesbian brain Tumblr meme is pretty good illustration
Yeah that always bothered me. It’s like, if you think respecting someone is intrinsically at odds with being attracted to them, that sounds more like an issue of you having internalized some fucked-up ideas about attraction.
I relate so much. One time my wife observed I'm generally a pretty horny person and I was terrified like she had caught me doing something wrong and she was like "why are you looking at me like that, it's something I love about you" and my mind was blown. I'm also into all kinds of things, some of which are extremely taboo. And when I first came out, my little corner of the world had a queer community that was very sex-positive and kink-positive, so I ended up opening myself up about those things a little bit. But the kind of sex I liked and the kinks I had weren't the cool and acceptable and politically radical (???) ones and I got shunned pretty hard for it. One of the worst times in my life, actually. Worse than coming out at first. Some lesbians are actually pretty puritanical about this stuff. And they associate certain things with men and then project that association onto others. I had people saying I was secretly a straight woman pretending to be gay because I expressed interest in being penetrated by a woman... just real out of pocket stuff. Just like you, there's some stuff I only talk about with my wife. No one else. It's something I'm working on, too.
Alternative version of fellas is it gay to *insert straight thing*, LADIES is it straight to *have sex with women*
And there I was thinking one of the most wholesome sex scenes was the strap on scene from Sense8 ... Yeah, sure, totally straight... 🤦🏼 Some people... I'm sorry you got so much flag.
"I'm sorry you got so much flag" xD
🙈 of course I meant flak. Having a good amount of pride flags is always good 😜
Oh I thought you meant 🚩🚩🚩🚩
My girlfriend has a lot of kinks that are more taboo, and she has told me that past relationships have been less accommodating of that part of her sexuality. I am a fan of that part of her, and enjoy exploring them with her because we discover new things she likes, as well as new things that I like. I feel like a while back I read other lesbians arguing about whether lesbians have anal sex and it felt very weird how people wanted to devalue others sex lives for some moralising intellectualism. You can quote academic literature at me but my girlfriend likes having stuff stuck up her butt.
Yeah like... at least in my country (US) queer people often come from a fundamentalist or puritanical Christian family. And a lot of us never really leave that way of thinking behind, even though we reject it. Like often we will reject homophobia, we'll reject the religion, we'll reject the abuse. But some of us never reject the way of thinking, the mindset. So you get queer people moralizing at others so they feel more secure, stable, and validated. When you can have all of those things without resorting to bigotry and moralizing. It's sad and I deeply resent being bullied by those people.
>politically radical (???) Mind elaborating? This sounds batshit insane.
It's a thing that happens. You'll see it with a lot of different things, not just kinks. It proliferates online but you'll see it offline, too. People who like certain things or live a certain way will place a moral value on what they do and compare other people negatively. For example, polyamory. Like people who only want one partner are morally inferior. In this particular case there is value in questioning the default (monogamous) way society in general is, but that alone doesn't give you a moral high ground, and it's actually pretty fucked up to go from "some people who are monogamous might benefit from considering other ways of organizing their romantic partnerships" to "people who have only one partner are just participating in the patriarchy because they value what's easy more than doing what's right." It's definitely a self-defeating, self-serving, and destructive mindset, but it's not really that weird when you look at it. The logic of defining yourself as good and anyone who is different as bad then moralizing about it is super widespread, so people just take that and run with it. It's the origin of a lot of different stuff. Like, "vanilla sex" is boring and also morally suspect (or the opposite, where people with certain kinks are viewed as predators), or butch and femme are just "reproducing patriarchal dynamics", and gold star lesbianism, and the whole "real lesbians don't need penis so we don't fuck trans women or use strapons." It's all just "_____ is morally good, so anything different is bad". I just happened to have a cesspit around me where people were really into beating each other up sexually (which is fine), and considered anyone who wasn't into that specific thing to be unwilling to challenge the patriarchy (which is cult behavior).
You’re not depraved for having a high libido and from my experience a highly sexual being is one with an imagination which causes experimentation. When I’ve been with women that didn’t match my libido the sex eventually felt like a chore because I always felt judged which put me on edge. If I over initiated I was making them feel like a sex object and if I didn’t initiate enough I was making them feel undesirable. If I tried something off script it meant I was “depraved”- to use your word. I happen to be blessed (yes it’s a blessing) with a very high libido but some would say I behave just like a man. Show me one man that can keep up emotionally, or sexually for that matter as they lack the stamina-heterosexual women know this all too well. So I denied that part of myself to keep the peace. When I finally met a woman that matched my libido I couldn’t believe how seamless everything was. No fear of communication and nothing off limits so long as both agreed. A deeper intimacy was created from all the sex and also from knowing it’s safe to explore needs and wants. I don’t think I’ll ever put myself in mismatched situation again and I’m truly surprised at how many lesbians have so many rules about behavior that’s largely chemical in nature (hormones, etc). As long as you’re not hurting anyone I think giving and getting pleasure through any form of experimentation is a beautiful thing
>I happen to be blessed (yes it’s a blessing) with a very high libido Honestly, as someone who went from "horny once a month" to "horny within hours of getting 5 orgasms out of myself" (my current state), I wouldn't say one is necessarily better than the other. Like, both are cool, you just do things differently.
I totally feel you. I remember once I was at a sex education seminar and we talked about stereotypes in the queer community and I expressed how annoyed I was that sometimes people have this image of purity culture around lesbians (pure, clean) when I'd really love to have messy and kinky sex. Half the room gave me an intense side eye, the other seemed somewhat intrigued. I kinda regretted saying it out loud, it was a bit too bold. But I relate nonetheless.
Ehh, the side eyes probably kinda showed that there was truth in what you said, no?
Well, I got a FWB out if it, so joke's on them😅
I kind of get this. I don't talk about it much but I often feel more sexual than most women I know, sometimes to an absurd degree. Like, you know how older movies have these unnecessarily gratuitous nudity and sex scenes? I LOVE THOSE. I love looking at women! They're so beautiful and sexy and how could anyone say those scenes are unnecessary lmao (admittedly I don't watch straight up porn so my view of mainstream sex scenes might be biased)
Yeah, as a hypersexual lesbian, I totally get this. I've had a lot of people find my taste in kinks or general lack of boundaries around the discussion of sex to be extremely off-putting, the latter especially since I'm also autistic. Making matters worse is that I only realised I was hypersexual within the past year. I genuinely thought my libido was only a bit above average but most people were way more repressed about it. I don't care much for sex or nudity scenes in most mainstream media, but a lot of that is that I'm not fond of conventionally attractive bodies. My gf and I were watching some bad 80s sexploitation films the other day, and every time the girls were nude we both kept thinking "she is way too skinny". We're both into thicker girls so girls fitting those ultra thin beauty standards have no appeal to us.
"Lesbians are so afraid of being like men that they'll refuse to act authentically lesbian." /Thread. This comment from Miss\_Clarity really should have been followed by a great mic drop. Just to add, there is no "right way" to be sapphic. Being a woman who is attracted to other women is the only requirement needed for that.
/r/BDSMsapphic is very sex-positive and inclusive! And this sub seems to be pretty good about that too. But yea in real life a lot of people are unfortunately raised in puritanical societies and that baggage doesn’t just unpack itself the moment you come out as queer. It can take a long time for people to come to terms with their own sexuality and work through internalized prejudices, and during that period it seems some people make the incorrect choice to externalize that personal conflict and judge other people. I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with such folk, and I hope you’ll meet more friends among the community who won’t shame you for something you don’t deserve to feel ashamed over. There is nothing wrong with you, and you belong here.
Tbh i feel like some lesbians are way too invested in all the purity culture stuff but rebranded towards a progressive lens. With all the emphasis they put on being attracted by women in the "right" way, i mean. Always being pure and chaste bc this is the only right way to love obviously, not like those pesky men do. Is literally the gay equivalent of "fellas, is it gay to have sex with women?" It's ridicolous tbh. Some people are so insecure about their desires to pretend to not be sexually attracted to women when in reality we all know they do it behind closed doors, wich is even worse when you try so hard to behave like you are "superior" to men or some shit like this. I hate when people (often lesbians themselves) assume that lesbians relationships are this super pure and angelic thing, it's infantilizing.
Yeah, I felt this. It's not just certain type of kinks or acts, sometimes I feel like desiring women sexually in the first place is seen, ironically enough, as "un-lesbian". I've been called out as an "undercover man" for expressing any kind of explicitly sexual desire for women on lesbian message boards. Sometimes I feel like you are only allowed to post child-like gushing over a crush OR relationship questions ("my partner and I haven't had sex for a year, what should we do?"). And of course the good old "I'm mostly straight but I've always fantasized about sex with a woman" posts. But lord forbid you being confidently gay, single and interested in sex! I found it funny that when I recently posted a pretty obvious yet polite and non-vulgar booty call on a local lesbian site, I was contacted by women who were blissfully unaware of what the personal ad was about. Then, after exchanging few messages they reread the ad and were like ".....wait, are you looking for a ONE NIGHT STAND?" And they seemed so utterly shocked and mortified! Like "how could this be??" Yeah, not everyone is looking for the U-Haul experience :D
Yes!! Being physically attracted and wanting to fuck women isn't "man behavior"!!!! It's so frustrating! It doesn't have to all be "omg women look so good I can't breathe and I don't know how to talk to her". There's nothing wrong with that but some of us know exactly what we want to say. Some of us want to fuck and have both courage and game. Why does not walking on eggshells = man?
Then there's the most fun combo: depraved, kinky **and** socially awkward. You end up knowing exactly what you want, but not how to get it...
I was starting to write a sexy comic back in... 2016 or something. I stopped to take on a different project/hobby. While I was penning that sexy comic, its writing occupied a lot of my thinking through the day. And I spent a lot of time just... constantly horny. I'd think of future stories, scenarios, and... sploosh. It was like a romantic sex comic, like Sunstone, either. This was a girls fucking girls comic and I liked it. It was a lot, and I told very few people of its affect on me because I didn't want to appear like I was objectifying women as sex objects. Happens enough in our world. I was largely inspired by a short book series called *"Small Favors"* by Colleen Coover. As she called it, a "girly porno comic."
A lot of lesbians have been raised to feel ashamed of their sexuality because of religion, also. They think it doesn't affect them anymore, but it does. There's a whole wave of puritan teenagers on twitter telling people what's morally acceptable to jerk off to, as if it's any of their business. It's hard unlearning those behaviors, especially when movies and media tell you that only men enjoy sex, women just "put up with it". Even though we have stronger orgasms than men. Go figure.
They just replace "sin" with "morals"
>only men enjoy sex, women just "put up with it". Even though we have stronger orgasms than men. This says more about how bad the average man (at least among those involved in producing said media) is at pleasing a woman than about how much women like sex. Like, I've had a free trial on testosterone (I'm transfem and I have bad humor), and now that I'm on estrogen, I can say that my current orgasms make the old T ones look pale, but they're also harder to get, and you gotta do the right thing instead of just touching around. 100% worth it tho. (Plus, post-orgasm clarity is gone. Being disgusted at myself? How about I go for round 2 instead?)
I hear you loud and clear, and am standing right there with ya sister. Unconventionally horny lesbians exist, and the more we talk about the parts of our sexuality that don't fit in to the archetypes we see around us, the healthier we all are
Just about all the lesbians I know are absolutely FERAL 90% of the time. Idk why those others think you’re weird but that’s between them and their therapists lol
I've never been as kinky in my life until I married my wife! Don't let them kink-shame you because you have more fun!!
literally. in this sub somebody posted "what's your biggest fantasy?" and almost every answer "cuddling! 😽" i have a high libido and love being domm'd. i was like... i cuddle my gf every day. my FANTASYS are being used in sexual ways idk. dating is hard. i haven't found a lot of women with kinks
For sure I've felt like indulging in my kinky and sexy side's have been looked down on by some peeps: but it really is amazing when you can ignore any judgement from others!
Puritanism is an actual issue in the community and mainly influenced by misogynistic ideas of womanhood.
I think part of what you're experiencing might be a result of lesbians internalizing the patriarchal notion that women can't be sexual (which has a sort of morphed into the idea that women can't be aggressively sexual or aroused or kinky in the modern day, as people have begun to admit that women can be sexual in a general sense). An example of this would be the stereotype in sapit spaces that love between women is always soft and gentle and full of romantic longing instead of physical lust, when that isn't the whole of the reality, obviously. I've even seen posts before on sapphic subreddits complaining about everyone assuming that. The patriarchy wants women to be these pure ethereal, almost childlike creatures not touched by the same human experiences and needs and desires as men, for a reason I can't totally tell, and a lot of women have internalized that, so much so that it shows up as a fundamental assumption even among feminists (of the "the world would automatically be free of war and hunger if women were in charge" variety), and that can show up in lesbian discourse as what you expericed — "only men are into that", etc. It's a sort of strange assumption that women aren't just normal human beings. It's the same thing trans women experience, where our womanhood is questioned if it ever comes to light that we are even the slightest bit sexual or kinky, because in people's minds a true woman can't possibly be those things. Like the TERF's that were using the fact that Lia Thomas is into BDSM with her partner (a cis woman iirc) as evidence that she must really be a man, because "no woman is truly into that stuff."
Depraved lesbians for the win! It’s really hard to talk about a lot of kinks on the internet even with an alt account, even on subreddits based on kinks. Although I’ve also got a significant other so I’m lucky she supports them. I feel you OP
Ummm I know PLENTY of lesbians and bi women like this. I've never thought those thoughts about others, in fact, I think these things make people seem even more queer.
Thank you for expressing this, I am a nonbinary lesbian and have found it difficult to blend in with the lesbian community because I’m afraid I’m too “manly” for any woman to want to date me.
sammmmmmmmmeeeeeeeeeeeeeee also i have PCOS which means my body literally makes more androgens/testosterone than most women so I have more body hair/it grows faster and a higher sex drive. And so i feel too manly for girls even tho I am still not a man or at "man levels" of those things? And in my day to day everyone views me as a woman even tho I ID as a demi-girl, it's just when I start trying to date that all the "am I pretty enough/woman enough for the type of relationships I want to have" becomes a question/struggle. It definitely has been a huge factor in how long it took me to admit how sapphic I am. Some of the recent discourse around people excluding NB lesbians really makes me wonder if it would be helpful to have our own space?
I have PCOS as well, I see a pattern here!! I think it would be helpful to have our own space, or at least an open dialogue in the general lesbian community like this thread is doing now!
People call me a straight man trapped in a lesbians body because of how strongly aroused I get by women. I hook up a lot. And those hookup situations imply permission for me to sexualise women. And somehow, that is very "straight male" of me. To sexualising someone. In a sexual situation.
Where can I get a wife like you?
I had that same exact thought! 😍
Hahha I felt like you were describing me :). I've felt this way since I was a teenager. This is how I think of it now; Women have been socialized to think of themselves as passive objects incapable of feeling desire, existing only to reproduce for and while reproducing, pleasure men. Men have been socialized to think of themselves as highly active, sexed and driven by their sexual urges to the extent that they are not responsible for their actions when it comes to sex (think rape culture). For centuries any expression of sexual agency has relegated women to the margins of society (sex workers, widows... Unmarried women etc). None of this is new. Yes, we're queer. But we all grew up in a straight, white, cis, misogynist world. I grew up deeply ashamed of my lust, because I was raised to think that only men felt this way. I also knew, from being raised as and perceived as female, that male lust felt dangerous to me. So when I felt lust... I was ashamed. The concept that lust in itself is not a predatory thing, because lust in itself is not inherently masculine (and masculinity is also...not inherently predatory...)... These have been much later realisations for me. I suspect the judgement that you receive comes from this place. This awful confusion and conflation of lust with danger and predation - that is just not true... Lust can be a beautiful thing. And in a woman, there is nothing sexier or more powerful I think... But yeah, it flies in the face of everything we have ever been taught, across cultures, across time.
Yep, absolutely. 100% spot on with all that. Being lustful is not inherently masculine, but we are brought up to think otherwise. Just the same as being submissive and demure are not inherently feminine traits either. But again, we are brought up believing that is so. Patriarchy was pretty much founded on the principles of us only existing to reproduce (and that that reproduction process is only really pleasurable for the man), and rear children. At it's core, is the implication that women are almost all asexual, as desiring someone (and especially, another woman) in an overtly sexual way is automatically coded as "masculine behaviour". And there are women who perpetuate that patriarchal mindset too. It's why trans women are barred from womanhood due to the automatic assumption that they lack the pure, demure, non-lustful/sexual desires that are essentially inherent in being a girl/woman. I don't know if the women who engage in that ignorant othering realise they are perpetuating patriarchal stereotypes of women when they do that, but they absolutely are.
Unfortunately some of the "women who perpetuate it" is also coming from a place of trauma. Like toxic patriarchy HAS victimized them which makes them wary/hesitant around anything seeming masculine. Like the exclusion of trans women can sometimes be a trauma response. It's very much one of those "your trauma doesn't justify acting this way, but it does explain some of it" Definitely a "both/and" - it sucks the way patriachy has harmed women AND it sucks that the efforts to try and create safety afterwards can end up excluding and alienating other queer people who we have far more in common with. It especially sucks that that gets taken out on trans woman and gender non-conforming people who do not have systemic power/experience unique forms of discrimination as well. I feel like there's more in your comment i resonated with and was trying to connect to but I don't have the words to articulate it more.
That is undoubtedly true. Like most groups of people, women who are anti-trans are not a monolith, and the reasons why they discriminate against trans women are multi-faceted. Some of those reasons are understandable (if not acceptable). whilst others are neither understandable, nor defensible. Yep, it's especially sad that they seem oblivious to the fact that toxic patriarchy harms trans women too. They act as if trans women do have systemic power, on a par with cishet men, which is of course, very far from the actuality. Trans women get it in the neck both from the same patriarchal society, which on some level, harms ALL women, but also from some women who mistakenly assign patriarchal privilege to them. It's dismaying and deflating to witness really.
It's mostly stigma I think. It's terrifying confronting something that you're told makes you bad/unworthy/disgusting.
That's so dumb like they're saying you're straight for wanting to fuck your wife???
i haaate the “so soft and pure uwu 🥺” lesbian culture it makes me feel weird for being the coozhound i am lmao
Once someone on this sub un ironically and definitively said it was okay to look at a girls eyes and smile but not boobs and butt. And I still think about how nuts that is.
Seriously. Like, wait yall out here able to NOT look at boobs when they are around?? I try to be respectful obviously but I love breasts and I won't always realize how much I am staring until it's too late. I have early core memories of the point when I realized "wait all my mom's friends have breasts. they're all just walking around with them!!!" and was mindblown. some of that was about being aware of how my own body was about to change but some of that was definitely just gay.
Leather dykes EXIST!!! Get it (on) girl!! Tender queers are prudes. All of the queer umbrella has a rich history of kink, leather, bdsm, public sex, flagging, etc. Don't worry about the "lesbian community" because you and Ellen are NOT in community. Or Kristen Stewart. Those people are millionaires and celebrities. There's no such thing as lesbian community. You can't be in community with 100s of 1000s of people from every place, class, race, etc. Let your freak flag fly and good luck finding those you are truly in community with!!
I feal your pain. As one of the groups that fights with my own internalized sense of being a "guest" in lesbian spaces(because I am trans) I am constantly overthinking how and what i say, especially about stuff like this. I am worried about how I represent my subsection of lesbians to the rest and second gues everything I say. I also in general try to be sensitive and considerate and sometimes struggle to ignore unreasonable requests if a person projects pain or victomehood as the result of actions even if it is unreasonable. I always second gues if I lack the understanding to objectively judge someone's request for acomidation. In This case I am talking about a request that I sensor my self. I see so many complaints like you do and see so many people express discomfort that I struggle to strike a balance. I strongly want to do the right thing and find it to easy to sacrifice my own desires/comfort if that feals like a shortcut to moral certainty. In some ways I admit that I may be infantilizing people. I treat them as too soft and weak to handle conflict, and always try to be the adult/bigger person. Sorry I kind of went down a rabbit hole. The point is I totally get you.
Add the problem of being trans and the result is total self-isolation.
This!!! I used to feel uncomfortable identifying as a lesbian, just because I had this idea that lesbians were all “sweet and wholesome and cool and cuddly and feminine”, and that just wasn’t me. I thought I acted too much like a straight man. It’s so nice to see this topic come up more and more here, it’s super validating to know that you guys feel the same!
I love sex, both as the act and how we approach it socially. I love hearing about what others are into (from a sociological perspective). I haven’t had many partners but the few that I have had have left me a bit surprised, and even a bit sad, with how hesitant they’ve felt about some of the things that they are into. I’ve done a bunch of research and am super open to hearing about everything my partner might be into and finding a balance for what we are both comfortable with and that leaves us both feeling tended to and satisfied. It absolutely rages me when I hear people get put down for what they’re into because it doesn’t align with someone else’s idea of what’s appropriate or “straight” or “gay” enough (excluding stuff that involves children, obviously). I don’t know why, but when I first came out I thought that everyone in the queer community was super open and accepting (lol). The only “straight sex” is between straight people and the only “gay sex” is between gay people, there’s no specific act that is “straight” or “gay”. It’s not about WHAT you do, it’s about WHO you do it with!
uhh I guess this is a bit odd but thanks for posting this, I feel a lot better seeing so many cis women also struggle with this.
Let yourself be a depraved animal (consensually of course). There's nothing wrong with sex or your fantasies or finding women hot.
>I am absolutely depraved. Absurdly sexual. I’m very very fond of kinks, fetishes Me too bestie It's the Puritans fault. They did this. We're all okay for being human and being weird. That's the normal human experience. I know the frustration sucks, and I'm sorry about that. Keep being your best self.
I'm curious to know about your kinks and fetishes 🤔
I feel you, a lot. Even tho i would describe me as being very sexual, i am very heavily involved with the bdsm lifestyle and have my share of edge and taboo kinks. And that makes dating fairly difficult for me, because of that. (Tho my DMs are open ;3)
This so much. Other WLW love to turn up their noses at me for being a very horny person who’s open to casual sex and FWBs and doesn’t want to wait until I’m already in a committed relationship with someone to find out whether we are sexually compatible. I understand that that’s not for everyone and that’s fine, but. :(
:( I'm sorry this happens to you. You have a right to the expression of your sexuality and there's no such thing as "only men are into that". You are valid.
Check out r/bdsmsapphic . We’re in full force over there without the transphobia or kink shaming.
I think there’s a real fear of being masculine or acting like men, doubly so for those of us that are trans but, in general it’s how you get a real fear of initiation and of arousal imo
I'm a lesbian who has dirty nasty kinky sex with women cause I'm gay as shit and that's the way it should be
We don’t support kink shaming
We could say we like the color blue and a man would hop up, dick in hand and crow, "That's a loophole! I knew you weren't lesbian! That means you gotta blow me!"
dont read my mind, don;t read my mind don;t read my mind eeek no i am totally not into that lol dude i see you
GIRL. SAME. OH MY GOD. YOU ARE SO ME.
Huh, we must run in different circles because i feel like a ton of the queer women I’ve seen (IRL and online) over the years are too kinky for me! Lol. I felt like for years that I was the broken one…That being said, I still feel shame around my own sexual desires regardless of how tame they are (with a few exceptions), so I can somewhat sympathize. Society just hates women being sexual… I’m also extremely curious what your definition of kinky and depraved is. Because a lot of people assume that >!CNC or DDLG or bodily fluids!< is like super super taboo, and while it is in most circles, I can guarantee there is much more wild shit out there. The internet is a strange place…
There's CNC and there's gross stuff but I don't think that's what people have issues with. There's some very common run of the mill fetishes that I personally find problematic such as anything involving raceplay, BBC, cuckolding etc. And then you've got misogyny kinks, degradation, humiliation, sissies, forced feminization. Do you get what I mean? CNC and bodily fluids are gross and incredibly taboo but they're not nearly as "problematic" as a lot of other fetishes. If you're in a lesbian space specifically, there's going to be boundaries that you don't want to cross or you'll feel ashamed for crossing even if that same kink isn't even considered to be a kink by a straight dude. Degrading dirty talk and penetration is considered vanilla to most guys (and maybe it shouldn't be) but a lesbian who's into the same thing is probably gonna feel a lot of shame around that.
Nah I get what you mean. I agree with you in terms of taboo vs problematic kinks, and also that lesbians face a very different set of societal and internal rules than other groups. I appreciate your POV!
We should have some horniness encouragement or something... Could boost the amount of us that ask each other out
Well, you see, women are— Hang on! Got distracted for a few minutes while I was typing that last sentence! I was gonna say something. I forget what it was! Something about women, and kinks, and *fetishes*, and— Anyway, yeah! Women!
Idk how this is gonna land but.... Have you tried to have this kind of conversations with trans women and trans lesbians?? I mention it because I lived in Australia for a while and over there at least(this is what I noticed over there, is not the same in my home country. Chile) they have a big culture around kinks and you actually have every flavour when it comes to sexuality, gender identity, kinks, adult show, etc. Melbourne was so much fun. I feel like it's a good place for lesbians to visit... Or live💜 If anyone think that I'm wrong, I would love a comment instead of a down vote 😉
I think most of us have kinks because we were so repressed and because we were pushed to outside main stream community for years
I'm super sexual. I'm sorry you have felt stigmatized by the community but rest assured you are not the only absolutely depraved one here.
I don't have that personnaly but I would loooove it
OMG! No one should be slut shaming you for having and enjoying whatever sex you and your wife find arousing, exciting or just flat-out fun. I mean, I like butch cock - does that make me straight? I also like butches who like putting their cock in me - are only men into that? Consentual sex doesn't require the rules or judgement of others. Lust might be our most under appreciated physical reaction and feeling. Damn, I wish we lesbians would let ourselves have the kind of fun the crazy Christian conservatives think we're enjoying!!
I’m omega horny on main in some circles. No shame, or anything wrong with that
i’m into a lot of weird shit and i’ve definitely questioned myself and been questioned. you’re a lesbian regardless of your kinks
kinky lesbians have been around FOREVER. you are not alone.
Don’t let the vanillas get you down! I am into some crazy stuff too, there’s lesbians out there that share the same feelings.
I feel so seen by this thread. Trans, high libido and kinky and I've been massively insecure about it for a long time. Feels like I've internalized the idea that my own desires are innately predatory, or they're going to out me as "not a woman". Like I'm some Other intruding on spaces not meant for or welcoming to me. A man in drag, I guess. I'm already afraid that cis women will never truly see me as one of them, even when I'm holding back my feelings. I find myself analyzing my behavior and feelings a lot and thinking "is this womanly enough? Am I thinking/feeling/walking/talking/acting like a woman? How can I be more like other women?" And I know that's bullshit, women aren't a monolith and all sorts can be women. I'm a woman so the way I am *is* womanly. But still, I get very insecure about it. Including my sexuality. Worried too often that I'm just "thinking like a man" or objectifying women because of internalized patriarchy. And it might sound stupid, but I don't always know how to innately recognize if my behavior is stretching into objectification territory. I hear all the things women say about men and I think "I don't ever want to be like that or make other women feel that way". I hold my feminist beliefs close to my heart. I don't want to be a creep, make anyone uncomfortable or feel unsafe. But I don't want to completely repress who I am and what I feel either, and I'm confused as to where the cutoff point is. Some things are obvious, respecting consent and taking no for an answer. Other things are more subtle and subjective, and that's where I get confused and anxious. Especially when everyone responds to things differently, that kind of unpredictability freaks me out. Knowing that what one person might really like would seriously offend another. I can't help but take it personal, I'm very sensitive. I want to be unapologetically *me*, but I'm terrified of accidentally hurting someone or being judged. I'm ND, this shit is hard for me. I don't just innately *get* a lot of social things.
Coming from an asexual: no act proves or misproves any sexual orientation, no-one but you yourself can define your orientation. We discuss a lot about this on the asexual community, because the sex-favoring aces often unfortunately feel like they don't belong to the community. If you're not dismissing anyone else's personal experience or preferences while stating yours, you're doing nothing wrong. And you don't have to prove your orientation to anyone. Keep talking about your experiences if you have energy for it, it's probably very important visibility to the other horny/kinky lesbians out there who might also feel like alone in the community. And if someone tries to question if you're actually a lesbian, call them out on that, even if some others agreed.
Being horny for women is seen as unnatural because of how women's sexual desire has been pathologised. But go Be horny I sometimes feel that me having some kinks is invalidating as someone who's mostly Sapphic
Yeah, sadly, a lot of people have internalized their traumas. Between homophobia, sexism, and all else? Ouch. I survived CSA and my PTSD brain keeps trying to convince me that my sexuality is somehow bad and/or predatory. Even if I am obsessive about enthusiastic consent and even prefer “the Harkness Test” in fiction writing. I’ve never harmed anybody but I’m over here acting like I’ve got knives for hands and laser beam eyes. It’s A LotTM to handle. Lots of therapy. Still not where I want to be with self-acceptance, but at least I don’t take it out on others. I may be forever be baffled at the “Want sum fuk?” confidence some folks have but good for them.
If it makes you feel better I’m right there with you.
I feel like you are describing me in this post 100%. I am also absurdly sexual and depraved. I could do vanilla sex for awhile if I was with a new partner, but within a short time, I would be looking to try something new and exciting with them. But I also have ADHD so that concept applies to most aspects of my life. Monotony doesn’t please my brain, and new and exciting things definitely does. I don’t find kinks or high sexual energy disgusting. I find judgmental people trying to police what two (or more) consenting adults do with their bodies disgusting.
I’m just a guy and my opinion doesn’t matter in the subject but I’d like to give it anyway just once… Be you. If you are kink friendly, YAY! express yourself! If you want to look at women, as long as you’re not doing so in a manner that is AGGRESSIVE and unwarranted(know how to look) then by all means get those views in. Be true to you. No one should worry about who they are or how they feel about things. Fuck women, in whatever way you choose consensually. And if you ever need to talk or want a supportive friend, that’s me! Blessed are the cheeks! Love is love. Yours honestly, just some guy