how do lesbians have sex

I have no freakin' idea. Well, I do, but I don't think I got the answer from any kind of online wo-manual. Would I have been a better lover in my 20's if I'd been able to consult the Internet? Watching the only film about lesbians available to me - The Killing Of Sister George, I might have got the idea it had a lot to do with tweed suits and a cigar (Oh wait, that's a boy thing, right Bill?). But I'm just amazed at how often this question, typed into search engines from Shangai to Marseilles - leads to my blog. I can't work out whether this is just the eternal prurient question from curious blokes or whether women across the world are genuinely looking for the answer to this. Isn't it like getting up in the morning? We don't know how it's done, but somehow, there we are with a coffee cup in our hands. How did I get here?

Photo: Jill Posener, San Francisco, 1989 © 2007. All Rights Reserved

Somehow, in the absence of any famous lezzies on the telly, or GLBT film festivals, any positive cultural references whatsoever, my g...g...g...g... generation, and lesbians before us, managed to get it on and get it on good. But I'm growing worried about the 'new' lesbian. If some of the reports I'm getting from the 30 somethings I know are true - she's too busy setting rules for dating - 10 dates before sex, three dates before a kiss, but you can go to the Farmers Market on the 2nd date and hold hands. What???

Unless of course you're advertising on Craigslist, in which case you can have tea with your Mum at 4pm, walk the dogs, see your therapist, have dinner with your best friend and get laid by a complete stranger by 10 o clock that night.

Going to the Farmers Market with the woman you have just started dating is the new version of the U Haul. And holding her hand (even though you haven't kissed yet) in front of all the rural lesbian cheese makers and organic farmers is the new 'hot' date. We virtually live in coffee shops and we barely have bars anymore - thank goodness for my favorite dive The Lexington in San Francisco (though my age might make me look more like June Buckridge than someone's online catch - go rent The Killing Of Sister George).

My memory is that there was a lot of sex in the 70's and 80's. Now, I grant you, a lot of it wasn't worth having, especially as proscriptive feminists - who shall remain nameless here because we all know who they were - spent an inordinate amount of time telling the rest of us what we could or shouldn't do in bed, or on the sofa after the anti-nuclear rally, or in the grass on Hampstead Heath by the Women's Pond, or in the toilet at the Wimmins Disco (pretty good sex actually), or at a Spare Rib Magazine Benefit. That's the thing. We were socialising all the bloody time. And it didn't matter whether you were getting off (I hate that phrase, but no one would use the word 'fucking') with your best friend's current squeeze, because after all, we were in the vanguard of a new age, where no patriarchal rules applied.

I'm getting shaky just thinking about it. Everyone smoked (except me), most people drank (more than me), many couldn't get up in the morning without a joint between their lips (except me), and everyone seemed to eat too many lentils and smell of garlic. I could tell who was a femme screaming to get out of her dungarees, but I wasn't allowed to, I could feel who would want me to hold her down and fuck her hard but I wouldn't dare, and I could feel myself battering against the constraints of a political dogma that told me I was wrong to feel the way I did.

I guess I'm pretty happy that some of my younger compadres feel OK waiting till date # 11. Mind you, these days there's so much negotiating to do it takes all that time to get the contract drawn up.

Comments

[nina]

This brings to mind a line from a quote I like,

"...there are fewer ways of making love than they say, and more than one believes." Collette

When I first came out I had people (friends)ask me that question before I had had my first lesbian encounter. It was as if I were being sent out on reconnaissance and expected to report back to the troops.

After I had had the pleasure (finally) they circled around me like greedy children. Unfortunately for them my answer came across more existentialistic than textbook. I think they were disappointed.

I find it difficult to explain something that for me is so powerful, explosive and passionate to people who are really only interested in mechanics. The men I have encountered have either been voyeurs or narcissists with no ablity to believe that a woman could have an orgasm without his penis making an appearance. The women seem to be genuinely curious but they always preface the questions with a disclaimer about how heterosexual they are. Cute.

I like my blog's stat counter. It pulls up all sorts of info. The latest round of searches was from someone looking to find out what "does your carpet match your drapes?" means. I few months ago I wrote a few paragraphs about masterbation, the search log lit up like a pinball machine.

Boy I do run on late at night... sorry.

neen

[Deborah]

Almost as much fun as the "which one is the boy and which one is the girl?" question.

You know, there are many ways of having sex and many different viewpoints on what constitutes sex. Some of the make out sessions I have had with women fall squarely into the highly arousing catagory I refer to as 'face fucking'. Yet, by heterosexual standards, would be considered 'foreplay'. Now that's an interesting term. 'Foreplay' seems to mean ANYTHING that comes before a penis enters a vagina, implying that ONE act is the ONLY 'real' sex. That is why most men don't get jealous about their women having sex with other women. They don't view it as 'real' sex. Until and unless their woman brings home a bull dagger swaggering butch.

I tried that internet hookup thing a few times and it was an utter disaster. I asked one 'bi-curious' woman I had been corresponding with for some time, why she thought she might be interested in sex with women. The long winded answer listed the standard 'long walks on the beach, tender loving touch, sensual pleasure, sweetness and loving kindness.....' I responded that I certainly liked all that stuff too, but after a certain point, SOMEBODY was gonna have to get fucked and it wasn't going to be me. We hooked up briefly. After our first 'lovemaking' session, she said, all shocked, agog and aghast "NOW I understand what you meant! I NEVER thought sex between women would be like THAT!" Yeah. Well. Whatever.

As the great femme Jessica Rabbit once said, "don't hold it against me, I'm just drawn that way."

Deborah

[Deb in Minnesota]

Hmmmmm, how do lesbians have sex? By whatever method that works, baby.

Obviously, I'm behind the times. No one has asked me to the Farmer's Market lately.

[Deborah]

Fortunately, I was a clueless rube going in. Who knows where I might be today? ;)

How do lesbians have sex? Very well. Not, of course, speaking for all lesbians.

[ana]

i'm so glad i found your blog. :)

[toni smith]

after spending sometime on the internet and looking into blogs like this i feel this is the first and likely the last comment i will leave, as i am a 19 years old girl my life is only just starting out i spent 2 years with male which i adored totally he cheated but i kept him simply because i thought i loved him, one weekend while i was working away changed me and my whole life but not sure weather it was for the best or worse basically i slept with my boss the woman whom i had become so attached to within the past 2 years, my point being sex with another woman never ever crossed my mind i'd never thought of myself being within that situation but i suppose genral know-how and the connection within us both lead the way and sex with this woman was worth dieing for, sex with a woman is so meaningful so loving and so mind blowing its un-real. but i find myself sat here madly inlove with a 40 year old woman with 2 children nothing matters as so, we were both straight on the night we began this affair, we never intended on this outcome of working side by side over the years being this but life is life and there IS NO real way to make love to a woman its more about feelings and emotion then pleasure,being in that situation the timeing and if its ment to be will lead the way take make word for it passion with another woman is simply a must for all we are female so who knows how to pleasure us better then us? call it genral know-how call it whatever but right now am calling it my cloud 9 and the sex isnt a chore nor anything bad\learnt its natural,meaningful and as i said worth more then any price tag could attach..... Priceless x