#Why do some women hate 'goldstars'? Because a goldstar said something mean one time so now they all must be gate keepers

[2024skin]

this is exactly why I'm supposed to be on tumblr sabbatical because half the women on here are normal intelligent people who dont post that much about feminism and the other half of women are raging misogynists who hate men but not as much as they hate that one woman in their life who they think causes all their problems. And then they project that anger towards one specific woman onto all other women

[tenbees]

Hi sorry to rant here but like I don’t get the gold star discourse like I don’t hate non gold stars and I’m not opposed to dating them at all but like I don’t understand how they can say gold stars are privileged?? Like when they were pressured into having relationship with men in high school(like some of them say) or something but like is it too hard to simply say no? Is someone actually point a gun to your head and saying you HAVE to be with a man or I’ll shoot you??? to be continued...

and like I understand you know women who didn’t want to accept they were lesbians and forced themselves to have a relationship with men because they hated themselves and I get why they would do it because having depression I have always struggled with self hating and self harming and I think lesbians with men are self harming but I just could never bring myself to be romantically involved with a man not matter how much I hated myself and felt alone and misunderstood. to be continued...

But I don’t think it’s fair to say non goldstars aren’t really lesbians because as a gold star I get a lot of the “you can’t know if you like men or not if you never tried being with them.” And like I don’t have to try and force myself to be with someone I don’t want to be with ??? And sometimes I get back to self hating and thinking yeah maybe I should try and be with men so I know for sure?? But at the same time I’m like I DONT WANT TO!!! to be continued... (the other is the last part)

And I don’t see myself being capable of forcing myself in a situation like that. Point is, saying lesbians who had experience with men OR lesbians who had never been with men are not “real” lesbians is awful and both of us have a hard time enough as it is so I think we should all be more understanding of each other. Because in reality none of us are “privileged”. Sorry for the word vomit in your inbox it’s cause when this discourse comes up I genuinely don’t understand why it even comes up??

at first i thought very similarly to you--i accepted that some lesbians date men because they feel pressured to, because they hate themselves, etc, but that for whatever reason i’ve never done it despite experiencing a lot of the same pressures. but after reading multiple stories of ‘lesbians’ who had religious families (me too), grew up in conservative areas (me too), didn’t know women were an option (me too), felt like they had to be attracted to men (me too), thought something was wrong with them because they weren’t attracted to men (me too) and so on and thus decided to pursue men, ask men out, accept men’s advances, flirt with men, fuck men, date men, marry men, have children with men, i was like... something doesn’t add up.

you said yourself that you feel the same pressure but won’t date or fuck a man because you simply don’t want to and because no one’s actually forcing you. what makes others different? why did feeling all of that make them have relationships with men, when it made us just not participate? what makes some women willing to give men a try while others refuse? i think the women who pursue men despite their (exaggerated, in many cases) disgust are attracted to them on some level and that this shows the difference in how lesbians and kinsey 5 bisexuals respond to homophobia. lesbians respond by avoiding relationships with men, even if it means becoming an outcast, while bisexuals respond by entering relationships with men despite their heavy preference for women/negative feelings about men.

lesbians have been talking about it because the dominant lesbian narrative is that it’s normal for lesbians to have sex with men before coming out, which is a bisexual narrative. a lot of us have felt isolated and like we’re the only lesbians on earth who decided to just never date and instead be alone throughout our childhood/young adult years. it’s very isolating to watch movies, read books, and hear the life stories of ‘lesbians’ who were in relationships with men before coming out, relationships that were completely optional--why should ex-het voices be the most common in lesbian spaces? why should we just accept that lesbians will have sex with men before knowing they’re gay? you don’t just flip a switch and turn into a homosexual, you act like a homosexual your entire life and show consistent interest in women and apathy about men without even knowing what you are. any narrative that suggests lesbians will willingly have sex with men under the right circumstances (social pressure, religion, self hatred, mental illness, etc) is harmful, let alone the idea that lesbians are privileged and lucky if we’ve never had sex with a man--as if all of the women saying that couldn’t have literally just chosen to not have sex with men if they didn’t want it lol. not to mention how ridiculous it is to suggest that women who categorically say no to men's wants are privileged in any way.