#lesbian experiences

[redheadbigshoes]

Being a lesbian is looking at people obsessing over men and just being “why??”

[radfemsiouxsie]

Isn't it weird I've faced more homophobia from the trans crowd than I ever have from like, straight people. Like genuinely before I even peaked I was harassed by my tif "friends" for expressing disgust with even the though of interacting with dicks but the bi and het girls at school never did. Like I would rather sit through hours of straight women talking about their boyfriends and husbands than spend more than 10 minutes with a gendie trying to reinvent gender roles and telling me and my gay male friends liking the same sex is bigoted

[butch-reidentified]

What's living in Florida like as a lesbian? Most (liberal) people I talk to balk when I say I'm considering moving there because they all think it's populated exclusively by bigoted swamp creatures, but I don't want to listen to stereotapes from people who've never lived there. I know what the politics are like there, but what about day-to-day living/homophobia?

I tell people this CONSTANTLY but nobody seems to grasp it: while Florida has very red areas (every state does), especially rurally and in the panhandle (which shouldn't even be part of FL imho), all of the actual cities (like Tampa, St. Pete, Orlando, Miami, Fort Lauderdale) are very much blue and pretty fun to live in. they also all have LGBT+ (ofc the + is everywhere now) events and communities and parts of town etc. I love it here and have had practically zero issues being an extremely gnc lesbian here, except when I lived in Sarasota (red town with a lot of money - sucks ass) and got legally fired for being gay back in early 2020. that could've happened in a red town almost anywhere before it was illegal.

I've even had really fun, awesome experiences chatting (about what it's like to be a lesbian) with conservative white dudes in their gun store - more than once! actually if I'm being completely honest, I've had fewer sexist and homophobic experiences with conservative men in the past few years than with liberals. and yes, pretty much all the negative experiences with liberals were an obvious product of gender identity ideology. it's just so incredibly disappointing that I can reasonably expect a random conservative male I run into in the wild to be more normal about female homosexuality (including butchness!) than a liberal of either sex I run into in the wild. how the FUCK did that happen? I hate it here lmao

[the-sappho-of-lesbos]

Source: The Very Inside; An Anthology of Writing by Asian and Pacific Islander Lesbians and Bisexual Women - Edited by Sharon Lim-Hing

[honeylemony]

I feel like, as much as we have in common, gay, bi, and lesbian queer people will not have the same experiences. It's ok to want labels that reflect our experiences and to describe the difficulties we face.

It's all well and good to say "words don't matter, use whatever label you want" but that's coming at the expense of meaning and definition of experience. I want a word to describe my love for women, my lack of attraction to men, and my space outside of the gender binary. So I use non-binary lesbian, because those words fit my experience and reflect what I feel to be true inside. They have a meaning that is applicable to me and people who have my shared experience.

It can feel really disingenuous when people apply a label to an experience that isn't reflective of it's definition. Bisexual people have experiences I will never have, I will never claim to be bi. Cis women have relationships with themselves and their bodies I can't experience. I can't claim those labels because it does not reflect my identity and it's wrong to try and change those labels to include me as they would lose meaning for the people they are meant for.

Bi lesbian takes meaning and definition from both lesbians and bisexual people. Bisexual people experience attraction to many genders. Lesbians experience lack of attraction to men. You can be bisexual with a preference for women and still be bisexual.

It isn't okay to take a label that excludes part of your identity and make it fit you just because you want to. You are harming the people who the label is for.

[fabyottaa]

Ciao a tutti, sono stata mesi e mesi senza toccare l'icona di Tumblr. Sono cresciuta e sono cambiata molto da quando l'ho installato per la prima volta. Lascerò la stessa bio perché è comunque un pezzo di me e in qualche modo mi ci ritrovo ancora.🥰

[bi-sapphics]

whats the difference between lesbian repulsion for men, and febfem repulsion for men?

ive been so confused about whether im a lesbian or febfem. with either one i wouldn't engage with men, but if im febfem, and wouldnt be romantic or intimate with a man ever, how do i know im attracted to them?

okay, listen. i'm gonna assume you're using "febfem" in good faith like i once did, but unless you actually are a radfem on my blog for some weird reason then please don't. i literally use the term "bi sapphics" instead to emphasize wlw attraction and i'm not sure how you missed such an obvious replacement for a problematic term if you're asking me somewhat-advanced questions like this. i'm not mad, just a little shocked you're talking positively about febfems in my inbox and i wanna address that first.

but to answer your question, at the end of the day the most general answer is you're the one who indicates that. if you think comphet is valid, you might wanna look into the lesbian masterdoc - you can probably just google it or search for it on twitter or tumblr. i have some beef with it personally and am very critical of it because it definitely contributes to bi erasure and was written without the consolation of bi women so it kinda tends to list very common bimisogynistic experiences as lesbian experiences, buuuuut i think it does actually provide some genuine and helpful relief in the longrun. i think comphet is conditionally real, all in separate lesbian contexts, wlw contexts, and women in general contexts because that's just how the patriarchy functions. maybe see which one is affecting you the most and figure out if that helps.

but like i said before all that, i really can't tell you because i don't live your experiences. what i will say is that i used to identify as a lesbian for a year because i went through something very similar, but then i realized my attraction to men just wasn't comphet. it might be the same for you, it might be different. maybe you'll go with bi sapphic and later realize it actually was comphet instead. nothing you do from here will be morally wrong and you shouldn't let anyone, especially radfems & exclus, tell you otherwise, because they will. even then, you could be super perfectly confident and still end up being wrong in the future. really only you can figure this out, with help of course, but i can't give you a definitive answer. hopefully my suggestion will get you somewhere.

if other lesbians and bi women want to add on, please feel free!! all opinions on the "am i a lesbian?" masterdoc are welcome.

[so-1one1ey]

what’s more on brand than crying while writing an essay about being a lesbian while listening to pheobe bridgers?

[admjralbenbow]

severus snape is so lesbian coded. i can't.

[redheadbigshoes]

Comphet fucked me up so damn much that the huge, intense feelings I’ve always felt towards women I had a crush on I genuinely thought was only admiration, meanwhile the indifference I felt about men was mistaken for a crush.

[butch-reidentified]

I love being a lesbian I love women I love pussy I love female body hair I love women who don't give a fuck about men or what men find attractive

[inkskinned]

the thing is that they're so fascinated by sex, they love sex, they can't imagine a world without sex - they need sex to sell things, they need sex to be part of their personality, they need sex to prove their power - but they hate sex. they are disgusted by it.

sex is the only thing that holds their attention, and it is also the thing that can never be discussed directly.

you can't tell a child the normal names for parts of their body, that's sexual in nature, because the body isn't a body, it's a vessel of sex. it doesn't matter that it's been proven in studies (over and over) that kids need to know the names of their genitals; that they internalize sexual shame at a very young age and know it's 'dirty' to have a body; that it overwhelmingly protects children for them to have the correct words to communicate with. what matters is that they're sexual organs. what matters is that it freaks them out to think about kids having body parts - which only exist in the context of sex.

it's gross to talk about a period or how to check for cancer in a testicle or breast. that is nasty, illicit. there will be no pain meds for harsh medical procedures, just because they feature a cervix.

but they will put out an ad of you scantily-clad. you will sell their cars for them, because you have abs, a body. you will drip sex. you will ooze it, like a goo. like you were put on this planet to secrete wealth into their open palms.

they will hit you with that same palm. it will be disgusting that you like leather or leashes, but they will put their movie characters in leather and latex. it will be wrong of you to want sexual freedom, but they will mark their success in the number of people they bed.

they will crow that it's inappropriate for children so there will be no lessons on how to properly apply a condom, even to teens. it's teaching them the wrong things. no lessons on the diversity of sexual organ growth, none on how to obtain consent properly, none on how to recognize when you feel unsafe in your body. if you are a teenager, you have probably already been sexualized at some point in your life. you will have seen someone also-your-age who is splashed across a tv screen or a magazine or married to someone three times your age. you will watch people pull their hair into pigtails so they look like you. so that they can be sexy because of youth. one of the most common pornography searches involves newly-18 young women. girls. the words "barely legal," a hiss of glass sand over your skin.

barely legal. there are bills in place that will not allow people to feel safe in their own bodies. there are people working so hard to punish any person for having sex in a way that isn't god-fearing and submissive. heteronormative. the sex has to be at their feet, on your knees, your eyes wet. when was the first time you saw another person crying in pornography and thought - okay but for real. she looks super unhappy. later, when you are unhappy, you will close your eyes and ignore the feeling and act the role you have been taught to keep playing. they will punish the sex workers, remove the places they can practice their trade safely. they will then make casual jokes about how they sexually harass their nanny.

and they love sex but they hate that you're having sex. you need to have their ornamental, perfunctory, dispassionate sex. so you can't kiss your girlfriend in the bible belt because it is gross to have sex with someone of the same gender. so you can't get your tubes tied in new england because you might change your mind. so you can't admit you were sexually assaulted because real men don't get hurt, you should be grateful. you cannot handle your own body, you cannot handle the risks involved, let other people decide that for you. you aren't ready yet.

but they need you to have sex because you need to have kids. at 15, you are old enough to parent. you are not old enough to hear the word fuck too many times on television.

they are horrified by sex and they never stop talking about it, thinking about it, making everything unnecessarily preverted. the saying - a thief thinks everyone steals. they stand up at their podiums and they look out at the crowd and they sign a bill into place that makes sexwork even more unsafe and they stand up and smile and sign a bill that makes gender-affirming care illegal and they get up and they shrug their shoulders and write don't say gay and they get up, and they make the world about sex, but this horrible, plastic vision of it that they have. this wretched, emotionless thing that holds so much weight it's staggering. they put their whole spine behind it and they push and they say it's normal!

this horrible world they live in. disgusted and also obsessed.

[duskbellamy]

That part in The Little Mermaid where Ursula uses Ariel's stolen voice

*Evil Ariel's" voice

Was an awakening for me

[queerism1969]