Comparing the narratives of lesbian and straight women can reveal how midlife events, relational contexts, and gender norms drive women’s experiences of and responses to diminishing sex. I'd also just finally admitted to myself that, yes, I am in fact very gay, when up until I was 18 I'd only ever had boyfriends. We thus homed in on relevant passages of transcripts and analyzed how interviewees framed and made meaning from their experiences. I’d never even kissed a woman before that night, but Clemence was a decade older and her experience gave me the confidence to follow my instinct.

Not only will you earn serious brownie points for effort, but it’s likely to break the ice and make the conversation less awkward. That night I learnt many things: that my fine motor skills (read: bra unhooking) are surprisingly unaffected by booze; that sex can in fact be hilarious and erotic all at once (in our drunken, fumbled attempts to remove various items of attire we accidentally kicked one another in the head on several occasions to great comical amusement) and that sex with a woman has many perks, including – but not limited to – not having to manoeuvre around a penis, and the ever-present threat of being poked in the eye (it happens). Discussions of events or conditions that participants understood as having influenced their sex lives (e. There was no question of me wanting another man, but there came the inevitable moment when our eyes held one another for an eternity, before our lips entwined in that first long, passionate kiss. Sometimes, participants freely connected experiences of sex and sexuality to other questions about their health and relationships.One night we were hanging together on her bed listening to ‘Something Beautiful’ by Needtobreathe when I kissed her. At the encouragement of her roommate and our mutual friend, I stumbled through asking her to hang out. Try sitting on your partner’s face, and vice versa, and scissoring – there’s a reason why it’s a classic.

Lesbian and gay participants were asked to refer additional lesbian, gay, and straight couples of similar ages from their social networks to take part in the study; this method resulted in the recruitment of most of the straight participants. Not to mention that plenty of straight women who haven’t had lesbian sex get turned on by the idea of girl-on-girl hookups.

I grew up playing softball, and even though I occasionally felt attracted to women, I figured that I couldn't possibly be queer since, within the context I existed, being a lesbian (no one I knew was bisexual) meant that you were butch, which I'm not. It scares the mother fucking shit out of me but it’s never there while I’m staring in some woman’s eyes like she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I know what it’s like to have a thirst for the lesbian culture but be petrified by it at the same time. As Melanie, tasked with caring for her wife’s father, said, “You can’t have sex when her father’s in the next room.

So roughly four hours into the first night of the long awaited physical enactment of our already raging love affair, she was between me and I didn’t have any clothes on and I knew what was about to happen because we had talked about this and I can’t even phrase into words how badly I wanted it but I’ll tell you that it was just about as much as I wanted to run away screaming because I was not gay. To encourage honesty and promote privacy, each person was interviewed individually, away from his or her spouse. As the day approached, I became increasingly stressed about being awful at performing oral sex on a woman—I knew what I liked and what felt good, but I wasn't sure how to translate that knowledge to someone else. Some lesbian and straight women similarly redirected the conversation away from sex and sexuality to focus on intimacy, closeness, and bonds with their spouses as evidence of relationship strength. I know what it’s like to ask the lesbian gods how the hell you’re ever going to find a date when the only lesbian you know is your Mums middle-aged friend.I was engaged to a man at the time, and said girl dragged me recklessly back out of the closet I’d been hiding in. Although you know in your heart of hearts that they exist, finding them seems like an impossible task. With the right lesbian dating advice, you will (in time) have this whole girl-on-girl dating malarkey down to a tee. I couldn't even find her clitoris, I think it was so small (like seriously what am I supposed to be licking here).