While its cool that a win for our team is a win for all it would be nice to see a piece with a focus on Lesbians. The L in LGBT comes first, damnit.

Read way earlier in this sub and thought it was a great idea. I'm aware Trans Issues are a big thing in the media right now (and I know I'm being a hypocrite for bringing it up here) but 4 of the last 10 posts were addressing trans issues. Side note: that MadTV sketch cracked me up. My point though is that I subscribed here hoping to not have this topic encroach on this lesbian space like it does everywhere else. Lets talk about Lesbians and lesbianing.

Well I wish I could make this a sticky,but we are limited to two sticky threads.

Share your wisdom in life regarding female homosexuality.

Here is my share:

1.Do not come out until you are financially secure.Getting kicked out of the family nest before you can support yourself may have catastrophic consequences to your future.

2.Never ever rely on anyone,(not even to that wonderful someone you think you are going to spent the rest of your life with) to support you financially.You do not want to find yourself in the street after a break up.Always try to hold down a job even if its a minimum wage job.

3.Never engage with an individual with a severe personality disorder or addiction.You will be drugged down with her in her personal hell.If you yourself have such a problem do not expect that a wonderful someone will solve it for you.You need the help of a professional.

4.Do not go out in life with the naive assumption that just because someone is female,that makes her kind,sensitive and caring by default.Always be on your guard.If you see the tell tale red flags of abuse bail it asap.

Here is the link to the story:

https://www.paypal.com/stories/us/paypal-withdraws-plan-for-charlotte-expansion

I know other companies out there are also boycotting NC, but this one is pretty huge. They had plans to move global operations to Charlotte and pulled the plug when this stupid discriminatory bill was passed.

NC governor was certain this bill would not hurt the state's economy. I hope companies continue to prove him wrong.

Here's the article in question:

http://soletstalkabout.com/post/141259707795/so-i-went-home-with-a-lesbian-last-night

A self-identified queer friend posted this on her facebook recently, and I found myself furious after reading it.

I read this as a bisexual man bragging about sleeping with bisexual women. Except he calls himself gay and the women lesbians.

The thing that bothered me most about this article was the fact that it's a giant brag about how this man dates and has sex with "lesbians" (that's the word he uses, there's absolutely NOTHING about how the women themselves ID - perhaps they consider themselves bi!). It reminds me of a line I've heard from too many straight men "my last girlfriend was a lesbian, too!" or "I love dating lesbians, they're so easy to get along with!" or the worst, "I love sleeping with lesbians because they don't just lay there like a dead fish!" (wait, what???)

This is just another facet of the male gaze toward women: that all women must be sexually available to everyone. The other side of the same argument asserts that straight women are in fact bisexual (see footnote 1). The argument on both sides is the same: that all women are sexually available to everyone.

I tried to explain to my friend why this article bothered me so much: because it's textbook lesbian erasure! She disagreed and said that in fact it was I who was erasing bisexual/pansexual/queer/label-free identities. I think it's fine to be label free, just don't go around redefining and appropriating labels that other communities use and ascribe a great deal of value to.

There's another interesting aspect to this article, that the author himself doesn't discuss in any detail, and that my friend (Chicana) and I (white) didn't discuss: the intersectionality of race & sexuality. The author himself mentions VERY briefly that it's easier to represent himself as a black gay man than a black bisexual man who prefers men and androgynous women. I honestly know nothing about living that particular intersectional life in those communities, so I don't feel I can make any comment on it. I would love to hear some perspectives on that line in particular!

Anyway, what do ya'll think about this article? Besides its use of casual slang, which I found distracting. Maybe that makes me racist? I don't know.

footnote 1: The popular interpretation of this study is that "all women are bisexual", but the scientific hypothesis is that showing physical signs of arousal in response to visual depictions of any sexual activity evolved as a mechanism to prevent women from being murdered by men who rape them.

Is anyone here really transphobic?

I guess I'm getting tired of seeing this called a hate sub. I saw one woman's post that she stopped in here but quickly left because of the transphobia.

Maybe I am naive or misunderstanding, but I don't think anyone in here hates trans-anything. I think we just wanted one place that we could call our own without the drama of being accused of this or that or anything else. We can post what we want on any topic we want without the Gestapo censoring every other word.

Why is this wrong?

All those who are transphobic, please say, "aye."

I've found myself getting disillusioned with self-described queer communities. Despite all the emphasis on gender-playground ideology, these communities still enforce rigid gender roles -- just slightly different ones. Here is how it works.

1. If you are female, you should be femme.

2. If you are female but not femme, you must identify as male or genderqueer. You can't actually be just a woman who is not femme.

Sadly, I've also felt something similar even in some lesbian communities. Only this time it's a little different. It's fine to dress and act how you want, but you can't really identify yourself as gender-nonconforming unless you pass as male at least some of the time. And this is upsetting to me because I'm pretty GNC, but have a very obviously female body and facial features. I could never, ever pass as male even if I wanted to. (Which I don't!) But I am definitely not femme. It's puzzling to me that passing as male is used as sort of a badge of honor and people ignore the fact that there is anything in between "femme" and "mistaken for a man all the time."

Thoughts?

(also btw, I've posted here a few times as gc_wombat but I've decided to delete that account and stick with my main account.)

First of all, I'd like to say I love that this subreddit exists. Because honestly in any other "inclusive" subreddit I wouldn't even be able to ask this question, even if I know this is a subject worth discussing among lesbians. So, how do you feel about bi girls? Is it irrelevant? Is it a turnoff? Have you had positive/negative experiences with it? Rant away!

I've always used it to mean homosexual, but I keep hearing bi people using it to describe themselves, or using it on their flair. Is "gay" less gay than lesbian?

I actually have better results getting guys to fuck off when I say I'm gay than I do when I say I'm lesbian, so I've always felt like "gay" was about as gay as you could get.

I work in a male-dominated profession and conservative company. As an experienced professional, I have yet to see a female promoted to a senior management position who holds a similar education and work experience background to mine. Basically, I've never reported to a female boss in my profession. I've had interviews with female hiring managers, but that's as close as it gets. We're dispersed throughout different organizations. Where have I seen my female peers go? Common to see them leave the organization, switch professions, leave the workforce, and some will stick around. How does this compare to the male counterparts? I've seen the men promoted within and outside my department or they tap into their network for their next opportunity. I've been around long enough to observe a definite contrast.

Too many factors at play outside of gender on why this is the situation. For me, my sexuality is part of it. I wanted to bring my work environment to light, since I don't discuss these observations with my colleagues. By the way, I am not of the opinion everyone should strive to climb the ladder.

I'd like to hear from other gay women and their experiences (even a totally different work scenario than what I shared). We are all individuals that make our own choices.

Thanks for the responses so far. I didn't want to bias this by adding my opinion in to start out with, but I'll answer now that I really dislike the term. It's almost always been used as an attack against me and when I've heard it used referencing others it's almost always an attack. I appreciate that some lesbians have tried to reclaim 'dyke' and that some don't see it as a negative term, but to me it's very negative because of how it's been used for so long.

What made me ask about this was an blog I read that was written by a man who is identifying as a woman and a lesbian. The article was all about how lesbians won't date him and throughout the blog he used 'dyke' like 20 times which just, to me, made it easy to know why lesbians won't date him (aside from the face he's male). His use and dominant use of 'dyke' made the blog read like he's very much not in tune with the lesbian community. But that was my opinion based on how I felt about 'dyke' so I wanted to know how you all felt about the term.

If you want to read this blog it's here on The Daily Beast. The author is the MTT-activist Julia Serrano.

My university's diversity center held an event today. It was a coffee chat for students with a visiting professor, a lesbian. I had never met a lesbian tenured faculty member before and it was really great to talk to someone older than me and hear about her experiences. I came away feeling really glad I had attended.

As a bonus, one of the postdocs in my department was there and we chatted for a while afterwards. I hadn't known she was gay, and I was extra happy to find that out. :)

I'm sick of actuallesbians being overrun with bisexual issues. Like fine, bi people can post there about stuff that applies to everyone who likes WLW. But saying things like nothing relating to Xena and Gabrielle should be called lesbian, because they're "100% bi"... Or "omg the HER app has a big neon sign excluding bisexuals, because it only mentions bisexuals in the slogan, whereas in the rest of the website it just says lesbian"... What the fuck. Why don't you rant about bi visibility in the bisexual sub?

It seems these people are happy to usurp the lesbian label when it suits them (i.e. to take over a sub called actuallesbians, when they have r/bisexual which literally excludes gay and straight people), but as soon as there is lesbian representation in the media they want to take that away and say "it's not lesbian, it's bisexual!"

Okay, have fun in your bisexual relationships, watching your bisexual porn, having bisexual sex. Or wait, if one of them is a lesbian, is it lesbian-bisexual porn? And if none of them are gay (which is probably the case in mainstream), and it's actually made for straight men, I guess it must be straight porn!

Anyway. Why are you guys here?

There I was, sitting on my couch browsing my front page. When on my feed I come across a post in a subreddit similar to this one but not quite the same. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

When I stumbled across this gem in the post-

I also happen to be bisexual, more specifically homeflexible as I only intentionally date women

Are people out there going on unintentional dates? Like they rolled out of bed, woke up and accidentally went on a date? That doesn't seem ok. Do we help them? I have so many more questions.

In all seriousness I feel like we're just splitting hairs.

End Rant.

I thought a chance for some casual banter would be good for getting to know others here. Any weekend plans/experiences people would like to share?

I am very disappointed with the supposedly lesbian websites I used to frequent.They decided to be all inclusive and rename themselves to queer.Are any good,pure lesbian only websites out there?Post your suggestions in this thread.

And it is french,people!No I am not talking about Blue Is The Warmest Color (which could be very good if the director did not screw up with the ridiculous sex scenes).

I am referring to La Belle Saison (2015).

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4080768/

La belle Saison is well directed and well acted.Above all it examines carefully and thoughfully,what is a usually a cliche storyline in the lesbian films.Woman A meets woman B,they fall crazy in love and they have to struggle to stay together because neither societal norms or the rest of their lives circumstances make it easy for them.

I found both the protagonists and most of the secondary characters well rounded and with the exception of a few,not cardboard cliches.And both of the protagonists grow and learn more as the events unfold and their passionate affair is tested by the forces of the universe and their own demons.

The sex scenes (of which were plenty albeit short)were realistic and full of emotion.Only complain of mine is why the hell they never wore any item of clothing in bed?It makes me suspect it serves no artistic purpose other than mere titillation. Unless people in France have a habit of sleeping naked in bed that I do not know of.

A truly lesbian space for and by lesbians only..

And no other letters just the L.. ?????

Seems like actuallesbians are not truly lesbians after all..

Have any funny stories about those dudes who pose as lesbians on dating apps and websites?

Picture the scene. You have been single for quite a while, let's say two years. You meet someone and begin a brand new relationship, things are going great. You are both really into each other. All of a sudden, out of nowhere come all these women who are suddenly interested in you. Edit: Others are interested in HER, too.

Are we secreting pheromones or something? Is there a particular vibe that ripples across the planet?

Fast forward six months - you are still happily in the relationship, but those people are gone and new ones don't appear.

It only seems to happen in new relationships. Has this happened to you? Any theories on it?

Well I have been helplessly watching Aftellen.com going off the deep end for years now,with all the queer inclusiveness shit it decided to endorse (probably to snatch more views and thus more revenues rather than sincere social progressiveness) but this takes the cake!An afterellen writer writes a positive review for a film that has a gold star lesbian have sex with a man,on the very night she broke up with her girlfriend and spoilers decide in the end, HE is the one for her after all!Really you have to read the plot as described in the article to see how offensively absurd this film is!And to see it praised in a site that promises it plays "for your team"!Uh.We used to go (and support) sites like Afterellen in order to avoid seeing this shit!

Thankfully the readers had none of that and gave article author Trish Bendix a piece of their mind!Reading the article comments is really cathartic after suffering the enraging appraisal of the ever-present lesbian identity denial by males.

I thought I had one, but it turns out I have two. You know the type. They meet someone, go on a date or two, and they are in love.

One of my friends, who is really more of an acquaintance, meets women online. They talk, Skype, whatever for weeks. Before they meet in person, she is posting lovey memes all over Facebook. Now, this buildup goes on for weeks. Then, the big moment, they spend a weekend together. By Monday, they decide a relationship is not going to work out. She's back on the search engines.

This other friend had one girlfriend. It lasted about 6 months. She has been grieving over this loss for almost 2 years. She finally meets someone new. They've been together about 2 weeks and are already posting soulmate memes on each others' walls.

Why do people do this?

There is a thread on a FB group about this. One woman posted that she and her girlfriend have been considering a threesome. She was asking thoughts from others in the group. Here is a link to the thread if you want to check it out:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/55628888896/permalink/10153607297658897/

What are your thoughts on it? Of the replies on the thread, which can you relate to? Inquiring minds want to know.

We had lunch with some friends yesterday celebrating a birthday for one of them. It was the first time this person allowed anyone to acknowledge his birthday in years, so we all showered him with gifts. He was turning 38.

He's a large, sweet, gay man who has been single for a very long time. He's concerned that he will never meet someone with whom he can build a lasting relationship. His concern about this increases with every year.

I remember feeling that way, probably back when I was 38...and 40. By 42, I was sure it was never going to happen, but then it did.

I have another friend who was single from the time she was in her 20s until well into her 50s. She's 54 now, and is celebrating her one year anniversary with a man with whom she is madly in love. But, for years - and years, and years - she felt like it would never happen. Especially after I started seeing my gf, and my sister got married. She felt left out. We were all perpetually single together and then we moved on without her.

Have you ever felt like this? Do you now?

Do you place life happiness on your relationship status? When I was single, I was okay with it. Sure, it would be nice to have someone to go places with, but I was okay alone. I was okay dating. I was not okay with the drama, but I simply walked away from it.

I remember my female friend getting desperate for love in her early 50s. I never remember being like that. My male friend above is not like that either. I think he is just turning cynical.

How does one reverse the cycle?

This sub cannot continue in silence and cannot grow without activity. So speak up! What's on your mind? What's got you down? What's got you up? What's got you twisted? How are you feeling about life, the universe, and everything?

Also, please speak up to other lesbians you've not yet invited to the sub. Let them know there's a space on the interwebs for True Lesbians where they can speak up without fear of male intrusion, i.e., male intrusion that's not shut down as quickly as possible. Let all the lesbians you know, both on Reddit and elsewhere, that there's a female-only space for them here.

So I am an avid pc gamer since my 20's.Here is my player character from Skyrim,Artemisia:Imgur.

Vanilla Skyrim did not offer many options for short haircuts or face/body editing and a lot of armors where skimpy (even for males!) or sleeveless and pantless (in a rather cold place).Thankfully various modders provided the community with more options.So here is Artemisia with an awesome short hairstyle (from KS Hairdos renewal mod) and kickass heavy plate (from dragonbone ebonsteel mod).Artemisia is an Imperial warrior,loyal to the Empire,who crushed the stormcloak rebellion,saved the world from Alduin,protected Tamriel from vampire domination,stopped a previous dragonborn from taking over Solsteim,build 3 awesome mansions by her own hand,married her sweet and brave companion Vijla and adopted 6 children and a dog!

PS I am also the creator of 3 mods for Oblivion,here is the best of them : Nordic armory

What are your thoughts on marriage?

Everywhere we go, everyone we meet asks if we are getting married or when are we getting married. We're together almost 5 years. We just bought a house together.

The mortgage company said we'd be a better risk if we were married. Really? 2 years ago, this wasn't even an option, now because YOU think it makes me a better risk, I should run out and get married?

My gf doesn't seem too interested in marriage. I don't have a strong opinion one way or another on the subject. I am still of the mindset that "just because we can, doesn't mean we should."

What are your thoughts?

If the opportunity presented itself would you get married? Are you already married? How long were you together before you decided this person was THE ONE?

Now you're linked to on ActualLesbians and maybe you'll get a bunch of new real lesbians coming to subscribe. good luck

I just saw a TED talk on a life long study of happiness. It was really interesting to hear what keeps us happy and healthy, and that our health is directly related to our happiness.

Over the years, I made substantial changes to my work life to allow for more personal time. I made substantial changes to my social circle to remove the drama-filled people who seem to live in perpetual turmoil. This has significantly reduced my stress levels and I am much happier for it. When stress begins to enter my life, I recognize it and push it out as quickly as possible.

I'm not a fan of stress and choose not to participate. I do not allow my work to stress me out. Not even when I have a high-stress colleague who is trying to place his/her stress onto my shoulders.

Here is the TED talk. I hope you enjoy. What are your thoughts about your own life and how this might apply to you?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KkKuTCFvzI&feature=youtu.be&app=desktop

If you read my 'scary changes' post then you know my wife's grandmother is in bad condition and in hospital. You also know of some of the health issues I've been having myself. Tonight we got word that my grandmother-in-law will have life support removed on Monday. Her funeral will follow later in the week. This in addition to my own health issues is coming together to make a very rough time for us.

I've spent too much time online lately and it's time to back away and focus on helping my wife get through the coming weeks, getting myself through the same weeks, and then focusing on my own health, finding a new doctor who will take me seriously, and figuring out what's going on with me and what I can do to stop it or slow it.

This sub is yours. I'm granting full privileges to the mods we currently have so they can do whatever needs to be done to improve and run the sub whilst having the same I access I currently do to the stylesheet and everything else.

I'm not abandoning this, and I don't want this sub to fail. I hope those of you who are here will make it grow and will enjoy this space for what it is: a space for you, by you, with no intrusions.

Goodbye for now.

Whether it's a romance or some other type of novel that features lesbian characters, what are some of your favorite lesbian novels?

I hate it when it starts with one of the characters being with a man. I understand it's realistic for many living in more homophobic times and places, but when reading a romance, I usually want a pleasant fantasy and don't want to be reminded of the pressure to fuck men. I am actually writing a lesbian romance, but I've only read one or two and am looking to expand my reading experience.

I really enjoyed Stoner McTavish and am giving it a reread as of now.

My girl and I have been together for about 5 years. In the beginning, sex was fun and often. But, that didn't last long. By year 2, sex was intermittent at best. We were long distance and did not see each other much, but even on weeks we were together, we might have sex once a week. Fast forward to this past December when our relationship moved to permanent full-time.

She assured me back when sex started getting stale that it would change after she moved in and left her stressful job. Well, it's coming up on four months and we've had sex in our house a total of 3 times.

It's not just the quantity either. Sex is short and vanilla. I have tried introducing things but often get shot down. (LOL...we had a 10 minute discussion about Altoids during sex once. I had to finish the mint before moving on.) I've tried initiating sex, but am told she has to be the one to initiate because that's the way she's always been. The other day, after about 6 weeks of no sex, I walked out of the room naked, grabbed her hand, and said, "Let's go." Seriously, enough was enough. She did not argue, which was good.

We cuddle, kiss, and hold hands. It's not that she avoids me or even makes me feel unloved. Feeling loved is not the problem. Feeling wanted is the problem.

I love this woman with everything I have. This is not a deal-breaker at this time. But, honestly, it is the worst sexual relationship I've ever been in. I was in a loveless marriage with a man and we had more sex than this.

Does this happen to others, too? What does a normal sex life look like? Am I being unrealistic by wanting more?

My body has changed a lot over the past year, and the changes aren't slowing down. It started off innocently enough with a few mixed up words and short-term memory failures that I wrote off quickly as being stress induced. Then some physical changes started which I still don't think are directly related to the neuro changes, like starting to get a few thick & dark hairs on my chin and neck, becoming more quickly fatigued, decreased libido, and random pain around my body. A few months into the changes I noticed they were getting worse or more frequent, and there were new changes coming as well including changes to my cycle (more severe pms, longer and heavier periods, the end of clockwork reliability and the end of being able to use my period tracker app as a reliable schedule of future periods), more frequent migraines, random tingling sensations in my left side, development of and increasing frequency of palpitations, occasional loss of balance and near-falls with one actual fall. All of the new was coming on as the first-noticed changes were getting worse: more facial hairs and more frequent plucking needed, roller-coaster fluctuations to my libido, more fatigue, some weight gain, more frequent memory issues and word mix-ups.

Today, about a year after first noticing these changes, things are still getting worse. My short-term memory is almost dead unless I work hard to remember something, and even then it's hit & miss. For example, I've been having my wife tell me 5 words at night to remember in the morning (something I very easily could have done without trying before) and I write them down, repeat them to myself, make sentences for them, and now when I wake up I can maybe get 1 or 2 of them, but am clueless with the rest, and sometimes get 0. According to my wife and our friends I'm incorrectly remembering past events and conversations, especially more recent ones. A few months ago I was aggressively fighting back against that claim, but now I feel it to be true and don't tell them they're wrong. My last cycle was 62 fucking days, longest cycle ever. Used to be 26 days, always. Last period though was definitely not as bad and didn't last as long as the previous four, which had all been horrible. I'm plucking 20-25 thick, dark hairs from my face/neck about once a week now. My boobs have become incredibly tender. If one of our cats walks on me when I'm lying down and puts all his weight down on one of them it's very painful. There was an odd week a couple of weeks ago during & after my last period when my nipples were swollen and tender as well, but that's gone now. I'd never had that before, so maybe it's nothing. I now get around 6-10 episodes of palpitations each day, sometimes more.

Ok, so I started writing this a little over an hour ago. It brings up another issue I have now which is the lack of ability to concentrate and remain focused. I get distracted very easily and very quickly. There have been times I've started to do something and then something distracts me just for a moment and then I can't remember what the hell I was doing or about to do. This, I think, plays in with my memory issues and together create the most frustrating aspect of the changes I've experienced. I'm 29 years old (closer to 30) and I'm starting to think I'll completely lose my mind by the time I'm even 35. What's frightening to me is more and more I'm noticing losses of long-term memory. Things I should know (things I did know just months ago) are slowly disappearing, becoming difficult to recall, or I'm getting short blips of a blank mind when trying to recall something and then it pops into mind--this issue often has to do with words. My memory problems overall seem to be focused on my vocabulary, like forgetting different medical terms I've known for years and used frequently in my career.

My grandmother-in-law had a heart attack this past Friday and when my wife told me about it I asked her which grandmother. She then told me she only has one, and I knew that. I've met her more than a few times, we've talked, I know her. I couldn't remember her name, her birthday...I had to look these things up to bring them back into memory, and you know what, writing about this right now I can recall her name but not her birthday.

Numbers! I used to be amazing with numbers. Phone numbers, credit card numbers, account numbers, social security numbers, birthdays...now the only numbers I can active recall are my wife's phone number, our birthdays, and both our social security numbers, but I stumble even on these sometimes (except our bdays). Just a year ago, maybe closer to a year and half, I knew and could actively recall a whole list of numbers, even our freaking library card numbers. That ability is no longer part of me.

My doctor writes all of these things off as being related to stress, depression, anxiety, and weight. She won't even listen to me and order some basic labs. She had me hooked up to an ECG for about a minute and determined that since I didn't have any palpitations in that minute that it must just be anxiety. I asked her to refer me to a cardiologist or at least order a cardiac workup and she refused, saying it would be a waste of time and trying hard to reassure me that I'm fine and just need to perhaps take my Xanax more frequently and lose some weight (I'm seriously barely in the 'obese' category by BMI, but I admit I'm a bit chunky and could definitely benefit from losing weight, but weight gain has been a part of all of this.)

Insert very deep sigh here

I had a bit of mental breakdown just a couple of weeks ago when talking to my wife and one of our mutual best friends. I know this because my wife asked me about it tonight, asked me how I'm feeling. I couldn't remember much of this breakdown, just mostly feeling very frustrated, sad, and scared. And that's exactly what I'm feeling. Frustration, sadness, and fear that for some reason I am, before the old age of 30, losing my mind, losing my skills, losing my education, losing everything that I've ever valued about myself, and that soon I will be someone new, someone I won't like, or someone I won't know. That is terrifying.

But good fucking luck getting a doctor to take me seriously, right? I need to fire my primary and hunt down a new one, a good one.

Fin.

As a tax preparer, my days are really busy right now. Taxes are not all I do, but this time of year, the taxes fill up every open slot on an already busy schedule. It's hard for me to come up with a discussion topic that is not business related.

So, what is everyone working on this week? What do you do for work? What projects or tasks is keeping you busy this week?

Tell me a story. I'm stuck in a tiny office with a computer and two monitors. I'm already over it, and the first deadline hasn't even passed yet.

Either online or real world, how has your experience been? How has the experience changed over time? What do you think the future might hold for our spaces?