Girls Need Girl Sex

WHY LESBIAN SEX IS BETTER

Women know what women want. Our natural emotional connection with other women makes lesbian sexuality a profoundly different experience than any woman can ever experience with a man. And the physical aspect of sex between women is a kind of magic so special that lesbians wonder why any woman would ever want anything else. Sex educator Jenny Block is bisexual. She produced a video at Huffington Post’s “Cliteracy” project that explains why lesbian sex is better:

Most women never have orgasms from heterosexual intercourse. All those movies about how “romantic” and “sexy” it is to “make love” to a man are just patriarchal propaganda. Teenage girls are always disappointed after they experience what sex with guys is really like, but the fact that phallic intercourse is unsatisfying (and often painful) doesn’t usually register in her mind as significant in terms of her own sexuality. Her friends tell her she’ll “get used to it,” but even after she gets used to it, sex still isn’t what she wants it to be and doesn’t satisfy her own desires because sex with a male is always about what he wants.

Women know how to make a woman orgasm. If you can orgasm by masturbating, you can do the same thing together with another woman and make each other orgasm, too.

The only reason more women don’t have sex with each other is because we are taught that lesbianism is ‘wrong” and taught that we “need” men sexually. It’s the same reason we are taught that masturbation is bad. The easiest and most natural way for a woman to really enjoy sex is by herself or with another woman. But because men demand sexual access to women, we’re taught a view of sexuality that is defined and controlled by men. Girls are trained to pass the “patriarchal fuckability test” and to measure our own value by how well we conform to male desires. Conforming ourselves to this phallocentric definition requires that we learn to ignore our own needs and deny our own desires. “Love” means being a man’s sexual property, existing for his pleasure, learning to perform as a penis receptacle. Teaching a girl how to be what a woman “should” be according to the system of male supremacy means teaching her to reject her own natural sexuality. She is taught to be ashamed of her own body, warned against the “danger” of masturbation, and especially prohibited from exploring the possibility of lesbian identity. Heteronormativity pushes her toward seeking approval from males and limits her erotic imagination so she can only consider males as potential partners for “love.” This kind of training in childhood makes girls think that sex with men is the only “real” sex, so we aren’t even allowed to imagine sex without men. Our “crushes” on other girls are dismissed as insignificant. If we develop actual romantic relationships with other girls, our parents tell us we are only “going through a phase.” Even when our same-sex attractions lead to physical intimacy, we are told (and may tell ourselves) that this is just “experimenting”; it doesn’t count as “real” sex and doesn’t make us “real” lesbians. Because of all this, many women are forced into a kind of pseudo-heterosexuality, engaging in unsatisfying relationships with males in an attempt to prove they are “normal.” Even though sex with men doesn’t satisfy her, even though she never orgasms from “normal” sex, the pseudo-heterosexual woman has boyfriends and may even marry a man because she knows that is what she “should” do.

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And then there are all these women who have dedicated themselves to other women, who are also romantically and sexually involved solely with women, who are passionate about women and about life as lesbians, who firmly believe that lesbianism has a biological grounds. There has to be a way to criticize “born that way” concepts without saying to these women, “That’s your self-hatred speaking. That’s your gate-keeping. You’re calling lesbianism a defect, an affliction, an undesirable condition. You’re trying to keep women from happiness.”

(Too it would be worthwhile to acknowledge that there is a whole, wide, populated middle between believing “any woman can be a lesbian” and “lesbianism is strictly genetic.”)

Likewise we have to find terms through which lesbian women who do have a history with men can come to understand this history without enshrining “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” as a document with near religious authority.  It’s one thing to agree with this essay, in whole or in part; it is another to wield “well Adrienne Rich said …” as a trump card, and a conversation stopper.  She was a great poet, and an often thoughtful essayist, but not a prophet. We need terms which do not suggest to young women that understanding a history with men is intrinsically bound to the concept of a “lesbian continuum” espoused in that essay.

Many Second Wave “political lesbians” realized, in the consciousness-raising process that led to them coming out, that they had been attracted toward women ever since they were girls who had “crushes” on favorite classmates or teachers. Lesbianism was considered a mental illness and so harshly stigmatized that the possibility of such relationships was nearly invisible to girls growing up then. This was what Adrienne Rich described as “compulsory heterosexuality,” a social system that tended to blind women to their own potential for lesbian existence. Like so many other Second Wave lesbian feminists, Adrienne Rich had to ask herself if she ever would have married a man if she had grown up with a knowledge of lesbian existence and had been free to pursue a life with women. What she saw was a vision of a world in which no woman was denied that knowledge and freedom.

Julie Penelope was a “pre-Stonewall” lesbian who became active in Daughters of Bilitis in the early 1960s, years before Second Wave feminism created the kind of awareness that “political lesbian” describes. For her, heterosexuality was always “repulsive.” She welcomed radical feminism as promising a real women’s revolution and rejected the “appeasement” of the feminist establishment, advocating lesbian separatism. 

Understanding our sexuality is a difficult and painful process for many women. We are raised in a patriarchal society where girls are taught the Princess Myth, encouraged to believe it is our destiny to find “love” in the arms of a handsome prince. This is part of the psychological conditioning girls experience in a culture that trains us to accept heterosexuality as our “natural” orientation. We are taught that women have an innate “need” for men and the lessons we learn in school assume heterosexuality as a fact of our anatomy. Biology textbooks tell us that the reason we have a vagina is so we can be penetrated by a penis. If a girl isn’t excited by the idea of a man putting his penis inside her (which many parents euphemistically describe to curious children as ”making love”) there must be something wrong with her, right?

“Am I gay?”

The question may terrify her so much she is afraid to say it out loud. She is afraid her family will not approve. She is afraid her friends will make fun of her. Her feelings are a secret and she doesn’t know who to trust with her secret. This can be a very lonely experience, because she doesn’t know how many other girls are asking the same question about their feelings.

“Am I gay?”

Yes, you are – depending on what “gay” means to you.

If you are aware enough of your sexuality to question your orientation, then your feelings of attraction toward women (or lack of feelings for men) must be persistent and noticeable. You may be bisexual or you may be lesbian, but if you were completely 100% heterosexual, you wouldn’t need to ask that question.

“Am I gay?”

Yes, you are – at least a little bit, anyway. Some people call it “bicurious” or just “questioning” when a woman first becomes aware of her feelings toward other women. She may already be in a heterosexual relationship, maybe even married to a man, before she starts to question her feelings. Sometimes this questioning process is just curiosity. A woman may be aware that she experiences some attraction toward women, but if she is basically happy in her heterosexual relationships, she doesn’t need to act on her “bicurious” feelings. Many women who identify as heterosexual have secret dreams and fantasies about other women. Any woman can explore her own sexuality privately, masturbating to any fantasy she can imagine, without ever telling anyone else about what gets her off. Orgasm should be a shame-free experience. Don’t feel bad about feeling good.

“Am I gay?” 

Yes, you are – and that’s awesome! You can be as gay as you want to be, however you feel comfortable expressing your sexuality. If you’re just “bicurious” or “questioning,” you shouldn’t feel pressured to decide right away what these feelings mean to you. Especially if you are young, there is no hurry to find a label for your sexuality. The biggest issue for many young women questioning their sexuality is figuring our whether to identity as bisexual or lesbian. A major cause of their confusion is compulsory heterosexuality, the cultural forces in our society that tell women we should feel “attraction” toward men (and only toward men). This can be particularly confusing for girls who have had “crushes” on guys before or women who have previously been in heterosexual relationships, When we become aware that we feel attraction toward women, this awareness makes us re-evaluate our feelings and relationships. Was our “crush” on that guy real, or were we just trying to fit in with our heterosexual friends and convince ourselves we were “normal” like them? For some women, it is easy to decide how they really feel, even if it is still difficult for them to tell their friends and family about their sexuality. Being “in the closet” as lesbian or bisexual can be necessary, if you don’t feel safe being open about your sexuality. Homophobic parents are a problem for many gay girls, and you shouldn’t feel pressured to “come out” if you are worried about the reaction of your family. But even if you have to hide your sexuality, do not let anyone make you feel ashamed of your sexuality.

“Am I gay?”

Yes, you are – or at least you could be. In a society that constantly tells us that all women are “naturally” heterosexual, it takes a lot of courage to question this belief. Any girl or woman who questions her sexuality has recognized that she has feelings that society tells her she should not feel. If heterosexuality is so “natural,” why don’t all women feel what the science book tells us we should feel? To ask the question is to answer the question. The science book is wrong. There is nothing in our nature as women that requires us to feel “attraction” toward men. The psychological conditioning process we experience as girls is a reflection of society’s belief that all women should voluntarily participate in heterosexual relationships.

Men need access to women – to use us for reproduction (breeders), for menial domestic labor (servants) and for sexual pleasure (prostitutes). The institution of heterosexual marriage originated in men’s control of women for all these purposes, and the belief that women performed these tasks voluntarily gave rise to the idea of women’s “love” for men. Even though we see that men can and do use violence to enforce their control of women, the psychological conditioning of girls (compulsory heterosexual) is usually successful enough that violence is not necessary. Most women voluntarily submit to male control, consenting to intercourse, marriage and motherhood and explaining this voluntary submission as “love.” The woman who never questions her “natural” attraction to men ignores the possibility that she could find happiness without a man. Defining herself as incomplete without a man, she feels a need to do whatever he wants her to do, and “love” is what she calls her male-oriented sense of need.

Our society’s training of girls within a culture that presents heterosexuality as “natural” guarantees that most women accept this male-oriented definition of ourselves. Most women never ask the question: “Am I gay?” And those who do ask that question are often afraid the answer might be “yes.” Every woman who loves women has had to overcome that fear. We have to escape the myths of compulsory heterosexuality if we are to recognize who we really are and who we really love. 

“Compulsory heterosexuality is designed to benefit men, as a class, at the expense of women, as a class. … They invented ‘romantic love’ … as a psychological cage with the aim of keeping us in our places until death.”

“Women are naturally attracted to women, not men. Any attraction felt towards men is a product of social conditioning, and if we as a class are to truly achieve liberation, it has to collectively be unlearned.”

“It is natural to be a lesbian. Being a lesbian is the default for me.”

“It’s okay to not love men. It’s okay to not want to be with men. Loving women exclusively is beautiful, it’s natural.”

“What needs to be understood is that erotic love between women is not a deviation from some presumed ‘normal.’ … She is constituted as she is because Nature has made her so. … Nature needs the Lesbian as she is. She needs me as I am.“