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Post by eilonnwy on Sept 15, 2016 20:54:41 GMT -5
How did you come to the realization that you were a lesbian, and what advice would you give to young women trying to figure this out?
Admittedly I am one of those people who identified as bisexual initially when i accepted that I liked women, but abandoning the notion i liked men was a lot harder. eventually it came down to me asking myself an honest question, "do i want to be in a relationship with men? am i okay with the idea of never having a boyfriend or husband" and after thinking about it for a while, I realized the answer was yes. I didn't know about compulsory heterosexuality, but that was definitely what I was dealing with. So my advice would be to young women questioning themselves, ask yourself that question and really dwell on the answer. You might find that your attraction to men was conditioned, while your attraction to women is true and wonderful.
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Post by ashleyhormoaning on Sept 15, 2016 21:06:20 GMT -5
I was thinking about this earlier. honestly i've known since i was at least 9 that i liked women. i tried to pretend to be bi but it never rly stuck. for a long time i thought i was asexual but i think it was a result of my anti-depressants. i still dated women. but yeah.. ia with your advice though. just thinking critically about if you really want a future with men
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Post by futchdyke on Sept 15, 2016 22:07:49 GMT -5
Well I was establishing myself as a female-exclusive bi for quite a while before realizing I was a lesbian so it wasn't like I could accurately reflect on my current feelings on men because it wasn't like I could test it again so I had to sort out from my previous experiences and looking back I realized the way I felt kissing men was totally different than with women. I also realized my discomfort and lack of arousal during sex attempts with men wasn't just virgin nerves but actual lack of attraction. There's tons of stuff that can lead you away from figuring yourself out
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Post by theblondegoblin on Sept 16, 2016 5:07:04 GMT -5
ooh jeeze this is gonna get embarrasing, and it doesnt cover everything either. if theres one thing thats made me hate the more modern mainstream ideas on sexuality its been being a closeted gay looking for advise on the internet.
Being autistic probs influenced a few things, maybe. its hard to recognise attraction sometimes, and harder when you have no idea how attraction rlly works and everyone seems to know more then you and has a "no homo" reasoning to everything (dreaming abt women in ur sleep? meh women are naturally fluid lol and besides theyre so sexualised in our media you must just be thinkin abt that).
but its not always abt an immediate feeling but like, just wanting to be closer to someone (and not just in a sexxxay way). and like, I was sooo secluded from other ppl and tried designing characters in my spare time, but I never wanted to pair my girl ocs with boys bcus I could just never understand at all why theyd like boys or do the romantic stuff when guys are just so meh. but I still thought I was attracted to men bcus I knew when a boy was pretty! (my "crushes" were always girly as hell) but after seeing and talking to and relating to so many lesbians online I realised that all my feelings for girls were stronger and more concise simply because thats what real attraction is. not just admiration of style and aesthetic, but real desire for another person.
so yeah, gay feelings arent always just some immediate impulse. its abt what feels "righter" in a way. does the idea of sex or even just a relationship with men just feels kinda odd to you? chances are its cus theyre not for you.
oh yeah and the stuff abt sexual fluidity and "everyones a little bi" and all that made unlearning compulsory heterosexuality so much worse. laci green why did you have to say that str8 women fantasizing abt other women was a common thing and didnt make u gay??? thats so fucking dumb and yet you made me so confused for so long abt myself!
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Post by Anandrine on Sept 16, 2016 8:43:46 GMT -5
my "crushes" were always girly as hell ha i remember a thread on tumblr where lesbians talked about our high school male celeb "crushes" and they were all like "orlando bloom but only as legolas" and "jrockers who dressed like and are mistaken for women." personally i knew i liked girls from age 8 or so. my mom had a best friend who always brought her daughter who was my age over and ummmmm we kissed in my bed at least a few times lol. and i remember watching mtv's tv show "undressed" (which aired from when i was like 11-13) which was a ~risque~ show that aired late at night and had some lesbian content. i don't think i ever really thought about it in terms of identity though, and when i did start to, i went through a period of calling myself a panromantic asexual. but the asexual part was definitely a result of a) body issues and by extension b) not being able to picture myself having sex, and moreso not with girls, who i was actually attracted to. the "pansexual" part went out the window when i had a guy try to woo me on a website and i was like "i don't even like the idea of him liking me, gross." i think it was around the same time i also demanded that a guy friend ask me out to see what it was like, but i refused to let him do things like pull out my chair for me or hold my hand, and i broke up with him by phone the next day lmao. this time period was like 13-15. and then i developed my first real, full-blown crush on a non-straight girl (so who was actually a possibility) that came along with sexy dreams, and i was like, ok, yeah, i am GAY. |
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Post by kuunaan on Sept 16, 2016 13:46:40 GMT -5
Admittedly I am one of those people who identified as bisexual initially when i accepted that I liked women, but abandoning the notion i liked men was a lot harder. eventually it came down to me asking myself an honest question, "do i want to be in a relationship with men? am i okay with the idea of never having a boyfriend or husband" and after thinking about it for a while, I realized the answer was yes. ^This was me as well, I went through a similar process figuring out whether I genuinely liked men or nor. When I first came out, I was in a monogamous relationship with a girl, so I never had to ACTUALLY kiss boys let alone have sex with them; it was easy to convince myself and other that I was bi and not deal with the whole holy-fuck-I'm-a-lesbian thing. Teenage me even thought I would eventually have sex with a man when that relationship ended, but when that time came I had already learnt about compulsory heterosexuality and, well, I had no interest in men lmao. That's also why I'm still a bit touchy about the whole goldstar-hate thing, but that deserves a thread of its own.my "crushes" were always girly as hell ha i remember a thread on tumblr where lesbians talked about our high school male celeb "crushes" and they were all like "orlando bloom but only as legolas" and "jrockers who dressed like and are mistaken for women." I remember that thread too, lol. I adored many male artists and it did take me a while to admit that "wanting to look like someone" or "finding someone beautiful" is not the same as "wanting to have sex with someone". At one point I even identified with that whole pansexual-but-not-into-cishet-men thing, and then slowly it became "bi but mostly interested in women" and... yeah. It was a steady progress. I think I was 18 or 19 when I first called myself a lesbian? |
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Post by theblondegoblin on Sept 16, 2016 18:20:18 GMT -5
ha i remember a thread on tumblr where lesbians talked about our high school male celeb "crushes" and they were all like "orlando bloom but only as legolas" and "jrockers who dressed like and are mistaken for women." I remember that thread too, lol. I adored many male artists and it did take me a while to admit that "wanting to look like someone" or "finding someone beautiful" is not the same as "wanting to have sex with someone". At one point I even identified with that whole pansexual-but-not-into-cishet-men thing, and then slowly it became "bi but mostly interested in women" and... yeah. It was a steady progress. I think I was 18 or 19 when I first called myself a lesbian? haha! yeah that celeb crush stuff was what it was like a lot of the time. Its odd to only see the dress styles and personalities you like on guys, or if you do see it on girls, its considered weird or some kind of joke. not something for a good woman to be into.:/ I was 16 when I started using the word for myself, and only in private. Lesbian still feels like a weird word for me to use for myself sometimes. like its just crazy after all the previous years of thinking that I MUST BE attracted to men I just... wasnt.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 17, 2016 1:58:38 GMT -5
ha i remember a thread on tumblr where lesbians talked about our high school male celeb "crushes" and they were all like "orlando bloom but only as legolas" and "jrockers who dressed like and are mistaken for women." I'm crying, this is LITERALLY me. :'D (I once told a classmate "I hate [some band], the only good thing about them is that they look like women.") As to how I noticed... It's all a bit fuzzy because of memory problems, but I remember one night I was lying in bed, thinking about making out with a woman and then it hit me. "Holy shit, I like women?!" I've always subconsciously known I don't like men, but I thought I was just immature (and asexual, for a while). I've rejected all men who liked me, I've never been able to imagine myself in a relationship with a man. I've never kissed a man, even, because I never had the desire to. When self-doubt takes over, I try to imagine myself with a man, kissing one and I get so grossed out. Then to make up for it, I imagine kissing women and all is better. Also I've had my first kiss with a girl when I was 14 and I was so excited. In retrospect, I had a lot of crushes on girls in my teenage years. I never noticed them because it felt normal, felt natural. I loved kissing my friends like it was the most natural thing in the world... And it is. |
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Post by acadie on Sept 17, 2016 13:09:48 GMT -5
For me, i knew I didn't like boys but didn't know being a lesbian was an option, so I was a heartbeat away from the convent for most of my teenage years. A lot of my friendships with girls were intense, and looking back, it was bc I had a crush on them. In college, I found the book "lesbian nuns, reading silence" and reading the essays of women like me opened my eyes to the wonders of being a lesbian. I wasn't broken! I didn't have to be a nun! I was just a lesbian.
I definitely would tell younger women who are figuring this out that it isn't sinful or shameful, and that it's ok to explore new relationships personally and religiously. I have so much more personal and ~soul~ freedom after leaving the church. I'd tell them that if sometime doesn't sit right with them, it probably isn't. I felt a lot of pressure in the gay community to attach myself to one way of thinking or another, and realized that tbh, my conscience is mine, and even though I love being a lesbian, I have to find my own way with good mentors.
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Post by lil on Sept 24, 2016 23:08:56 GMT -5
So all my life I thought I was just a normal straight girl who for some reason only thinks about women in a sexual way and never even speaks to boys, but I won't ever regret not being with a woman and I will be in a happy normal marriage with a boy because being gay or bi is for other people not me! -_- Even though I thought I liked guys in a romantic way, I never liked guys in a sexual way. So I tried to fix this by trying to get into yaoi lmao?? But me realizing how much I was trying to force myself to like that made me realize that I was never going to like guys in that way but I think for a very short time I still thought I was like heteromantic or something (but I didn't use that term like I knew I was being unrealistic) I was confused for a bit but I did realize my attracting to women and how that was a part of me that I can't change and shouldn't ignore. And I still haven't been in a relationship but I know that Idc about dudes like I don't get along with them and any crushes I made up like I didn't actually care about. Like there were moments where a girl who actually liked dudes would like swoon about but I was just like  I don't care and I didn't understand why I didn't care at the time lol. And what made me realize that I could be happy and in love with a woman is well realizing that all of my close friends were women lol. Also crushing on celebs and fictional female characters lmao. I had like a sexy dream with my friend that I think had a crush on me and while I wasn't really into my friend it still confused things for me at the time and like idk made ME involved instead of like just thinking of women doing the do with each other... lol this post is probs a mess and doesn't really contain advice  |
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Post by ash on Sept 25, 2016 10:50:50 GMT -5
my mother realised she was a lesbian + divorced my father when i was 5 so i think it took me longer than usual to accept that i liked girls (13/14ish) (on reflection i had obvs crushes in primary school around age 10/11/12) - in part bc, you know, compulsory heterosexuality + heterocentric society, it's hard to see your SELF as a lesbian even if there are lesbians on tv or in your life - but in part bc i didn't want to think she 'made' me gay, and definitely didn't want other people to think that - and also in part just a kind of "this is statistically unlikely" feeling.
but basically there was a girl in my class in middle school (yrs 8/9 here) who i physically could not Look At without feeling consumed by something like embarrassment, even though i hadn't said or done anything embarrassing, it felt like my face Did Something (Stupid) anytime i was looking in her direction so i just avoided ever looking at or talking to her, we were put together in media class for a project once so i am sure she guessed something was afoot. at the same time as this was happening i started watching Buffy (the dvds had just started being released & my dad was buying them) and the whole willow-tara saga began, it was very (Fun Home) 'Ring of Keys' being able to *recognise* them looking at each other - recognise exactly what was happening when they glanced at each other and sort of smiled? - recognising that there was something happening which was not a normal [hetero] crush and was not a normal [same sex] friendship! this was like the thing with the girl at school! (except i never did brave up and talk to her so sadly nothing ever came of it & she changed schools after only a couple of terms at mine)
anyway after Beautiful Girl At School left, i thought maybe it was just her & i'm a normal straighty ha ha - until i had another crush which lasted a year during which i finally did the "ok it's girls & only girls" - and befriended other lgbt kids - and coming out was much easier then.
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Post by Anandrine on Sept 25, 2016 11:53:43 GMT -5
but in part bc i didn't want to think she 'made' me gay, and definitely didn't want other people to think that i'd be interested in seeing how many lesbians and gay men had their coming out (to themselves, or publicly) delayed in large part to not wanting to fulfill certain stereotypes. i've definitely seen this mentioned before, including in studies, and it was true for myself, though different reasons. i was vocally pro-gay rights from a young age (as a freshman in hs i started a big fight about a gsa) and combined with me expressing no interest in men, people, esp my parents, were constantly joking about me being gay, or just straight out asking. and part of my resistance to coming out was definitely due to that. like, i didn't want a) to admit everyone could tell before i could and b) feed into the idea that only gay people care about gay rights. |
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Post by bookwormlesbian on Apr 15, 2017 11:16:49 GMT -5
I was twelve when I realized I had a crush on a girl for the first time. I was in public when I had the realization too, and I ended up going to the bathroom to lock myself in a stall and just think for a little bit because I needed some quiet. Lol
For a while I did try to convince myself that I was bisexual. Looking back on it, all of the crushes I thought I had on boys were really just me liking the guy as a friend and then calling that a crush because I thought that was how I was supposed to feel. Sure, I thought they were cool and wanted to hang out with them, but it wasn't actually romantic or anything.
Once, I was hanging out with one of my friends at the mall and she kept pointing out boys that she thought were cute. I was just nodding along and agreeing for the sake of agreeing, but after a while she said, "How come you never point out cute guys? I've seen a ton of them, but I don't think you've ever pointed out a cute guy to me before." I panicked, shrugged, and said something along the lines of, "I guess it's just our personalities. You like to point it out, and when I think it, I just keep it to myself." She accepted that answer and didn't mention it again.
Then there was the time another friend asked why all of my "crushes" were on unattainable guys (pretty much just celebrities because that was an easier lie to maintain) and that "it almost seems as if you don't actually want to date anyone at all".
Really, you'd think they'd have caught on sooner, but I can't judge them because that all happened while I was still trying to convince myself I was bisexual, which is just embarrassing when I look back on it.
I don't actually know what specific thing made me finally give up that idea though. It was like one day I just gave up trying to convince myself and accepted it.
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I don't care and I didn't understand why I didn't care at the time lol. 
