#if you assumed every lesbian fell under it and to just use rainbow

[geoffrey]

the seperation of lesbians and gay men is a travesty. "why are there so many historic gay bars and only like a handful of lesbian bars in the whole country" why are being gay and lesbian not the same thing in this context. you dont need to fuck everyone at the bar and it is a problem that needs to be addressed if these spaces arent mutually hospitable. and this applies to most gay/lesbian spaces imo

[jennadorn]

Old Navy Denim

I’m 24 years old and I’ve just slept with a woman for the first time — and though it was by no means the sex of my dreams, so much so that I nauseously declined the morning after sex, I think about it regularly with fondness and a desperate sense of nostalgia. Because in my mind, it officially confirmed my physical and romantic attraction to my own gender. Or anyone with a vagina for that matter.

If I had to guess when my first “gay” thought occurred — (as if all thoughts aren’t inherently gay to some degree) it was likely during my childhood friendship with my next door neighbor, Jolie. During the five years that I lived across the street from Jolie, we were glued at the hip. Every day after elementary school, we’d run through the neighborhood together on a sour candy-induced high, pushing one another down the Doral Avenue hill on skateboards, ding-dong ditching the old prunes on our street. We’d celebrate Pesach and Hanukkah together; we’d swim in her pool until the warm hours of each summer day cooled into bittersweet evenings; we’d pretend to be grownups with British accents and lollipop stem cigarettes — we’d play house together (which I realize now is a fucked up game centered around internalized domesticity and the American idealization of the nuclear family, but that’s beside the point). During our bourgeois family shenanigans, I’d insist that we were married (fuck you patriarchy). And as innocent as this sounds — there was a feeling brewing within me that I couldn’t articulate then — but that I can finally characterize as a pure, but tragic crush.

As we grew older, Jolie, with her striking green eyes, flushed olive skin, and golden locks, blossomed and classically found popularity every direction she turned. Boys ogled at her, girls fought over their ranking friendship with her. And I, in my baggy, torn denim from the boys’ department of Old Navy, absolutely crushing it (not) with an endearing unibrow, and overcome with social anxiety, slowly faded into her peripherals, eventually becoming the shy, weird girl dressed in boys’ clothing — Gameboy Color or Judy Blume book always in hand — who she avoided eye contact with at all times.

This continued until high school, when I grew into my body, traded in my swim trunks for shorts that hardly covered my coochie, my books and journals for friends whom I had nothing in common with other than raging hormones and body image issues, and invitations to parties.

I tried to differentiate my feelings for boys and for girls: I liked boys, whereas I just experienced a strange combination of admiration and deep envy for some of the girls I hung out around. I hopelessly wanted to be them, maybe, not be with them. It was the sole explanation that I could rationalize. 

And sometimes when I’d look longingly at women holding hands and kissing in public, I’d force myself not to look. But then I couldn’t look away. And sometimes I’d just change my dating app preferences to women because I was only curious. If I were gay, I would have already come out, right? It would have been obvious to me. I would have had a relationship with a woman… I would have already slept with one. If I told anyone that I liked women now, I’d just look like a fraud. And maybe I was. And what if my friends became weird around me when I told them? So I buried. I buried myself inside my own discomfort and denied this mystifying void expanding faster than my own universe.

It wasn’t until I found some semblance of queer community with new roommates post-college, who I could gush about crushes to, who I could open up about my experiences to…and lack thereof, that I could acknowledge my sexuality. I was not doubted by them like I’d feared. My roommates were the only ones who knew initially, and with enough validation, I found the courage to go on dates with women.

Enter: Cameron

A baby-faced butch writer I met on Hinge. She mirrored me in passions and personality, mostly — until she quickly revealed a superiority complex bigger than her own head. She evoked in me waves of embarrassment and shame that I hadn’t even known existed, only within hours of meeting. It had been my fourth date with a woman.

We quickly descended into heated conversations about film and politics, our families, our dreams. Like the gays we were, we unpacked our birth charts — both of us scorpios — which could only explain the ensuing events. Our chemistry was so palpable that I had to physically placate the butterflies in my stomach with my hand. We flirted, teased one another about potentially making out later that night, and before leaving the bar, exchanged coming out stories (which was initiated by her because mine was clearly still TBD). She shamed me for not telling my parents, for not having a “story”. She didn’t understand my fear as a bisexual/queer person that others would think I was experiencing “just a phase”. She made me feel like an imposter for not having already coming out to everyone. Lastly, she was incredulous that I was interested in men. She’d responded with such inflated disbelief that it rendered me paralyzed and defenseless. And she made sure that I was aware of these facts about myself every succeeding hour.

Several spellbinding drinks deep, we wandered back to my apartment. We pushed each others’ buttons so precisely that it felt like we’d known each other for years. It wasn’t until I later re-assessed her digs, that I realized every cutting word seemed to refract a cruel, blinding shard of truth. She wasn’t teasing, but criticizing me. I’d brushed it off in the moment, much like one does with rose-saturated glasses. And then the shock of a verbal attack is finally processed, let alone absorbed, when you’re wide awake in bed that night, tossing and turning over the painful remarks etched into your memory. And you can only think of what you’d have said, reliving the moment over and over again, grasping for the missed, gratifying opportunity at calling someone out on the shit they gift you, adorned in a glittery bow and rainbow-themed wrapping paper.

Sprawled along my couch, I made the first move after she insisted that the ball was in my court. I either made the move or the night was over. So after enough nerve-numbing alcohol, I took her in my hands and brushed her lips. And we kissed some more. And some more. And suddenly she’s on top of me. We entreated to my room as the blanket of steam around us thickened. Under my satiny covers, I told her that I was unsure if I wanted to have sex. I prefer not to on the first date, or until I feel comfortable with someone inside of me. She willfully dismissed my explanation. She said that she might understand if it was a man I was in bed with, but this wasn’t the same. And it was clear I was comfortable with her. And wasn’t I having a good time? Why shouldn’t we have sex? I froze in shock. To placate her, I said that I’d let her know when I wanted to stop.

So we had sex. I was simultaneously enthralled…swooning…exhilarated that I was literally pussy deep in the reality that I’d denied for so long, and also heartbroken that it ensued over a crushing pressure that I’d experienced endlessly from men, and never expected to confront from another woman.

We fell asleep baby cheek to baby cheek and she spooned me all night. It was all so newly wonderful that I was nearly ready to look over each problematic chapter of our evening together. So when she was offended upon my asking her to leave the next day, and when she gaslit me after our second date which she assumed was ending with sex, I reluctantly cut all the ties with which she’d suffocated me (in a non-horny way). They say you never forget your first love, but hell hath no fury on your first lesbian romance.