Is it different, lesbian love?
And why is it that at the mention, hint of lesbian love, it’s the sex that’s conjured?
Note to whomever: sex is but one slice of love. Fun? Yes. Important? Yes. The only thing to know about lesbian love? Hardly.
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Allow me to riff as I ponder this. Again the usual disclaimers apply…if you need queer, feminist, LGBT BYOB political … whatever…you will NOT find it here.
Surely, gay people are as multi-dimensional as any straight person, although that can also be read as follows: Surely, gay people are just as smart, just as dumb, just as obsessed, just as interesting, just as wacky, loony, happy, beautiful, ugly, creative, tight-sphinctered, messed up; just as evil, good, mean, and perfect; just as addicted to cookies, drugs, shopping or sex; just as shy and overbearing and abusive and arrogant and common and boring as straight people. Surely.
SIDEBAR And I use these descriptive words deliberately because someone, somewhere in America — and I will not assume it is some straight white guy — has made the writing rounds on the internet saying: do away with adjectives, adverbs and descriptors of all kinds in your writing. Dare I wonder who thinks that writing the 140 characters for Twitter means having to do away with descriptive language? Is it not the same reductionist thinking that gets us gay=sex and therefore that’s all that gay people do or think about. (Which might be moot: the females of our kind, mostly, can parallel think, so…we can think about sex AND do the laundry AND plan dinner, AND walk the dog, AND sing a song, keeping a beat in the back of our mind while looking at the attractive woman behind the counter and wonder if she would like to come over for some genuine Bombay Chai and other … spices.
But back to love. Is it different, lesbian love?
Yes, in that it is two women. Women express and experience love differently than do men.
No, it is not. Lesbian love is NOT different in that it is two people in relationship with each other. (Let’s just say it’s two for sake of argument. I am not familiar with the polyamory world and cannot speak credibly about it.)
Imagine: two people step out on the platform from different trains. After a time, maybe a minute, these two people decide to hop on a new train together, as in TOGETHER. As in hey, we’re together. Ideally, they got to spend some time before boarding the new train and in that time, got to check out each other’s luggage, aka baggage as well as the state of the shoes, fingernails, and edges of jackets and shirts for signs of anything frayed.
So NOW let’s imagine that these two people are lesbians. We don’t care how they got there: gay from aged three, came out at 30, or by surgical re-assignment to become the woman she is so that she can find the woman she wants. Suffice it to say that they are women in a love relationship.
Are they, by virtue of being women, equals in all things? Emotionally, financially, sexually? Socially? Domestically? Intellectually? Interests? Just because they are women, it might be assumed that there is a sameness, a congruence, an equality and similarity. That assumption is going to bite, people.
All that you can be sure of is that they are women. After that it gets dicey.
Emotionally? Some women are emotional; some can share their emotions and express them in healthy productive ways that grow and deepen the love and relationship. Others are less emotional, or do not share their emotions, or express them in unhealthy and less productive ways that hurt the relationship. Not all women are understanding, nurturing or empathic. Not all women care.
Oh and to those of you who wonder about lesbian love, and think you might give it a try because there aren’t any men around, consider this. Even though women know that other women get PMS and hormonally induced odd behaviours, doesn’t mean we manage it all that well. Two of us? At the same time? Who says we CHOOSE to be gay, exactly?
Sexually? Not all women’s sexual drive or interests are the same, so two women together actually means paying attention and working on keeping that sexual relationship. Some women just fall into bed, expecting that because the parts are the same, that everything else is the same. Well, maybe. And maybe not. In some of the sexual minority communities, sexual interests and practices are discussed and clarified early. In the mainstream lesbian community it’s a rare pair that will talk about their sexuality, desires and fantasies before deciding whether or not to become involved with each other. I think such discussions would help avoid LBD, if indeed there is such a thing.
Just because it’s two women doesn’t mean it has to fall into cuddling after 10 years, or that you need to fight to have wild make-up sex. You can cultivate that deep, intense, emotional, sexual love all along your love path and still be good with each other.
Domestically? Some women cook, clean and are good at it. Others, well, not so much. Some has a strong design aesthetic. Some, decorate with cat hair and do fur. Some like to watch TV, others read books or newspapers. Some will refold the already folded tea towels and wonder why there is a decided chill in the air.
For the inexperienced lesbian, or women who think that EVERYTHING will be great because it’s love between two women, well, yes and no. I think that love is always in process, always a work in progress. For all love relationships, including lesbians.
Perhaps the difference is the motivation. Mind, heart, body and soul are finally where they all agree they want to be and that, I think, is what makes lesbian and all love and loving relationships, work.
Is lesbian love different?
Yes and no.
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