I mentioned my habit of 'fat-fingering' to a straight friend
this week. She went very quiet, and then said, "Is that a lesbian
thing?" What? No, it's an inability to use an iphone thing. It made
me laugh, but it also made me realise that lesbian sex is still the
big question mark that remains unanswered for a lot of people. In
the words of 80's songstress Toyah, "it's a mystery."
I've been asked "But how DO you have sex?" on many occasions. It
seems odd, but for whatever reason many people just can't get their
heads around lesbian sex. Maybe I'm just particularly flexible, but
I've never found it that much of a strain.
Even before I became a lesbian, if I closed my eyes I could
picture it with ease, and did, on many occasions. The image wasn't
sketchy, and it didn't fade-to-black like a 1940's film when it got
to the good bit. But for many people lesbian sex remains as
baffling as the Bermuda triangle - actually make that two Bermuda
triangles rubbing together.
In the past when I've talked about "having sex" to some of my
straight girlfriends I've noticed that their faces fail to compute.
They have the look of someone reading the assembly instructions for
an IKEA bedside table. It's as if they are sitting cross-legged on
the floor with all the bits laid out in front of them, but they
just can't picture how we'll come together.
I think it's the lack of penis that throws people; their minds are
desperately grappling with the logistics of how sex is possible
without one. It's hard to know what goes where; like a game of
naked Twister, there are body parts swinging around, and skin
slapping against skin, but they can't see the wood for the trees.
Perhaps because there is no wood, or trees - only bushes?
What is it about two women having sex that's so hard to imagine?
It's not as if we're aliens from planet Zorb with paint bushes for
genitals. We've got all the same bits as straight women, and like
them sex comes down to personal preference.There's no one size fits
all answer.
We might have put people on the moon, but for some reason lesbian
sex is one giant mental leap too far. Oh well, as long as it
remains the final frontier I'll just have to keep on boldly going
where no man has gone before.
