Taste the Rainbow

Myths, Dispelled: Dyke Sex for the Heterosexual

By Viola

1. “You just haven’t found the right man yet,” or its best friend “Well, how do you know if you haven’t tried it?”

So, sweet heterosexual stranger, remember that time when you started noticing the opposite sex, and one day you were taken aback by the tingly feeling in your pants? Gentlemen, around that time your female peers started to sprout boobs and wear lipgloss? Ladies, when the studmuffin of an 8th grader grabbed your attention with his swagger and recent growth spurt while you were but a lowly 6th grader with a pocket full of Lipsmackers chapstick? The sweet, sweet years of middle school’s compulsory heterosexuality?

I had that, too, but I didn’t know what it was. Her name was Emma, and I didn’t know that whatever I was feeling was my first big crush. But, see, it kept happening, and when Emma moved back to Australia in the 9th grade, it happened again with Lisa, and then Mir, and then Hillary until I was a freshman in college and realized that all of the ladies in the LGBTQ group had the same feelings. In the meantime, I tried to make myself like boys, but it just didn’t click. It’s not that guys weren’t nice — some of my closest friends are men, and I’m still close with quite a few of my male friends from high school — it’s just that I failed to see the appeal.

Lady Gaga says it best: I was born this way. I know I’m gay because when I was in the 11th grade I realized that every time a song on the radio talked about love/lust/“oh baby baby,” I thought that they lyrics perfectly summed up my feelings for the girl I had a crush on, and they finally made sense. This may or may not have resulted in realizing how horribly dull the Backstreet Boys really were, and a subsequent true and abiding love of Matchbox 20 and Simon & Garfunkel.

But really, I sleep with other female people because that’s what turns me on, and that’s what I want to do. Nothing is going to change that, no matter how “hot” the dude might be, and that is because I don’t think dudes are hot in the “I want to bang them” way. Also, the sex is really good when you’re attracted to someone and they do the right stuff. Chemistry + touching in the right way =

2. “How do you do it … without a…”

With fingers, usually. Sometimes with a strap-on but that can get complicated sometimes, because it has no nerve endings and has lots of gendered connotations attached to it. Sometimes oral, but unsafe sex is frowned upon and dental dams are like making out with a plastic bag, and half the fun of oral is feeling someone’s warm, hot, wet mouth between your legs and that can’t really happen when there’s a layer of latex because it doesn’t transfer heat all that well, and texture is hard to feel.

The “without a penis” part isn’t that complicated because when you’re treating whatever you’re doing like it’s the big thing and the main act, it becomes just that. Fingers aren’t foreplay, fingers are sex, and that’s how it works. Try it sometime, it’s awesome — fingers never get soft, you can always get them up, and you can hit just the right spot (try 2 fingers inside, use lots of lube, push up toward the lower abdomen, and apply pressure without moving in and out fully but in a subtle “come hither” motion).

In terms of both parties getting off, sometimes there’s the taking turns method (I do you, then you do me), there’s the fucking at the same time method (I do you while you do me), the rain check method (I do you, and you’ll do me once you can move again because you came about 50 times and passed out a little, but that’s okay because I’ll spoon you now!), and sometimes there’s no reciprocation (I do you). Some people don’t like to be touched, and that’s okay, too.

3. “I imagine it’s so sweet, two women gently touching each other, feeling each other’s sweet, soft bodies…”

No. Okay, not always. More times than not, there’s furious making out, knocking over that ugly IKEA lamp on your nightstand while trying to take off your t-shirt while still lip-locked, hands everywhere, frantic, intense, heavy breathing, desperate groping, one party biting the other one’s lips while someone squeals, etc. A lot of times this culminates into one party’s “please fuck me, I need your fingers in me” whisper, and some gasping. Sounds familiar, right? Right. Also, there’s usually a minimal amount of “society wants me to be coy and demure” bullshit, because the patriarchy isn’t in bed with you.

4. “Who’s the man?”

Sometimes there isn’t one. Sometimes there is. What do you actually mean by this question –Who’s more assertive? Who wears the pants? Who has the more masculine gender? Who gets fucked? Who does the fucking? Who’s the more dominant person in bed? Throw me a rope because I have no idea what this question means, but I will absolutely answer it if someone specifies.

To be clear, this is a really loaded question. Plenty of lesbian/dyke/queer/bi/heteroflexible people who are female and sleep with other people who are female will give you the “we’re both women, DUH!” line, and that’s a legitimately awesome answer. Plenty of other people will be a little iffy about it because of gender, but also because it seems like the question equates “being a man” with having a certain amount of social, cultural, sexual, and economic power and very little to do with genitalia, or even gender.

The question itself may also have a lot to do with how the relationship is structured. When I picture suburban hetero-ville, I picture husbands mowing lawns, because that’s what husbands do, even though my mother, in all of her kickass feminist glory, mows the lawn with her old-school push mower while my dad cannot figure out hedge clippers to save his life. Without a structure of “husbands do this, and wives do this,” how does it work? It just does. Lessons for life, kids. When stuff needs to get done, you get it done.

5. “It’s just like in porn, right?”

It depends on what you’re watching. For a legitimately good representation of queer sex, check out the Crash Pad Series. It’s hot, ethically produced, and a pretty accurate representation of queer/dyke/lesbian sex. Watch, learn, take notes, note the practical application to real-world situations.

If the “lesbian porn” you’re watching involves two blondes with long fingernails who have to stick their tongues out really, really far to kiss or have oral sex, that’s not what the queer chicks are doing in bed. No wonder you think you might do a better job — but wait, that’s exactly what that type of porn is supposed to make you feel.

There you go, dyke sex in a nutshell.