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Respect

Written by (Guest Writers) on . Posted in Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity/Expression

Before I ‘discovered’ myself, I embarked on several relationships with men. Two became more serious while others were just dates that I went on. I was never unhappy with men but I was never quite complete. Something felt amiss. Like when we kissed, that spark wasn’t there. I’d often mused on this and deep down inside, I knew the reason for this. I tried really hard to supress these feelings. So much so that I was unhappy. It took me a lot to finally pluck up the courage and come out to my best friend. She is somebody I had known since I was 10. Her sms to me was simple – “It is okay. I still love you.” Then, after 5 minutes, I got another sms that said – “You’re my first gay best friend! Yay!”. I was grateful and thankful …

But I digress. So, I was talking to an ex. We keep in touch via the Internet as he is now in Canada pursuing his career. We talk regularly as regular as exes do. He is prolly the only ex bf that knows about me being with a girl. His response is always similar – that I am living out every male fantasy; to watch two girls making out would be ultra fabulous. At first, I found it amusing that he’d say that but when that statement is made again and again, I felt belittled. Did he just refer to my gf and I as a sexual fantasy?

It pains me to think that all men (straight men) think about when it comes to two girls being together is how good it’d be to get these two girls in bed. With them, mind you. How watching these two girls would ‘get them off’. Do they not realise that apart from that sexual image that is etched in their minds, there is love, trust, unity, longing for each other? All elements of a healthy relationship existing in this relationship as well?

My ex has even gone so far as to suggest a threesome. At that point, I felt like I had to put a stop to things. I told him quite gently and patiently that yes, I am going out with a girl whom I am deeply in love with and yes, perhaps it is a thought that is quite sexy and erotic in nature. However, this sexiness and eroticness is only to be kept between her and I in the bedroom or wherever else we decide to do it *grin* That I would never want to share my baby with anybody else, really. To engage in a threesome would taint the sanctity of our relationship. To engage in a threesome with an ex to satisfy his sexual fantasy would degrade my present relationship with my love.

I think people should be a little more respectful towards others. If you do that with straight people… why not with me and my girl. We deserve that same respect too.

Brains: Hers, His, Gay and Straight

Written by AnJ on . Posted in Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity/Expression

Long ago, scientists wanted to believe that women and men have different brains.

In the 19th century, it was argued that women are dumber than men because their brains were smaller. However, this argument was quickly abandoned when the question was asked if elephants were thus smarter because of their bigger brains. Later on, it was argued that the best estimate of intelligence was by dividing the brain size by body weight. However, this was also discarded when women were found to be smarter according to this method [1]. (It might be curious to note that although men’s brains are generally bigger; they lose brain tissue three times as fast with age. Factors uncertain at this point [2].)

The quest for the link between brain size and intelligence has fizzled out. Today, research is working on how the brains are organized and how sex differences in the brain might contribute to differences in behavior. It is hypothesized that different organization of the brain is responsible for behavioral differences between men and women, as well as sexual orientation.

Let’s start with some difficulties of generalizing results of brain research:

Lesbian brains, lesbophobia and the path to the divine

Written by snorkeem on . Posted in Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity/Expression

(Courtesy of Yawning Bread, a most respected and incisive place for countless thought-provoking and insightful articles.)

A Swedish researcher has found that lesbians’ brains respond in a way that is distinct from heterosexual men’s and women’s, to two hormone-derived chemicals. This is yet another piece of evidence that there is a biological basis to sexual orientation.

Ivanka Savic from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm carried out the study using two chemicals.

One, labelled “AND”, is derived from progesterone and found in men’s armpit sweat. In heterosexual women, she found that sniffing this chemical triggers a response in the anterior hypothalamus of heterosexual women’s brains. This area is involved in sexual interest, lying as it does very close to the pituitary gland. In homosexual women however, AND triggers a response in another part of the brain, the olfactory region. This is the region where smells are normally processed.

The brains were imaged using positron emission tomography and magnetic resonance imaging.

What the results show is that where heterosexual women respond to a male smell in the sexual part of their brains, lesbians respond to it as just another smell. The lesbians’ response is similar to heterosexual men’s. The latter too handle AND as just another smell, in the olfactory part of their brains.

The other chemical that Savic worked with was derived from oestrogen and found in pregnant women’s urine. It was labelled “EST”.

Savic knew from earlier studies that EST produces responses in heterosexuals that are opposite to the effects of AND. In straight men’s brains, EST triggers a response in the hypothalamus (the sex area). In straight women’s brains, the response is located in the olfactory region, as just another smell.

Labels

Written by AnJ on . Posted in Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity/Expression

Labels- why do you hate them?

Some people hate labels because they don’t fit into any category:
“I am not femme; andro or butch!”
“I am a little femme… a little andro, what does that make me?!”
“I behave differently at different occasions. What does that make me?”

Some people hate labels because they don’t identify with the stereotype of that category:
“I am femme BUT i am not passive DAMMIT. I wanna take control!”
“I am butch but that doesn’t mean that i want to give (in bed) and not receive!”

 

Bisexuality, the Curious Cat

Written by Indu on . Posted in Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity/Expression

Last week, Pleinelune examined the problems bisexuals face. In the last part of this series, she explores the nemesis of lesbians everywhere: the bicurious woman.

It is a Saturday night, and you head off to the club for a night out with the girls. After knocking back a few drinks, you notice a hot girl standing off to the corner of the bar, nervously looking around. You head over to her, ask her for a dance. During one of the slow dances, you get close... you kiss. You take her home, and give her the best sex she has ever had in her life, though it seems that she has little idea what to do.

You wake up with her the next morning, and she’s talking to her boyfriend on the phone.

Damn. The bicurious woman strikes again.

If lesbians hate bisexual women, they hate bicurious women even more, though in many quarters, bicuriousity is equated with bisexuality. *cough*Fridae*cough* To reiterate the existing stereotypes: they break lesbian hearts by the dozen, and leave them for a man with a big dick and a bigger wallet. Or worse, they grope girls in the club in order to attract attention from men.


While Pleinelune makes no judgement about the truth of these stereotypes, she has to make a crucial distinction in this discussion, as she did previously. Bicuriousity is natural, because most people are generic bisexuals [outside the range of 2.5-3.5 on the Kinsey scale]  hence they are not to be equated with true-type bisexuality.

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