AFS #6: I’m A Woman Who Loves Women… But I Haven’t Done It In A Bit. Or Maybe Ever.
Sent via our Advice for Sluts form:
Short summary:
- Was in a relationship with an ace girl for 6 years, broke up recently
- As a result, I'm a grown-ass adult lesbian in my early 30s with basically no sexual experience
- I got a message on Tinder from someone that was, in short, 'Hey you're hot, do you want to hook up?'
- I want to say yes, but also the fact that this person was so blunt means I have no idea how to say 'Yes but I have no clue what I'm doing'
- Oh god what do I fucking say
Help?
‘Lo child,
As it sounds like this lady is still sitting in your DMs, and One Does Not Leave A Lady On Read, I’m going to start with a script for how to say ‘yes but I have no clue what I’m doing’, and then I’m going to put all the paragraphs of rambling and reassurance after that, so you can get to them at your leisure. In your position, wishing to accept this very forward proposition, I’d come at it something like this:
“I would love to do that, but I should warn you that I’m just out of a long asexual relationship, and I haven’t kept up my subscription to Lesbian Tech Weekly, so I’m more or less starting from scratch experience-wise. If you’re willing to endure some good-natured fumbling, I’d be delighted to have you spoil me for every other woman on earth!”
If that language feels too brash, sub “spoil me for every other woman” for “show me your ways,” or something like, “delighted to learn whatever you’re willing to share.”
Useful thoughts to keep in mind and reasoning behind this approach below the cut.
that tender fear
Y’all have really got to stop writing to me with questions you’ve cribbed straight out of my diary, okay? It’s not funny anymore.
But seriously, my friend, hello from a place very like the place I’m in, lingering in the Land of Lesbians Nervously Dating Their Impostor Syndrome, looking dubiously at a lifetime of messaging about heterosexual mating rituals, and praying, just a little bit, that none of that will be pertinent here.
The funny thing is… I think most lesbians feel that way? I haven’t done any longitudinal studies, but I have been hanging out with queer people my entire life, so here’s what I’ve learned from that: the feeling of standing outside a community you can’t even quite imagine but suspect to be there, terrified beyond all else of reiterating the bullshit patterns and roles the rest of the world thinks are non-negotiable, desperate to truly see and know the woman in front of you and uncertain if either of you can ever completely escape the scripts of our society, uncertain which gendered behaviors you want to discard and which ones, for better or worse, feel like part of being a woman to you or the women you love…
That’s called being a lesbian. That feeling. That tender fear, that self-imposed isolation. In this world, that is what being a lesbian feels like, because heterosexual women don’t even start down that train of thought. They don’t notice the scripts they’re acting out, because there’s no internal friction. The default “Being a Woman While Dating” script they were given by their family and culture is - more or less - expressive of someone they want to be.
The script you were given doesn’t work for you - obviously, or you wouldn’t be casting around for something else. You don’t want to talk to women like men talk to women. You don’t want to fuck women like men fuck women. But you don’t know what exactly that looks like, and you’re afraid of hurting someone while you’re figuring that out.
That, in and of itself, sets you apart from the cultural programming men receive about pursuing women. Men are taught that success in love comes from confidence, from an overt projection of their worth as a man. They’re taught to act as if every woman is haughtily surveying a field of puffed-up suitors in full mating display, and they must be the BIGGEST and the SEXIEST in all the ways they assume she wants. They’re taught to ignore it when women tell them things that contradict this messaging. They’re taught to believe what other men tell them women want, over what women say they want, because what other men tell them is more flattering and less shame-inducing to men than women’s actual lived experience.
That’s what’s different about your perspective as a lesbian, and it’s going to help you here - you’re not trying to erase the woman in front of you and replace her with a prop in your personal development, a side character in your story. You genuinely want to see her and be with her, and you want to know how you can convey that when the default dating scripts are all lowkey about erasing the woman and what she wants from the situation.
That’s the key, right there - you’ve already got it. A man would think he needs to respond to this very forthright lady you’re talking to by matching her confidence - it would be important to a man to put himself on a level with the woman so that he doesn’t look “less valuable” to her. This applies even to men who haven’t bought into all that PUA nonsense - the underlying idea that “a man’s standard of value is the only standard of value” is part of Western culture at every level.
So a man would think he needs to either up his own performance, make himself look cooler to impress this lady, or he’d think he needs to diminish her coolty, in some way make her insecure to increase the perceived value of his opinion of her. But you don’t need to do that! You know what straight men don’t: that women aren’t actually attracted to most of what straight men think they’re attracted to.
Women are actually attracted, mostly, to someone who sees them, who treats them like a person, who treats them with respect and is interested in them as a whole individual, not just in their utility. That’s actually rare enough among cis-het men that “treating women with a basic level of decency and respect” is kind of a lesbian dating move all by itself. I’ve had more than a few straight girls confuse themselves by falling in love with me just because I was the first vaguely masc-presenting thing that ever treated them like a human being.
Ten Step One-Size-Fits-All Orgasm Agenda
That’s why I’m gonna tell you to lead with your inexperience, even when dealing with a very aggressive individual like this lady on Tinder. Your inexperience is an opportunity for her, if she chooses to see it as one - she gets to show you how to do it the way SHE likes it! You don’t have a pre-formatted Ten Step One-Size-Fits-All Orgasm Agenda that you’re going to force her to sit through. You’re not going to make her comfort you if she doesn’t get off. You’re not going to, in other words, ask her to praise your total ineptitude and call it wizardry, which means that you’re actually going to learn from this experience.
You’re going to listen when she tells you what she likes, and you’re going to remember it. You’re going to pay attention to her in bed, learn the sounds she makes when you do it right, and learn how to make that happen again. And if you’re confused, you’re not going to cling insecurely to your need to be THE BEST AT SEX and refuse to improve - no, you’re gonna ask questions without shame, because there’s no need to be ashamed. You’re not expected to know how every woman everywhere works. Let her take your hands and move them where she wants them. You’re gonna let her teach you, and she is going to LOVE that.
That’s why your script is basically: “Hi, I’m new but definitely not ashamed of that, wanna show me around (your downstairs region) while I soak up experience like a sponge due to my lack of shame?” Because that pitch is damn near irresistible, especially for someone who already thinks you’re cute (and she did already invite you to voulez-vous coucher avec her, after all).
It’s the insecurity and shame that people carry into these interactions that makes them go wrong - pretty much nobody responds positively to those messages that start out like, “You’re probably not even going to read this message…” Right? Nobody wants to sign on to a bunch of emotional labor for a stranger who’s already forcing the next person to make up for everyone who didn’t fuck them in the past. Which means that the really important thing about fielding a proposition like this one is how you take her answer, whatever it is. That’s going to be what determines how much sex you are likely to have anywhere near this woman in the future.
If she says yes? Great, you’re in business, keep a good strong grip on your shame and anytime you catch yourself clamming up or isolating because you’re uncertain, remind yourself that she is the only one with the answers to the questions you have, and she would much rather you ask than assume you know or assume it’s impossible to know.
If she says no? You say, “Cool, no worries, thank you for the offer anyway, it’s very flattering!” And then you move on and do something else with your time and attention. The benefit of being this person, in addition to the fact that it’s just more pleasant for you, is that you don’t freak this woman out or offend her if it turns out you’re not getting in her pants, and that might mean you make a new friend, or down the road it might mean that the next time she meets an inexperienced lady looking for someone more her speed, you’ll be top of the list of “cool local lesbians who take rejection well and would be up for a low-pressure experience.”
That’s more likely than you might think, by the way! From what I’ve heard and seen, like I say, almost every lesbian thinks of herself as less experienced than others would perceive her to be. Almost every lesbian thinks some part of her experience as a lesbian “doesn’t count” for one reason or another. And that invalidation of your experience is, unfortunately, very much a part of being a lesbian in this world.
take away my Girl Card
Me? Loved women since birth, never once identified as straight, fucked a lot of women, moped after the idea of women for decades while dating men because I was afraid of other women. “They can… I don’t know, take away my Girl Card?” I used to say. I didn’t know what I was saying at the time, but post-transition, I can say it much more clearly: I don’t feel like my lifetime of loving women the way women love women counts… because I don’t feel like enough of a woman, and I’m afraid of putting myself in a situation where a woman might reject me on that basis.
You? Clearly been loving women, “love” as a verb, doing the work of maintaining a relationship and devoting yourself to adoring a real woman, through all the inconvenience and boredom of her actual life, for multiple years already. Clearly you’ve had to do that in spite of a LOT of cultural messaging that talks about “lesbian dead bedrooms” and lowkey - often not at all lowkey - promotes the idea that asexuality does not exist. (Let’s just note real clearly here that asexuality definitely fucking exists and is a valid way to be. Love, a super slutty asexual lesbian.) So you’ve been loving women for a good long while, on Hard Mode in some ways, but because you haven’t fucked enough women recently enough… it feels like none of your lived experience counts.
As far as dating in general goes… honestly, darlin’, I’m as paralyzed by fear and internalized heterosexism as you are, currently. I’m not sure what the template should be for how I present myself in the lesbian community. But I know where to look - I know, when I’m ready, that I should look for other people who look and behave somewhat like I want to look and behave, other masc-presenting nonbinary people in the community, and through them, notice where such people are most welcome and how they move in those spaces. Maybe we can be friends, trade tie recommendations. At the very least, I’ll get a sense for places that my flavor might be felt, my brand might be bought, my jelly might be just the jelly they were ready for.
I’d recommend the same for you, in a general sense, whether you hook up with this lady now or not. With ladies experienced and inexperienced, lead with your inexperience and your eagerness to learn. Lead with your willingness to let a woman be who she is, to see past just her body. It’s not a flaw; your experience does count and is relevant here. The only thing you’re really lacking is experience with this specific lady’s ladyparts, and since all ladies are different, none of them will be expecting you to have the owner’s manual memorized.
The key here is NOT acting like you know everything, and holding onto the idea that that’s okay. You have something to offer! Ladies are already submitting their bids! You gain their trust by trusting them when they express interest in you; you gain their respect by respecting them enough to believe that your Expert Woman-Pleasin’ Technology, or lack thereof, is not their primary concern and will not be a dealbreaker.
In short, darlin’, you’ve got this. You are more than qualified to learn sex from a woman, because you love, and respect, and listen to women you are not having sex with. Go forth and seek ye out learning experiences without shame.
