The Overtake
750 Followers · About
Follow
Upgrade
You have 2 free member-only stories left this month. See the benefits of Medium membership
Why do lesbians take longer to
realise they’re gay?
The Overtake Aug 28, 2018 · 7 min read
If you’re a member of the LGBT+ community, or conceivably even just a
tremendously good ally, you might be well accustomed with the phrase
“compulsory heterosexuality”. Maybe you’ve used it to explain why you felt
coerced into dating another gender in college, or you’ve muttered it as you
passed by a small babe wearing a garmet emblazoned with the words “lady
killer” or something equally fatuous.
It’s a term often used to express how straightness is enforced by patriarchal
society, and a frequent topic of discourse among queer folk. What isn’t often
talked about, however, is how compulsory heterosexuality can intersect
with misogyny to make life particularly puzzling for lesbians.
Although substantial data is hard to come by, the amount of men who knew
that they were gay from a young age often seems shockingly higher than
that of women. There are even articles and studies that suggest that queer
boys commonly experience same-gender attraction for the first time during
adolescence or their early teen years, while girls generally don’t until young
adulthood — a highly unlikely concept that most lesbians would scoff at.
There’s no such thing as being too young to be queer, but there is such a
thing as being too young to comprehend compulsory heterosexuality, and
it’s harder on gals than it is on guys.
Their lives are so entrenched in it, in fact, that little lasses often can’t even
recognise when they fancy each other. It’s only when they’re old enough to
reason critically that they can reflect on that super-close friendship or really
intense admiration for Scully from The X-Files and see what it truly was —
infatuation.
Compulsory heterosexuality affects women
disproportionately to men
“I just didn’t recognise my crushes as crushes until, literally, this year,” says
Maura*, 33. “I had obsessive thoughts about female coaches and particular
celebrities, but I guess I deluded myself into thinking I just wanted to be
really close friends with them.”
So, what influences lead to women being so disproportionately affected by
compulsory heterosexuality?
Labour of love
Girls are frequently led to believe that dating men is supposed to be difficult
for them, and that it’s ordinary to expend emotional and sexual labour
without receiving or feeling anything in response because men are so
emotionally inadequate or otherwise “masculine”.
Muse upon it: TV and film are loaded with heterosexual romances that are
largely depicted as a desirable woman putting up with a man — despite it
being abundantly evident that he doesn’t make her happy at all — because
he has a clandestine heart of gold.
There’s the unceasing saga of Penny and Leonard, which appears to have
driven her to excessive drinking in late seasons. There’s Tom and Lynette,
widely regarded the best couple on Desperate Housewives, despite the
former consistently making his wife miserable by contributing the absolute
bare minimum to the household and being a lazy father to their brood of
six. There’s Supergirl and Mon-El, whose entire relationship seems to hinge
on the idea that women exist to make men better people, regardless of the
personal cost.
It can be difficult for women to distinguish between a
wholesale lack of enthusiasm for men and a series of
disappointing encounters
On top of this, women are socially conditioned to expect and tolerate
unsatisfying sexual experiences with men. Almost all TV shows depict sex
as being something that occurs until the man climaxes, and then the
woman has to deal with not being fulfilled. In real life, studies show that
women only orgasm 39% of the time during sex with men, who finish 91%
of the time.
This can make it impossible for women to distinguish between a wholesale
lack of enthusiasm for the male gender and a series of disappointing
encounters and relationships — between being gay and being emotionally
knackered as a consequence of trying to gratify men — and is one of the
most hazardous aspects of compulsory heterosexuality, leading them to
attempt to force the attraction long after they’ve realised that there isn’t
anything there.
I thought I was straight because I was equally
unhappy in my relationships with men as most
women I knew
“I had my first boyfriend when I was 16,” says Andi*, a 33-year-old lesbian
who had her first relationship with a woman just last year. “I would
complain about him, sexually and emotionally, and my friends would laugh
and say it was the same for them.
“I thought that hating blowjobs, not being into what guys wanted sexually
and feeling like sex was a burden were just normal parts of life. I thought I
was straight because I was equally unhappy in my relationships with men as
most other women I knew.”
Sexualisation
The male gaze can be so penetrating at times that women being alluring
comes to feel like a matter of course. Women are seldom focused on in the
media without being sexualised to some degree, so it can feel like an every
day experience when a young gay girl looks at a woman and feels
something stirring. “Oh, look, it’s a beautiful woman! Must be a day ending
in y!”
One can get the impression that the entire world is fixated on female
bodies, and adolescent or teen girls may not yet be educated enough to
apprehend that corporations such as Rolling Stone, Burger King and even
PETA are trying to cater to heterosexual men.
Women are depicted as pretty and desirable so any
attraction I felt towards women seemed
unremarkable
This makes it all too easy for women to rationalise their attractions to each
other — they may feel no discordance with the surrounding culture, instead
believing that everyone has “those kinds” of fantasies about ladies, while
gay men might be more able to sense from an early age that their wants
aren’t aligned with what mainstream society says they should be.
“Women are depicted as pretty and desirable, so any attraction I felt
towards women, as a child, seemed unremarkable, for want of a better
word,” says Sarah*, 25.
This objectification often translates into real life, where women are
conventionally expected to perform femininity and expend a lot of effort
into being attractive, while their partners are allowed to spend almost little
to no effort on their appearance.
Men are portrayed as unattractive and something to
be dealt with, rather than interested in
“People gave me the impression that my own dad was a cut above most in
terms of grooming, but when I think about it, that pales in comparison to
my mum’s grooming, and she wasn’t even ‘girly’. Being clean-shaven, and
having an OK haircut and clothes that actually match is just not as much
work as eyebrow plucking, chin waxing and moisturising.
“A lot of lesbians think their lack of attraction to men is how all women feel
because men are portrayed as unattractive and something to be dealt with,
rather than interested in — which is a disservice to both men and women
alike.”
Sexuality
The sociopolitical and cultural suppression of feminine sexuality, especially
in youth, may play a considerable role in why it takes girls longer to figure
out that they’re gay. Despite being bombarded with images of themselves as
sexual objects, women aren’t given permission to indulge desire, meaning
that they don’t have the opportunity to become aware of what they find
desirable.
Ideas about how girls should sit and what they should wear are
communicated with the aim of preserving girls’ “innocence” and studies
show that negative societal attitudes towards menstruation and breast
development often cause parents to restrict girls’ mobility — far more than
boys’ — as they sense the potential for early romantic and sexual
engagement.
Men, on the other hand, are “supposed” to feel sexual desire. While
patriarchy imposes control over female sexuality, male sexuality is less of a
taboo and young boys are given more opportunity to experiment.
I experienced my sexuality in the very early stages of
my life and I knew I was gay at about 12
“I experienced my sexuality in the very early stages of my life,” says Navid*,
a 20-year-old gay man. “Whenever I saw my friends, it was a topic. We
started talking about hot women and nude magazines, but it later evolved
into homoerotic interactions and I knew I was gay at about 12.
“My best friend is a lesbian and she had that kind of experience with girls,
but she didn’t consider that she was gay, and felt guilty enough afterwards
not to do it again. She had relationships with men from ages 12–15. Not
even attracted to them, she felt the urge to date and be romantic with men,
and have a boyfriend.
“I couldn’t understand that. See, I too felt the pressure to date women but I
never did because I always had that experience with boys.”
By Abigail Fenton
At The Overtake, we’re trying to bring you stories that you might not
see in the mainstream media. If you liked this, please show us some
love — every little helps!
LGBTQ
Lesbian
Gay
Opinion
Journalism
About
Help
Legal