Fakies

I am a 20-year-old girl from Bangalore. I have a boyfriend that I have sex with. My sister is a lesbian and one day I walked in on her and her girlfriend having lesbian sex. They asked me to join in and I liked it a lot. I have started fantasizing about my sister and her friend joining in when I have sex with my boyfriend. How do I talk about this with my sister and boyfriend? Please help me!
–Looking For Foursome

I call fake on this letter. First of all, because most people who get walked in on by their siblings during sex scream at them to get out, get up and slam the door, and then never speak about it again. They don’t invite said sibling to join on in. That’s just weird.  Second of all, about a month ago I got another letter from the same person that reads like this: “I am a 19-year-old girl from Bangalore. My problem is that I just love lesbian sex so much. I have only done it three times before and now I just want to do it all the time. I tried to get my friends from college to do it with me, but they don’t seem interested. If I am not able to do it soon, I will go crazy. What should I do? Please help me!” Yeah, okay. Now, it’s possible that the letter-writer is a woman with same-sex desire who is concocting all these strange queries in order to get me to tell her that being a lesbian is okay and normal. Which it is. But something about the tone of these two letters indicate the writer is just some loser guy who watches too much lesbian porn and is trying to get a reaction out of me. Granted, there are some strange and surprising things in this world, but I can tell you right now that most lesbian women do not talk about how much they “love lesbian sex”—just like most straight people do not talk about how much they love straight sex. The specificity of this claim is what leads me to believe the letter-writer got all of this out of some cheesy porno flick. Yuckies.

Boundaries In Relationships

I have a strange problem. I have a long-time girlfriend and she recently told me that she is sexually attracted to other girls. Can you tell me if there is a solution to this problem? Can she be normal again? Do you know of any doctors from Bangalore whom I can consult? Please help.
–Want My Girl Back

There’s no solution because this isn’t a problem. There’s no “cure” because same-sex desire isn’t a disease, a psychological disorder, or a moral failing. So don’t sit there wringing your hands about whether she’ll ever be “normal” again. She already is.

You haven’t clarified whether your girlfriend wants to date women exclusively, or whether she’s attracted to both men and women and is simply telling you this for the sake of your personal information. There are three possibilities here. If she wants to date women and not you, then I suppose the two of you should break up. That’s pretty straightforward. If she wants to continue to date you but also wants to date women, then the two of you will have to negotiate the boundaries of your relationship. Open relationships are definitely doable, but they require honesty and respect if you want to keep things from deteriorating into jealousy and anger. If she still wants and exclusive relationship with you and is just telling you about her same-sex desires so that you know about that aspect of her personality, then file this piece of information away in your brain and don’t dwell on it. Either way, you can’t know about her intentions unless you ask her, so try to have this conversation in a calm and respectful manner. And lay off the “solution to this problem” thing.

Lezzies For Marriage

I am male, aged 47, and a bachelor. It’s true. I have always wanted to marry a lesbian, although I cannot find one. Am I abnormal?
–Love The Lezzies

You’ve made a point of emphasizing the fact that you are 47 and a bachelor. However, you have made no mention of being gay, which is the usual reason why men ask me about marrying lesbian women. So I’m going to assume you’re straight unless you correct me. Now to the question at hand. Are you abnormal? Maybe so, maybe no. Are you a loser? Absolutely.

A lot of straight men (and lot of straight women, for that matter) get off on the idea of “lesbian” women doing their “lesbian” things with each other. I put that in quotes because they’re not actually interested actual, honest-to-God same-sex desiring women, but because what they really want to see is straight-acting women who are (in heteronormative imaginings) such nymphomaniacs that they’ll have sex with anyone, even (gasp!) another woman. Your letter isn’t really about getting know women with same-sex attractions because the fantasy isn’t about women and their desires at all—it’s about women performing a simulacrum of desire for straight men’s viewership and consumption. V.N. Deepa, a founding member of the Sahayatrika collective for same-sex desiring women in Kerala has plenty to say on this subject: “The cynical might say that the publicity that Sahayatrika has received has also been propelled by the commodification and hyper-sexualization of lesbian identity…The invisibility of women-loving women in daily life is countered by constructions of the ‘lesbian’ in the popular imagination; and a proportion of our (hotline) callers seem to imagine a lesbian not to be a woman with same-sex attractions, but instead a woman who will have sex with anyone. And our efforts to create safe, women-centered spaces are at risk of being overwhelmed by male sexual harassment/desire.” (That quote, by the way, is from Deepa’s fabulous essay titled “Queering Kerala: Reflections on Sahayatrika”, and you can find it in the 2005 anthology Because I Have A Voice: Queer Politics In India, edited by Arvind Narrain and Gautam Bhan. Holla peeps!) I have no idea why you want to marry a lesbian woman, but your reasons seem more sinister than honest, so for everyone’s sake, I hope you never find one.

Lovin’ The Lezzies

My girlfriend and I have been having sex for about a year. I really want to do a threesome. I want to see her with a girl and be with that girl at the same time. Would that make her a lesbian? What if she leaves me for a woman? And if a threesome doesn’t make her les, how do I get her to do the same? I am not planning to get married to my girlfriend. Many thanks.
–YS

I’m going to start with a response to the whole threesome issue, and then get back to YS’s weirdness.

As far as threesomes go it’s very important for all participants to be in agreement about what they expect and what their boundaries are (and, of course, to practice safe sex). For example, you and your partner need to decide what kind of people they’ll approach for this, what kind of sexual acts are permissible, and so forth. In general, couples need talk about how to deal with feelings of jealousy that will definitely arise, and if you’re a hetero or bi couple, be prepared to confront same-sex desire and what it means for your relationship. After all, experimenting with emotional risk (and sexual taboo) is part of what makes threesomes exciting, but the taking of that risk needs to be handled sensitively. Bring up the idea during a non-sexual interaction, discuss all the issues that come up in a calm and supportive manner, and then see where you stand. And if your girlfriend, boyfriend, or whatever still isn’t into it, then be prepared to let it go.

Now back to YS: Yikes. This is exactly the kind of question that makes me want to scratch my face off. There’s nothing wrong with being a lesbian or bisexual woman, or a just a woman with sexual desires in general. It seems like you want to see your girlfriend get it on with other women (as long as you’re watching), but somehow the idea of her identifying as someone who enjoys getting it on with other women scares you. And if she were a “marriageable” girl, there’d be no way you’d bring up these sex acts with her. This is ridiculously unfair to your girlfriend, your possible third partner, and non-heterosexual people everywhere. Frankly, I hope she leaves you for a woman—or anyone else, for that matter.