I was one of those really, super-duper, gay little kids. I was hopelessly in love with Clarissa from the Nickelodeon show Clarissa Explains It All and I would become horrifically jealous every time that “guy friend” (who in retrospect looked very lez) of hers would sneak into her bedroom. I didn’t have a word to identify my acute attraction toward Clarissa, but deep in my bones, I knew that my irrational jealousy was rooted in something greater than admiration. I admired Kristi Yamaguchi, the figure skater. But I wasn’t jealous over her boyfriends. I was jealous over her gold medals. The feelings I felt toward both women were dramatically different.
I knew I was a surefire lesbian after I watched the movie Gia on HBO in the seventh grade. Well, this explains a lot, I thought to myself as I took in the beautiful vision of Angelina locking lips with that hot, femme-y blonde make-up artist. And even though I was most definitely nervous about the notion of eventually having to come out, I was also teeming with excitement about my future of living La Vida Lez. I mean, I was a kid of the 90s, one of the most lesbian-centric decades of all time! I listened to Bitch & Animal and Ani Difranco and Bikini Kill endlessly on my Discman in middle school and dreamed, dreamed, dreamed(!) of the day I when would finally be surrounded by hot butches with tribal tattoos and acoustic guitars!
And yes, eventually I did find myself (many years later) surrounded by hot butches (tribal tattoos were on their way out at this point – this was the era of labret piercings ala Whitney Mixter) – some with acoustic guitars, some without, living out my teenage fantasy. But if I thought being surrounded by hot butches was going to be the best part of being gay, then I, my darling, was sorely mistaken.
Here are 27 amazing things about being a dyke, no movie, person or Ani song could’ve ever prepared me for.
1. You can bring your bae with you to those god-awful baby-showers! It’s a lot less insufferable to “ooh” and “aww” over onesies with a bunch of basic bitches when you and your girlfriend can slug back the champagne and collectively eye-roll together!
2. You can bring your bae with you to those god-awful bachelorette parties.
3. You never have to worry about unintended pregnancies. (Unless it’s a Jesus baby! In which case, that’s a miracle from the Lesbian Lord herself!)
4. You’re far less likely to get slut-shamed by other women than you are by men, so you can really just sleep with whomever you please, when you please, without dealing with misogynistic pigs.
5. If you run out of undies, you can simply pluck a pair out of your girlfriend’s drawer and rock them discreetly!
6. You’ll rarely get caught short without a tampon – between the two of you, you’ll (almost) always be covered.
7. The parties you attend will be much less douchey than your straight cohorts. (Bros are what make parties douchey.)
8. Sex toys are FUN AF and we lezzies love em!
9. You never have to worry about, uh, “softness” (dildos are always ~hard~ babes).
10. So many different types of beauty are celebrated in the queer community! Not just male-gaze traditional beauty is put on a pedestal – many types of beauty are worshipped.
11. You don’t have to deal with MEN and all their MALE emotional baggage.
12. Multiple orgasms. (According to our resident sex educator Corinne, the refractory period for men is much longer than it is for women. In simpler terms, we can keep going, going, going, going while men need a longer rest-time.)
13. If you want to share clothes, you can share goddamn clothes. I personally love to steal my girlfriend’s leather pants and she loves to steal my leather jacket. A perk no one warned fifteen-year-old me about!
14. You can share fitting rooms and take trips to the bathroom together without getting harassed by security. (Makes for lots of sexy hookups.)
15. All the cool girls are lesbians.
16. You have instant friends if you move anywhere new. Our tribe is loyal and we’re always thirsty for fresh meat.
17. You’ll always have a good lawyer, plumber and softball coach in your social circle, all of which are extremely important to greater success in life.
18. You can share your gay wisdom with your straight friends who will eat it up like it’s the best candy they’ve ever tasted.
20. When you travel you can look up the local gay bar and you will be embraced with open arms (and sometimes legs)!
21. We get to define what sex is for ourselves. Ask ten dykes how dykes have sex and you’ll get ten different answers. AND THAT’S BEAUTIFUL.
22. You don’t have to endure the smell of socks when you head back to her apartment. (Really though, what is it about straight men in their twenties that they can’t seem to get the stench of socks out of their bedrooms?)
23. Your one-night-stands will most likely at least have sheets on her mattress, unlike many of the horror stories my hetero babes tell me. (Straight boys, get it together! A bare mattress is creepy.)
24. Your one-night-stand will most likely have toilet paper in her bathroom! A boy under the age of forty with toilet paper in his apartment is about as rare as finding a Unicorn on the streets of lower Manhattan.
25. Whoever makes more money can pay for goddamn dinner, not just “the guy.”
26. Lesbian security guards are so much sexier and cooler than straight security guards and nothing is better than being protected by a no-nonsense lesbian with a headset at a lesbian event.
27. Wherever you go in the world, despite any language barrier, you will be overcome with a spiritual, beautiful feeling when you pass another lez in the street. You’ll dutifully nod your head at her and she’ll nod her head back. The lesbian head nod is effortless. It’s hard-wired into our lesbian genes and it transcends culture, style, identity, race and language. It will make you feel united and less alone in the world, forever and always.
