Lesbian Women Explain the Art of the Casual Hookup
Katherine Moennig, who played Shane on the Fifty Word. Photo by Lawrence Lucier/FilmMagic
Equally a teenager in San Bernardino, California, Chingy Long fantasized about having kinky lesbian sex. She didn't know many other queer people her age, and even fewer who shared her detail sexual interests. Long opened an business relationship on the kink-focused social network FetLife the second she turned eighteen, where she met a woman who lived in Los Angeles. "I took the railroad train from San Bernardino to LA that weekend to allow her beat me, fuck me, pee on me, and taste me," said Long in a phone interview. "We did actually dingy things." In one case she moved to the Bay Expanse, Long started cruising regularly, looking for casual sexual practice partners at queer play parties and bars. Now in her mid-twenties, she's a fixture on the queer cruising and kink scenes in her expanse and Los Angeles. "If I'm at queer parties or gay parties and see a lady in a harness or something, I'm probably going to attempt and talk to her." LGBTQ history typically attributes the art of the anonymous, same-sex public hookup to communities of gay men, merely lesbian cruising—non to exist dislocated with the lesbian cruise—is a long-honored tradition among many women-loving women.
Shug, every bit she'due south known by friends and her community, was an art educatee and punk musician in mid-80s San Francisco, a historical center of queer, kink, and leather scenes. In her early twenties during the heyday of queer cruising culture, coming together women was as easy as dropping by the local cruising hotspots. The lesbian-owned Amelia'due south Bar, Artemis Cafe, and Osento, a historic lesbian bathhouse, were all popular locales in Shug's neighborhood. "Cruising happened in confined, information technology happened in art galleries, it happened on the streets," said Shug in a phone interview. "Everything was correct there. It was like I moved into nirvana." On the street, many women wore large boots, leather jackets, labrys symbols, or a strategically-placed hanky to signal their interest in other women. "Sometimes a erect ring on the jacket, upwards on the epaulette, either left or right to signify 'top' or 'bottom.' Any kind of crystals or esoteric, mystical type of jewelry particular could as well be an indicator," said Shug. At present in her 50s, Shug is a visual artist living in Los Angeles, where she regularly meets women in leather bars, gay clubs, and queer play parties. Shug doesn't use hookups apps, and says she doesn't demand to as she finds plenty of opportunities to prowl without using her phone. "It just feels better for me. I'one thousand a hands-on gal, I always have been, and I like to be out where the people are," Shug said. "I want to encounter them, I want to scent them, their pheromones. Yous have to know if at that place's chemistry or not." In queer hubs similar the Bay Area, traditions like hanky codes (too called "flagging") live on among people of diverse queer identities equally a class of sexual signaling designed to facilitate casual hookups. Hanky codes fell out of widespread utilise after the 1970s, but Long appreciates the homage to queer cultural history. "Near days I'm in the Bay, I see at least one or two queers flagging," Long said. "It's a fun, coded expression of radical gay sexuality. To folks out of the loop, you're but accessorizing. To the gays in the know, yous're showing something downright obscene. There are few other languages that let you to say 'Hey, I'd really dear if someone spit in my slut rima oris while I fisted their holes' without actually uttering a word—just a crimson hanky on your left and a light xanthous on your right." Queer-friendly bars and Pride parties offer plenty of opportunities for coincidental hookups, only as lesbian bars and public social venues proceed to dice out, the net remains the almost accessible lesbian cruising scene, specially for those living outside of urban queer centers. Long belongs to several Facebook groups for lesbian cruising where she occasionally posts requests for kinky encounters. Outside of the scene, still, she feels her reputation equally an active not-monogamist puts her at odds with other queer women in her social circle. "When I hook upwards with anyone or fifty-fifty state that I take multiple partners, I've more than oft than not been referred to as a 'lesbian fuckboi,' she said. "It sucks having my sexuality looked down upon."
Long'southward experience points to larger misconceptions of queer women's sexuality that often permeate communities of queer women themselves, shaming those who engage in casual, no-strings-attached sex. Mid-aughts First series and canonical lesbian text The L Word epitomized and villainized the lesbian fuckboi archetype in Shane, a promiscuous heartbreaker whose primary grapheme flaw was her tendency for 1 night stands. Unfortunately, the fear of being labeled "a Shane" still persists. A 2004 newspaper by researcher Denise Bullock in Journal Of Homosexuality indicated that slut-shaming affects queer and lesbian women'southward sexual beliefs and beliefs about casual sexual activity. Stereotypical perceptions of queer women as series monogamists stigmatize those who adopt casual sex and reflect larger cultural myths about women in full general, peculiarly the thought that women instinctually crave monogamy and emotional intimacy with their sexual partners. "There's a sexist misconception that women are gay for emotional commitment and love. This denies women our sexuality and chapters for lust and depravity. It pushes down the parts of gay and lesbian culture that are seen as vulgar or debaucherous," Long said. "I am capable of having a sexual connection with someone without it leading to dreaming virtually moving in together and owning puppies." As queer culture and identities go more than integrated in mainstream consciousness, the movement for queer respectability minimizes cruising's past and present. Corporate marketing campaigns often paint queer women as a monolith and lean toward overtly tender and heartwarming depictions of women-loving women, which further stigmatizes those who reject spousal relationship, monogamy, or vanilla sex. Notwithstanding, community efforts like the @_personals_ Instagram business relationship, though less overtly sex-forward than their historical predecessors, maintain spaces for casual encounters betwixt those who seek them. "We're taught to believe that women who desire women are predatory and shameful, merely information technology'south not predatory to want someone and let them know information technology. It's not predatory to desire another woman in a purely sexual manner," Long said. Information technology'due south but predatory if you are being disrespectful of someone's boundaries, body, and personhood." For Long, cruising is both a personal and cultural practice that reclaims ideas of queer perversion as a source of pride and pleasure. More than than a short-lived physical experience or explicit text exchange, cruising uplifts queer love by celebrating queer sexual activity at its most joyfully deviant. "Heartwarming' is a woman stepping on my chest," she said. "That'south heartwarming to me." Correction: This story originally said that Chingy Long grew up in San Bernardino. She actually grew up in LA, just moved to San Bernardino as a teen. Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily. Follow Sofia Barrett-Ibarria on Twitter.
Source: https://www.vice.com/en/article/a3mmg5/lesbian-women-explain-the-art-of-the-casual-hookup
0 Response to "Lesbian Women Explain the Art of the Casual Hookup"
Post a Comment