Do Lesbians have higher testosterone?

Going about living my life, I often forget that a huge part of the population has no idea what it is really like to live the lifestyle. In fact, that anyone would use the term gay or lesbian lifestyle shows a distance from the reality so many of my lesbian friends and I live in. As a Gay Ambassador, I take my responsibility to share my truth with y’all. So, here’s a quick primer based on some of the top Google searches I found.

How the heck would I know? Am I a scientist? No. My guess would be that they don’t. Although, if testosterone is to be associated with male-centric looks and behaviors, the straight women that surround me in the tiny northwestern town where I live tend much more towards butch than most lesbians I meet. Most lesbians I know would rather go for coffee than rebuild a carburettor.

Women Love to Become Lesbians

More over the past 12 months, I’ve been finding myself bearing witness to lesbian comings out. Or should I say, listening to drunk women tell me they’re ‘so sick’ of guys, they’re ‘seriously considering’ becoming lesbians.

‘Why not? Why not, I ask you?’ the latest one cried the other evening. I pointed out that, for one thing, she was straighter than Grandma Walton. My friend sloshed some wine into her glass and glared at me as if to say: ‘What’s that got to do with it?’ This woman is an attractive, intelligent professional in her late thirties.

 I would wager that, as recently as a couple of years ago, she would no sooner have contemplated a switch to lesbianism than she would have proposed invading Poland.

However, there she sat, considering ‘Sapphism: The Lifestyle Option’ as casually as if she was leafing through a holiday brochure.

Sipping her wine, she mused: ‘Seriously, what have I got to lose?’ Not for the first time, I couldn’t help wondering whether she was asking a question or trying to talk herself into it.

Opportunistic lesbianism seems to be on the female brain these days. Crazed by bad relationships, the decision seems to have been taken that men are ‘the problem’ so it stands to reason that women must be ‘the answer’. Just as desperate characters throughout history have come to the end of their rope, so does millennial British womankind seem to be coming to the end of its heterosexuality.

We even had our first lesbian sitcom, Rhonda, start last week, though the writer/star Rhonda Cameron, was keen to point out that it is more ‘a sitcom featuring a lesbian’.

The self-styled quasi-bi aspirant probably wouldn’t notice the difference. To her, lesbianism seems to be less about sexuality than it is about quality control. As in: ‘Why keep letting creepy men into my life when I could be with fabulous women?’

 The rather idealised assumption being that, while straight relationships are a trip to hell and back with dinner thrown in, the lesbian liaison is a stress-free breeze.

Absolute rubbish, of course. I know lesbians who’ve been horribly hurt by their partners, but straight women don’t want to hear that. In fact, they don’t seem to want to hear much about the realities of lesbianism.

With the opportunistic lesbian, it doesn’t seem to be so much about desiring women per se as it is to do with turning away from men. Where sexual orientation is concerned, women seem to have become the floating-voter gender. After all, straight men with broken hearts don’t tend to sensationally announce their imminent gayness.

Having a wardrobe consisting of casual chic and trainers,

You love your jeans and trainers, but when it’s time to polish up and wear a dress and heels, you find yourself wondering if your shiny gold All Stars count as formal wear.

I still haven’t decided if this last point is a pro or a con.

Different types of lesbians and lesbian stereotypes have been around for a long time. Butch and femme? You’ve heard of them. It’s a stereotype that says sapphics fall into either lesbian category, depending on their aesthetics and mannerisms. 

Today’s lesbians and sapphic people might be less likely to fall into the butch/femme dichotomy. But the stereotypes once served a great purpose. The masculine and hyperfeminine aesthetics of butch and femme stereotypes helped lesbians identify each other in mainstream society. Now, a blend of butch and femme has birthed a new type of lesbian: the “Futch” or “stem” (stud + femme). 

But of course, lesbian stereotypes and different types of lesbians go much further than the masculine and feminine spectrum of gender expressions. There’s a whole slew of lesbian types.

Lesbian categories derive from several things, like aesthetics. Butch and femme lesbian labels certainly gather typing from looks.

Lesbian labels also come from a lesbian’s behaviours. Think U-Haul lesbians. Or a lesbian category can be based on a lesbian’s interests, like cottagecore lesbians or astrology lesbians. 

Lesbian types are fun to use and play into. Sometimes they’re even validating, like using the label “lesbian” itself is. Lesbian labels like “doppelganger” are fun to use simply for the pun itself.

Lesbians

Men and women might constantly disappoint each other, and women might occasionally daydream that there’s something to be gained from changing teams, but there isn’t, really. In heterosexuality, as in homosexuality, you can run but you can’t hide.

Most days I find myself thinking how great it is to be a lesbian. Admittedly, it’s usually as I walk into Mannequin, or some equally wonderful girls’ night filled with exquisite women. I didn’t always feel so good about my lifestyle; coming out is hard and the desire to be ‘normal’ can overcome the best of us, but as with any problem, breaking it down to it’s smallest parts is a good way to make it less daunting.

As a coping mechanism and for some mild comic relief, I developed a list of the Pros and Cons of being a lesbian. I’ve refined the list with time and experience, but the concept is still the same, it’s the little things that really determine how you view your life.