Roses Are Red. Violets Are Blue. Casual F**king Is for Lesbians, Too.
What does a gay girl have to do to bump uglies with a stranger around here?
“What does a lesbian bring on a second date?
A U-Haul.” — Lea DeLaria
Sex. Hanky panky. Good old-fashioned bonking.
Wonderful stuff, isn’t it?
Going heels-to-Jesus can make a dull day bright and put more pep in your step than an intravenous espresso.
When it comes to sexual desire and our relationships to it, both men and women experience social stereotyping of varying degrees.
Women are portrayed as being nuanced, complex, and sexually mystifying. Men, on the other hand, are seen as the simpler species — constantly thinking about getting their leg over and always ready and willing to do so.
Whilst we ladies are praised for being sensual, romantic, and resistant to the carnal urges of the beast, men are understood — hell, encouraged — to be chest-thumping, promiscuous beings with wild oats and a limitless world in which to sow them.
Of course, enlightened minds recognise that there are exceptions to such rules; however, gendered social norms make it difficult to adopt an unbiased approach to understanding sexual desire.
Society still readily praises virility and sexual prowess in men and publicly stigmatises sexual liberation and autonomy in women.
So what does this mean for casual sex?
Since female promiscuity is admonished in the vast majority of global cultures, casual sex is not an activity that many women can openly claim to enjoy without receiving some level of scrutiny in return.
Casual sex involving men is much more easily metabolised by the masses. Boys will be boys and all.
Studies show that men make up 99% of those seeking prostitution services, and given that 41.6 million of the 52 million sex workers worldwide are female, it’s clear that casual sex is significantly more socially legitimised for men than it is for women.
Male sexual needs have been prioritised since time immemorial, so a light-hearted roll in the hay involving one or more men can be looked at as simply supplying and/or satisfying demand.
Take Grindr — gay-man-centric hook-up app par excellence — for example. Its primary function is to pair its users so they can enjoy a bit of How’s Your Father without the preemptive cordiality of learning each other’s first names or having to travel further than 50ft in any direction.
A Grindr tryst can go from “tea or coffee?” to wham, bam, thank you ma’am before the water’s had time to boil.
So what about sexual encounters void of male involvement?
Bypassing pleasantries and getting straight to knocking boots is not a privilege extended to or typically associated with gynocentric sexuality.
We, lesbians, are relegated to the opposite end of the spectrum — the one with second-date U-Hauls, cat step-parenthood, and Google searches to the tune of “she proposed, so does that mean she really likes me?”
That’s not to say that women can’t engage in the horizontal shuffle mere moments after exchanging knowing glances across a crowded bar, however, it’s not commonly celebrated nor actively encouraged. And I’d like us to examine why.
As a homosexual woman myself, the topic of sexuality has always had a somewhat awkward, heavy presence in my life. When I was still closeted, sex with men was something I avoided like the plague. It felt very square-peg-round-hole, if you’ll pardon the expression — not outrageous enough to be downright illogical, but certainly not right.
People assume that if you’re partnered with a man, you’re most definitely sleeping with him as frequently and as spiritedly as the 40-hour workweek will allow.
Yet, when you’re a woman who likes women, the assumption is nearly always the opposite.
“Are you sexually active?” — a simple question that is surprisingly difficult to answer with a straightforward “yes” or “no”, even for lesbians who aren’t exactly new to the game.
There seems to be a sort of generalised confusion as to what sex means without a man. Read more on that below.
Since heterosexuality is the default MO in a predominantly patriarchal world, attraction towards women is commonly understood to have male or masculine origins. And this has a notably minimising effect on the legitimisation of same-sex female attraction.
This is why, throughout history, many lesbian couples have been mistaken for “good friends” or “roommates” despite all the signs indicating much more than that.
Intimacy between women was mistaken for sorority; devotion for frigidity; and passion for us women being the hormonal, excitable creatures that we are.
Lesbian relations are seen as the dowdy, more palatable, ankle-length-thermal-nightgown version of the chaotic, frenetic, and raucous energy associated with gay males.
Where they have fervour and fury and strangers in dark spaces, we seem to have hers and hers promise rings and dates at the local animal rescue.
From a sociological standpoint, I find this particularly interesting.
Considering how highly sexualised women are, it’s astonishing just how diluted that sexualisation becomes when you remove men from the picture.
The absence of male sexuality renders women as sexual beings rather than sexual objects.
Of course, I’m not suggesting that all men view women as mere vehicles for sexual satisfaction — that would be overly simplistic and too man-hating lesbian-y, even for me.
But what I am saying is that women’s sexual identity is defined by whether or not a man is involved in it.
Case in point:
WLW don’t have a Grindr equivalent.
If I wanted to enjoy a spot of rumpy pumpy with a mystery woman in less than 10 minutes from now, I… couldn’t.
To be honest, I’d have a better chance of catching an eel with oiled hands.
Why?
Before you chime in and blame it on my British “no sex please!” reputation, allow me to assure you that it’s not that.
Nor is it because typing “rumpy pumpy” just now made me chuckle, which means I must be an archaic loser with about as much allure as Winnie the Pooh.
It’s because there are entirely too few resources designed to help facilitate casual women-only sexual encounters.
Lesbian sexual subculture is woefully undernourished.
Where there were once over 200 lesbian bars spanning the USA, fewer than 30 remain today.
And one of those bars recently went viral on TikTok because of the aggressive infiltration of a straight man and his criticism of those who opposed his presence.
An important factor to account for regarding this is safety.
Statistically speaking, men are a greater threat to women than other women. Lesbian dating apps such as Her or Zoe are awash with men — ones pretending to be women and ones who don’t even bother with that base-level courtesy.
Meeting up with a stranger off the internet for some four-legged foxtrot has a staggeringly high potential for bad things to happen if you’re a woman.
Our implicit vulnerability doesn’t help our case when wanting to delight in a dalliance with a randomer, especially via an app. The inability to verify the identity of hook-up app users until you’re meeting them in person makes it a rather risky game to play.
In other words, aside from having a little black book, when it comes to the topic of no-strings-attached slap and tickle, we lesbos are SOL:
Shit Outta Lovin’.
So while logistics may stand in the way of lesbians meeting up, hooking up, and, avoiding our gender-based proclivity for shacking up, it’s time we altered the lens through which we observe women-only sexual activity.
The expectation for lesbians to have some sort of relationship with their sexual partner(s) is misogynistic at worst and outdated at best.
If hooking up is a core tenet of contemporary sexual expression, there’s no valid reason why we should experience different treatment to our gay male counterparts, who are socially permitted to have more anonymous shags than a carpet warehouse.
We should be able to enjoy the same sexual licentiousness that men have done for millennia, and not worry about acquiring unflattering nicknames along the way.
So let’s give it up for the slutty lesbians. The ones who’ve woken up next to a perfect stranger and not even considered post-coital DNA profiling using one of the hairs from her hairbrush.
The ones who’ve resisted looking up the coordinates of the planets at the moment she was born.
Here’s, also, to the virginal or sex-apathetic gay men. Those who trade dark rooms for gaming chat rooms, and PnP for chamomile tea. God knows the patriarchy isn’t kind to them, either.
Breaking free from the societal straitjacket of judgement for being “different” is key to ensuring happiness and harmony for those of us in the LGBTQ+ community.
And we can start by disavowing those who have something to say about the way we engage sexually. As long as all participants are consenting, compos mentis, and of an appropriate mental and physical age, I say have at it.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to learn how to code. Someone has got to design a lesbian hook-up app aptly named GrindHer, and by the looks of things, that someone is me.
Wish me luck.
Thank you very much for reading! If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below.
If you enjoyed this read and are feeling generous, please consider buying me a coffee as a token of your appreciation. I will send you positive vibes with every single sip. ☕🌸
© 2025 Natalie S. Ohio. All rights reserved.
GrindHer! I love it!
I had no idea there were so many other ways to say "sex" without actually using the word sex... Horizontal shuffle might be my new favorite.