There’s no shame in watching porn if that’s your thing, right? Frankly, lots of women do it. I can see how sometimes it’s the only way to satisfy those taboo-like sexual fantasies that, for whatever reason, you aren’t trying to live out in real life. You know, stuff like BDSM, gangbangs, or getting on with the gender you don’t usually go for.
Turns out that the last fantasy is a bombshell for women.
According to a recent Pornhub report, lesbian porn is the most popular category of videos viewed by women, with 151% more reasons why women visit porn sites than men. Now, considering that about 5% of women (and rising) identify as LGBT, the data suggests that many straight women also click into girl-on-girl porn.
Straight women love to watch lesbian porn, too.
So what? I hear you ask.
Putting aside that hetero porn is typically centered around male pleasure and lesbian porn showcases women reaching the beautiful big O (which makes most women hit that high note), perhaps the data is indicative of something far more profound than fantasy.
I mean to say, more symbolic of female sexuality and our need to be understood, seen, and accepted by our romantic partners, particularly as we mature. Women understand women. We get each other, and it’s no secret that our erotic desires are tightly linked to our emotional feelings.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the midlife lesbian effect.
The way we think about sexuality is changing.
A woman ends her marriage of 12 years, begins dating, and finds love again — but this time, with another woman.
Sound a bit familiar?
Honestly, I am increasingly hearing about women who, after years of relationships with men, have fallen in love with another woman. And it’s not so much about so-called “midlife lesbians” feeling repressed by society until they felt comfortable coming out and more about women who authentically did not feel attracted to women until falling in love with one particular woman.
It makes sense.
Women are emotional creatures, and love is love.
It’s shared energy between two people, regardless if it hasn’t been a consideration or the norm until it finds you. And culturally speaking, female sexuality tends to be more fluid. For instance, in the past, it was always more acceptable for women to experiment sexually with women than for straight men to play around with other men. I mean, I’ve never had a straight man say to me, “I just met this really cool guy, and I fell in love with him, and I don’t like men in general, but God, this guy’s so great that I want to be in a romantic relationship with him.”
The opposite is valid for a few straight women in my life.
My long-time friend recently married a woman after two heterosexual marriages. She’s in her 40s with three grown-up kids and started her new midlife adventure with a woman by her side. When I asked her what influenced her to make the radical switch, she said:
“For me, it is the emotional connection. The complete understanding of every emotion and mood. The deeper level of intimacy, and the fact that we’re equal in every way. There are no fabricated “roles” — we both earn, work, cook, and clean.”
I like it. :-)
I also like that with the current open dialogue, sexual identities have become less rigid and more fluid, allowing more women to break out of conventional gender roles and identities and live their truths freely.
Still, even though women may be embracing sexual fluidity at much higher rates than they have in the past, whether their capacity to feel attracted to other women increases as they age is irrelevant in their choice of sexual partners.
It comes down to what’s behind the eyes.
And to the powerful magnetic pull towards someone.
And to the depth, intensity, and quality of the connection.
And to that body-to-body imprint.
It comes down to what makes sense in the heart.
Love is love is love.
And midlife represents a pivotal period in the life course at the crossroads of youth and old age. As time progresses and women mature, we have more opportunities to discover that capacity for sexual fluidity.
We have more diverse relationships.
Our life patterns change.
Our careers change.
Our sense of self changes.
What we need to feel changes deeply — from touch to flow to purpose to live to spirit restoration to love; sweet, sweet, love.
Sigh.
As a result, many women often become more expansive in their thinking, more open-minded, and more open to the possibility of falling in love with the person and not their gender. And I think that is much more of a female experience than a male experience. And I think that what many midlife women need less is an oppressive and restrictive way of living.
Because we get tired of dealing with mainstream gender roles, the sexualization of women, fitting the “conventional standards of outer beauty” to appease the male gaze, and tolerating inequality, neglect, or abuse within heterosexual relationships.
Because we become weary of untrustworthy men or bored-in-the-head men who play games with an array of women while preening their wives each night over dinner. Or men who don’t know how to approach their desire with integrity and grit, handle a woman, or are oblivious to gifts of uninhibited love.
Because we’re done with our child-rearing years and can focus more on ourselves — what lights us up on the inside.
Because we need more.
And I feel like what inevitably lights up any embodied woman is a yearning to try to live differently — in feeling, loving, and expressing herself.
So, some women just return from the significant and often traumatic journey of heterosexuality to their very first intimate attachment to a woman. That initial love connection between mother and daughter makes midlife lesbian feelings understandable.
Nobody suddenly switches away from it.
So,
The midlife lesbian effect.
It’s a thing in this anti-aging society.
Our culture likes people to be young, desirable, and attractive. And while I am not making the switch to women in the foreseeable future, I can clearly see and understand why more and more women feel attracted to other women as they age.
Besides, I think the idea that your sexuality can undergo these fascinating, unrestrained possibilities at a life stage when people assume that women are no longer sexually attractive and are shutting down is potentially a really liberating notion for us.
We’re not done yet.
Woman, our sexual future might actually be pretty dynamic and exciting, and whatever went down in our past mightn’t be the best predictor of our future. Past behavior isn’t always on point with future behavior, and that’s a good thing.
Whatever comes our way.