Not all lesbians hate men! Five queer women answer the ridiculous questions they’re tired of hearing – once and for all
Stop asking lesbians these questions.
These five lesbians have – shockingly – had enough of being asked why they love cats and hate men.
Why do lesbians have short hair? Who is ‘the man’ in the relationship? How do lesbians have sex?
These are all questions lesbians are persistently asked – even by people who have never met you before – and we’re over it.
The intent behind such questions is often innocent, usually coming from nosy family or friends wanting to know a bit more about you.
But more often than not, they are from strangers who you’ve just met, who think that after five minutes of small talk it’s appropriate to ask you what scissoring is.
Lesbians need better representation.
A lot of these questions stem from stereotypes or a lack of diverse lesbian representation in the media.
For a long time, lesbians were portrayed as man-hating, bra-burning, angry women. (Some of us might be, but that’s beside the point, OK?)
And although lesbian representation in the media is better than ever before, people are still holding onto these stereotypes.
It can be exhausting to deal with busting stereotypes. We just want to crack on with U-Hauling and baking sourdough in peace, please!
In an attempt to shut these questions down once and for all, we asked lesbian YouTuber Stevie Boebi, singer-songwriter Saara Aalto, and PinkNews’ in-house lesbians Abi McIntosh, Scarlet Pestell and Amy Ashenden to share their answers to the most ridiculous questions they’re asked about their sexuality.
Why don’t you look like a lesbian?
Years of not having diverse representation of lesbians in the media has really paid off in the heterosexual mission to claim you can’t be a lesbian unless you’re 100% butch.
Some of us do love Doc Martens and leather jackets, but some of us are also femmes, and some of us don’t subscribe to the butch-femme binary.
Saara Aalto puts it simply: “There isn’t a specific look for lesbians, honestly.”
Why do lesbians like cats?
Lesbians have long been associated with felines as if liking cats is a requirement to being part of the sapphic community.
First of all, who doesn’t like cats? Secondly, plenty of lesbians like cats but not all lesbians love cats.
And as Stevie Boebi points out: “There are dog lesbians, there are horse lesbians.”
How do you know you’re a lesbian if you’ve never been with a man?
Lots of people seem to think it’s impossible to know that you are a lesbian if you’ve never had sex with a man but, as Abi explains in the video: “I’ve never been swimming with sharks and I know I definitely don’t want to go swimming with sharks.”
So next time someone asks you an inappropriate question, you’ve got a catalogue of comebacks.
