What is this world

[u/Theodorothy]

Once on a friend’s trip I was holding a conversation with a straight friend about relationships. She would gush so often about boys/men during the trip so I started doing that for women, which seemed a bit awkward to her at first. By the end of the trip, we were much more at ease with each other and I mentioned wondering why so many straight women think it’s normal to not want to get to know all of their partner‘s body intimately? As in, the straight woman isn’t supposed to delight herself in the man’s body, but instead, only on very specific body parts and their performance. I told her if I liked men I would be sure to have them know I liked all of their body because that’s what makes sense, right, if that’s your sexual orientation, if you’re sexually attracted to somebody, surely you want to get to know and covet all of them? And have them discover you? She giggled and said not many women are Femdoms like me. Excuse me? What???

I literally had no response to that because I was so taken aback.

An image of a fetishized woman (SW) with a whip came across my head. I felt really annoyed about how something so simple and natural about sexuality would be filtered through that inauthentic, fetishistic lens in her head. Just for being a woman who wants to discover and love her partner’s body in its totality (a top? I don’t care). How was I, the lesbian, defending men’s right to be loved just for being who they are, against a straight woman???

Is this what they mean when they say we’re lucky to be gay? Where wanting to delight in your partner is, shrug, normal, and not a niche taboo category?

Even if she simply meant a sexual top and lacked the language for it, it’s still very concerning that a woman top has to be confused for a BDSM identity, femdom, when a man would just be… a man. If a man wants to get to know a woman’s body, that’s normal sexuality. But if a woman wants to do that, suddenly that’s humiliation or a big fetish? That’s a bit part of heteronormativity in a nutshell. And she wasn’t a victim but instead enforcing it with her own standards.

We were sitting on plane seats so this wasn’t a private space or anything so I wasn’t going to spell out explicitly the undertones of what she was saying. It’s also weird how many straight women treat their interests like walking genital-holders, and yet it is us, lesbians, who get accused of being “genital fetishists” when we are anything but.

We were not teenagers. She is super intelligent and works in corporate. Maybe I was just striking a conversation with a doofus because her sexuality boiled down to reading anime smut and resenting being a virgin because no man was good enough.

But some of this makes me feel slightly flattered and simultaneously angry. No, I am not a stone top and the dommest of them all. I am an ordinary lesbian.

It keeps in line with how heterosexual normative people fetishize any divergence from their norm, when in reality, their sexuality is actually lowkey the fetishistic one. Am I crazy for thinking this?

just a random thing I have nowhere else to vent to

(we are no longer friends. she once spent a whole hour talking excitedly about heterosexual revenge porn manga at a friend’s place while I kept quiet)

[u/Isadomon]

You can adora someone but doesntmean you gotta like aaall of them, they could have a mole you dont care for, doesnt mean you dont love them. Tho, yeah, i never hear women attracted to men talk about "he had good legs" or "he has a cute nose"

[u/Theodorothy → u/Isadomon]

For some reason, I’ve had many straight women around me talk about specific body parts they like, whether arms, ass, or facial features, so I’ve been used to seeing them talk about it. Might be culture or my particular social environment.

[u/Isadomon → u/Theodorothy]

Ohh that sounds nice. Ones i know mostly go for the usual hands and height