Anyone else? and why do you think so? I prefer gay. lesbian feels like it has ugly and dirty connotations to me. when i say lesbian i think of walking down the street from the POV of a straight passerby looking at "lesbian me" with another girl and thinking how disgusting. I also think of a beady eyed, sweaty guy pleasuring himself to lesbian activity. but gay me, feels good, clean, empowering. i don't mean to offend with my screwed up thoughts towards the term lesbian, I'm just curious if anyone share it.
yea i dont like lesbian either..i dont even really like gay..there should be a sexy word for us, one that makes straight girls jealous of our unity and power and lifestyle:eusa_clap
I understand how you feel. Lesbian is linked with pornography, and that is a shame because it should be our word to own. It took me a while before I got comfortable with it.
I've heard a lot of women say they love the word and love saying it, because it makes them feel proud. I on the other hand, can't stand it. Like you I too find it has grasped onto very negative connotations in my mind. I too think of the straight-male fantasy pornography, and as a word on it's own I find it very ugly. It's stringy and phonologically has too many twists and turns. It sounds clinical. It's a noun(mostly, anyway. And to me this kind of defeats the point of being gay 'not defining us'.) Sapphic sounds way more attractive. It baffles me that this word hasn't been used instead of 'lesbian'. This is the sort of thing that makes it difficult to come out. I dread the thought of anyone jumping to refer to me as a lesbian, because within both the LGBT+ community and the other communities, there is a firm decisiveness that comes with these labels. If you're a woman who dates women, everybody will think of you as a lesbian, whether you like that word or not. That's what you will be called and not having control over that frustrates me. That's how I really feel. Yet I also feel bad about the women who read that and feel offended at my attitude toward a word they in fact like.
I'm serious, I literally typed "Sapphic" (Adjective form of Lesbian) in Google images a day or two ago wanting to see adorable/romantic couples but instead got a wall of porn. I don't think straight folks have ever had this issue? Portray gay men, they're usually suited head to toe in a tux. Portray gay women, it's often apparently either swimsuit day or the clothes burglar left them in their underpants. I mean, it's bad enough when it's just one woman, considering nearly everyone in power happens to be straight males who apparently lack self-control. Ugh. Back to topic before I start ranting.
That's quite depressing. But true - sapphic may sound nicer to some of us and therefore we could use it instead, but sounding nicer also means it will sound even hotter to straight guys. (ugh) The first time I ever heard the word 'lesbian' it was because some of the boys at school were talking about lesbian porn.
For me, the world lesbian reminds me of women in their thirties with outgoing women with cool, but different, hairstyles, Jean or leather jackets, tight pants, and a whole lot of confidence. I think it might be because of my catholic/baptism/homeschooled education, because there, even if people watched porn, everyone pretended they didn't. I can't connect "lesbian" to myself because I don't feel like an incredibly confident person and I'm an introvert. I think it's weird, the world lesbian, because it denotes both your gender and your sexual orientation. Even the word gay, you have to say your gender in order to explain who you're attracted to. Why don't we have a word for attracted-to-women and a word for attracted-to-men? We already have a word for attracted-to-both.
I don't dislike "lesbian" but "sapphic" sounds so much cooler. We should use it frequently to support its use! ride:
As a man who is 100% attracted to men, I prefer Queer. I'm not a big fan of the word gay. So I see where you guys are coming from.
I don't mind the word in English so much, it makes me think of a cute couple just hanging out and being cute, but I still prefer "gay" because it just rolls off the tongue so nicely. "Sapphic" makes me think of some wealthy gay woman from Victorian era London, it just sounds so fancy. :lol: The Finnish word ("lesbo") however I have just heard being used negatively too much, same with the Swedish adjective ("lesbisk"). I really don't like using them and would almost rather use the actual derogatory terms instead ("flata" in Swedish and "lepakko" in Finnish), because I almost never hear any using them negatively. Also "lepakko" means bat, and I am not offended at being compared to this: In Swedish I sometimes use the English word "gay", but it doesn't really work in Finnish. I also don't mind the German adjective ("lesbisch") probably because I haven't actually lived in Germany and don't connect it with anything. I sometimes use "Schneckelecker" jokingly because it just sounds funny, even though it is a bit crude and probably mostly meant offensively. :icon_bigg
So, this might not be fully related, but I prefer the word "gay" over "bisexual". I don't know why, I just do.