Where's my lesbian porn guide?

[amaresu]

Written for the prompt: Where Is All My Hot Lesbian Porn?



I can, without much effort, find a half dozen essays on writing gay male sex. Without hitting Google. I can't say the same for lesbian sex. Why is that?

We live in a society where cosmetic surgery for female genitals exists. We live in a society where despite knowing that the vast majority of women can't orgasm through penetration alone women still feel like failures for not orgasming through penetration alone. I've personally talked to people who didn't realize that their urethra and vagina were different things. How many women actually know that their vagina isn't their vulva? What about the labia and the clitoris? In a society that tries to pretend that female sexuality doesn't exist is it any surprise that some of us might need primers on just how lesbian sex works?

Of the people who would be willing to write lesbian porn how many of them know what the vulva looks like? How many have looked at their own? How many know what other people's look like? How about shaving? Why do women do it and just how popular is it? What about the G-Spot? Fingers, tongue, both? Are teeth a good thing? When do you bring toys into it? I could go on and on about the things that it would be nice to have people actually talk about when it comes to this subject.

I can write about oral sex for men, but I wouldn't have the first clue where to start for women. And that's really sad. I think the basic assumption is that we are women (most of us anyway) and thus should know these things, but we don't. Not all of us. And where exactly are we supposed to learn? Google really isn't a whole lot of help there.

So, really, help a girl out. Tell me how to write this stuff.

Comments

[woldy]

I didn't at all mean to imply that queer people couldn't be clueless about f/f sex (I can remember being utterly clueless myself) and I apologise for offending you. My point is that I don't understand why we need a fannish source of information about f/f sex dedicated to writers if there are already lots of other sources of information about f/f sex both online and offline.

[amaresu]

Because at the end of the day not everybody, myself included, has money to go buy books. Not everybody is in a situation where they'd be able to buy a book and bring it home without facing reprecussions. Because there are numerous posts about m/m sex stuff so why the hell shouldn't there be posts about f/f sex stuff?

I mean, why not? Why aren't we talking about something like this in fannish spaces? For something that's often toted as being about female sexuality we don't actually talk about female sexuality all that much in fandom. Why? It just seems odd that there isn't discussion and it seems clear that I'm not the only one who would really like to discuss this stuff if the responses to this post and the following one are any indication.

[woldy]

I hear that you feel the need for those resources, but I still don't understand what you think a fannish post about writing f/f sex would add that you wouldn't get from browsing the google results on 'lesbian sex guide' or something similar. I actually think there are good reasons for not writing a post about how f/f sex works, as I've said earlier in this thread, but I can't balance what I see as the disadvantages against what you see as the advantages unless I know what you think the advantages are.

On a different note, every town I've ever lived in had a public library which included books about sex, including f/f sex, and you could go into the library to read them without needing a library card. I don't know if that would work for you, but it's an option that doesn't involve spending money on books or needing to take them home.

[mosca]

Right off the bat I want to make it clear that my intention is not to flame or attack, but to respond to some of your questions clearly.

You are incredibly lucky to have always lived in communities with public libraries that have good resources on sex and sexuality. Many libraries purposely censor such books, especially books that deal frankly with same-sex intimacy. Many others have limited or out-of-date collections because public libraries have no damn money. And even for those of us blessed to live near well-stocked public libraries, many people feel uncomfortable checking out books on sexual subjects or reading them inside the library, where a neighbor might see them.

As for the need for specifically fannish resources on f/f sex, I agree with many of the commenters above that one would be useful. Most of the print and online guides to f/f sex that I've seen are geared toward having f/f sex, not toward writing about it. I've had years of experience in fucking women as well as in writing about women fucking each other, and they are two distinct activities. Of course, there's a large degree of overlap in the required knowledge, but all kinds of problems arise when narrating sex that don't matter as much in the actual bedroom. If you read the original post as well as many of the comments, you'll see what they are: the difficulty of finding language for body parts and activities without becoming vague, trite, or vulgar; the difficulty of describing the feelings (emotional and physical) of female arousal and orgasm; the fact that, with the vast diversity of female bodies and desires, we are usually writing characters whose experiences are really different from our own. While it is probably possible to overcome all this stuff without a specifically fannish writers' guide, having one would surely make things easier, especially for writers who would like to write explicit sex scenes but aren't sure where to start.

Also, the project of compiling a fan writer's guide to f/f sex would most likely bring people together from all over fandom, into a discussion of sex and sexuality. I think this would be a great thing in and of itself.

[woldy]

The project of compiling a fan writer's guide to f/f sex would most likely bring people together from all over fandom, into a discussion of sex and sexuality. I think this would be a great thing in and of itself. Well, that's the optimistic take on it. My take on it is that we'll see efforts to normalize women's sexuality and a whole load of unwelcome boundary-policing. The normalization seems to have started already, because people earlier in this thread are making claims about whether or not the g-spot exists, and that kind of sweeping generalization about other people's bodies and sexual responses is not the kind of thing I am comfortable seeing in a femslash community.

In the past I've had comments on femslash fics from readers asserting that sexual acts I described in the story based on personal experience were unrealistic and/or not activities 'normal' people did, and frankly I find that sort of boundary policing both ignorant and offensive. I see even more boundary policing about how sex is presumed to work in discussions of how slash sex, e.g. authors claiming that it is impossible to enjoy gay sex without lube, and I think a lot of the guides about how to write gay sex have encouraged that boundary policing by making sweeping generalizations about other people's bodies and sex lives.

I would be, broadly speaking, on board with a project in which people shared relevant bits of their own f/f sexual experience and/or experiences writing about f/f sex, but I don't think that's at all the same as putting together a guide to how f/f sex 'ought' to be written. It seems to be that talking about how one ought to write f/f sex is irrevocably bundled up with assumptions about what constitutes f/f sex (there's a great Marilyn Frye article on that) and how f/f sex 'ought' to be done, so it seems to me that the added normalization and boundary policing around writing femslash sex scenes would restrict women's efforts to articulate f/f sexual experiences and perhaps their sexual self-expression.

[mosca]

I think your concerns are absolutely valid: any kind of guide or primer runs the risk of being too prescriptive, of telling writers what they can and cannot write, of setting off certain activities or behaviors as "wrong." Certainly, there are people in fandom who think this way about sex and wish to inflict their views upon others. I've also had experiences like yours, where commenters have thought my sex scenes were unrealistic or impossible or deviant or whatever. And they've invariably been in response to descriptions of stuff I've actually done or watched in porn. (Not that porn is always/ever an accurate depiction of sex, but it is often an apt demonstration of what is possible.) I agree with you that nobody has any business telling anyone else how consenting adults should have sex.

But I think you're conflating that larger truth with the proposed task at hand, which is to create a document that might help ease the fears of writers who want to write explicit f/f sex scenes but aren't sure where to start. It sounds like you assume that any such guide would end up telling writers that certain sexual acts are impossible or off-limits. I think it's possible that we could end up with such a guide if we're not careful, but I don't see much in the comments above to suggest that anyone wants a prescriptive, policing guide. Rather, I see a lot of people asking questions and raising points that would help avoid producing that kind of a document. The G-spot conversation is troubling me too - found one just the other night! - but that seems to be the exception to a discussion that seems mostly open and curious.

I keep suggesting a collaborative guide with numerous contributors because I think it would reduce what you call "boundary policing" and what I call prescriptivism. I can see how a well-meaning writer could end up producing a guide to how f/f sex "should" be written, but I don't think anyone wants such a guide. I think that if such a project got off the ground, we'd have to take steps to avoid prescription and judgment, especially since you (and presumably others) would worry about that.

I don't think it's possible to create a perfect guide, but I don't think a good idea should be abandoned simply because something might go wrong. Maybe that makes me too much of an optimist for you, but I'm a big fan of optimism.