“Do Lesbian Women Have ‘Real Sex'?”

And other questions our outspoken, lesbian Cosmo columnist has been asked. Here, she talks about the kind of scrutiny people in same-sex relationships face from the blissfully ignorant.

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What do lesbian women do in the bedroom?’... It’s a mystery, I’ve found, that’s oddly fascinating, frustrating, and frightening to many a curious heterosexual mind. That the definition of sex in the lesbian world is infinitely wider than it is in the heteronormative world, and becomes more pronounced in the way it jumps multiple hoops of intimacy—an all-around dry humping (insert double entendre) of emotion, intensity, romance and ingenuity, the patience and the pleasure, the joy and the hell, even the mundanity.

Published in the Archives of Sexual Behaviour journal in 2017, a study by a team of US researchers revealed limping ‘orgasm gaps’ across genders and those with different sexual orientations. According to the data, collected from more than 50,000 participants, aged between 18 and 65, and in monogamous relationships, only 35 percent of straight women orgasm every time they have penetrative sex, versus 75 percent of men. Also, around 80 percent of straight women and 91 percent of lesbian women said they almost always found bedroom bliss with the ‘golden trio’ of moves—manual genital stimulation, deep kissing and oral sex, without having sexual intercourse.

This can only be a good thing, ladies. When was the last time ‘female pleasure’ popped up in conversations, even among your girlfriends? Oddly, there’s a looming infamy and taboo around female orgasms. They’re still seen as a mythical phenomenon!

Pamela Madsen, a New York-based author and renowned sex educator, uncovers the science behind seducing the clitoris: even the most average clitoral orgasm lasts longer than the best of male orgasm. It’s because the clitoris contains 8,000 sensitive nerve endings—double than that of the penis glans.