Up for a game of thigh-fencing?

April 3, 2015 3:36 PM

10 Theories About How Lesbians Have Sex From Straight People In History (Carolyn Yates, AutoStraddle)
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome (38 comments total)

Scissor me timbers!
posted by ostranenie at 3:40 PM on April 3, 2015 [11 favorites]

Wow, some of those euphemisms. 'Natural vase' made me wonder what would have happened if Georgia O'Keeffe had been into ikebana.

Also a disturbing number of gay men actually think scissoring is actually a common thing.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 3:44 PM on April 3, 2015 [3 favorites]

Metafilter: what would have happened if Georgia O'Keeffe had been into ikebana.
posted by sobarel at 3:48 PM on April 3, 2015

There is a cornucopia of user names in this article. "Coffin against coffin" may be my favorite, but it's hard to say.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:51 PM on April 3, 2015 [6 favorites]

“Sometimes the lover is the mistress / Sometimes the mistress is the lover.”

Good sex advice for everybody!
posted by chavenet at 4:07 PM on April 3, 2015 [6 favorites]

“Wives would cut a sweet potato or manioc root in the shape of the male organ, or use a banana for the purpose. Two of them would shut themselves in a hut and one would lie on the bed and play the female role while the other, with the artificial organ tied around her stomach, played the male role. They then reversed roles.”
—E.E. Evans-Pritchard, 1930s

Evans-Pritchard was an anthropologist who reported on sexuality in a number of different African societies. In this case he's not actually reporting on homosexuality as such, but a replacement sexual activity in polygamous households among Azande. Nor is it really a "theory" as he is repeating claims by his informants.

All Azande I have known well enough to discuss this matter have asserted the female homosexuality was practiced in polygamous homes in the past and still (1930) is sometimes.... One of the many wives of a prince or of an important commoner in the past might not have shared her husband’s bed for a month or two, whereas some of the dozens, even hundreds, of wives of a king must have been almost totally deprived of the sex life normal in smaller homes. Adulterous intercourse was very difficult for a wife in such large polygamous families, for the wives were kept in seclusion and carefully watched.... Wives would cut a sweet potato or manioc root in the shape of the male organ, or use a banana for the purpose. Two of them would shut themselves in a hut and one would lie on the bed and play the female role while the other, with the artificial organ tied around her stomach, played the male role. They then reversed roles.

It seems rather mean to single him out for trying to explain and inform about the societies he was studying. He also wrote about male homosexuality and heterosexuality, among other things.
posted by Thing at 4:32 PM on April 3, 2015 [28 favorites]

I just pictured a lot of kissing sighing and what not.
posted by jonmc at 4:46 PM on April 3, 2015 [3 favorites]

Scissoring is real, and it's called tribbing.
posted by oceanjesse at 5:04 PM on April 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

i don't know how common or anything it is, but i've had a hell of a good time scissoring with women nice enough join me. i would say it featured before i started reading sex stories and knew people called it something - it just seemed to make sense to fumbling baby-dykes trying to pretend they're still just kissing and definitely not fucking.
posted by nadawi at 6:13 PM on April 3, 2015 [3 favorites]

also, tribbing will always and forever make me think it has something to with furballs on star trek.
posted by nadawi at 6:15 PM on April 3, 2015 [21 favorites]

"Pet one's tribble" may be a nerdy euphemism for masturbation. Or so I hear.
posted by Zalzidrax at 8:10 PM on April 3, 2015 [3 favorites]

I was afraid I would need to fan my face to cool off after reading that, but fortunately unfortunately not.
posted by BlueHorse at 8:36 PM on April 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

“They do not put flesh to flesh in the sense of the genital organ of one within the body of the other, since nature precludes this, but they do transform the use of the member in question into an unnatural one, in that they are reported to use certain instruments of diabolical operation to excite desire.”

I mean, yeah
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:36 PM on April 3, 2015 [5 favorites]

"Pet one's tribble" may be a nerdy euphemism for masturbation. Or so I hear.

My mom has an old t-shirt with a picture of tribbles and the words "pet me, I purr." It is disturbing.
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:38 PM on April 3, 2015 [7 favorites]

I remember back in the 80's sitting around the kitchen table with my mum and grandma and Grandma, who had been gifted a stack of books which were slightly raunchier than her usual Mills and Boone romances , asked me what exactly did lesbians do? My mum was mortified and blurted out 'Mum, no!'* but I was about 18 or 19 and full of information (not being lesbian myself but wise in the ways of pornography I was sure I could help) and I said 'Well Grandma, not all sex involves penetration" at which Mum shrieked, "Linda, no!" and Grandma looked more perplexed than ever. Somehow the conversation was diverted from the subject but it made me feel a bit sorry for Grandma and what must have been her very boring sex life.

*My mum's not really a prude, she just couldn't bear the thought of her parents having (or even thinking about) sex, I guess.
posted by h00py at 8:45 PM on April 3, 2015 [16 favorites]

...sitting around the kitchen table with my mum and grandma and Grandma...couldn't bear the thought of her parents...

Wait, so they were—
I mean, doesn't that—
Surely at some point—

This is very confusing.
posted by The Tensor at 10:39 PM on April 3, 2015

I was expecting at least one "But who is the husband?"
posted by Dip Flash at 11:49 PM on April 3, 2015 [2 favorites]

(blame it on my terrible grammar, The Tensor)
posted by h00py at 12:40 AM on April 4, 2015

Two grandmas sounds like a win though. Twice the cookies, amirite?
posted by ostranenie at 1:59 AM on April 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

blame it on my terrible grammar, The Tensor


I wouldn't say she was terrible. Naughty, perhaps.
posted by louche mustachio at 3:24 AM on April 4, 2015 [6 favorites]

Let us all thank Orange is the New Black for expanding anthropological research horizons by revealing the existence of lesbians' hands.
posted by heatherann at 5:13 AM on April 4, 2015 [5 favorites]

The L-Word was pretty hand-focused if memory serves.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 5:54 AM on April 4, 2015

"Instruments Of DIabolical Operation" sounds like a bad Scandinavian Black Metal band.
posted by pseudocode at 5:57 AM on April 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

Quite some time ago I had a relationship with a woman and was talking about it to a male friend (both in our very early 20s). He said "But what do you do?" I said "Well, what do you do when you're with a woman?" He said "Put my dick in her." I felt so sorry for his sexual partners that that was literally the extent of his imagination. Remove the penis from the equation and...nope, sorry, I got nothing.
posted by billiebee at 6:53 AM on April 4, 2015 [15 favorites]

I though lesbians just Netflixed. Same as everyone.
posted by srboisvert at 7:02 AM on April 4, 2015 [7 favorites]

I went to an all girls overnight summer camp and trashy romance novels were passed discreetly amongst the campers. The year I was fourteen the popular one in my cabin was Spring Collection, a story about three unknown models who go to Paris to work for a big-name fashion designer.

The big deal about this particular novel was that there was a lesbian scene, information shared in faux-blasé whispers (it's amazing how different things were even in 1998). I was desperate to get my hands on this book* because by this point I realized and acknowledged to myself on some level that I was attracted to women, but I didn't actually have any idea how lesbian sex worked and I knew that I wanted to do...stuff...to women but I wasn't really sure what. This is largely because of societal notions I had internalized prioritizing the penis in sex but I was sort of in the same situation as billiebee's friend (although, like, fourteen, so different -- my experience with penises was also pretty limited at that point). Still, it's amazing how much we are told that penises are necessary for doing it when it turns out they profoundly are not.

*As I eventually did. It was pretty good! Not a bad choice for early teens; straightforward and descriptive without being creepy or salacious, just solid sex with decent characterization and at least one lesbian scene. If one had to recommend a sexually explicit novel for teenagers exploring their sexuality, one could do worse than Spring Collection.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 7:59 AM on April 4, 2015 [6 favorites]

Oh, Mrs. Pterodactlyl, I also learned about the joys of lesbian loving from Judith Krantz, though for me it was the book Dazzle. Fernanda, the girl obsessed with getting a big O in just the way she liked it, slow and gentle. The girl who married five times and boinked god knows how many dudes trying to find someone who'd give it to her right. And then finally she gets come on to by an English lass who had a lot of fun in English boarding schools. And Georgie tells Fernanda that lesbians REALLY love it when you gain weight and get more motherly (really?) and Fernanda is all, "That's the opposite of real life!"

I didn't like Princess Daisy much and don't remember much beyond "identical twins and only one of them has Down's, wtf?", but I think there was also a lesbian sex scene in it.

I miss Judith Krantz. Whatever happened to her, anyway?

Remember how she kept saying "trisexual" in Spring Collection? Oh, now that she got that haircut, she looks trisexual at the very least! It felt like trying to make fetch happen. Also I kept thinking, "what's the third sex, doing farm animals?"
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:42 AM on April 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

Most of these are funny. Some are really, really s-t-r-a-i-n-i-n-g to make something sound nefarious, naive, or downright stupid...

3. Maybe it’s just like heterosex?
“Kissing and hugging […] exactly like a man with women.”
—A witness at the trial of Katherina Hetzeldorfer, 1477

HA HA HA HA HA DUMB NON-LESBIANS THINK LESBIANS KISS AND HUG, AMIRITE GIRLZ? STUUUUPID!

9. Maybe in the bath???

TIL lesbians don't have sex in the bath; that's just for hets and gay men.

Then, as Thing points out, she mocks quotes from actual lesbians given to a legitimate sex researcher.

Carolyn apparently had a deadline - must publish 10-point list by on April 3, 2015 at 7:00am PDT - and at 6:30am only had half the items.
posted by IAmBroom at 8:51 AM on April 4, 2015

A better author, Jodi Savitz, tackles the lazy pasttime of mocking the existence of "scissoring":

Dear everybody,

Let's stop pretending that scissoring is a mythical lesbian sex act that only happens in South Park, GIFs, and porn. It is not a myth. It does happen. And for the record, the proper name for scissoring is "tribbing."

Here's the truth: I am tired of hearing people (and especially queer people -- you should know better!) and articles claim that a major part of my sex life either isn't possible or doesn't constitute "real" lesbian sex when in fact it is very possible. It is absolutely mind-blowing, intimate, passionate, sexy, dirty, hot, and intensely pleasurable and has been part of my personal sexual repertoire for about 10 years now.

Obsess no longer, because I am telling you now: It's real.

Yours truly,

Jodi

Do "they" only scissor? No, that's stupid. Does lesbian, noncinematic sex sometimes include scissoring? If human can do it with genitalia, they will. If it gets them off, they'll probably do it again.
posted by IAmBroom at 8:57 AM on April 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

I also learned about the joys of lesbian loving from Judith Krantz

jenfullmoon, I didn't even remember her name! It's crazy in retrospect what a big part of my personal sexual development that book was because it was the first time lesbian sex was presented to me in a practical, straightforward, woman-centric way instead of through ogling in late '90s sitcoms. I haven't thought about it consciously in a while but yeah, that book was a big deal for a young bisexual pterodactyl in a time when good information wasn't readily available.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 9:30 AM on April 4, 2015

For more information about tribbing, there's the Journal of Tribology. For a more cosmopolitan environment, there's Tribology International.

For the advanced audience, there's Tribology Online administered by the Japanese Society of Tribologists.

From the President's Message, "In addition, we have deeply been involved in various international tribology conferences, including Asiatrib, World Tribology Congress, and so on. Recently, "the Advanced Forum on Tribology" to be held annually has been initiated under the co-organization of Chinese Tribology Institution (CTI) and JAST. At our domestic tribology conference, mainly the spring meeting, an international forum named “Front-line of Tribology in Asian Region” invites young tribologists from Asian countries to widen cooperation and enhance understanding between Japan and Asian countries."
posted by porpoise at 10:29 AM on April 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

The Trouble with Tribbing
posted by Flashman at 10:42 AM on April 4, 2015

Journal of Tribology: Performance of Lubricated Rolling/Sliding Concentrated Contacts With Surface Textures: A Review.

Tribologists have more fun than I do.
posted by monotreme at 11:44 AM on April 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

It does kind of baffle me that no one seems to have thought of certain things that are already attached at the ends of our arms and are rather good at, um, manipulating small objects as well as combining together into varying degrees of thickness and so forth. Or is digital penetration and/or fisting just completely inconceivable to the straight male mind?

And thank you, Metafilter. I will never again be able to think of "The Trouble with Tribbles" without smirking. My uncle actually had a stuffed toy tribble. Ahem.
posted by Athanassiel at 1:48 AM on April 5, 2015

I think "tribbing" is derived from "tribade" or "tribadism". Here's the OED entry on it:

tribade
(ˈtrɪbəd, ‖tribad)
[a. F. tribade (16th c.), or ad. its source L. tribas, -ad-, Gr. τριβάς, τριβαδ-, f. τρίβειν to rub.]
A woman who engages in sexual activity with other women; a Lesbian. Also attrib.

   1601 B. Jonson Forest x. Præludium, Light Venus‥with thy tribade trine, invent new sports.    1890 H. Ellis Criminal iii. § 7. 106 Such emblems are common among pæderasts and tribades.

Hence ˈtribadism, (a) the activity of a tribade; (b) spec. in modern use (see quot. 1965); ˈtribady = tribadism (a).

1811–19 Woods and Pirie v. Gordon (Index Catal. Libr. Surgeon-General's Office U.S.A. XIV. 752), Lady C. G.‥who had charged them with the practice of tribadism.    1864 tr. Caspar's Forensic Med. (N. Syd. Soc.) III. 335 Tribadism. Even in the Old Testament there is distinct allusion to this form of sexual aberration.    1882 Payne 1001 Nights II. 156.    1909 Cent. Dict. Suppl., Tribady.    1965 New Statesman 26 Mar. 492/3 The first [technique of lesbian intercourse], known as ‘tribadism’, consists in one woman lying on top of the other and simulating the movements of heterosexual intercourse in such a way as to stimulate the clitoris of each.    1970 G. Greer Female Eunuch 293 The prevalence of tribadism as the principal lesbian mode of lovemaking argues the relative unimportance of the masculine fantasy.

posted by Joe in Australia at 6:01 AM on April 5, 2015

Stop it, you people, you are making the poor tribologists blush. Here they are, getting quite snickers from the other engineers at conferences, and you have to take it all out in the open. It was awkward enough for them, back in the 70s, when they had to ask for the Journal of Lubrication Technology. You people are beasts.
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:51 AM on April 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

Let us all thank Orange is the New Black for expanding anthropological research horizons by revealing the existence of lesbians' hands.

The Wachowskis' first movie, Bound, got there 17 years earlier.
posted by Gelatin at 8:31 AM on April 6, 2015 [2 favorites]

bound was hugely influential to tiny little questioning me.
posted by nadawi at 10:13 AM on April 6, 2015