Women Loving Women

If you're a heterosexual woman who is curious about sex with other women, then we can highly recommend 'Women Loving Women: Appreciating and Exploring the Beauty of Erotic Female Encounters' by Jamye Waxman. It's an exploratory book with a self-accepting message.

We live in a society that has pigeon-holes for sexuality; heterosexual, homosexual and bisexual. In reality, sexuality is a spectrum - women (and men) can be interested in, and attracted to, the same sex, without considering themselves to be gay or bi.

In the late 1940s Alfred Kinsey developed a sexuality scale based on people's fantasies and real-life experiences. His scale ranged from 0 to 6, with 0 being completely heterosexual (i.e. had never had sexual thoughts about somebody of the same sex), 3 being a true bisexual and 6 being completely homosexual. His results were astonishing; only 10% of the population were a 0 or 6, everybody else fell somewhere along the spectrum.

Dr Fritz Klein later expanded on the Kinsey scale. He believed that a person's sexuality was not fixed and could change over the course of his or her lifetime. Which means that whilst you or I may have considered ourselves to be heterosexual during adolescence, we may now find ourselves attracted to women, or vice versa, or that our sexuality hasn't changed at all. I find this fascinating, because it means we can choose and re-choose what makes us happy, sex-wise, throughout our lives. Life is an exciting journey - if we allow it to be - and high self-esteem will carry us through any uncertainty this may cause. Klein wanted to show that we didn't have to limit our sexuality to those whom we fantasized about and/or screwed, but can include those we have close interactions with, and that it evolves over time.

Society, however, has unhelpful taboos around sexuality. These taboos exist because many people fear the feelings evoked in themselves when other people openly express their sexuality. The former are scared to examine their own sexuality, in case they don't like what they find; they therefore do their utmost to bury it. Unfortunately by doing so, they find anything which might bring these feelings to the surface disquieting, and therefore attempt to suppress sexual exploration in society by making it a taboo. This becomes a vicious cycle, because the less accepting society is of the spectrum of sexuality, the more difficult it is for people to investigate - and subsequently accept - this crucial part of themselves.

This is a shame, because if these people chose to accept their feelings rather than push them away, gradually they would become more comfortable with them, and realize that maybe the feelings were trying to inform. Being comfortable with your sexuality is imperative for your happiness and well-being; likewise, self-acceptance is crucial to self-esteem. [For an excellent book on what strengthens or damages self-esteem and how to raise it, see 'The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem' by Nathaniel Branden, Ph.D.]

When it comes to exploring our sexuality through same-sex encounters, rather than allowing ourselves to be limited by society's taboos; we find the 'Do no harm' code of ethics to be beneficial. If the encounter is between two consenting adults i.e. you're not hurting yourself, the other person, or anyone else (e.g. lying to your husband about having sex with another woman), then there is nothing wrong with what you are doing and there's no reason to be concerned. So long as you're both comfortable with the proceedings, that you can both trust you're able stop at any time; you're in a safe space in which to explore.

One final note, 'Women Loving Women: Appreciating and Exploring the Beauty of Erotic Female Encounters' by Jamye Waxman is written specifically for heterosexual women and so therefore may hold little of interest for lesbians.