Weird Boyfriends and Height Differences

by Lindsay Miller

My boyfriend and I have been together for just over a year and a half and have lived together since last June. For the most part, things are really great between us. We’re both 29. When I was 20 and 21, I kissed other girls (I was drunk both times) and I had a good time but it didn’t go further than kissing. While I like looking at pretty women, I have never wanted to have sex with a woman. My boyfriend found some pictures of me kissing a girl (from when I was 21) and for a while didn’t believe me when I told him there was nothing beyond the pictures. When he finally accepted that I was telling the truth, he became and is really disappointed. He really wanted me to have fooled around with a woman! He seems a bit different towards me now and says he is not as attracted to me. How do I help (or how does he help himself) get over his disappointment? He seems kind of obsessed with this and I want to help him understand that it doesn’t matter that I haven’t fooled around with a woman and that that fact shouldn’t affect how he sees me. Do you have any suggestions for me/us? Thank you!!

My suggestion for your boyfriend is, “stop being so weird about this,” and my suggestion for you is, “if he doesn’t stop being so weird about this, dump his ass.” Your letter is short and doesn’t contain a lot of detail, but honestly, your boyfriend sounds creepily demanding. Was he hoping that you’d confess to a deep-seated craving for pussy and then you could have mad boy-girl-girl threesomes? I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with boy-girl-girl threesomes, but if they’re a prerequisite for his relationships, he needs to bring that up early, not just attempt to passive-aggressively pressure you into being spontaneously bisexual. Straight dudes who think that female bisexuality is an on-demand performance for their viewing pleasure (these are often the same straight dudes who think/hope/insist that “all girls are a little bisexual”) are gross and can go kick rocks. And announcing that he’s less attracted to you because you’re straight — basically, holding your identity against you — is manipulative and appalling beyond belief.

Did he start dating you because he liked you as a person, because he was attracted to you and respected you and wanted to spend time with you, or because he was hoping that it would be easy to convince you to have sex with another girl in front of him? If the former, he needs to get over his weird little petulant tantrum already and go back to being the caring boyfriend you deserve. If the latter, you can help him start packing.

So, Queer Chick, I’m a tall (6 feet and loving it!) slender lady and am attracted to a petite (About 5’3″ in shoes) slender lady and I’m just curious how much size matters. Obviously, I’m a lady virgin. Obviously, or else I wouldn’t have to ask this, but I need to know. I imagine you’ll tell me that I need to communicate with her and talk to her about it and see if she’s comfortable, but it’s been a question I’ve thought about for a while. We dance together great and she seems to like me, so that’s not a problem, so, will this translate to the bedroom?

How much does size matter? Well, if your lady is into penetration, you have options from “one finger” to “your hand,” with detours into the entire available range of dildos, strap-ons, and other insertable sex toys. So, the discrepancy between your physical sizes matters basically none in that regard. It’s possible that you’ll never know the joy of fisting — at least not from the giving end — but rest assured that whatever size she needs to feel satisfied, you will be able to deliver.

There are some sex positions that are more complicated if one party is a lot taller than the other — standing up and from behind may both present challenges — but anything that you do lying down or sitting up or some combination of the two will be easy enough to manage, and those are the things you’ll probably want to start with anyway, as a sexually inexperienced lady-lover. If you have trouble fitting both of you on the bed lengthwise for oral-sex purposes, have her scooch up to the edge, with you kneeling on the floor. Since you dance together a lot, you already have some practice listening to and responding to her physical and verbal cues, and that’s really the most important part of sex. Anything else that you want to try, you’ll figure out a way (pillows? stepstools?) to make it work for the two of you.

I am about to graduate from a well-known conservative Catholic university. I spent the past 18 months figuring out my sexuality after several aborted starts that I’d apparently forgotten, the kind that retrospectively make tons of sense once I remembered. I’m out on campus and to my high school friends, and I told my mom a couple weeks ago. Everyone’s been supportive and I’ve never felt unsafe, which is incredible and I feel really lucky.

Sadly, I think the biggest impediment to my happy queer future is my own self-doubt. One of the things that freaked me out most was that I’d been wrong about my sexuality when I was younger, and I’m still not 100% certain that I didn’t talk myself into being this queer. I think I’m maybe a Kinsey 5, but it’s complicated by a couple of things: 1. I was dealing with my own sexuality as a close friend was also coming out to me with way more certainty than I had at the time; 2, I’ve had minimal experience with guys and none whatsoever with women; and 3. my mom’s reaction when I came out to her was partially “Are you sure you’re not just tired of being single?” (BTW, she’s great, I love her to death, and the conversation was totally not as icky as this simplistic sentence I’m reducing it to for the purposes of this email.)

Objectively, I know Mom’s not right about my motivations, but she’s kinda made me doubt my own feelings again. Right now, I want to be gay and explore this new(ish) thing I’m learning about myself. I want to have a relationship with a woman, but I’m also worried that, after coming out to almost everyone, it’ll finally happen… and I’ll realize that maybe I am just straight. I’ll have way more chances to meet queer women once I graduate (home is a big city) so all this might change really soon. So… how do I figure out my “real” sexuality and quit telling myself I’m wrong about it one way or the other?

Among the many fucked-up things our homophobic culture does to queer people, there’s this: it makes us think that we have to be absolutely, positively, one hundred percent certain before we come out. Because we’re so convinced that coming out has the potential to ruin our lives and derail our relationships, it’s not a step that we want to take if there’s any possibility we might be wrong. And there are so many messages telling us to doubt ourselves — telling us that we’re just confused, that we’re going through a phase, that we’ve been single too long, that therapy can fix us — that it’s terribly easy to convince ourselves we might be wrong.

Most of the time? We’re not wrong. But that’s not even the main thing. The main thing is, even if you are wrong, you deserve the opportunity to figure that out the only way you really can: through experience. This is rough, because it’s hard to get laid if you’re not out. If you think you’re gay, you’re probably gay, but you’re definitely going to need to date some girls — not to “figure it out,” but to quiet the voice in your head that tells you not to trust what you already know. Of course, it’s possible that your “real” sexuality is something more complicated than just gay or straight, but there’s nothing wrong with refining your definition as you go along, based on what you like and don’t like in practice.

Bear in mind that you can come out to women you want to date without coming out to everyone you’ve ever met. If you’re nervous about revealing your possibly-fluid orientation before you’ve had a chance to test-drive it, go to a gay bar (or roller derby meet or poetry slam) and introduce yourself to someone you think is pretty. You may have to repeat this step a few times before it leads to dinner and a movie, and a few more times before it leads to anything horizontal, but don’t rush things — and don’t pressure yourself to pick a label before you’re ready. What you do matters way more than what you call yourself, so just focus on doing what makes you happy (i.e. probably girls).

I am desperately in need of some queer advice. There is a friend that I am crushing massively on. She is currently living with her girlfriend of the past couple years, but things aren’t going that well between them (mostly because the girlfriend is controlling and jealous and just not very nice). From our conversations about their relationship and her dissatisfaction with their sex life, I am fairly certain that their relationship has run its course, but my friend feels trapped because they are living together and breaking up means she would have to return to living with her religious, homophobic parents.

Her girlfriend will be studying abroad over the summer, so my friend is going to have to move back in with her parents anyways, as she can’t afford their place on her own. So I think that it may be the end of their relationship, or at least time for a temporary break/seeing other people. Is there a way I can ask that without sounding like I am waiting to swoop in as soon as her girlfriend is off American soil? Also, does it make me a bad person that I want to do that?

We never really hang out alone (I don’t pursue it because I will just want to make out with her the whole time) but she keeps telling me that when her girlfriend is gone she wants to hang out all the time. I think there is definitely some mutual attraction, but I don’t know how much of it is just her being a really nice person and maybe having a friend crush on me? She always tells me how pretty and funny I am and how much she likes spending time with me. Also, there is this weird awkwardness because I don’t think she knows for sure that I am queer. I mean I talk about ladies I find attractive, and she knows I’m involved in feminism and queer politics, but I’ve never been like “I love boobs and boys are gross” so maybe she thinks I’m just a feminist and an ally? She’s asked about my relationship history, of which there is none, so it’s not like I can talk about all my ex-girlfriends. I think she suspects I am queer, but doesn’t ask outright because forcing someone to out themselves is a shitty thing to do. And now I am in this weird situation where I’ve unintentionally been lying by omission our whole friendship, and now I don’t know how to out myself to her without just randomly being like “hey, you know how you’re gay? Me too!”

Have I ruined any chance of a romantic relationship (or even a normal friendship) with this woman by being incredibly awkward? How do I come out to her after all this time? Would I be a huge jerk if I told her her girlfriend is not good enough for her and does she maybe want to make out with me instead?

Unfortunately, the answer to that last question is “probably, yeah.” There’s just no way to make a move on someone who’s taken without coming across as kind of a creeper. Mostly because when you make a move on someone who’s taken, you’re being a creeper. Relationships are complicated and it’s impossible to know all the reasons that make two people want to be together; when you roll up like “Ditch that girl, I’m better than her,” you turn it into a competition where the objectively best/smartest/prettiest deserves to win. That’s not how it works, and the girl you like is not a giant teddy bear at a carnival.

If she’s unhappy in her current relationship, it’s her job to overcome the obstacles to ending it, and it’s your job as her friend to support her — without making your support contingent upon her promising to put her tongue in your mouth as soon as she’s single. It sounds like you may be right that her girlfriend has an expiration date; if that’s the case, though, she will probably need some time post-breakup to decompress and be single and figure out what she wants next. She’s going to have a hard time doing that if you’re hanging over her shoulder going “Do you want to date me yet? How about now? How about now?” Also, you’re going to drive yourself crazy if all you do is sit around waiting for the opportune moment to pounce on her.

So I think, right now — for the sake of your friendship and your sanity — the best thing you can do is try to move on. As a bonus, this gives you an opportunity to come out to your friend if she’s not already certain you’re queer. Go to her and say, “I’m thinking I want to try and find a girlfriend. Do you know any cute single dykes you can set me up with?” If, sometime in the near future, she’s single and decides she wants to climb you like a tree, she knows how she can get in touch with you. But don’t spend the rest of the summer waiting for that to happen. The best way to get over her is to find someone new to occupy your thoughts.

Previously: Recreational Flirting and Other People’s LDRs

Lindsay King-Miller is also on Twitter. Do you have a question for her?