Kissing, Facial Hair, and Secret Lesbian Techniques

by A Queer Chick

So I’m a chick who mostly likes men, but considers sexuality fluid and has occasionally slept with women (as in, like, twice). My best friend happens to be a queer chick. And in the past, I happened to have been a little bit in love with her. We didn’t talk too much about that fact, but it was kind of an unspoken understanding, and I’m about 80 percent sure that she had some feelings for me too, but we never acted upon them. This past weekend, she came to visit me after not seeing each other for seven months. (Important-ish note: she has recently started seeing someone fairly seriously but they’re not exclusive yet.) After dinner and a not insignificant volume of cheap merlot, she kissed me. I kissed her back, although I was kind of unsure if this was a good idea, despite really wanting it to happen. Then she stopped, citing “blurred lines.” But then, later on, she asked if maybe we should do that again/continue where we left off because she thought we were “both really curious” and “it would be fun,” and it “wouldn’t mean anything romantic.” After kind of agreeing (albeit hesitantly) that yeah, it would be fun, and why not, she then later decided that maybe it wouldn’t be a good idea, and she wouldn’t want to mess with things.

I know she values our friendship above everything (she said so), so my question is, why would she kiss me, suggest that we give it a go, and then back out, all within three hours? She knows how I feel/felt about her even if we never really talked it out entirely, and I had kind of come to terms with the fact that we would never work out because I love her friendship too much to jeopardize it. It kind of feels like she’s playing with me. Is she playing with me? Why would she do that? Is making out casually with your best friends a thing that people do? Should we just have made out to see if we’re as sexually compatible as we are emotionally and personality-wise? Should I stop myself from falling for her all over again? AH.

Oh honey. Yes. I’m sorry, but yes, you should stop yourself from falling for her. Because unfortunately, she is not falling for you.

Making out with best friends is something a lot of people do, queer people particularly. You’re hanging out, you’re both hotties, you know you like spending time together, why not spend time together with your tongues in each other’s mouths? If you both have strong feelings for each other as more-than-friends, maybe your friendship develops into a more serious relationship. If neither of you sees the other as a romantic prospect, maybe you just have someone awesome to fool around with until one of you gets a girlfriend. These are both totally acceptable scenarios. Unfortunately, there’s a third option — in which one person wants to be romantically involved, and the other doesn’t.

That, it sounds like, is the situation in which you find yourself. Here’s my interpretation of the events you recounted: Your friend wants to fool around with you, she thinks you’re sexy, but she doesn’t see you as a potential girlfriend. She knows, however, that you have strong feelings for her, so she’s conflicted. Here’s this hot lady who wants to get down with her, but getting down could result in damaging or destroying a friendship she values. She waffled a little (and who wouldn’t?), because the allure of fresh hot sex delivered right to her door was hard to resist, but ultimately decided that it would be wrong to lead you on in that way.

Your friend wasn’t playing with your emotions, at least not intentionally. She was just making a difficult decision. Try not to hold it against her — think how much worse you would have felt if you two had fucked, after which she’d gone home and continued dating her new semi-serious girlfriend. Because that’s what would have happened. Appreciate that she is a good friend for sparing you that pain, especially since she had to deny herself sex in the bargain. And try to find someone new to have a crush on, OK?

So the Hairpin has done some Q & A about facial hair before, so I apologize if this seems redundant: I have some peach fuzz on my upper lip, nothing too exciting, and am cultivating a rapidly darkening lot on my chin. I pluck when it starts being noticeable and tug at it thoughtlessly on occasion, but here’s my question: is there a way to just straight-up accept a lady beard and just own the Frida Kahlo look? Can that be attractive? Does it involve bow-ties and suspenders? Or should I put away my mustache wax and keep plucking?

Pretty much all the other Ask A’s have gotten questions about facial hair, I think (maybe not Ask A Clean Person? “How do I get grease stains out of my facial hair?” Ew), but this is my first one! I’m excited and a little awed by the responsibility. Before we get to the answering part, however, I should disclose that I have a couple of intractable biases that are going to affect my response: 1) A lot of exposure to Le Tigre, and specifically J.D. Samson, at a formative age has left me with a mild boner for butches with facial hair, and 2) I think everyone should do wacky subversive shit with their appearance ALL THE TIME. It makes me happy inside. Femmes with crew cuts? Macho dudes in skirts? Rock the fuck on with your bad selves.

That said, you can probably guess that my advice is going to be HELL YES you should grow that shit out, and if you want to wear a bow tie and suspenders, go for it! Throw a bowler hat on top, too, why the hell not? Look, like I said, I think deliberately screwing around with how people perceive your gender is wicked hot. That makes it hard for me to be objective. If you write in and ask me, “Should I buy a Harley and ride around on in wearing tight jeans?” I am obviously not going to tell you no. I’m only human. I want there to be more hotness in the world.

But also, my own personal shallowness aside, I think it’s really smart and healthy to do strange and unexpected things with the way you look, from time to time. Like, maybe not if you’re job hunting or whatever, but if you’re in a place where a drastic hairstyle change is not going to undermine your ability to pay rent, I don’t see any reason not to give it a shot. You may love your lady-goatee and want to keep it forever; you may decide it’s not really you after all, in which case you can always shave it off again. In the meantime, it’s awesome and liberating to realize that you can look freaky and nothing terrible will happen. People will look at you askance on the bus, but whatever — you might even come to find it funny. Enjoy being the center of attention and possibly getting hit on by some very cool, very not-into-traditional-beauty-standards types of ladies. Give yourself the opportunity to realize just how ridiculous and arbitrary those standards are, and maybe you’ll inspire someone else to do the same. Also, for real, yes to suspenders and bow ties.

Hi there! I’m a 20-year-old bisexual and I’ve been supremely crushing on one of my best friend’s workmates (also bi) for a few months, after hanging out with her a bit. She’s smart, funny, really pretty and laidback, and basically one of the coolest ladies I’ve ever met. She broke up with her long-term boyfriend about two months ago, and since then we’ve been having a lot of a flirty back-and-forth, which has been awesome.

About a week ago my friend mentioned that this woman was 30–10 years older than me. While I don’t mind this, I am super freaked out that she is going to be a lot more experienced than I am. I was kind of assuming that she was about my age, and now I’m wigging out because I’ve never really gone beyond heavy making out with a girl or guy before. So, say I was to initiate some kind of relationship with her, and that came up, and I was terrible at the whole hooking-up thing? So now I’m too worried to ask her out.

I guess I have a few questions to ask you, Queer Oracle! 1) Should I just get over this and ask her out anyway, despite the fact she’s going to be a lot more experienced? 2) If so, should I just ask her out next time I see her? How long should I wait, considering she was in a really serious long-term relationship? I don’t want to be a rebound or anything. 3) How do I ask her out when we’re constantly surrounded by people?

Any guidance would be awesome! I’ve been in “relationships” with girls before, if you count “spending a lot of time in my bedroom making out” a relationship, but the whole dating thing is really new to me, and by nature I’m a pretty easily blindsided, super-straightforward sort of person. Please help!

Yes, you should ask her out. My philosophy of dating is that if you like someone, you should ask her out. I was actually going to write a book about this, which would have changed the world of romantic relationships forever, but then I realized that the book would be one sentence long — that sentence, again, is, “If you like someone, you should ask her out” — and no one would buy a one-sentence-long book. But the point is, you should ask her out.

I get that you’re insecure about your relative inexperience. I have vivid memories of feeling like everyone else was having just oodles of gay sex, while I had no idea what I would do with a woman even if I could somehow be brazen enough to ask one out. But you know what? It’s not actually all that difficult, even the first time, especially if you tell her it’s your first time and ask her for specific instructions. I cannot stress enough the importance of those two things. If she’s as cool as you think she is, she’ll be patient and extra-communicative and will tell you exactly how she wants you to touch her. This is where it’s actually really awesome that she’s older and more experienced: While a girl your age might have no idea how rapidly or how hard she wants her clit rubbed, your potential lady friend is going to be able to spell it all out for you. If she’s shy about getting specific, ask her questions: “Do you like to be touched here, or is here better? Should I go slower?” Etc. Embrace this learning opportunity.

OK, so now for the bad news: If you get together with this girl, it’s probably not going to last. No matter how long you wait to ask her out, if you’re the first person she dates after ending a long-term relationship, you will, in fact, be a rebound. On top of that, there’s the 10-year age difference and the fact that you’ve never had sex before. Given your youth and inexperience and that she’s very newly single, I don’t think a Big Serious Relationship Thing is what either of you really needs at this point in your respective lives — and a BSRT with each other is pretty much doomed right out of the gate.

But don’t let that dissuade you from asking her out! I still think you should ask her out. Being someone’s rebound relationship — and, of course, someone’s lesbian Padawan — is an important milestone in any young queer’s life. If you feel like you’re ready to broaden your horizons and have some wonderful new experiences, then go for it. Just don’t expect it to be more than a few months of fun, excitement, and eventual heartbreak. (Having your heart broken is another crucial milestone.)

Oh, and as for “how do I ask her out when there are always people around” — do you have her phone number? If not, invent a flimsy pretext for procuring it. Everyone around will know what you’re trying to pull, but that’s OK. Then call her up and ask her out, already.

Any lesbian secret pussy-eating techniques you can share with men who are eager to please?

I don’t think there are any specific techniques that dykes have been keeping to ourselves. I feel like we would have shared them already, in solidarity with our straight sisters — we’re not stingy, we want everyone to get off!

Actually, in my experience, queer chicks don’t talk about the nuts-and-bolts of boning all that much. Oh, we’ll chat about which toys we love (vibrating cock ring 4-eva) and our favorite positions (several pillows under your head is essential to 69ing), but when it comes to very particular “first I put my fingers here, then I lick here” kinds of details, nope. I’m trying to think why this might be, and it occurs to me that it’s probably, at least in part, related to the tiny dating pool into which most of us are dipping. Any given queer community is of necessity a lot smaller than its hetero counterpart, on account of there aren’t as many of us. (Yet. If you listen to the right-wing nutjobs, we’re recruiting more impressionable young people every year, so look for us to rule the world by [The Strategies of Lesbianism Convention has demanded that the conclusion of this sentence be redacted. There is no plan of world conquest through girl-on-girl action. Please go about your business.])

Thing is, since even in a big city there aren’t really that many dykes to go around, we all end up dating each other, and each other’s friends, and each other’s exes, and so forth. Which means that we have to be just slightly more circumspect about the details of our sex lives. You’d be a lot less likely to bust out with, “My girlfriend did the most amazing thing with her tongue last night,” if you knew your BFF might very well come back with, “I remember that! It was awesome!” or, even worse, “Yeah, I taught her how to do that.”

Or maybe that has nothing whatsoever to do with it; maybe it’s just that most lesbians who know enough to talk about it also know that no two women have the same vagina, and what works for one lady might be all wrong for another. So my actual Secret Lesbian Pussy-Eating Technique is, as you may remember from the previous question, ask her! Fast or slow? Circular or back and forth? Direct (clit) or indirect (labia)? Penetration or no? I mean, don’t sit her down with a checklist before you get her pants off or anything. But, like, if what you’re doing isn’t working, vary your speed, or your angle, and see if that’s better. If you’re not sure, asking is always the correct thing to do. And remember that what a woman likes may change from day to day, depending on her mood, where she is in her cycle, etc. What got her off last time isn’t necessarily going to work today, although it’s probably a good place to start.

Oh, one other thing: I’ve never heard a dyke espouse the lick-the-alphabet style of cunnilingus, but a lot of straight dudes seem to believe it is The Thing To Do. Why is that? It seems unappealing to me — if you’re changing your stroke every two seconds, how’s she going to settle into a rhythm? Straight ladies, does this actually get you off? (Yes, I am asking YOU for advice now. Because why should I do all the work?) Please enlighten me in the comments!

Previously: Flirting, Unqueering, and Lesbian Porn. vs. Lesbian Porn.

A Queer Chick is a queer chick who knows everything. Do you have a question for A Queer Chick?