Lots Of Straight Girls Wanna Have Lesbian Sex, Yet Another Study Shows

As any lesbian who’s been repeatedly asked to serve as a human chemistry set for a straight woman seeking her first lesbian sexual experience can tell you, “not being gay” and “wanting gay sex” are hardly exclusive qualities. There’s even an entire book about it — Jen Sincero’s 2005 The Straight Girl’s Guide To Sleeping with Chicks, which tells straight women that ladysex “allows us to break free of heterosexual roles and expectations and explore sex in a whole new way.” Furthermore, women in general are just jaw-droppingly hot and basically irresistible, which’s why it’ll surprise nobody to hear that a lot of ladies out there are curious about scissoring with another lady.

The latest news on this topic comes from a University of Montreal study on sexual fantasies, which found that “even though many people may identify as straight, that doesn’t stop them from thinking about the same gender.” 36.9% of the 718 women surveyed had fantasized about doing the horizontal mambo with another lady. Of all the people self-selected for this survey, 85.1% identified as heterosexual and 3.6% as “definitely homosexual.” There’s no breakdown provided for how many respondents of each gender identify as hetero, but if that 85.1% percentage is consistent across genders, that means 108 of the 718 women identified as gay, bisexual, pansexual, fluid, questioning or otherwise “not straight.” With 264 out of 718 women having same-sex fantasies, that means a little over half of the women with same-sex fantasies are straight.

This is hardly the first time we’ve reported on this phenomenon — or that the numbers we’re reporting on aren’t transparently ripe for analysis. In 2011, a Boise State University study of 484 female college students made headlines when it found, according to The LGBTQ Weekly, that “60 percent were attracted to other women, 50 percent had same-sex fantasies and 45 percent had kissed another women.”

However, a closer look at the study those numbers were pulled from, which aimed to analyze the “process of sexual orientation questioning among heterosexual women,” provides a more complicated picture than reported by the media. First of all, of the 484 women studied, only 228 indicated “exclusively straight/heterosexual” as their strongest identifying marker and were therefore included in the ensuing statistics. The study found of those 228 self-identified “exclusively heterosexual” participants, 67% had thought about or questioned their sexual orientation, which included “the recognition and consideration of alternative sexual orientation identifications.” Of the “heterosexual questioning” women, 60% reported having engaged in light same-sex kissing (as opposed to 42% of heterosexual non-questioning women), 43% had “made out” with another female (opposed to 17% of HNQ women) and 4% had given oral sex to another women (opposed to 1% of HNQ women). Still — those are some really high numbers!

Some other interesting numbers:

• This year, Pornhub’s data team found that the type of porn women watch most often is “lesbian,” followed by “Gay (male).” Furthermore, “despite ranking as the 6th most popular category for males, [the “lesbian” porn category is] still 132% more likely to be perused by the ladies.” The three most common searches women make are “lesbian,” “threesome” and “squirt” videos.
• In 2010, OKCupid found that amongst its users, 1 in 3 straight women had hooked up with another woman, and of those who haven’t, 1 in 4 would like to.

Historically, it seems that all these women who want to sleep with Shane can’t always seal the deal. A 2006-2008 study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found only 13% of all women had participated in same-sex behavior — and that includes the lesbians, bisexuals and queers. Across the pond, the 2013 University of College London’s National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles surveyed 15,000 adults and found 16% of women have had a same-sex experience (8% had a same-sex experience involving genital contact), up from 10% in 2001 and 4% in 1991. In “More Is Lesbian,” William Saletan at Slate magazine cited that survey’s numbers as “higher than [he could] recall in any national survey” despite the fact that “the rate of lesbian self-identification hasn’t changed.” Outside of the 44-54 age group, there wasn’t a leap in bisexual self-identification either. “Even if you attribute most of it to changes in candor or interpretation,” Saletan wrote, “the willingness of so many women to admit to same-sex activity represents a big cultural shift.” The age breakdown was interesting, too:

When asked whether they’ve had any sexual experience or contact with another female, only 3 percent of women aged 65–74 say yes. That number rises to 7 percent among women aged 55–64, 9 percent among women aged 45–54, 12 percent among women 35–44, 18 percent among women 25–34, and 19 percent among women 16–24. If the prevalence of lesbian sex were constant and evenly reported, you’d expect it to increase with age, based on the accumulation of experience. Instead, the trend runs sharply the other way. Apparently, in later cohorts, it’s more common, more honestly reported, or both.

In 2010, Eva Wiseman on The Guardian postulated that an increase in lesbian visibility outside of mainstream pornography was engendering an increase in heterosexual women’s lesbian desires, arguing that “…as [lesbians] fade from the masturbatory male dream, their exoticism paled by the proof of proper, grown-up ladies who rarely have the look of someone yearning for the touch of a boy with back acne, lesbians are appearing more and more in the fantasies (occasionally sexy, more often domestic) of straight women. Their glamour has shifted. Women have reclaimed the lesbian. Instead of the one-note “And I’ll just watch” fantasies of yesterday’s men, or the icky, over-sexy imitations in pop videos, women are imagining the lingering, complex bliss of both them and their lover enjoying the same TV programmes.”

The thing about LGBTQ culture is that so many things have changed so quickly over the last decade that it’s impossible to nail down one or even five top factors contributing to this change. Aside from the obvious shifts in our social and political climate, there’s also been a dramatic increase in the portrayal of lesbian sex and sexuality in popular media. We may not like all those portrayals or deem them accurate or representative, but they exist: the 15-minute lesbian sex scene in Blue is the Warmest Color, the numerous hookups between Litchfield inmates on Orange is the New Black, the super-queer sex on Transparent or the hot couplings on shows like Lost Girl. There is now a shape and a form to these fantasies that weren’t quite so accessible before.

In conclusion, there is a 36% chance that the straight girl you fantasize about is also fantasizing about you! (Full disclosure: I took statistics pass/fail.)