ISO (In Search Of): The Art of Dating, Relationships & Sex for the Discerning Lesbian

By Karma Kensington

"A great gift for emerging lesbians, curious lesbians and any other lesbian who wishes to find and maintain quality relationships, while avoiding the usual pitfalls of online dating, real-time dating, commitment, and intimacy.”
~KIWI Club Reviews

"This is an excellent source of information for the new and/or young lesbian. It is sort of like a beginners manual rather than an all-inclusive in-depth treatise on all subjects concerning lesbians, sex, and dating. Just about right for my niece, a newly out college student, it will be an educational present for her birthday. I am hoping that Ms Baeli will write a similar manual for the older set of lesbians, who could use advice specifically aimed at internet tips, modern dating protocol, and health concerns for the older sexually active lesbian."
~InternetDating.com

"Whether you are a 'baby dyke', a newly out older woman or someone who has just been away from the 'dating scene' for a time, this book is an essential tool in your belt. Not only does Ms. Baeli provide thought provoking answers to all those obvious questions we all have, but you might find some information here about scenarios you had never even considered. Read it cover to cover or jump to the section you're most interested in, either way you will come away with plenty to think about. And a few chuckles along the way!
~Noni Nelson

• Language: English
• Publisher: Karma Kensington
• Release date: Jun 21, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301483334

Book preview

SUMMARY:

Whether you are a 'baby dyke', a newly out older woman or someone who has just been away from the 'dating scene' for a time, this book is an essential tool in your belt. Not only does Ms. Baeli provide thought provoking answers to all those obvious questions we all have, but you might find some information here about scenarios you had never even considered. Read it cover to cover or jump to the section you're most interested in, either way you will come away with plenty to think about. And a few chuckles along the way!

~Noni Nelson

This is an excellent source of information for the new and/or young lesbian. It is sort of like a beginners manual rather than an all-inclusive in-depth treatise on all subjects concerning lesbians, sex, and dating. Just about right for my niece, a newly out college student, it will be an educational present for her birthday. I am hoping that Ms Baeli will write a similar manual for the older set of lesbians, who could use advice specifically aimed at internet tips, modern dating protocol, and health concerns for the older sexually active lesbian.

~InternetDating.com

If there were a ‘user’s manual’ for lesbians, this would be it. Baeli attempts to clarify the questions and provide the answers to some of the most pressing issues that young or new lesbians might have–and accomplishes her goal effectively. She does this with integrity, great insight, sincerity as well as a generous dose of sometimes scathing humor.

~Lightswitcher Books

A great gift for emerging lesbians, curious lesbians and any other lesbian who wishes to find and maintain quality relationships, while avoiding the usual pitfalls of online dating, real-time dating, commitment, and intimacy.

~KIWI Club Reviews

ISO (In Search Of):

The Art of Dating, Relationships & Sex for the Discerning Lesbian

Copyright 2008-2013 Karma Kensington

Publisher: Indie Literati Press

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Colorado & New Zealand

ISBN: 9781458020949

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Smashwords Edition, License Statement

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

ISO (In Search Of):

The Art of Dating, Relationships & Sex for the Discerning Lesbian

Karma Kensington

Author's Note

These are my opinions, and you are entitled to your own. Should your opinions differ from mine, I encourage you write your own book.

Forward (Never Straight)

I'm no one famous. I don't have a degree in Psychology, or Sociology or Human Sexuality, even though I continue to study in those and many other disciplines on my own. I'm something of an autodidact. The degree for which I attended college for 8 years is in Professional Writing and Editing. I understand that most books in this subject area are somehow made more credible by the celebrity or professional respect a person has established in his or her life. This doesn't preclude the many people out there with the ability to learn and to write, who also have something to say about the human experience. If I didn't believe I was one of those people, I wouldn't have written this book.

While the information provided herein is sometimes anecdotal and often phenomenological[*], we each have our own unique human credentials, nestled within the larger universal human framework. Everyone, as they say, has a story to tell. And if you pay attention, that story just might be helpful or edifying or entertaining to the public at large, or in this case-to a segment of the population I lovingly refer to as lesbians.

I hope this work serves that purpose.

[*] A philosophy or method of inquiry based on the premise that reality consists of objects and events as they are perceived or understood in human consciousness and not of anything independent of human consciousness.

Contents

The Contradictory Art of Being Lesbian

Art Does Not Imitate Life Butch, Femme, Androgynous or Femepicene? Hide & Seek Presentation is Everything

The New Art of CyberCruising

The Misnomer The KISS Method, With Perhaps Not So Much Kissing Sour Milk From the Cyber Teat CyberCruising Caveats Meeting Someone Far Away CyberCruising Red Flags & Deal Breakers

The Lost Art of Dating

Desperation & Expectations 17 Dates Sexercise The Face of Dating Dating Caveats Minding Your Manners After the First Date Dating Red Flags & Deal Breakers

The Applied Art Of Relationships

Understanding the Types: Friends, Lovers, Partners, Friends with Benefits, Fuckbuddies, Stalkers Orientation, Identity & Behavior The Five C's Relationship Caveats

The Dubious Art of Keeping it Together, When It's Falling Apart

To Mend or Not to Mend Lesbian Bed Death Boredom, Conflicts with In-Laws, Finances, Infidelity Listen, Sleep On It, Use Humor Caveats for Relationship Angst

The Stolen Art of Sexual Prowess

Safer Sex Good Sex Touching Affection Kissing Foreplay Digital Stimulation Digital Penetration Oral Phallic Penetration Fisting Ass Play Yes, Baby, Tie me Up

APPENDIX

Quiz Surveys

The Contradictory Art Of Being Lesbian

Art Does Not Imitate Life Butch, Femme, Androgynous or Femepicene? Hide & Seek Presentation is Everything

Any Lesbian who is currently single knows that it's often a great deal less romantic to be unattached than the media would have us believe. Many of us would love to hang out with the kinds of women we see on the L-Word, yet in the Lesbian Community, this is often not an option. Sophisticated, feminine lesbians are simply not the norm, overall. Most of the actresses who play those roles are in fact, heterosexual. I have frequently been chagrined by this. In all of Hollywood, they could not find a cast of feminine, sophisticated lesbians to play those roles? In this case, it seems that art does not imitate life. It warrants consideration.

Are lesbians primarily less feminine than straight women? I suspect the answer to that is a resounding Yes.

Accordingly, are masculine lesbians a product of brainwashing-the concept that in romance there must be two opposite roles, one feminine, one masculine? Most likely. Our role models are primarily heterosexual. And since the advent of the Global Village, where the media feeds us information 24/7, the messages we used to receive in whispers from relatives and friends, have become bombardment through a loudspeaker.

Many lesbians in couples refer to their significant other as wife. I have mixed emotions about this. On the one hand, it does describe our common idea of a female partner; on the other hand, it is a moniker developed exclusively among hetero people. I don't want to fall prey to straight conventions within my lesbian relationship, nor do I want to be militant. Likewise, I am not for gay marriage per se; I am for the equal benefits and legal protection of gay people who wish to commit to each other in partnership. To call it marriage is again to borrow terminology from straight society.

So my solution is to let the mainstream hetero's have it. Keep the marriage moniker. But give us at least a domestic partnership designation that allows us the same rights and benefits as a straight married couple. That's a win-win. Both my politics and my personal philosophies are moderate-I am a registered Independent and a freethinker-so I guess I will always fall in the middle of some issues

.

Butch, Femme, Androgynous or Femepicene?

All that aside, at the risk of being politically incorrect, I must say I find it disturbing that so many lesbians feel it necessary to mimic men. A lesbian, by definition, doesn't want to be with a man and is a woman who loves women, in the romantic sense. In a very real way, then, masculinity in gay women is a contradiction. It is patently unnecessary to become manly in order to be with another woman. The need to be manly then, can sometimes be about gender-confusion, and not about being lesbian. This stance may be offensive to some, but indeed, I could say that I am offended by how easily some lesbians dismiss the beauty and power in themselves by diluting it with masculinity.

Why would a group of people so vehement about avoiding the control and oppression of the other gender, be so anxious to mimic them to such a large degree? When a gay woman chooses to dress in masculine styles, such as what I call the lesbian costume of button-down shirts, khaki Dockers, and Doc Marten boots, she is reducing herself to a cliché of what gay women are: women, mimicking men. It is insulting to me, as a gay woman, that many other gay women don't think their appearance is important, and don't embrace their gender as it would seem they naturally would, as women who love women.

This is not to suggest gay women should wear ball gowns or spike heels and mini-skirts. It just means, embrace the femaleness. Why do you think the L-Word is so popular, aside from the fact that it portrays lesbian lives in general? It's because gay women are titillated by the beauty of these women. Attend any L-Word Watch Party and that much will be clear. Then, they run their fingers through their hair, tuck their button-down into their Dockers, slap on that ball cap and go home. Lesbians: if you are so tantalized by feminine, beautiful women, why do spend so little energy presenting yourself that way?

So often I hear lesbians complaining about being stereotyped by the world at large. My suggestion is that if you don't wish to be a stereotype, don't dress and act like one.

In the novels I write, I portray women as feminine or at least as lipstick lesbians, but rarely as dykes or otherwise manly females (which is, intrinsically, an oxymoron). The only time I do portray lesbians as butch or manly is when I'm...sort of...making fun of them. Stereotyping. I know. It's not nice. But as I've already pointed out, Political Correctness is not my strong suit, nor something I aspire to. I think it does more harm than good, when telling the truth is always much better.

In doing this, however, I have been accused of catering to straight men or merely selling out somehow, and yet, I find this assessment myopic, contradictory and just plain silly. I love women, because they are women. I love the feminine form. I am attracted to the quintessential qualities that make women FEMALE. If I wanted to be with a man, I would be straight. So this whole outrage based on my supposed treason against Sapphic love, strikes me as absurd.

Why do you suppose that most straight women who experiment with lesbianism, pursue gay women who are manly? It's a comfort zone, that's why. They are not straying too terribly far from being with a man.

The most attractive women, to me, are the ones who are androgynous. I use that term loosely, and colloquially, because the actual definition is way more severe and limiting than the context in which I utilize it here. Androgyny, by its original definition, means ambiguous in gender. Genderless, almost. Like the Pat character on the old Saturday Night Live. You can't tell if the person is male or female. The way I mean it, is more like a woman who blends, in a harmonious fashion, the traits of both male and female, to create a balanced person. This means the woman looks like a woman, but can hammer a nail, ride a motorcycle, or be assertive, all without losing her essential womanliness.

To whine about how you're being mashed into a mold created by straight society, and not being allowed to express your natural self, seems a cop-out-a way to avoid embracing the gender to which you are born. It's also an excuse to be lazy. If you don't present yourself in the most positive way, i.e., by wearing decent clothes, a little makeup, and taking care of your body, then you are merely justifying the fact that you don't care about your appearance. And why shouldn't you care? Do you think that men define what is commonly considered attractive? Sorry, but that's biology, and it extends to both genders. We are wired to be attracted to certain things; not the least of which is accentuating the best parts of ourselves.

A great fictional character who exemplifies this balanced womanhood would be Xena, the Warrior Princess from television. She was strong, capable, assertive, loving, loyal, always looked fabulous and feminine. Even when she was kicking ass or cutting someone's throat...

I desperately want another term to describe strong, feminine lesbians.

HOMOgenized Female...hmmm.

Fembian. MMM.

Sapphian.

It occurred to me that epicene meant having the characteristics of both genders, blended. So how about Femepicene? (fem-ep-uh-seen).

So women who are Femepicene are those most likely to get my attention. I can't speak for every other gay woman.

The point is, for me, it's often difficult to even be lesbian, never mind the odds of finding a suitable mate. It is somewhat like the odds of my getting a million dollar publishing contract: it's not inconceivable, but it's not something I can rationally place on the altar of my existence.

Hide & Seek

Finding the right woman can be like a game of Hide & Seek; many factors can affect our ability to find dates or meaningful romantic relationships. Among these are where we live, what our standards are, and what our own lifestyle is like.

Quite often, the biggest factor of all is where we live. Those of us who seek the Femepicene woman, and reside in more rural areas of the country, have to deal with fewer choices. Those who have a more educated background, and a higher income generally have higher standards, and this also decreases the chances of finding a suitable partner. I must play devil's advocate with myself, here, though, because I have it on good authority (testimony from friends all over the nation) that no matter where you live, it's hard to find lesbians who are not in some way damaged emotionally, mentally, or challenged by gender confusion.

That said, if a woman has a college degree and works in a professional field, she naturally seeks another woman of similar experience and education. This is about common ground and not about snobbery. It is an inherent human inclination to seek those we consider our peers-those with whom we can have conversation that includes topics of mutual interest. And those who adhere to this paradigm are usually found in more populated, metropolitan areas, because that's where more culture, higher levels of education, and an overall modern sensibility is usually found. Thus, if you find you are seeking this type of woman, you will inevitably have to move from your small Southern or Mid-Southern town to a larger metropolitan area. Certain interests and tastes are often concentrated in larger cities. But in order to fit in, you will have to make the necessary changes in your personal style and cosmology, or you'll simply find yourself a stranger in a strange land.

If you meet someone, and one of you enjoys going to lectures about String Theory, and the other is addicted to Jerry Springer, this is