40 50 Lesbians __FULL__

The classic quiff originated in the 1950s Teddy Boy era, and like the pompadour, has evolved over time. It remains to this day a very trendy and sexy hairstyle and is very popular amongst modern lesbians.

40 50 lesbians

OK, so this whacky style is certainly not for the faint-hearted. But with a shit load of confidence and the right amount of swag, you might just be one of the few lesbians out there who can pull it off.

My sister, Kat Tragos, came out at age 30 and today, at 50, has been in a committed relationship with a woman for close to six years. She believes the Kinsey scale is the way to look at sexual attraction. "On one end of the spectrum you have strictly heterosexual and on the other strictly homosexual. I fall somewhere in between, tipping the scale toward homosexual. I have been attracted to, and fallen in love with, both men and women but find myself drawn to women more than men. This was not always the case but perhaps I have allowed myself to awaken over time. I don't like to say I am bisexual; I'm just sexual. I have come across many lesbians and gay men who say bisexuality is a cop-out and that I am just not owning who I am; well, I've accepted that for some there is a gray area and I wish they would too. I am happy to be in a loving honest relationship with my girlfriend."

5. ESTABLISHED LESBIANS ARE NOT ALWAYS WELCOMINGInterestingly, the judgment and doubt can come from within the lesbian community. Established lesbians have often fought long and hard to gain more acceptance and are wary of older newcomers, who they feel may be going through a phase or are not ready to fully embrace their newfound identity.

Andrea describes it this way: "Some lesbians can be judgmental about 'newbies' or 'baby dykes' and, in some cases, rightfully so. When you come out, it's like you have to start over in many ways, and it can feel like you are a teenager all over again. So, other lesbians can sometimes be wary of dating you if you are a newbie since you don't have much dating experience and you are brand new to being out. Plus, if you are still married to a man, they can be concerned about you getting out of that relationship and severing those ties. And then there are some lesbians who are judgmental about women with kids if they themselves don't want any."

Laila chimes in, "Fellow lesbians have trouble accepting that I'm truly a lesbian, because I hadn't recognized it for 33 years. I can't even say I was always attracted to women. I've got no 'les cred.'" Kat agrees: "When women first come out, lesbians are often leery of them because they are not sure if this is just a phase; there's a perception that 'first' lesbian relationships are always disastrous. Then there are 'gold star lesbians,' lesbians who have never slept with a man; they often pride themselves on this and seem to think it somehow makes them superior. It's really pretty stupid."

Later-in-life lesbians may not feel comfortable in the established gay community of their older peers and may have a hard time carving out their space. Laila explains: "I feel like I've been thrown into this whole culture and I don't know any of the customs, language, history. I feel like I should be a part of it, but I'm not. I'm on the outside looking in. My girlfriends have tried their best to educate me. The queer world is different. Queer people are different. There are two kinds: those who want to assimilate into hetero-normative culture and those who don't. I can assimilate (because I was part of it) but I prefer not to. My girlfriends and our other queer friends don't either."

Where one lives can make a difference. For Kat, living in San Francisco, "I feel pretty safe being myself overall. I can walk down any street holding my partner's hand without worry. But when we travel, I often inquire ahead of time how lesbians are viewed where I am going. When I traveled alone to Thailand and Tanzania, I avoided relationship conversations. I am still very guarded with my clients in disclosing anything about my personal life. So I am not 100 percent confident talking about being a lesbian with just anyone. I guess, in a way, that's probably smart."

Kat says she got caught up in those false labels when she first came out: "I could not relate to lesbians because the ones I met were rather 'butch' in demeanor and appearance but then I started meeting more feminine lesbians (called 'femmes' in the lesbian community) and thought, ok, so you can be a lesbian and still be feminine. I know I am not ultra feminine but I also did not see myself as this tough masculine person. I know for a fact that my more feminine lesbian friends have a tougher time being accepted in the lesbian community; it's pretty catty. To this day, I really dislike labels and really get offended when I am called a butch."

Amy brings up another commonly held assumption: "One misconception is if you have any tomboyish characteristic, that you are gay or a poster child for being a lesbian. That the only lesbians are the women who look butch."

Carren explains: "The way others respond to me has nothing to do with me or who I am, but has to do with where they are on their journeys. One friend stopped talking to me for several months when I told her about myself. Then she confessed that my announcement made her very uncomfortable, asking, 'What would happen if one day I wake up and discover that I am a lesbian too?' Another insisted I was wrong about my sexuality, saying, 'I know what lesbians look like and how they dress. You don't look or dress like them so you can't be one!'"

The inverted black triangle was the symbol worn by women considered asocial by the Third Reich (including homosexual females). They were condemned to concentration camps, similar to the pink triangle assigned to gay men. As gay men have reclaimed their symbol, many lesbians have also reclaimed this.

This flag was then changed by removing the kiss and attracted more use as a general lesbian pride flag. However, even this pink lesbian flag has been accused of not representing lesbians who do not align with femininity and is even viewed as offensive by some.

This report is based primarily on a Pew Research Center survey of the LGBT population conducted April 11-29, 2013, among a nationally representative sample of 1,197 self-identified lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender adults 18 years of age or older. The sample comprised 398 gay men, 277 lesbians, 479 bisexuals and 43 transgender adults. The survey questionnaire was written by the Pew Research Center and administered by the GfK Group using KnowledgePanel, its nationally representative online research panel.

On the topic of same-sex marriage, not surprisingly, there is a large gap between the views of the general public and those of LGBT adults. Even though a record 51% of the public now favors allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally, up from 32% in 2003, that share is still far below the 93% of LGBT adults who favor same-sex marriage.

Four-in-ten respondents to the Pew Research Center survey identify themselves as bisexual. Gay men are 36% of the sample, followed by lesbians (19%) and transgender adults (5%).2 While these shares are consistent with findings from other surveys of the LGBT population, they should be treated with caution.3 There are many challenges in estimating the size and composition of the LGBT population, starting with the question of whether to use a definition based solely on self-identification (the approach taken in this report) or whether to also include measures of sexual attraction and sexual behavior.

The survey also finds that bisexuals differ from gay men and lesbians on a range of attitudes and experiences related to their sexual orientation. For example, while 77% of gay men and 71% of lesbians say most or all of the important people in their lives know of their sexual orientation, just 28% of bisexuals say the same. Bisexual women are more likely to say this than bisexual men (33% vs. 12%). Likewise, about half of gay men and lesbians say their sexual orientation is extremely or very important to their overall identity, compared with just two-in-ten bisexual men and women.

Gays and lesbians are also more likely than bisexuals to say their sexual orientation is a positive factor in their lives, though across all three subgroups, many say it is neither positive nor negative. Only a small fraction of all groups describe their sexual orientation or gender identity as a negative factor.

Roughly three-quarters of bisexual respondents to the Pew Research survey are women. By contrast, gay men outnumber lesbians by about two-to-one among survey respondents. Bisexuals are far more likely than either gay men or lesbians to be married, in part because a large majority of those in committed relationships have partners of the opposite sex and thus are able to marry legally. Also, two-thirds of bisexuals say they either already have or want children, compared with about half of lesbians and three-in-ten gay men.

Across the LGBT population, more say bisexual women and lesbians are accepted by society than say this about gay men, bisexual men or transgender people. One-in-four respondents say there is a lot of social acceptance of lesbians, while just 15% say the same about gay men. Similarly, there is more perceived acceptance of bisexual women (33% a lot) than of bisexual men (8%). Transgender adults are viewed as less accepted by society than other LGBT groups: only 3% of survey respondents say there is a lot of acceptance of this group.

For example, younger gay men and lesbians are more likely to have disclosed their sexual orientation somewhat earlier in life than have their older counterparts. Some of this difference may be attributable to changing social norms, but some is attributable to the fact that the experiences of young adults who have not yet identified as being gay or lesbian but will do so later in life cannot be captured in this survey.

As for gender patterns, the survey finds that lesbians are more likely than gay men to be in a committed relationship (66% versus 40%); likewise, bisexual women are much more likely than bisexual men to be in one of these relationships (68% versus 40%). In addition women, whether lesbian or bisexual, are significantly more likely than men to either already have children or to say they want to have children one day. 041b061a72