I am proud to have never forced myself to sleep with a man. As tribal creatures, we do things against our desires to belong. All lesbians experience heteronormative pressure. My choice not to try it–when I knew I wasn’t attracted to the male body–was a “FUCK YOU! I’M FINE THE WAY I AM!”
I refuse to apologise just because it makes others feel insecure.
I know all about heterocoercion: the socialised process whereby homosexuals are intimidated into pretending they’re attracted to the opposite sex, with non-homosexuals using various forms of alienation as a threat if they don’t comply. Heteropatriarchy has an issue with us NOT being attracted to the opposite sex more than it does with us HAVING an attraction to the same sex.
That’s why conversion therapy coaches are often bisexual people who “don’t act” on their attraction to the same sex for God, or whatever. You can be happy with the opposite sex because you’re attracted to them, doofus. Homosexuals can’t.
That’s why “queer” people accuse us of being exclusionary for not pretending we can find the male body attractive for inclusion’s sake. You see homosexuality as a choice to exclude because you could opt for either sex. Bisexuality is not universal.
Your weird, conservative Christian uncle who defends conversion therapy supports heterocoercion. So does your “queer” sister who tells you you’re being “gatekeepy” for disagreeing that male-attracted women can use the term lesbian if they “feel like it,” because “sexuality is fluid.”
Heterocoercion, like the male gaze and misogyny, seeps into the mind of its victims to the point where we’re enforcing its rules on ourselves. I forced myself to kiss boys and have boyfriends as a teenager because my friends were. It was normalised. Boys felt like an unavoidable rite of passage, even if his tongue felt like my mouth was merely a washing machine. No desire whatsoever.
I had no idea why I was so uncomfortable when he’d get aroused. When he’d try to change the pace or move his hands, I’d end it right away. I totally see how the mechanical washing machine experience could extend to sex before a lesbian comes to terms with herself. Not stopping something from happening doesn’t mean it was wanted. I’m glad I finally listened to myself before I kept letting things happen to me for some sort of social, “I’m normal, see!” reward.
I can be proud of myself for that without it meaning I think I’m a better, purer lesbian for it. A lesbian is just a female homosexual, regardless of what she’s forced herself to endure in the past. There is no hierarchy. I just trusted my gut about what I wanted before I had sex with a man, as a young woman pressured to question myself and strive for normality. That’s awesome!
“Gold Star”
A lesbian who has never slept with a man before has been referred to as “Gold Star” for the last few decades. Gold Star lesbians did not create the term, even though we’re accused of using it to feel superior. In fact, it was originally used as a joke directed at Gold Stars.
“Gold Star lesbian” was first documented in the 1990s, when comedian Carol Steinel mentioned not being a “Gold Star” on stage. She wasn’t offended by the term; it was just a descriptor for a lesbian who hadn’t slept with a man. But why were we called “Gold Stars”–why not another term?
I spoke with Jen Rowray, Cowboy Jen–late 50s, Iowa, USA–who remembers “Gold Star” being used in jest. “When I was coming out in the early ‘90s, I heard Gold Star in the same context of ‘Congrats, do you want a cookie?’ It wasn’t a judgment to say ‘Do you want a gold star?’ but more of a friendly teasing among friends who had slightly different lives before coming out as a lesbian,” She said.
“Basically, in my experience, we really didn’t care, and it didn’t seem to affect our dating choices. I’d say the majority of my older lesbian mentors and friends were married to or at least dated men into their 20s or more. It does not make them less or more of a lesbian.”
I’m in my early 30s and, up until recently, I didn’t realise that “Gold Star” was such a controversial term these days. Perceptions were shattered when music artist Young Miko casually referred to herself as a “gold star lesbian” in an interview with Cosmopolitan recently. Haters went as far as to say that “Gold Star” was nazism. Instagram user @hidden.ruby commented: “Just like how swastika is now a symbol of hate despite the first origin being opposite of harm, the term ‘gold star’ has been a symbol of exclusion and hate in the past.”
It’s 2026, and if people feel uncomfortable about something, then whatever it is needs to be eradicated. For something to be ethically destroyed, it needs to be associated with actual horrible things. A friendly joke among lesbians is now fascism.
Weirdly enough, most of the criticism towards the term “Gold Star” doesn’t come from lesbians. Bisexual women are calling Gold Stars capitalists and white supremacists; they are saying that it’s not embarrassing to have a boyfriend, but embarrassing to BE a Gold Star. In the same breath, WE are called “male-centred.”
“Gold Star” is viewed as biphobic, transphobic and insensitive to victims of sexual assault. However:
- It is not lesbians’ job to make bisexual women feel better about their attraction to men–the rest of the world gladly will, though!
- If a lesbian’s lack of attraction to the male body makes trans people upset, it is not the lesbian’s job to have sex with them, using her body like a pacifier. Against her will. That is not consensual. That is rape. Pressuring lesbians to pretend to be attracted to the male body to stop toddler tantrums is heterocoercion.
- “Gold Star” is about consensual sex; some have been victims of sexual assault themselves. It is not a joke against victims of sexual assault. This argument isn’t only reaching, it’s absolutely intellectually dishonest, dangerous and manipulative. Rape and consensual sex are not the same thing. Consenting doesn’t always mean sexual attraction. Lack of sexual attraction does not automatically mean assault.
A female never experiencing sexual attraction for the male body is unthinkable to science, religion and “queer” people. T, late 30s, Canada, said: “When I was coming of age as a lesbian in the early to mid 2000s, we used to openly talk about how ugly dicks and men were and how we would rather die than be with a man.
“Tenderqueers who think it’s fascist to have never had sex with a man would have never survived that era … I think it’s a fake moral panic that lesbians are using it to judge or shame women.”
Lesbophobia on the rise…
Gay men use “Platinum Gay,” meaning that they have not only avoided touching a vagina, but they were also born via c-section. It’s a lighthearted joke. If I were insufferable and wanted to pick this apart like an intellectually dishonest loser with a shady, homophobic agenda, I could draw some abstract conclusion that this means they hate women or something. Gay men are allowed to have a laugh. Lesbians are being held to increasingly impossible standards.
Ever since Young Miko mentioned she was a Gold Star, the fury towards lesbians has exploded. It was heteropatriarchy’s last straw. Leanne Woodfull rightfully called out how the same women who have obsessed over Heated Rivalry–a TV show about gay men that non-lesbian women can fetishise–are disgusted by a storyline of two women loving each other in Season 5 of the series Bridgerton. Even our pet fetishisers, straight men, were too worried about “wokeism” and historical accuracy to salivate. We’ll appear in their porn searches, though. Do not fear.
While straight men get their names concealed in the Epstein Files, Chappell Roan is experiencing a “smear campaign,” according to Woodfull. “We live in a world where abusers are in power. Brad Pitt sells movie tickets. Chris Brown sells out concerts. Trump is a president, again. Even the release of the Epstein files has led to little to no consequences for those involved … But a half-baked, exaggerated story about a fan’s interaction with a lesbian singer? That’s what gets the pitchforks out!”
She’s right. Conservatism is on the rise. Men are getting even scarier; just take a peek at the Manosphere. Non-lesbian women allow the most heinous men into their lives but often draw the line at lesbians, full stop–unless they are falsely identifying as us for “queer” or feminist points.
I don’t want us enviously looking at heterosexual couples loving in public from the bushes like we’re Frankenstein’s monster. But sometimes I yearn to be invisible again, immersed in secret gay and lesbian clubs that the rest of society didn’t know about. We just started getting used to being tolerated in public at the turn of 2010, before the reactionary movements came, both in and outside of the LGBT “community.” Now? Lesbians can’t even joke about disliking dick.
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