We Don't Do Double Figures

Last night over pizza, I caught up on the events of life with my straight mate.  Eventually the conversation turns to our love lives and the latest in our search for Mr and Ms Right respectively. 

She talked about the guy who was treating her right but was rubbish in bed, another which was amazing in bed but didn’t want any commitment, and a guy at her gym she had her eyes on. Whilst I talked about my departing ex, recent frolics and a girl I really liked, whose signals seemed to suggest the same, but who was now saying something different.

I wondered out loud if the girl in question had been warned off. After all, the lesbian world seems to operate on a scale equivalent to a child’s paddling pool; it’s easy to build up ‘history’, which lesbians then seem to enjoy sharing in a ‘This is Your Life’ scenario whenever there’s a prime opportunity. 

My mate sympathised that it must be hard in a small community when your antics are public knowledge, even if just on the grapevine. After all, her latest ‘Mr Wrong’ was her 20th sexual partner, but less than the conquests of her peer group of straight girls. 

I’ve been out since I was a teenager. I’m what’s known in the lesbian dictionary as a ‘thoroughbred’ ie: I’ve only ever slept with girls. This early start when others were still in the closet plus a willingness to have casual sex, means I've got notches on the bed post in double figures. But it was clear I am lagging behind fellow straight girls the same age as me when it comes to sexual scores. 

This surprised me, because I often feel that the number of girls I have slept with, (and many of them from Brighton) is not always a positive thing. When your mates are ringing you from the gay bar to warn you there’s enough of your ex’s in the place to hold a party, it makes you nervous about what the future girl of your dreams will think, what impression someone will be giving of you, and whether you’ve earned a reputation (unwillingly) that will scare her off.

I think it’s unusual for a gay girl to have lots of sexual partners; we don’t really do one night stands (see ‘The Forbidden Fruit’).  Many I know could count the girls they’ve bedded on one hand, at a push two, but rarely double figures.