Dating

[Latethannever]

I did think about posting this in Relationships but there is a sex/gender angle to it, so here goes

I’ve been on MN for about 18 years but have set up a new account for this as I’m paranoid about being identified.

My long-term relationship ended about 18 months ago when I discovered that my (male) partner had been having an affair for three years.

In my life I’ve only ever had relationships with men which I think is largely due to cultural expectations and the way I was brought up. But I’ve never really found men physically attractive if I’m honest (though I have loved at least two of them). In fact I find male genitalia somewhat repellent.

So at the ripe old age of 58 I know unconditionally that I never ever want to have an intimate relationship with a man again but I am very attracted by the idea of relationships with women.

So I explored some lesbian dating sites and it’s all ‘queer’ stuff and trans women. I’ve heard of people being thrown off such sites for declaring they only want actual women dates.

So finally to my question: are there other ways of meeting women who want to date women and who know what a woman is?

You might find this thread useful OP.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/sex/4060709-finding-a-like-minded-woman

Thanks FOJN - I’ll take a look.

Sorry if I'm wrong but I'm just not buying this.

It's not uncommon for women who have previously only dated men to be attracted to same-sex relationships later in life (its happened to me) and many gay dating websites permit men to identify as lesbians, so I'm not sure what is unbelievable?

Well you are wrong thistimelastweek but that’s up to you.
I am a gender critical* woman in my late fifties, ready for a new relationship but having not been on any dating scene for decades, let alone a lesbian one, I’m finding my way.

I have been on the feminist boards for a long time (though not a prolific poster) and on parenting ones before that. My feminist awakening came courtesy of Dittany for those who remember her.

*not keen on that phrase but it seems to have become the accepted shorthand.

Dittany! You really have been around a long time!

Bygone days... sigh...

What a strange thing to say. It's not unheard of for women to find themselves wanting to explore a previously unknown or suppressed aspect of their sexuality after a long term opposite sex relationship.
If I was interested in sex (thanks menopause) or having a relationship I'd consider it too.

Dittany pre dates my time on MN (just I think) but I used to see her referred to regularly by other posters and KJK mentioned her in glowing terms in one of her videos recently. I got the impression they didn't always agree but KJK also found Dittany enlightening, I'm sorry I was around at the same time.

Good luck OP. The thread I linked may not be exactly what you're looking for but it seemed like a very supportive thread for women thinking about same sex experiences or relationships.

Wasn't

If @thistimelastweek is saying she isn't buying the notion that a woman wrote this, I would agree with her for the simple fact this is the internet and any tom, dick or harry can claim to be anything they want. Furthermore for someone her age to feign ignorance of lesbian bars is not believable or for that matter lesbians organizations (especially someone on this board)

Where are these lesbian bars…? Seriously. Tell me! As far as I’m aware there aren’t any any more.

I’ve only ever met my (female) partners accidentally or through work, so I also (in my forties) have no idea where to go to meet lesbian women. There are no longer any of the gay/lesbian nights or events I remember from 20, 25 years ago in my town. I also looked at dating apps but it’s completely true that there are tons of men / transwomen on them and few older women. I don’t know where I would meet likeminded women myself to be honest! eg. who don’t see themselves as “queer” or “rainbow”; just boring old normal lesbian women in their forties….

I don’t find the OP implausible at all; I’ve had the same experience.

About 3 years ago on a boozy night out my lesbian mate set me up a profile on a lesbian dating site to prove a point. She used certain phrases like 'new to all this' 'still finding my lesbian feet'. By midnight i had in the region of 20 responses, about half were definitely not female.

She shrugged and said lesbian spaces don't exist anymore. Every local lesbian bar i know has closed. They had no choice but to include male lesbians, but when they did their clientele disappeared. I think it has all gone a bit underground. And from what i hear, there are still lots of women having lots of fun and quite enjoying a bit of subterfuge, but a keen awareness that younger lesbians have no place to call their own.

are there other ways of meeting women who want to date women and who know what a woman is?

Hello, I've name changed for posting here and would really love to know the answer to this question as well!

I'm bisexual but only properly realised I was sexually attracted to women a few years ago. I've used various kinds of apps over the years like Bumble and Zoe. Have used OkCupid for years and initially met some women that way. But as the whole gender ideology has taken off, it's proving harder to meet women. Lots of women on OkCupid but their profiles are all full of pronouns and special identities. It's off putting but at least it's saves us both time as I know to swipe left.
If I do match with someone and start chatting, they always go silent after a few messages. It's weird and I don't know why the coy and evasive behaviour when we both know we are looking for similar things.

I use the Giggle app too as it's only for women but obviously there aren't enough women signed up to it yet, so the dating category is quite sparse and the app needs work to be more intuitive and easy to use.

It would be great to meet other bisexual women whether for casual, serious or friendship. I just need them to be grounded in reality and not pretend they don't know what a woman is!!

Thanks to those posters who get where I am coming from. I agree nightwakingmoon - where are these lesbian bars? If I was aware of one anywhere that I could get to, I would certainly go - assuming it hadn’t been colonised by ‘male lesbians’.

I had a look at that thread FOJN and it was fascinating - I was (and at the same time perhaps wasn’t) surprised by the sheer number of married women seeking sex with a woman, either with our without their husbands knowledge. I certainly thought about it a fair bit while with my previous partner but I would not have acted on it. Perhaps I should have done given how things turned out. I wish I was embarking on this at a younger age. But nevertheless I don’t want to spend the rest of my life without someone special and I don’t ever want to be with a man again. And I am attracted by the thought of a physical relationship with a woman.

What I’d like, I guess, is either actual lesbian spaces or a lesbian dating app - neither of which allows males. But they either don’t exist or if they do I don’t know how to find them.

Hence my thread asking you.

Interesting to see the tweet this morning by Karen Ingala Smith about a he/him that’s pressing the owners of an lgbtqetc bar to ban her and other GC women. Wrong kind of lesbians.

I came to the realisation less than a year ago (in my mid-40s) that I was open to the idea of relationships with women as well as men. I've been divorced for about 15 years and since then have a long and entirely unsuccessful on-off heterosexual dating history, so the idea of trying to find a like-minded female partner seems every more unlikely and I haven't even tried.

I saw that picture, the majority of women in it were straight and I'd rather they weren't in our lesbian spaces.

Despite the title of the video, KJK gave a shout-out to Dittany in a recent chat. @ 1min 55s in.

Thanks for that embarrassinghadrosaurus. Dittany’s influence was amazing and KJK sums it up well.

I’m not sure what’s meant to be unrealistic about a woman in her 50s realising she’s gay.

It's not that, it's the fact that there's sooo many trans women on the lesbian sites, they are ruining our lives! I know it's not true so I'm just calling out fiction.

Have you actually looked? Doesn’t sound like it.

Yes

So tell us who you get on the apps when you search for, say, lesbian women in their forties and fifties? Who’s popping up when you do that?

All of the main apps are completely full of “queer”/LGBT+/pronouns/“gender identity” discourse etc. Where do you find lesbian women on them who are just ordinary women in their 50s who aren’t into the whole pronouns/“queer”/rainbow hair/gender identity stuff? You know, what lesbian women in their 50s are actually like? (I’ve never yet heard a lesbian friend or colleague my age or older - and I know a fair few as well as being a lesbian myself - describe herself as “queer”, or be in into the pronouns stuff). I know gay women of all kinds of what the youth call “gender presentation”, from very femme to butch; but they’re all professional women who are academics, doctors, scientists, civil servants etc. - they aren’t part of the youth LGBTQ+ scene at all. There are plenty of women like that, but they aren’t on Taimi, Zoe or Her or any of the others as far as I can tell.

In fact I’d go so far as to say that the whole “queer” ambiance of those apps puts older LB women completely off, hence the large number of transwomen on them. (Queer is still a nasty slur to people my age, and hugely alienating to many. No wonder many older lesbians aren’t into it all.)