Domestic violence shelters also provide heterocentric services for battered women, which further isolates battered lesbians and silences the pervasiveness of domestic violence in lesbian relationships. The perpetrator of violence in an abusive relationship is often assumed to be male, while the victim of the violence is assumed to be straight. [22] See also [ edit ] Debbie: If [sex] weren’t such a thing like in society like, you know, it’s supposed to be a big part of our life…

In addition, lesbians uniquely reported “penciling in” time for sex—a form of work that reflects their sense of duty to keep sex in their marriages. When asked, “How has [sex] changed over the course of your relationship?” Patricia (lesbian) said: DeLamater JD, & Sill M (2005). Sexual desire in later life. Journal of Sex Research, 42( 2), 138–149. 10.1080/00224490509552267 [ PubMed] [ CrossRef] [ Google Scholar] Elliott S, & Umberson D (2008). The performance of desire: Gender and sexual negotiation in long-term marriages. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 70, 391–406. 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2008.00489.x [ PMC free article] [ PubMed] [ CrossRef] [ Google Scholar] Lesbians who reported both stress and work emphasized a duty to maintain sexual relationships, and their actions reflected this value. As Pamela (lesbian) said, “I know I need to be better [at wanting sex] because it’s such a…it is a part of our relationship… I know it’s some-thing I need to figure out. I’ve got to get better, you know.” Linda (lesbian) said, “We tend to let [sex] go, and we both know that we shouldn’t We really feel like we need to attend to [sex] better than we do”—a sentiment echoed by her wife, Melissa, who said, “I mean, we just don’t take time for it when we should.” Patricia (lesbian) referred to the presence of sex in terms of success: Liu H, Waite L, Shen S & Wang D (2016). Is sex good for your health? A national study on partnered sexuality and cardiovascular risk among older men and women. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 57( 3), 276–296. [ PMC free article] [ PubMed] [ Google Scholar]After working in the field, Sugar is subjected to Dr. John’s medical experiments. As more prisoners arrive, more chaos ensues and a collapse is inevitable. When some lesbians described how their sexual relationships had changed over time, they referenced “bad jokes about lesbians” and denied that lesbian merger played a role; as Kathy (lesbian) said, “It’s not like we were [the stereotypical] lesbian first date with the U-Haul moving in, but we were pretty much inseparable.” Straight women, too, were distressed when they fell out of alignment with sexual norms specific to their relational contexts: when their drive was greater than their husbands’ or when their husbands experienced embodied sexual challenges (such as erectile dysfunction). In these cases, straight women found themselves in conflict with the binary norm of female passivity and male sexual agency, wherein male sexual desire is constructed as boundless. As Sherrie said, “When you see your man not able to perform, it makes you feel like—is it me? And you stop wanting to, kind of initiate because you don’t want to feel rejected.” Diane shared a story of wanting more sex than her husband wanted in midlife and felt distressed by her husband’s discordant desire in light of male sexual norms: Previous research suggests that women’s sex lives progress differently than men’s throughout midlife to later life ( Lindau & Gavrilova, 2010), but what we know about women’s sex lives largely hinges on their heterosexual relationships with men. For example, men’s, but not women’s, good health predicts both men’s and women’s sexual activity ( Kontula & Haavio-Mannila, 2009). In addition, sex with partners appears to protect older women’s—but not older men’s—cardiovascular health ( Liu et al., 2016). We know much less about the experiences of married lesbians. The few studies that do compare relationships of women in straight and lesbian couples attribute differences to the different experiences of interacting with a man versus a woman (see Umberson et al., 2015). In addition, important questions remain about how married straight and lesbian women similarly or differently experience and interpret sex in connection to midlife events, defined in this article to include changes and processes that commonly unfold in midlife in relation to health, caregiving, and aging.

Some lesbian and straight women similarly redirected the conversation away from sex and sexuality to focus on intimacy, closeness, and bonds with their spouses as evidence of relationship strength. Lesbians additionally described their sexual relationships as not comparable to straight sexual norms. Straight women who reported less or no sex in their marriages often challenged the idea of ongoing sex as a measure of a successful relationship. Danielle (straight) denounced the idea that her sexual relationship indicated the strength of her marriage, saying, “I couldn’t even imagine having a relationship solely based on sex. I would run from that.” Denise (straight) put it more pithily: “It’s love.” Likewise, lesbians decentered sexuality as a primary measure of marital quality; simultaneously, however, they described same-gender relationship contexts as advantageous. As Debbie (lesbian) said about sexual challenges: Participants also attributed changes in sexual desire and activity to transitions into or out of caregiving roles for children and aging parents; no participants explicitly connected caregiving for spouses to sex. Both straight and lesbian women described the impact of caregiving transitions on sex, but only lesbians said that caring for ill parents had inhibited sexual activity. In addition, although transitions into parenthood typically took place before midlife, both lesbians and straight women framed caring for young children as the most significant long-term challenge to midlife sex. As Gloria (lesbian) said, “[Sex] gets to be a challenge once you have children and then you get tired. So, you know, it just sort of levels off… there’s just always a kid up in our house.” For two straight couples, discussions about older children leaving home—a common midlife event—offered a more nuanced view of midlife’s potential to improve the quality or increase the quantity of sex for women. Annette (straight), whose children had very recently left home, hoped this event would reignited her sexual relationship with Curtis, despite characterizing their relationship as having been “very platonic” for more than 5 years: B) “The Big Bird Cage”: Blossom (Grier) and her lover Django (Sid Haig) are guerrilla revolutionaries who’s predominantly male group is need of female companionship. They devise a plan for Blossom to infiltrate a dodgy women’s prison and liberate the inmates whilst taking down a corrupt system. Nearly half (48 percent) of bisexual women who are rape survivors experienced their first rape between ages 11 and 17.Governments around the world should abolish sexist laws and create protocols that explicitly protect the rights of LBQ+ people. Carvalho, Amana F.; Lewis, Robin J.; Derlega, Valerian J.; Winstead, Barbara A.; Viggiano, Claudia (October 2011). "Internalized Sexual Minority Stressors and Same-Sex Intimate Partner Violence". Journal of Family Violence. 26 (7): 501–509. doi: 10.1007/s10896-011-9384-2. ISSN 0885-7482. S2CID 21930863.

People assign meaning to sex in light of their social positions. Although cultural norms of gender and sexuality fluctuate in relation to ever-changing social and institutional discourses and performances (see Connell, 2005; Segal, 1990), the “sexual double standard” remains a pervasive and durable gender schema ( Crawford & Popp, 2003). Such double standards are dynamic sets of social rules, norms, and beliefs that differ for men and women but are consistently linked to notions of agentic heterosexual male subjects and passive female objects whose purpose is to arouse the male sexual response (see also Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005). Findings that link sexual activity and satisfaction to relationship satisfaction and stability must be examined with an eye toward how satisfaction is embedded in larger gendered schemas of sex and marriage. Two primary yet competing gendered and sexual norms typically found in scientific and popular discourse posit that (a) consistent and frequent sexual activity is the measure of a successful marriage (see Giddens, 1992), but (b) sex inevitably declines in marriage over time (see Call et al., 1995). Both lesbian and straight women are exposed to these broad sexual marriage norms, but their divergent social positions suggest that these norms may shape their interpretations of sexual experiences in different ways. Solomon SE, Rothblum ED,&Balsam KF (2005). Money, housework, sex, and conflict: Same-sex couples in civil unions, those not in civil unions, and heterosexual married siblings. Sex Roles, 52( 9/10), 561–575. 10.1007/s11199-005-3725-7 [ CrossRef] [ Google Scholar]

Ragin CC, Nagel J, & White P (2004). Workshop on scientific foundations of qualitative research. Retrieved from http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2004/nsf04219/nsf04219.pdf [ Google Scholar]