Stripped by a Cowgirl: Lesbian First Time Erotica

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Sarah left their home that night and sat crying in her car. As a child, she had been repeatedly sexually abused by an uncle —this assault felt just as violating. But she still wasn't sure if she would call it rape. "Because we were together, I thought that she had the right to have sex with me the way she wanted," Sarah explains. A raunchy striptease video made by two women purporting to be British Airways stewardesses has become an internet sensation. Stephanie Trilling, manager of community awareness and prevention services at the Boston Area Rape Crisis (BARCC), observes that for her queer female clients who have been assaulted by women, the first hurdle is simply understanding the assault as rape. Since this scenario is rarely portrayed in the media or in educational programming, "it can be especially challenging to identify their experience as violence," she says. "Many people have a difficult time believing that a woman could be capable of inflicting violence on another person." Performance is at the heart of “Shakedown,” one of the reasons it’s rich fodder for brainy considerations of LGBTQ identity and gender. Miss Mahogany talks about the importance of establishing a fantasy from the jump, from before the clothes come off. A later interview finds dancer Egypt and her girlfriend at home. “Egypt is a fantasy,” says the Shakedown star of her hardcore-dance, feminine persona, repeating the line for effect. Lounging next to her on the couch, her girlfriend talks about going from “psycho fan” to romantic partner. What she once craved, well, she tells the director, “I can’t wait till she get home, take the makeup off, put on regular clothes. She Aisha again.”

Sarah is not an outlier. "Many of our clients in same-sex relationships are very hesitant to report at all," says Caitlin Kauffman, campus and community outreach coordinator for Bay Area Women Against Rape (BAWAR)—where Sarah eventually sought counseling. The consequences of coming forward with sexual assault allegations are fraught for any sexual violence survivor. But for queer women, who already typically live, date, and make friends within a smaller network of other queer-identified women, the risks can be even more complex. But it might be time for the protagonists to hit the runway, as their employees have failed to see the funny side. The fluorescent-soaked paint party, which ran from 2am to 6am, was only 30 minutes old when the DJ chanted over the mic: “Get your t*** out for the lads” while a drunken girl gyrated on stage. Then he led the crowd in a chant of “Maga, Maga, Maga-f******-luf”. One onlooker said: “She seemed very ­intimidated.” The man later persuaded the woman to remove his shorts before he ended up naked as the DJ cried “off, off, off” while Donna Summer’s Hot Stuff blared from the speakers. As am I. Representation always matters, whether it's in the Halls of Congress or at your local independent theater. Queer women deserve to have their queer female sex represented on screen, without it devolving into typical pornographic tropes: shaved vaginas, sorority sisters, giant jiggly boobs, foot-long dildos, scissoring, a well-hung neighbor guy who just "pops in" for a threesome, etc. There's absolutely nothing wrong with any of these erotic ingredients, per se, but it's formulaic and not particularly representational of most queer sex.The worst thing I’ve seen is a girl sitting on a sink plunger while performing oral sex on the DJ. Then there are gangs of Eastern European men looking for drunk British girls. There is a constant risk of assault and rape. I also love the way Sebastián chose to shoot it. It was storyboarded. All the wetness, the spitting in the mouth, the pubic hair, the vaginas, but also leaving some of it to the audience to imagine. Where is the other woman’s mouth, where are her fingers? It was important for him to focus on our faces to really capture that desire. There’s something very spiritual about their sex. I’m really proud of it."

The filmmaker makes very few on-screen appearances. More often she remains a casually probing interviewer or a gentle guide encouraging a star dancer to read old promotional flyers or the concluding voiceover narration. Footage of crowded nights is often rough-hewn, the lighting a mix of dim and dimmer with slices of stage beams or the arc of a spotlight. They also need help finding the other people in the video, like a guy in a red shirt who appears to be recording the assault as well. I'm not about to put Kissing Jessica Stein in this category, because it's too weak of a queer film to be even considered. There's also Mulholland Drive, which had some very brief hot queer moments relative to its era (2001). Heavenly Creatures (1994) served the queer goth community particularly well. Sadly, that community is relatively small.

Shakedown pulled up stakes in July 2004. The club where it was housed at the time just wasn’t working out any longer. It bounced around some, but hopes of a space to call its own never materialized. There’s little wonder then that the doc ends with a mix of the melancholy and the triumphal, the mournful and the boastful. The woman, who appeared drunk and embarrassed, covered her breasts as the reveller began simulating sex acts while leering at the crowd for approval.

Weeks passed before Ella, 25, began to confide in her friends that she had been raped. While she didn't find them to be exactly unsupportive, there was still a consistent and major hurdle: "They are oftentimes surprised when they realize it was a woman who assaulted me." A British bouncer who has worked Magaluf’s bars and clubs for three years tonight told us: “I will not allow my own two daughters ever to go there.” The doorman spoke out anonymously in fear of reprisals from commission-only club promoters he says are to blame for the out-of-control “anything-goes” culture. The wet and wild tape begins with the two blondes getting into a bath in their full uniforms before one showers the other down. Perhaps aware their antics are pushing the boundaries, the pair return to the more mundane activity of washing hair until the cameraman (or woman) decides to call it a day.The assistant district attorney on the case, Susan J. Loehn, says the Northampton police performed a "thorough investigation" and treated the victim "in a sensitive manner." According to reports, the victim alleged that what started as a consensual sexual encounter at an off-campus apartment turned violent when she was placed in handcuffs, slapped across the face after withdrawing her consent, slashed across the abdomen with a knife, and sexually assaulted as one of the perpetrators held down her legs. "There was an incredible amount of media attention about this case," Loehn, now executive director of Northwestern Children's Advocacy Center, remembers. Too much, in fact, for the case to make a real impact with a verdict. "This victim was overwhelmed by the media attention. Smith College is a small college. People knew all of the parties involved. There were camera crews on her doorstep." The survivor ultimately decided to drop the charges. Like many sexual assault charges that die in a courtroom, the case now looms as a cautionary tale. The star of the show then proceeds to strip to her underwear, sliding off her skirt and blouse with a little help from her female accomplice. For young lads, the risk comes from prostitutes who lure them onto the beach at night and steal wallets and mobiles. Most worrying is the culture among some holiday reps of preying on young girls. Many are in contests to bed the most.”

A British Airways spokesman said: “We’re aware of the video. Investigations continue to establish their identity.” Most Read Ever since Director Sebastián Lelio's Disobedience premiered at TIFF in 2017, it's been the talk of the town among the five queer women who care about this kind of stuff. The film tells story of Orthodox Jewish lesbians in London: Esti (Rachel McAdams) caught in a loveless relationship with a Rabbi, and Ronit (Rachel Weisz) trapped in a series of meaningless heterosexual hookups. Staff fired paint from a bazooka-like gun and hurled the yellow, pink and blue liquid at the crowd from pots. Most of the paint-sodden crowd were Brits aged from about 18 to 23. They’re secretly filmed by the club’s promotions staff and then the footage is shown on phones to people outside to tempt them in. It normally ends up on the internet.Holiday reps are supposed to chaperone kids on organised bar crawls, but when their shift ends at 2am they often abandon them. I’ve seen reps leave drunk kids in the gutter. In the meantime, Langenderfer-Magruder asserts that language can be a powerful place to start correcting this oversight. Omitting the standard "he" as perpetrator and "she" for victim in laws, educational materials, and even just general discussion encourages awareness. "Research has clearly demonstrated that intimate partner violence does not happen in a solely heterosexual context—and the way we discuss it should reflect that," she says. Friend groups can become divided and the survivor may fear losing her only LGBTQ support network," Kauffman says. "This can be especially challenging for survivors who live in areas where the community is small or there is a more hostile climate towards LGBTQ people." These gender norms can directly contribute to distrust of a victim's claims, says Lisa Langenderfer-Magruder, co-author of a recent study of LGBTQ intimate partner violencein Colorado. "When someone is confronted with a situation that doesn't quite fit that major narrative, they may question its validity," she says. All of this amounts to a culture in which most research on partner violence focuses on heterosexual relationships. "So, in some ways, we're playing catch up."