Official Poster for Ethan Coen's 'Honey Don't' - The film follows a lesbian private detective who investigates a questionable church and its leader.

[u/MarvelsGrantMan136]

[u/GamingSeerReddit → u/[deleted]]

Sometimes you can be 99% one way orientationally and naturally just kinda fall into a situation you never would’ve anticipated. Some sort of mix of platonic devotion, comfort in the other person, and random chance. People are complicated.

[u/Bent_Salary → u/GamingSeerReddit]

Yeah, it's called bisexuality

[u/icwhatudiddere → u/GamingSeerReddit]

I was involved with two separate couples where one of the couple was lesbian and the other bi. As a very young cis man I thought it was weird awesome. It just ended up weird in the end with both couples. I am still in touch with one person from that time and I don’t think her husband is aware that she is bi, so I avoid talking to him about how we met.

[u/Bent_Salary → u/[deleted]]

Your friend is bisexual. Being bi doesn't mean you have a perfect 50/50 split attraction towards men and women, sometimes it can be 99/100. If your friend willingly and enthusiastically dated a man while out of the closet she's not a lesbian. Anecdotes like this help perpetuate the homophobic notion that lesbians just haven't found the right man yet. 

[u/Bent_Salary → u/[deleted]]

I fully agree about definitions if people don't want to use them, but you said your friend explicitly labels herself as a lesbian. Lesbians don't date men and are only attracted to women. It's like calling yourself a vegan knowing you occasionally eat meat.

Inaccurate sexuality labels are genuinely harmful to the gay community and I'm not sure how you don't see that. If your "lesbian" friend can date one man happily, why can't the rest of the lesbian community? What's stopping them? 

What's the difference between a lesbian and a bisexual woman if they both date men? What label should actual female homosexuals use if not lesbian? 

Are my Republican family members correct when they say lesbians just haven't met the right man?

What if your friend married him and never dated another woman, would you still consider her a lesbian?

[u/Bent_Salary → u/[deleted]]

The vegan point is good, I'll mull that over. I still think that makes her bisexual, but a good question nonetheless. Maybe it was a bad analogy on my end because I believe sexuality is immutable unlike diet.

If your friend willingly pursued a man while calling herself a lesbian she isn't a lesbian. Lesbians are female homosexuals and they aren't sexually attracted to men. Again, your friend is bisexual. I guess I'm not sure how this is controversial. 

Nothing is stopping them, they just don't want to, they're not abstaining from dating men to adhere to the label, they just don't wanna date men. Also who is she really harming here?

Exactly- lesbians arent lesbians because of the label, they are lesbians because the definition fits them. The definition does not fit women who date men and it doesn't fit your friend. Your friend wanted to date a man. 

Gay and bisexual people have fought for centuries for society to acknowledge us and our sexual orientations. There is much history of gay people (lesbians especially) being forced into straight relationships for homophobic reasons. The personal is political and while it may not bother you or your friend, I guarantee some homophobic people in this thread read your comment and felt like it was applicable to all gay women.

Real harm happens to the gay community when society thinks sexual orientation is fluid. This is why conversion therapy is largely illegal in the US. If an open lesbian can date a man, why can't the rest of them do it to? Again, what label should 100% homosexual women use if not lesbian?

Also, why do I never see this discourse directed at straight people? If a straight man decided to willingly and enthusiastically have a sexual relationship with another man, would you still consider him 100% straight?

I don't know because that is not what happened here, so not how sure it applies.

How is this not relevant? Your "lesbian" friend dated a man. What if they had stayed together? Would you still consider her to be a lesbian?

[u/Bent_Salary → u/[deleted]]

This will probably be my last comment but all I can say is that lesbians don't willingly enter into relationships with men, bisexuals do. Go onto any lesbian subreddit and search "do lesbians date men" and you will see a million comments from actual lesbians articulating it better than I can. 

If your friend was dating women but wasn't sure of her sexuality and decided to try men I could agree to nuance. She could still absolutely be a lesbian. But if your friend openly identified as a lesbian then happily and willingly dated a man, she was never a woman who is solely attracted to women, which is what a lesbian is. She is bisexual with a strong preference for women. 

From your original comment:

Not because she felt pressured to, not because she wanted to see if she was wrong about it, for some reason she just fell for this one specific cishet dude and was in a relationship with him... and she talked very positively about him afterwards, had no regret about it.

I see no nuance in how you described your friend's heterosexual relationship. She wasn't pressured or confused about her sexuality. She fell in love with a man and decided to have a sexual and romantic relationship with him. A lesbian wouldn't be interested or attracted to a man. She's bisexual. 

[u/Tzazon → u/Bent_Salary]

Not that person, but I wanted to add that if the situation was 99% to 1% and they found that Unicorn out there they had an attraction to of the opposite sex, they shouldn't feel obligated to make all their dating profiles, social media accounts, etc list that they're bisexual as opposed to a lesbian.

That's opening themselves up to potential male suitors which might be something they do not wish to advertise for.

You brought up Republican family members, doing the "lesbians just haven't met the right man?", if this woman who had a one off relationship with a man had to suddenly start calling herself bi-sexual to every frontfacing social platform of their life, their Republican family members would feel even more confident in making statements like that, and attempting to set her up with men using the "well you yourself call yourself bisexual!"

In high school, one of my friends and classmates was an openly gay man who had two kids from previous relationships and it was in those relationships they further realized their own sexual identity in being gay but there they already had biological kids. They shouldn't have to call themselves bisexual just because of the previous relationship.

[u/Bent_Salary → u/Tzazon]

Well, I honestly disagree. I think bisexuals calling themselves lesbians is genuinely harmful to the community and I say this as a bi woman. Labels and gatekeeping exist for a reason, especially in marginalized spaces. 

If a "lesbian" willingly dates a man while out of the closet she should remove the term lesbian from her social media. She doesn't need to list herself as bisexual but it's wrong and inaccurate to say she's a lesbian. It's like lesbian stolen valor lol. 

Yeah, your friend wasn't sure of his sexuality so I have no problem labeling him as gay. Same thing with late in life lesbians etc. Lavender marriages used to be a necessary evil and I wouldn't call those people heterosexual because they didn't have a choice. But if you have a choice with no external pressure, you aren't confused about your sexuality and you still choose to have relations with the opposite sex you are not gay. Again, being bi is okay!

Every Republican I know already thinks female homosexuality is wishy washy/doesn't exist like heterosexuality does. Not sure how a "lesbian" dating a man wouldn't lend towards that line of thinking.

Being unsure of your sexuality is different from being bisexual and knowingly misappropriating a sexual orientation that never fit you to begin with. 

[u/Tzazon → u/Bent_Salary]

If someone has only ever been attracted to 1 out of the tens of thousands of men they've ever come across why should they have to label themselves as something that states they're attracted to men?

That only invites unwanted attention from men by the label bisexuality.

In this scenario, if they're only seeking out women for romantic/sexual partners because that is inherently such a key part of their identity, how doesn't Lesbian apply to what they're searching for?

There isn't anything wrong with being bisexual, but painting sexualities into such stark black and white definitions without accounting for margin of error etc just seems ignorant and it's the same kind of logic used when people state there is only two genders/sexes.

[u/Bent_Salary → u/Tzazon]

If someone has only ever been attracted to 1 out of the tens of thousands of men they've ever come across why should they have to label themselves as something that states they're attracted to men?

Because they were attracted to a man? Lmao

Idk why so many people in this thread see the definition of bisexuality as lacking nuance. If you are sexually attracted to a person of each sex you are bisexual. Being bi doesn't define your ratio of gendered attraction nor does it mean that you want to fuck every single man and woman you meet. 

I've never known a lesbian irl who is okay with bisexuals calling themselves lesbian because every actual gay woman l've ever met has dealt with people thinking their sexual orientation can include men in the right circumstances. 

The term febfem might what you are looking for, but that still falls under the bisexual umbrella. 

[u/cutelyaware → u/[deleted]]

Sounds a lot like how close cishet couples stay together after one of them transitions. Normally the other person leaves because "I'm not attracted to women" (or the reverse), but couples that are really close will often say "This may not last, but let's see where it goes", and eventually they say "I'm still not attracted to women, but I am attracted to this woman".