The Reluctant Lesbian

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It was only after a few days that we discovered what was going on—we were being called the lesbian couple. Someone in the hostel might have seen us stepping out of the bathroom. Mr Mason claimed the affair had been invented by the mother, who was angry when her daughter's tennis career faltered. And then, for women who might not be "out," shame about their sexual orientation or a fear of being outted significantly hinders their ability to report. If you're closeted—or even semi-closeted—formally coming forward with sexual assault allegations could mean compromising your professional or familial relationships by revealing your orientation. (The guarantee of keeping your job as an LGBTQ American currently varies per state.) The downward economic spiral of losing one's job to report a same-sex rape that won't even be deemed legitimate is simply not worth it—literally. The teenager said: "She said if I was to say anything, she'd hurt me and she would stop my tennis completely and tell the academy to get rid of me." Defence lawyer David Mason asked the girl why she had failed to speak out after she was allegedly found in bed at her Merseyside home and even lied to police that it was a "one-off". Over 10 years later, same-sex rape on college campuses is just starting to be quantified on a national level. Haven, an online sexual assault and awareness program that logs sexual assaults directly from students, works with self-reported data from over 800 colleges and universities. Haven had never compiled a report on undergraduate women who have been assaulted by women, but teamed up with MarieClaire.com to reveal new information: While the number of reported sexual assaults by women was low compared to assaults overall (only about 2.5 percent), the most striking difference came down to the likelihood of survivors to report the incident: 30 percent of women assaulted by another woman told no one, compared to 25 of women who didn't report an assault by a man.

We didn’t even know how we became friends, let alone best friends. Attending anatomy classes together and spending long hours over big fat books inside an eerie library decorated with skeletons brings people closer. It helped that we both came from a small town and were staying in the same hostel. One day I told her how much I love drawing and would like to sketch her. She stared at me for long before agreeing to be by muse. But that came with one condition—she wanted to see me naked. She thought I wanted to draw her nude (and I didn’t correct her). At first, the sex was good," says Sarah. "But she always wanted more than what I could give. One day she came home with a strap-on; if I loved her, she said, I would allow her to use it." Sarah wasn't interested. "It was just something that I didn't like and didn't want," she says. She declined for months, her partner repeatedly pressuring her, until one night, Sarah's partner assaulted her with the strap-on. "Even though I was crying the whole time, she never stopped," Sarah recalls. She said that Lyte warned she would get her thrown out of the prestigious Lawn Tennis Association academy if she told anyone. 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.When female victims of female assaults do pursue legal action, gender bias can severely hinder their ability to accurately report sexual violence. "Oftentimes, women in abusive same-sex relationships tell us that even when they do call the police, they are treated dismissively," recounts Kauffman. "'Women aren't violent.' 'This is just a girl fight, this is a waste of our time,' is a common attitude." According to the 2015 report by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, of LGBTQ individuals in Ohio who did report intimate partner violence, 21 percent experienced "indifferent" reactions from police. Another 28 percent experienced hostility. Deliciously dirty, 'first time' Lesbian erotica; a sexually detailed story of skilful seduction and sweet submission. Sarah, a shy young virgin-girl has always lived a protected life at home with her loving parents until the day came when they decided that it was time for her to attend college, meet other girls her same age, become a bit more worldly wise, and also get up to speed on her education. We all go through phases in life when we are curious about a lot of things—a girl may be curious about the body of another girl, but that doesn’t make her a lesbian, even if they take a bath together. I never wanted to know why she wished to see me naked. We never chose that moment to step into the bathroom of a girl's hostel together. We did it because we were curious. But we were not prepared for what followed. Next day as we reached college, we knew something was different. Did people stare at us for a little longer than necessary? Did the girls stopped talking when we reached the stuffy common room? We had no idea. He said: "If it is true that you were caught by your mother having sex with the defendant, it must have been a blessed relief.

Yes, we took a shower together. We did not have sex. The thought of touching her never crossed my mind although we stood next to each other for thirty long minutes under a shower. Survivors are trapped in a cycle that delegitimizes their experience: first by downplaying the likelihood that it could happen at all, then by not validating it once it happens, and finally by not analyzing the data—and therefore creating awareness—after it does. 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." 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. The first teaser for Lars von Trier‘s buzzy erotic drama Nymphomaniac has been released online, and it’s branded with the auteur’s distinctive style of yellow-tinted scenery and an unvarnished, at times unsettling, naturalism that hooks you even though you might want to look away.

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A girl allegedly caught in bed at 13 with her female tennis coach sobbed yesterday as she told how she was forced into having a lesbian affair. 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." Billed as an “appetizer” from the first of eight chapters of Nymphomaniac, the scene features Stacy Martin as a younger version of Joe ( Charlotte Gainsbourg) embarking on a mission to seduce a fellow passenger aboard a train. 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." 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.