by Petit Fours

Lesbian and gay people are more likely to be on social networks and more likely to read blogs than their straight counterparts, according to a survey out last week, which confirmed my long-held suspicions about how the internet is the natural medium for gay. Gays are consistently more likely to be on all the main social networks and are more likely to read blogs of all sorts.

To quote the survey-makers, Harris International:

The report found that a majority of gay and lesbian adults read blogs online. More than half (54%) of gay men and lesbian respondents read some type of blog, compared to only 40% of heterosexuals.

Gay people were also more likely to be on every social network going…

- Facebook: A remarkable three-quarters (73%) of gay and lesbian adults state they are members of Facebook, compared to 65% of heterosexual adults.
- MySpace: 32% of gay and lesbian respondents report being members of MySpace, compared to 22% of heterosexual respondents (albeit a shrinking number of both groups from past years).
- LinkedIn: When it comes to the business-oriented social networking site, LinkedIn, 22% of gay and lesbian respondents report being members, while 16% of heterosexual adults state they are members.
- Twitter: Nearly 3 out of 10 (or 29%) gay men and lesbians report they are members of Twitter, while the same can be said of just 15% of heterosexual adults.

I didn’t need statistics to tell me that gay people are more keen on the internet. I guess the reason I picked up on these survey results (and wrote about them for the techie blog I do) was that they chimed with my own experience. Though my friends on Facebook are probably 50:50 gay/straight, it’s the gay ones that are all over it, uploading pictures, statuses, making chats and staging epic flash-mob comment attacks. Gay people know more about youtube, and have almost definitely signed up to an internet dating site (it still counts even if you deleted it).

Hell I love the internet and I’ve always connected it with being gay. And Facebook really helped me come out. I didn’t have the guts to actually tell anyone for ages, but changing my Interested In preferences from a drop-down menu was super easy. Googling “lesbian” doesn’t always come up with the most informative results, but hey that’s how I discovered the Queer Youth Network and my local gay youth group. And what “scissoring” was,  that oral sex was a real thing, and… well, this is a train of thought for another time..

Anyway… musing, as I occasionally do, I just wondered why gays like social networks, blogs and well, the whole internet so much. And after delving deep into my own psyche and the social implications of the internet, one of my favourite topics, I stumped up about four reasons:

1) The Internet is a New World -  and if you don’t like the current world very much – you’re much keener to forage out into a new one. It’s like the way the disenfranchised people of Europe dashed off to America as soon as it opened up back in the 1800s. Well it’s sort of like that. Let’s face it, a lot of the real world is not a gentle place for gay people, so the vistas opened up the virtual one seem more appealing. This is probably the same reason awkward geeky kids of any orientation enjoy the internet too.

2) You Can Meet & Socialise With People from Other Places - If you belong to a very thinly-spread community, (whether that’s gays or Marvel Comic afficionados) the internet is an important way to connect with people. It’s a quick easy way to build up networks. Hence the constant Facebook presence. I swear gays post more than straight people. I swear.

3) Gay people are more used to having to look for what they want… There is a very slim chance that Mr/Ms Right is going to be the boy/girl next door. Gays are much more used to having to trek around looking for the other gay in the village etc, so having to do a little investigative googling to find a good music review is not that much of a hurdle, hence the fact that gays are a bit more adventurous in delving through the blogosphere, or ploughing through those youtube videos until they find the really good hamster one. (This is the really good one.)

4) The internet is a place to recreate yourself.. online it’s very easy to tinker with different identities – and that can literally just be changing your Facebook profile picture.  And a bit of identity experimentation is something gay people often have to do to come to terms with themselves.

Do you agree?

NB: this is turning into a behemoth of a blog post, but Cat M commenting on my orginal post, made a couple of  interesting points – suggesting how what happens online feeds back into real life. She suggests that the sudden flowering of east London scene could be down to Facebook, and probes into just why gay people like to document themselves so much. I’m just going to quote her directly:

I think it’s also about marking out queer space. Firstly, the physical landscape is heteronormative and slow to create space where queers find their physical niche, whether that’s Stoke Newington (being replaced by Clapton, the new Park Slope of London!) or Vauxhall. The web is an infinitely expanding space that in theory is ungendered and has no sexuality. It doesn’t require wrestling into being queered.
More interestingly perhaps, I think it’s to do with asserting a gay identity over straight space. I find it really interesting how documented queer nights are, or even just regular social occasions populated by a bunch of gays. Those photos go straight up on the web. I was there. We were there. The gays occupied this space. It’s a way of leaving a gay trace. I think it’s no coincidence that a far stronger queer community has developed physically, and geographically particularly in East London, at pace with advances in social networking.

Well I don’t what she’s saying about Clapton, but that makes a lot of sense for me.

by Sticky Toffee Pudding

Gay Radar, I find, can be a funny old thing. That hidden ability to sense out a person’s sexuality often with just one glance is considered a staple skill of any lesbian worth her salt. Generally speaking you either have it or you don’t. Unfortunately in my experience, I’ve often found my Gay Radar generating nothing but static - shock horror I know! But when it comes to the ladies I’ve always found it a tad difficult to tell whether or not that adorable smile is mere politeness, or an actual sign of flirtation. I mean it’s bloody easy with men isn’t it? (there was something very telling out about H from Steps long before he leapt out the closet in all his theatrical delight) But when it comes to women, I’ve always seen them as the subtle sex. I can barely interpret what they’re thinking, let alone figure out whether or not they mind a bit of girl-on-girl.

That’s not to say that some women aren’t bleeding obvious; you do get the odd ‘100-footer’ that any fool could spot a mile away. Blind people could probably spot them a mile away, their guide dogs sniffing out the gayness. Still, I find with most lesbians it’s not as obvious as I would hope – not unless they’re locked in the arms of another lady, in which case I’ve still got no chance.

Kd Lang we can spot you from a mile away love!

The thing that truly intrigues me though is how; I’m mean just how exactly does one tell? A quick examination of my friends concludes that none of them are particularly obvious (bar one or two perhaps) but then I wasn’t exactly surprised upon finding out which way they swing. It all seemed to fit together. There’s nothing in particular that suggests it but upon discovering their sexuality, it makes perfect sense. This leads me to believe that Gay Radar is more than just sussing out a persons style and image; it’s also about the way they represent themselves to the world… and not just physically.

Attitudes are important and you can tell a lot by the way a person conducts themselves. There are some lesbians out there who feel their sexuality plays a huge part in their identity and it’s these woman that, generally speaking, are easier to spot. Whether they’re modelling the latest Stonewall t-shirt or have rainbows tattooed up their arm, you know straight off. There are other women of course, who are obvious simply because they are so sexual. Whether they’re flirting shamelessly with every woman they meet or admiring the curves of every female that passes by, you’ve little doubt which gender they’ll be taking home tonight.

La Roux not gay? (At least that's what they say!)

For the majority of women who are neither irresistible charmers nor political activists however, I find it’s not always so obvious. Probably because, despite their sexuality playing a significant role in their lives, it is by no means the be-all-end-all. Rather, it holds as much prominence as it generally would for anyone; gay, bi or straight. It is with these women, these elusive mysterious polite types, that I often have difficulty with. Painfully, this can sometimes lead to me getting it very wrong. There is little else that can rival the embarrassment of trying to backtrack when it becomes clear that what you thought was a date was actually just coffee. This moment of realisation always occurs of course as you try to kiss your unsuspecting ‘date’, only for her to back away in horror (this situation is equally woeful if the person in question happens to be gay but just doesn’t fancy you).

I think, when it all comes down to it, Gay Radar is mostly about context. At the right club or bar you often make that assumption that she shares your tastes in gender. But in the everyday world, whether it be the woman at work, the neighbour in the flat opposite or that girl sat next to you on the tube, how can you tell? I know I am utterly useless. Probably because as a product of society I am taught to assume that an average looking girl is usually straight (they are 45% of the population so they say) but mostly because I’m useless. Nevertheless I try to counteract any assumptions I make by immediately entertaining the notion that the opposite may ring true. Maybe the gorgeous girl on the Central Line does appreciate the female form as much as I do? Which of course leads me to the possibility that she might even be interested in me? Perhaps a smile will give me an answer? Well it would if women weren’t so goddamn friendly.

If only it was this simple.

by Devil’s Food Cake

It’s possibly one of the best scenes from a lesbian film ever. Bound‘s climactic moment: Jennifer Tilly seducing Gina Gershon slowly and sensuously up on that screen, their bodies intertwined and writhing as she goes in for the kill. And then suddenly, what should have been one of the hottest scenes known to mankind goes horribly, horribly wrong for me – because all I can think about is how nobody should be doing any fucking on that screen, not with nails that bloody long.

Remember that scene from The L Word? Where Shane and Alice are coaching Dana through the wonders of gaydar (the sixth sense, not the website)? One of the things to look at, they tell her, is a girl’s hands – more specifically the state of her nails. Short? She probably plays for our team. Long? It’s a probably a whole different ball game. It was like an epiphany for my young, freshly un-closeted self. Lesbians don’t have long nails! Like, duh!

That discovery has served to furnish me with two things: a much higher success rate when I was single and a healthy phobia of long nails. I mean, seriously – the things scare the shit out of me. I can be on the tube, or getting coffee or discussing my borrowing needs at HSBC, but if someone in the vicinity has long nails, my concentration is shot – ripped to shreds by ten overbearingly bright talons.

I’m not sure exactly where this fear came from. I suspect, though, that it has something to do with the first girl I was ever fortunate enough to enjoy carnal relations with. The girl – let’s call her L – was tall, Swedish and fresh out of a goth-lite phase. We met in the delightful, dark recesses of a seedy Soho bar, and one date later, I was back at hers, drunkenly exclaiming over her collection of 50’s print ads and the fairy lights adorning her windows. Some rough and tumble later, we were settled into a pleasant, non-commital rhythm, but it wasn’t long until I was snapped out of this reverie by the discovery one morning of a series of long scratches running the length of my arms, legs and back. I looked like I’d been wrestling a cat. Not to mention the discomfort in other places. It turned out that one of the remnants of my Swedish paramour’s goth dalliance was a penchant for long, neatly-filed claws – a fact I’d conveniently managed to ignore for the two months we were together. Her refusal to just let the damn things go probably contributed to the early demise of our ‘relationship’, and definitely sowed the seeds of my deep-rooted loathing for the rancid things.

I can see however, that I am at least a tad biased. I guess long nails aren’t that bad if they’re not monstrously long. When, however, you can measure your nail length in centimetres, do your ladyfriend a solid and invest in a manicure. Her epidermis will, at the very least, appreciate it.

…and the reason you’ll never sign out for good

by Florentine

You know the score.  Getting measured for your first bra by the alarmingly clammy-handed ladies at M&S, asking mum for permission to boldly put razor to barely hairy teenage leg, and sitting petrified on a toilet for the best part of an hour, desperately clawing enough courage to declare the red-painted beginnings of womanhood to your mum/dad/second cousin/mentally imbalanced home economics teacher (delete as appropriate).  Rites of passage: traumatising girls across the land since 1864 – or thereabouts.

For the average homo girl about town, there is one near unavoidable rite of passage that will come to define her very experience as a practising population-controller.  Ladies and tomboys, please welcome into the arena of mass opinion-division, your friend and/or foe… Gaydar Girls.  For those of you who are a). not gay (how nice of you to join us), b). accessing the internet from beneath your rock in the Outer Hebrides or c). slower on the uptake than an empty-handed sofa enthusiast during an indiscriminate Bank Holiday of your choosing, please allow me to explain.  Gaydar Girls is the lesbian arm of a market-leading dating website that, in its own words, provides “what you want, when you want it”.  Presumably then, for those in the know, what girls want are other girls who want girls wanting them (there’s a Blur song in there somewhere)… and they mostly want it at any time outside of office hours, when the super subtle G-A-Y-D-A-R brand won’t be emblazoned across their screen in 6ft tall letters for sniggering colleagues to gawp at.

I first made my foray into the booby-trapped world of Gaydar a couple of months after becoming a real lesbian.  For me, the crossover to genuine homo was defined by a new and long-awaited willingness to tell anyone who would listen (new acquaintance, nosey colleague, part-time petrol pump assistant…) of my newly acquired status, without wanting to curl up into a shame riddled ball and self-implode.  And in those early days of relative fragility and wonderment, Gaydar provided a bouncy, cushion-soft entry into a world I had little idea how to begin navigating.  Like wandering into a restaurant to find that all of your favourite foods are on the menu, I had suddenly found myself scrolling through page upon page of real, live girls who might actually agree to touch me a little bit if I asked them really nicely.  This was in stark contrast to my offline life in which I had, by that point, met only one other bonafide lesbian during the entirety of my time on the planet.  Bad times.

Of course as with any new toy or gadgetry (ice cream maker anyone?) the initial excitement tends to wear off pretty quickly, leaving reality to make itself firmly at home in the lounge of your subconscious… and then start taking food from your fridge.  The first disappointment, for those operating outside of the lucrative porn industry at least, was the expansive ocean of disrobed genitals staring proudly out from their little squares of cyberspace.  Call me a traditionalist, but I personally prefer my gifts wrapped – else where is the fun in ripping off the paper to see what joys lie within?  Also rather bemusing, are the selection of ‘keywords’ available to let potential partners know what kind of things you’re into.  Mountaineering?  Sun-worshipping?  Cross-stitch perhaps?  Oh, actually no… perhaps we’ll go for hoods & masks, watersports and S&M instead.  The mind boggles.  For those of you putting together your ‘Don’t judge our fetishes!’ placards and matching t-shirts as we speak, I have no qualms with any of the above-mentioned (leisure?) activities – rather, they just don’t happen to be the initial qualities that spring to mind when I’m on the look-out for a potential girlfriend.  And, while we’re on it, can you imagine any of these categories casually lurking on street corners at Match.com?  Alas, the gay world will probably always be a little overtly-sexualised for my humble tastes, so it’s little wonder that this recurring theme is reflected in lezville’s cyber counterpart.

That said, I have also met a wide and varied selection of sweet, bold, confident, whimsical, creative, lovely, endlessly interesting, unashamedly witty, inspiringly adventurous and ambitious women (phew!) via its generous mass of listings, who would all probably agree that despite its flaws, there is no better place to meet like-minded lesbians online.  And for the cynical among you who think internet-borne dating is reserved exclusively for reclusive, unconfident inverts with no social life – think again!  If used correctly, Gaydar can be a veritable Yellow Pages of future best friends, girlfriends and introducers that you may otherwise never have the opportunity to find on account of the dark, loud and alcohol-saturated nature of most gay hang-outs.  So on that note, I’m going to leave you with a list of ten stand-out features, foibles and faux-pas that characterise the website we love to hate and, equally, hate to admit we love.  Delete your account into the fiery depths of hell never to return again?  I bet my very own granny you’ll come crawling back with your tail between your legs…

Reasons we love Gaydar

- Unlike real life, Gaydar is the one room you can always walk in to that can guarantee you won’t accidentally chat up any straight women.

- Whilst usually when you locate a hot, gay and available woman you have generally consumed six vodka & cokes, a selection of ill-advised shots, a precursory glass of lager and can no longer remember your name, Gaydar provides the opportunity to dream up witty one-liners and much-edited conversation starters for a vastly superior first impression.

- Gaydar blissfully facilitates casual perving in the privacy and comfort of your own home.

- Gaydar doesn’t judge you for forgetting to shave your legs and walking around with three-day old, greasy hair eating your fifth cheese toasty of the afternoon.

- Gaydar reminds you that there actually are lots of single and lovely lesbians in your locality, despite your occasional rants to the contrary.

Reasons we want to send Gaydar to the fiery depths of hell

- Saggy, middle-aged genitals on apparently unabashed display – you’re old enough to know better.

- Offers of threesomes from otherwise straight girls and their ever-so-lovely long term boyfriends.  I’m afraid you required the next stop at Swingers-town, move along please.

- Stalkers.  We can see each and every time that you visit our page (paying members only of course) and are just as unlikely to respond to your fifteenth successive message as we were to your third.  Sorry.

- Ever got really into a conversation with someone all exciting and funny and sparkly new then promptly ‘run out’ of messages?  Rage.

- The conversationally-able among us will go to our graves continuing to be filled with bile-saturated despondence at the introductory line, “Hey, add me on MSN – hornyguurl5@hotmail.com” (or something similarly lame).  Remind me why I’m here again?