Hello y'all!

I'm Alexandria, 34, and I love to read and write.

I've been reading a lot more books, manga and webtoons lately, especially sapphic stuff. I wanted to talk to more people about this in an easy way. I've set up a little Discord server for it! It's welcome to any sapphics, lesbians and other wlw/wlnb/nblw of varied gender expression and sexuality.

It is an international community, with roles and channels for some more commonly spoken languages--so far we've got Dutch, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Arabic, Hindi, Mandarin Chinese, Korean and Japanese. We've got a little "language learning club" too.

Here's the invite link! https://discord.gg/BPkBFTCFdM

Share what y'all have been reading! (And writing!)

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We are currently reading the sapphic fairytale (The Snow Queen) retelling Raven and the Reindeer by T. Kingfisher as our December book.

We also have a monthly comics readers club, which for November-December has been reading Ayaka Is In Love With Hiroko by Sal Jiang (after we watched the live action TV series adaptation together) and for December-January we ended up with a tie between Handsome Girl and Sheltered Girl by Mochi Au Lait and majoccoid and Collectors by Nishi Uko! All three are completed series of respectively 24, 13 and 26 chapters.

Happy reading y'all!

I'm a pansexual cis woman, and I've dated mostly men in the past. It's really easy for me to tell when they're interested or not.

But whenever I'm crushing on another woman, (or pretty much anyone who isn't a cis man), I become terrified of them finding out... what if I scare them away and ruin our friendship? What if they're not even into women? I think I'm scared of coming out as pan, and either they are disgusted by it or they think it's just a phase and I'm not queer enough to be serious. Also I have a male nesting partner, and I never want people to think we're unicorn hunting or anything like that.

So I always just assume they're being friendly and don't want anything more. My gaydar definitely sucks 😅 Sometimes I'm not sure if I'm just being oblivious to women flirting with me.

But I've been yearning for a more intimate connection with another femenine person. Do other people feel this way too?

Please be understanding with me, I'm still in the process of coming to terms with my sexuality.

I’m (40F) in the midst of separating from my girlfriend (53F) of 4 years. We live together and have two dogs together and live in a small town with a very close queer community.

Our day to day life together is beautiful but we essentially have very different needs in non-monogamy and have been caught on and off in a stale mate for about a year, trying to find a way through. Sex for me has been underwhelming at best.

It exploded in the last six months after my (now-ex) girlfriend and my best friend fell in love with each other. We tried a triad for a little while but I was really let down by the both of them in the way they communicated with me, and the negotiation of agreed boundaries.

The story is so long and winding but in the end, each party was very hurt and I felt deeply betrayed. I feel resentment towards the both of them because I felt like I was really carrying the load to steer us to a place of safety and connection for all of us, while my GF and BF would just say they should be free to love whoever they want and everyone else should just catch up.

I’ve been no-contact with my BF for about two months, and then decided to break up with my GF five days ago.

Within two hours of me leaving the house after I broke up with my GF, she was down at the BF house where they spent two nights together.

I feel hurt and betrayed but honestly, knowing I’m now out of the chaotic dynamic I’ve been in - I’m just so so fucking relieved and it is nowhere near as distressing to deal with the break up as it was to be in those two relationships.

I’m excited about my future to rebuild my self esteem and self-trust after really abandoning my own needs for so long.

But I also feel scared!!!

I’d love a lil pep talk, like what changed for you after walking away from another relationship? Did you reconnect your own desires after not being so enmeshed? Am I gonna be okkkkkk?

Before I started dating my girlfriend about 5 years ago we were just friends and she had a boyfriend. At some point we started dated while she was still with her boyfriend (I did not date the boyfriend as I am a lesbian and it just didn’t feel right to be in that kind of poly relationship). Idk if it’s just bc we were friends and I knew her boyfriend wasn’t the best but I never had any jealousy with him, so there were no issues in our relationship.

They did break up some months later for her own reasons.

I’ve known from the begging she was poly and I had some past trauma that’s really made it hard for me to be open to being poly again. She doesn’t want to date another guy she just wants to sleep with them but I’ve found it really hard to find ways to get over being jealous. She has started to resent me for not making even the littlest steps to being more open to the idea. And to be honest I’m upset with myself also bc I know this would make her happy and I want it to make her happy.

I’m looking for any kind of advice or peoples experience being a new poly couple

I am sharing out there this post that I wrote because the ethics of ethically non-monogamous polyamory are pretty much the same basic guidelines that are useful to sustain healthy social connections in general.

The defining difference between closed relationships and open relationships is actually qualitatively, as in HOW we approach our interactions with our social connections, instead of quantitatively, as in NOT IN NUMBER of simultaneous connections, because no one stops being connected to a diverse network of simultaneous connections just for being in a totally closed committed intimate relationship, whether monoamorous or polyamorous.

The difference between consensual non-monogamy and ethical non-monogamy is exactly the same difference between the words "must" and "should", in the sense that all connections should always be ethical, but must always be consensual in order to avoid legal trouble.

Informed and genuine consensual non-monogamy is defined as the valid, reasonable, required and bare minimum limit for sustaining healthy connections that separates love from violations.

Gender variant, gay, polyamorous, aromantic, and asexual people can be united together as worthy of the constant free love fights for basic rights because they are socioculturally discriminated CONSENSUAL love minorities in ways more similar than what you may think.

Ethical non-monogamy is defined as a valuable ideal for sustaining healthy social connections of diverse types that is a goal worth pursuing.

Ethical non-monogamy is often further defined in explanations as HONEST non-monogamy, NEGOTIATED non-monogamy, FAIR non-monogamy, EQUITABLE non-monogamy, SUPPORTIVE non-monogamy, RESPECTFUL non-monogamy, ACCOUNTABLE non-monogamy, RESPONSIBLE non-monogamy, COMMITTED non-monogamy, and as CONSENSUAL non-monogamy.

Where and how are drawn the lines that delineate the definition of things are pretty blurry, because they are relative, as in socioculturally constructed, in another words, made up by humans, varying at different points of space and time, depending, at a smaller scale, on an individual to individual basis, and, at a larger scale, on a culture to culture basis.

That means that the definitions of things are not set in stone definitely defined by the universe, but does not necessarily mean that relativity is an insurmountable ethical obstacle without any way around that permanently stops any rather ecofeminist negotiation of reasonable sustainable agreements for collectively better healthy social lives.

What matters more is how each of all of us specifically define each word, because you could set up someone, including yourself, for a misunderstanding, disappointment and unfulfillment if someone can not read minds and you do not use words precisely to ask for what you need and want specifically with straightforward honest communication when negotiating informed consent to anything.

Feel free to contribute to the comments section below a list of "green flag" keywords to describe how is defined what ethical connections in general mean specifically to each of you once you figure that out in order to avoid misunderstandings, disappointment and unfulfillment, because you may find yourself surprised at the existence of as many different perspectives as different individuals exist.

I also highly recommend sitting down to further define what words, like "honesty", "negotiation", "fairness", "equity", "support", "respect", "accountability", "responsibility", "commitment", "consent", among others, mean specifically to each of you before giving to anything consent that really is informed.

TL;DR: We should contextualize and recontextualize specifically what each of all of us means by ethical and other words, including even words that have apparently obvious meanings, especially before giving to anything consent that really is informed, even if is permanently impossible to generalize ethical non-monogamy ethics into one general universal standard.

I really hope that sharing this helps at least someone out there.

I'm gay

I've have two beautiful girlfriends and we're in a mixed relationship. However recently my ADHD has given me a pretty intense hyper fixation. The problem comes with them noticing I'm pretty absent and I've been spending less time with them. They're perfect and absolutely give me time to work through my shit, but I also can't help but feel some level of guilt. Any tips out there?

I am in a looong, beautiful and stable relationship. We opened it 3 years ago cause we both craved dating other people and discover different dynamics. As I was originally afraid that I will become jealous over her I surprisingly found the very unexpected kind of envy. My girlfriend is beautiful and wanted while I am not very lucky with girls. Of course she supports me the most, she is doing her best to convince me that I am beautiful. I know that in her eyes I'm perfect. But when it comes to dating I feel like I don't have any chances with other people. Multiple times I experienced having a crush on a person who didn't show any interest in me, but after meeting my girlfriend showed obvious interest in her. She didn't and wouldn't do anything that would hurt me. But these situations got stuck in my head. I just want to be perceived as attractive by other people as well... Does anyone relate? Am I out of the game for not being pretty enough?

Last weekend I went to little festival with two of my GFs and it was wonderful. I got to smooch them and we snuggled like little weasels because of the cold. Compersion had me giggling when my GF and bestie ended up flirting with the same dude, meanwhile my other GF and I planned a nice kink time.

!Turns out she can cum from just being bitten if she's worked up enough beforehand.!<

This morning I'm getting coffee and brekky for my partner and I'm heading to see my other for an afternoon date at the queer market.

I'm so grateful to be polyam. I'm so glad that I realized I was a lesbian. Life's good sometimes

Hi all! I’m a lesbian and a graduate research student at the University of Oxford. For my graduate thesis, I’m researching how lesbians, queer women and other sapphic people interact with and express gender in context of the wedding ritual

I'm also focusing on commitment ceremonies. I’m interested in how people create meaningful rituals and celebrate their relationships outside of the conventional marriage framework. I'd love to learn about how these forms of commitment are visually expressed, especially within frameworks outside of traditional Western monogamy.

I would love to talk to lesbians, queer women or sapphic-identifying people based in the United States and over the age of 18 who have previously created a wedding Pinterest board or would like to make one.

If you are interested in contributing to the small canon of lesbian academic research, please do send me a message! I'd love to hear from you and see your Pinterest boards :))

I am sharing as a Public Service Announcement this post that I wrote because there should be more education out there about what are the limits of the validity of the negotiation of consent in and out of committed intimate relationships that are totally closed.

Love in any type of connection does not hurt anyone, does not matter at all whether the connection is open or closed, monoamorous or polyamorous, sexual or emotional, romantic or platonic, hetero or gay, cis or trans, hierarchical or anarchist.

What really does hurt is loving the wrong INDIVIDUALS, while there are interested individuals better compatible for any and every sort of thing out there in the world, including any and every sort of rare and complex need, want and desire that someone can value.

FAIRNESS IS EQUITY instead of equality, but love without informed AND genuine consent is a violation instead of love.

Gender variant, gay, polyamorous, aromantic, and asexual people can be united together as worthy of the constant free love fights for basic rights because they are socioculturally discriminated CONSENSUAL love minorities in ways more similar than what you may think.

You should not forget that you should always have the valid freedom of expression right to request as many answers to all sorts of questions that may appear invasive to as many indviduals you may feel is necessary for you to feel secure enough in order for you to give to anything consent that really is informed, as long as you make an effort to be respectful, but no one is necessarily obligated to reply to any of your questions.

Many people are not aware that only a first clear "yes" with enthusiasm is the only genuine consent to anything, and, therefore, is the only one that is not questionable enough to get anyone in legal trouble.

If you are about to go try something that you are not with enthusiasm to try, you are very likely not going to enjoy what you are about to experiment, even if you have an open mind to new experiences.

You should also not forget that consent to anything is not really genuine if results from constant begging, peer pressuring, outcasting, withdrawing, guilt tripping, shaming, blackmailing, threatening or any other type of manipulation not listed, and, therefore, is sexual coercion, also known as sexual abuse.

No consent should be unlimited to anything, because consent can not possibly be given genuinely to anything if you are obligated to keep consenting anyhow, so everyone should always have the valid right to freely stop consenting to anything at any moment, in the sense that consent is constantly being given at every new moment each of all of us shares an experience together with someone.

Only when is granted the freedom to be spending time anyhow anywhere else with anyone else at any time can anyone consent to love someone genuinely instead of out of obligation due to commitment to restrictive and limiting promises.

I really hope that sharing this helps at least someone out there.

Is manipulative coercive control when any social circle shames you for being controlling because you feel insecure with fear and anxiety in order to make you drop the healthy personal boundary limits that you settled only around what can be done with your body, energy, time and money for you to consent to something.

That type of coercive control by pressure happens very often among progressive social circles that go as far as demonizing anyone who has any preference at all.

Is okay to have preferences, even rare complex preferences, even if you are a panamorous bi-poly-switch, because no one should be obligated to love everyone exactly the same, we all just must respect everyone alongside the differences that make us the unique individuals that each of all of us is in special.

Someone should always have the valid right to control what are the limits around what can be done with their own body, energy, time and money in order to be secure because that same someone feels insecure with fears and anxiety.

I am open to a large diversity of adult body, personality and connection types, but I still do have preferences, including for bare minimum reasonable personal boundary limits to protect both myself and also who I care about that are listed as follows:

I prefer to get invested into relationships with adults with similar partner selection preferences that are compatible with me.

I prefer to give and receive back respect and collaboration as companionship and partnership.

I prefer to be like friends first before and also after anything else.

I prefer to not play therapist for anyone held from living under the control of depression, anxiety, fears or jealousy.

I prefer to not date anyone who desires to date more than three simultaneous intimate connections.

I prefer to not date anyone who desires to date anyone who desires casual intimate connections.

I prefer to always use protective barriers for all types of physical intimacy with anyone since trust is not reliable for security because everyone is as unpredictable as the future is uncertain.

I prefer to maintain financial independence also since trust is not reliable for security because everyone is as unpredictable as the future is uncertain.

Do not burn yourself to make anyone comfortable.

Quantos anos maisomenos vocês mulheres tímidas tiveram que esperar até conseguirem achar alguém?

Eu moro entre Sampa e Campinas, sou meio tímida, um pouquinho esquisita mas me esforcei pra me educar e trabalhar minhas inseguranças, eu até saio todo mês e as vezes tento puxar assunto com desconhecidas.

Mas depois de mais de dois anos comecei me desanimar, eu sei que não é algo que aparece da noite pro dia mas me pergunto se eu estou fazendo algo de errado.

Tem algo que facilitou vocês encontrarem alguém pra dar e receber carinho?

Sou Trans mas não acho que isso seja tão relevante.

How many years on average you shy women had to wait until finding someone?

I live close to a big city and a metropolitan area, I'm a bit shy, somewhat on the weird side but I strived to educate myself and work on my insecurities, I even go out every month and sometimes try to start conversations with strangers.

But after more than two years looking I started losing steam, I know it isn't something that happens overnight but I ask myself if I am doing something wrong.

Was there something that made it easier finding someone to give and receive affection?

I'm transgender but I don't think this is relevant.

I want to make Gender-Affirming Surgery, but I get anxious fearing I might not be good enough for lesbians, like there is something more to girl-on-girl sex I will be always missing, please tell me it's just a childish insecurity, good old fear-of-the-unknown and nothing more.

Eu quero fazer Cirurgia Afirmativa de Gênero, mas eu fico ansiosa temendo não ser boa o suficiente para lésbicas, como se tivesse algo no sexo de garota-com-garota que sempre vai me faltar, por favor me digam que é só uma insegurança infantil, bom e velho medo-do-desconhecido e nada mais.

It's so frustrating how games can imagine a world without homophobia, but for some stupid reason, always assume that even in a fantasy world, monogamy is the only relationship structure.

Hiya I'm Maddelynn/Brookelynn (I like em both Maddie and Brooke are fine too :3). Currently dating 3 adorable women and couldn't be happier with them <3

So it's currently 3am. Insomnia has hit like a uhaul, and I've been doing nothing but reading some very gay fiction, and daydreaming.

Said daydreaming has resulted in me becoming a hormone-adled mess that now wants nothing more than to be cuddled by 2-3 girlfriends (of which I currently have a grand total of none). I've thought about being poly before, but uhhh not like this. Now I'm seriously considering myself as poly -inclined, and I have no idea what to do about it, considering every relationship I've had has basically crashed and burned before even really getting off the ground...

I'm a trauma riddled introvert who has like zero chances of getting one gf rn, yet I already want more than one. Idk what to do and I'm already terrified. I'm afraid of spiraling and idk ahhhh I just need advice rn.

Me and my pals built together three mostly Safe For Work, mixed and inclusive subreddit communities for everything centered on adult women and gender variant people after our totally private and inclusive group chat room grew so big that we had to build a subreddit community.

We currently have more than 1300 member users and more than 100 posts with image descriptions accessible for visually impaired people in the large collection of diverse content growing with new additions almost daily in our older subreddit community called r/GalsAndPals that we built because of popular demand as a mostly Safe For Work and inclusive safe space built for everything centered on adult people who at least partly somehow identify with unconventional womanhood, including top, verse, dominant, switchy, gentlewomanly, girlboss, tomboyish, futchy, butchy, ursine, crossdressing, androgynous, intersex, altersex, transy, transbianish, genderfluid, and genderqueer woman-ish people, but anyone is welcome to post here as long as they are respectful pals to the gals and request mod permission.

We currently also have more than 140 member users in our younger subreddit community called r/DollsAndPals that we are also building because of popular demand as a mostly Safe For Work and inclusive safe space built for everything centered on adult people who at least partly somehow identify with conventional womanhood, including bottom, verse, subby, switchy, ladylike, femme, futchy, androgynous, intersex, altersex, transy, transbianish, genderfluid, and genderqueer woman-ish people, but anyone is welcome to post here as long as they are respectful pals to the dolls and request mod permission.

We also currently have more than 260 member users and more than 80 posts with image descriptions accessible for visually impaired people in the large collection of diverse content growing with new additions almost daily in our subreddit community called r/GuysAndPals that we are also building because of popular demand as a mostly Safe For Work and inclusive safe space built for everything centered on adult people who at least partly somehow identify with unconventional manhood, including bottom, verse, subby, switchy, malewifey, twinkish, softboyish, femboyish, ladylike, crossdressing, androgynous, intersex, altersex, transy, transbianish, genderfluid, and genderqueer man-ish people, but anyone is welcome to post here as long as they are respectful pals to the guys and request mod permission.

We do have some basic respect safety guideline expectations written in the rules page section of our subreddit communities to help sustain the health of our groups as inclusive safer spaces free of judgement and harm that you should read.

We are inclusive of transy, transbianish, transfeminine, transandrogynous, transmasculine, detrans, retrans, genderfluid, and genderqueer people in all three of our subreddit communities.

Anyone is welcome to be in our community subreddits and contribute posting, but ONLY AS LONG AS they are RESPECTFUL WITH EVERYONE AND HAVE already had a sent MOD PERMISSION REQUEST APPROVED, because our subreddits have changed status from being totally private communities to being a somewhat restricted communities.

Our subreddits are only currently temporarily somewhat restricted for being in an experimental early development stage until becoming more accessible, public and welcoming after a time when we are more prepared enough to deal with more diverse types of visitors having access to our place.

If you may be feeling interested in joining, just drop a comment here below or send a moderator mail message to get permission granted to be able to post in one or all of our subreddits or if you want support to create another group.

Also make sure to check out our long creative, diverse and inclusive lists of silly and cute user flairs and post sections, especially the "Transcribed" and "User Introductions" post sections, to familiarize yourself with examples of how and what content is posted in our communities.

The moderation is always open to answering questions and clearing doubts.

No need to be shy as we do not bite.