Talk:Sexual practices between women/Archive 1

Bad Article

 * "Lesbian sexual practices are many and sundry." - This one is very, very, very bad. I read until "are" and expect an explaination about lesbian sexual practices. This is kind of disappointing. Just tell what the practices are or explain what distinguishes them from other practices.
 * "remembering later, making sounds" - Rather funny, I imagine naked people making sounds and remembering it. This cannot be serious.

Maybe the article is worth to be rewritten, but as it is, the first two paragraphs do not provide a single bit of information. I would consider this to be a deletion contender. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.53.41.108 (talk) 21:33, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Need input from other editors
I've turned this into a brief narrative but truth be told, for me, this article has a big ick factor because these activities are listed and wikilinked without a shred of context as to any sway lesbian relationships (which is to say, human feelings and social contexts) may have on them. Hence, this article is as yet IMHO barely helpful, maybe misleading and no way is it anthropologically meaningful, to put it mildly. This article needs citations, observations of social context from published secondary sources and some history. I invite (or plead with?) other editors to do as they see fit through consensus. Gwen Gale (talk) 11:30, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm willing to help out. What sort of examples of sources and lesbian context were you considering? --Moni3 (talk) 13:03, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

This kind of stuff I guess (these are only way quick 'n easy links though, to give some notion as to the wide range of behaviourial contexts which can be described under this topic):


 * http://members.aol.com/gendervariant/prime/books/midlifelesbian.htm
 * http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2294/is_n7-8_v28/ai_14156078
 * http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=605766
 * http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov/MeetingAbstracts/102208925.html
 * http://sexuality.about.com/od/eroticentertainment/a/nan_kinney.htm

Gwen Gale (talk) 13:40, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Interesting. I'm glad I asked for clarification. This prompts me to bring up some topics regarding the difference between sexuality and sexual practices. (I've now started and deleted this paragraph 5 times, showing my confusion.) The examples you provided, to my mind, would be more appropriate in the sexuality section in the Lesbian article, perhaps including a reference to Adrienne Rich's 1983 article that puts all female to female relationships on a lesbian continuum, along with the criticism of that article - the de-sexing of lesbians. This article, the lesbian sexual practices one, seems to be the more practical application of those theories. I was thinking of using sources like The Whole Lesbian Sex Book for discussion of these practices, without going into too much detail about it. And perhaps a more detailed discussed of lesbian bed death, and other issues attributed to lesbian relationships. --Moni3 (talk) 14:28, 27 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Erm, I so too know what you mean about starting and deleting whilst writing about this. As I said, the links above are only a quick take, not enough. I do agree the sexuality section in the main article could be much expanded. Moreover, there is a lot of overlap. Mind, sexual expression among lesbians (like anyone else) is much swayed by the nature of the relationships along with big docking cultural, social and other influences. Any discussion of how lesbians express themselves to one another physically is utterly meaningless (which might be to say, idle entertainment and thrills) without citing these influences along with some historical background.


 * I'm all for citing swaths of The Whole Lesbian Sex Book if need be. Dunno how notable lesbian bed death is, since "bed death" in healthy intimate relationships is more or less common across humanity.


 * Meanwhile, a whole section of this article should helpfully deal with the risks of STDs and ways of coping with these. Gwen Gale (talk) 15:03, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
 * What about erotica and lesbian pornography? Notably, On Our Backs (such as it is). I'd love to find a citation remarking about the lack of quality and quantity of porn made for and by lesbians. --Moni3 (talk) 16:25, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
 * There is already an extensive article, Lesbian erotica . Truth be told, the market for lesbian porn is populated by more males than females. Lesbian romances and cheap pulp fiction however are another tale :) Gwen Gale (talk) 16:33, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Anyway I've done some research and writing (thanks Moni3 for the jumpstart on epidemology) and aside from the single word tribadism and the citation for it, none of the unique original content contributed by the WP:SPA editor is left, so my icky feeling about this is gone. Gwen Gale (talk) 19:54, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Good job. Taking a sense of ownership by making it *about* lesbians and putting quotes in it by lesbians helps with that "icky" feeling. My books are at home. Let me look through them to see if there are some things I can add in the direction the article is going. --Moni3 (talk) 19:59, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I could help get an image. Me and my girl friend could have sex and take a photo. (Hentai-lover1000 (talk) 23:06, 1 September 2008 (UTC))

Whole Lesbian Sex Book
Felice Newman says entire sections on lesbian erotica were deleted from the Kama Sutra. Can someone who's more familiar with the Kama Sutra verify that?

She also footnotes a 1969 edition of Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex to quote "one vagina plus one vagina equals zero" to illustrate the view of lesbian non-sex.

More to come as I keep reading...--Moni3 (talk) 23:25, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

File:Wiki-cunnilingus.png Nominated for Deletion

 * We'll ignore your plea to a god and move on. I agree, explicit images of well known practices are not needed. It only adds prurient interest, which is NOT Wikipedic. Wzrd1 (talk) 05:23, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Pictures equal thousands of words. And if someone comes to a page on this topic, they shouldn't be expecting charts and graphs and other G-rated stuff. Now, if they went to an article about a cafeteria at the YMCA and found that illustration, it would be another story. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:00, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Wzrd1, Wikipedia has a policy called WP:NOTCENSORED. I don't feel that all the pictures are needed either (and would be fine with removing all except one or even all of them), but I also don't object to them being in the article. Flyer22 (talk) 19:28, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
 * As noted in the section below, I have reduced the number of images. Flyer22 (talk) 15:48, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Gay male sexual practices?
Why is there an article for lesbian sexual practices, but not an article for gay male sexual practices? Shouldn't there be one? Solar-Wind (talk) 10:03, 14 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Be bold! Write one! Just include references and citations that are NOT OR or otherwise compromised.Wzrd1 (talk) 05:24, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to go ahead and say it
Comparison with hetero couples is NOT needed on an article devoted to specifically gay couples. Especially since the "sources" aren't that reliable at all, and contradict other unmentioned sources that say the opposite, such as the study by Pepper Schwartz. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MikeFromCanmore (talk • contribs) 03:49, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Pepper Schwartz's study mentioned in her 1983 book American Couples? You must be kidding me. Her study, which has not been replicated by any other study, has been criticized by LGBT and non-LGBT everday people and scholars, respectively, from the ground up. Her study also doesn't exactly say the opposite of what the sources you've been removing say, since the lesbian aspect of her study focuses on long-term lesbian couples and she makes the assertion that lesbian couples in committed relationships have less sex than any other type of couple and that they generally experience less sexual intimacy the longer the relationship lasts. The fact is that couples of any sexual orientation generally experience less sexual intimacy the longer the relationship lasts. The Coolidge effect, for example. The fact is that you have been repeatedly removing reliably sourced content about lesbian sexuality here and elsewhere on Wikipedia based on your personal opinions! That, adding or removing content based on your personal opinions, is a big no-no on Wikipedia. You seriously need to read WP:IDON'TLIKEIT, and, more importantly, WP:Verifiability. Wikipedia could not care less about your personal opinions when they concern adding or removing content. It cares about reliably sourced material, and other policies and guidelines. And the content you have been repeatedly removing from this article is reliably sourced. And unlike the Schwartz study, these findings have been consistently replicated by scholar after scholar. This information belongs in this article because it concerns research on lesbian sexual practices. If there is research out there that says the opposite of this, then it should be added with reliable sources supporting it. 220.255.2.157 (talk) 09:18, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Do the images have to be so pornographic?
They seem more like lesbian sex as imagined by a teenage boy than informative illustrations. Is the inclusion of images even necessary at all? Particularly the one of the nipple stimulation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Oral_nipple_stimulation.png) seems gratuitous – I don't think anyone actually needs an illustration of this, and it's not something particularly associated with lesbian sex above any other kind of sex where women are involved. It's bad enough that porn and advertising makes women feel bad about their bodies; I feel an educational resource like this should present women's bodies and sexual practices as they are in real life, not porn. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.67.117.152 (talk) 13:00, 6 March 2013 (UTC)


 * As noted in the section below, I have reduced the number of images. Flyer22 (talk) 15:48, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

60% to 100% of sexual encounters
Article states "78% of women had orgasms in 60% to 100% of sexual encounters". What does this mean, can someone please elaborate?

This also shows there could be up to 40% of encounters where data is missing related to orgasm, so are't these biased statistics that favor lesbianism? Please forgive me if I'm confused. 24.90.152.15 (talk) 06:09, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Where Are The Corresponding Articles?
Where are the corresponding Wikipedia articles for "gay male sexual practices" or "heterosexual sex practices"? This article is biased and should be fixed. It states implicitly and explicitly several times that lesbian sex is superior to heterosexual sex. It also contains numerous pictures of lesbian sex. I have not seen another article dealing with issues of sexuality containing this many pictures of sexual acts, usually there will be just one or two. Tilthe (talk) 08:55, 12 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Hello, Tilthe. As has been stated above (in the section), if anyone wants a Gay male sexual practices article, they are free to create one...assuming that the topic is WP:Notable. Asking why this article exists but not a Gay male sexual practices article is like asking why there is not a corresponding article for Lesbian, since the Gay article is not solely or mostly about gay men; that latter question has been asked more than once at the Gay article; read those replies. Those replies hold answers as to why this article exists and not a Gay male sexual practices article. As for an article titled "Heterosexual sex practices" or "Heterosexual sex," it should be obvious why that does not exist -- society is significantly more focused on sexual activity between heterosexual pairings than sexual activity between any other gender combination, generally associating sexual intercourse and sex (sexual activity) with heterosexuality, as various WP:Reliable sources state, such as this one, this one, this one and this one. This is not surprising if the vast majority of the world is heterosexual (though some sources believe that the vast majority of the world is bisexual). Unless stated otherwise, when a man or a woman says that he or she had sex, it is assumed that he or she had penile-vaginal sex. Why there is not an article titled Heterosexual sex practices is similar to why there is not a single Wikipedia sexual orientation category that categorizes people based on being heterosexual, but there is, for example, Category:Lesbians and Category:Gay men. People are assumed to be heterosexual unless otherwise stated. Heterosexual sex is already well-covered on Wikipedia, though, really (and as you likely know), there is no such thing as a sex act that is specific to one sexual orientation or couple combination other than the genital-genital kind (frot, for example, is specific to sexual activity between males). Furthermore, lesbian sex is the least focused on/studied topic with regard to couple combinations (I know this from my extensive studies on sexuality). Despite that, far too many people (and this includes researchers) wonder just what it is that women do together when they have sex (other than their assumption that oral sex is involved), and there seems to be less scholarly focus on the sexual practices of gay men (as in just what type of sexual acts they engage in) as opposed to the sexual practices of lesbians or sexual activity between women. Most scholarly sources with regard to sexual activity between men focus on anal sex, despite anal sex being the least practiced sexual activity between men (and between people in general), as reported by sources such as this one, this one and this one. Because of those factors, it should make sense as to why there is a Lesbian sexual practices article and currently not a Gay male sexual practices article. For an outside opinion on this matter, perhaps Rivertorch can help. Personally, I would like to see a Gay male sexual practices Wikipedia article; the closest we have to that is the Men who have sex with men article.


 * As for the rest, such as lesbian sex being superior to heterosexual sex, you are speaking of the Research section; it does not outright state that lesbian sex is superior to heterosexual sex. Nor would I categorize what it states on that matter as "several times." But as you can see, there is a bit of research there that contrasts the conclusions that sexual activity between women is often or generally more satisfying than sexual activity between men and women. If you have any WP:Reliable sources that contradict the conclusions that sexual activity between women is often or generally more satisfying than sexual activity between men and women, there is no problem with adding those sources and their commentary to the article. But the information there is going on what WP:Reliable sources suggest or state; many WP:Reliable sources, in one way or another, suggest or state that sexual activity between women is more satisfying than sexual activity between men and women, and that this is because men generally focus on penetrative sex...when a woman is more likely to get sexual pleasure, especially sexual pleasure that satisfies her, from direct stimulation of her clitoris; there is also the factor that, according to various WP:Reliable sources, men are significantly less likely than women to focus on foreplay, even though, when engaging in sexual activity, foreplay is generally key for a woman's sexual arousal. I agree about the number of images, as seen, for example, in the section above, and here. Therefore, I have reduced the number of images; see here for the reduction, and here and here for further WP:Edit summary commentary on that matter. Flyer22 (talk) 15:48, 12 November 2013 (UTC)