Are Gay Men from Venus and Lesbians from Mars?

One of my lesbian friends recently had some domestic drama. It included a love triangle, domestic violence, psychosis and lots of broken furniture. This is not uncommon as, in my experience, lesbians equals drama! Not being a lesbian myself off course, I sometimes struggle to understand them. Apart from the obvious anatomical difference between gay men and women, we also have some other fundamental difference when it comes to relationships, our behaviour and reactions which leave me with the question: Are Gay Men from Venus and Lesbians from Mars?

The first fundamental difference, I have noticed, is our approach to relationships. Gay men are primarily driven by sex. We are motivated by sex (whether we want to admit it or not) and a relationship sometimes develop as a byproduct. Physical needs and attraction most times supersedes the emotional components required for a relationship during the initial stages of the gay male cortship ritual. Lesbians, on the other hand, seek an emotional bond first then companionship and then sex. I have also realized that most lesbians find emotional baggage sexy and emotional drama is their pornography of choice.

A lesbian couple can complete a full relationship cycle in a very short time span and their relationships can be categorized into 2 phases. Lesbians can fall in love, have a deep emotional bond, drift apart and then break up all in less than a month. This qualifies as phase 1 of a lesbian relationship. After a lesbian couple breaks up that is never the end of the story but always the beginning of the theatrics which constitutes phase 2. I have found that lesbian have a problem with letting go. It could be due to sentimentality or pure obsession. After a break up they always appear to have the queer response of wanting the other person back. They react like predators in the wild focused on achieving their goal and always seem to loose sight of the reasons the relationship ended in the first place. Many times they end up back in the toxic waste land they previously found themselves and get stuck in a meaningless orbit until the next emotional magnet with bagage pulls them into a new one.
The second fundamental difference is our approaches to the roles we are assigned in our relationships. Gay men can be divided into butch or femme and a bottom or a top. Being butch or femme does not necessarily predetermine your sexual role when it comes to gay men. Gay men are also less strict on adhering to these roles in our relationships, as for the most part gay relationships are viewed as equal partnerships with the traditional gender assigned functions divided between the two men. In lesbian relationships the butch-femme roles however is strictly divined and adhered too. Not being familiar with lesbian sex, I am not sure whether they have a “top” or a “bottom”. Finding two butch lesbians in a relationship is as scarce as the dodo. However, I have seen two femme lesbians together, but that is rare too. Furthermore the unwritten rules and intricacies in the lesbian community and their relationships are worse than that enforced at formal diplomatic functions. One lapse of protocol or ungracious transgression of etiquette could culminate with you waking up on the floor surrounded by pieces of broken bear bottles, which leads me to my next fundamental difference - violence!

Some lesbians can be violent and volatile. In all the gay bars and clubs I have ever been, you can always tell which toilets are frequented by our butch sisters - it’s the ones with the broken mirrors. I don’t know why lesbians don’t like mirrors but when ever they get angry it’s always the mirrors or the doors that suffers their rage. Gay men rarely resort to physical violence to vent our anger or to resolve problems, we prefer using words - we’d rather be bitchy than brutal. When a lesbian gets angry and she is at your house be sure that grandma’s porcelain and china is well hidden. The fundamental difference here is that lesbian’s gets destructive when their tempers flare up. I’ve seen them break things, scratch things, beat things and each other and even the odd spot of arson. Maybe it’s because gay men are more rational when it comes to dealing with our anger and lesbians tends to be more impulsive, but never the less when an angry lesbian storms my way I tend to get out of her way. It really is true that hell has no fury like a woman scorned, but who ever said that clearly never had any dealings with a lesbian with a broken heart and a vindictive mind. The last fundamental difference, I would like to highlight, is the total lack and disregard for fashion of lesbians. Why do most lesbians insist on looking like lumberjacks? Lesbians outfit of choice appears to be a pair of pants (usually jeans), a T-shirt or flannel shirt and shoes or boots with platforms that could make any engineer stare with envy. God forbid you’ll ever find one in a dress wearing a proper bra! That being said I have seen many lesbians in very fashionable pant suits but they are in the minority. I am not sure whether lesbians do not care how they present themselves or rather just opt for comfort over fashion, but they have a distinct lack of fashion that appears to have become a long lived tradition. Whether it is short hair for the more butch lesbians and long hair for the more femme, please take a tip from your gay brothers and embrace current fashion trends.

It has been hypothesised that gay men have more inherited feminine qualities (Venus) and lesbians more of the masculine (Mars), hence the differences in our approache in dealing with a variety of issues. At times it can appear as if we hail from different planets and that our orbits intercept intermediately. No matter our differences, we are still part of the same diverse community and family under the same fabulous rainbow. Even though I do not always understand my lesbian sisters it sure is fun to have them around, even though some of them scare the hell out of me!

Till next time.

Elvira Kurt - Just For Laughs - 2002