True Secrets of Lesbian Desire: Keeping Sex Alive in Long-Term Relationships

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Researchers have tried to highlight gender differences starting from the evidence that men show higher sexual desire than women. The nature/nurture debate on this topic is still ongoing without resolution [ 8, 9]. However, researchers are moving towards a more holistic understanding of sexual functioning, recognizing the importance of similarities between genders and contemplating an in-depth analysis of interindividual variance within genders and inside the couple [ 2••]. Research on desire in sexual orientations has followed the debate-line of gender differences: early studies have tried to find scientific evidences to state that lesbian women and gay men were different and more pathological than were heterosexual people in their sexual behavior [ 10, 11]. The final element recurring through these women’s writing is evidence of linguistic epistemological indeterminacy. The seventeenth century was an age when women were primarily seen as existing only in relation to men. Therefore, for women to write about their desires, let alone their desires for other women, meant negotiating a space within the parameters of acceptability. For the women writers examined here this negotiation involved coding their language, for example within images of nature, or simply using ellipses to imply what could not be said.

Be present with your partner and take your time.’ She adds, ‘Make sure you are clear on consent. And then explore and have fun!’ Communicating with your partnerLittle is known of the poet An Collins except that she is accredited with writing a volume of poems entitled Divine Songs and Meditacions, published in 1653. In a note to the reader Collins describes an ill-health or disability that confines her to her home: ‘I have been restrained from bodily employments, suting with my disposicion, which enforce me to a retired Course of life.’[73] However, it would appear from her writing that Collins: ‘figures disablement less as an encumbrance than as an opportunity to rethink grounds of identity.’[74] Collins describes writing about divine truth as empowering, offering her tranquillity and contentment and by discussing ‘her various physical discomforts from frailty to weakness to chronic pain, … represent[s] for readers evidence of the poet’s attempts to discover the condition of her soul.’[75] The main theme of the poem is the suffering of Christian women with whichshe challenges attitudes ‘toward the body, womanhood and religious conviction.’[76] The following passage describes how withdrawing into the ‘garden’ of her mind allows Collins to write and how fruitfulness comes from writing rather than bearing children as she: ‘makes a bid for rethinking womanhood against conventional expectations’[77]: Cacioppo M, Vizzari V, Corica F, Maestri V, Simonelli C. An exploratory study on male homosexual erotic imagery. Sexologies. 2009;18(1):44–50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sexol.2007.12.007. Regarding levels of sexual desire, studies on the subject draw disparate conclusions. Lippa [ 52] and Welling [ 53] reported that MSM had lower level of sexual desire compared to heterosexual men; conversely, Holmberg and Blair [ 30] showed that gay men scored moderately higher than heterosexual men and women on different expressions of desire (solitary, inside the couple and for an attractive person). In a recent Portuguese study [ 54], gay men reported higher solitary (masturbation) and attractive person-related sexual desire compared to heterosexual men. The two groups did not differ on partner-related sexual desire within the couple. In this case, the partner-related sexual desire was the main predictor for sexual satisfaction, whereas solitary and attractive person-related sexual desire negatively predicted satisfaction. Pope M, Wierzalis EA, Barret B, Rankins M. Sexual and intimacy issues for aging gay men. Adultspan J. 2011;6(2):68–82. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2161-0029.2007.tb00033.x. Mary Wroth (1587 – 1651/3) was the first English woman to write a sonnet sequence in English, Pamphilia to Amphilanthus (1621), one of the first plays, Love’s Victory and the first English woman to have a work of fiction published, The Countess of Montgomeries Urania (1621). [62] The Countess of Montgomeries Urania is deliberately reminiscent of The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia but while Sidney’s Arcadia is about the ‘alienation of men from the idyllic world to which they have retreated,’[63] Wroth writes about the alienation of women through primogeniture and patriarchal dominance, which leads to domestic and sexual violence. The castle and royal palace in Urania ‘are spaces of incarceration and domestic abuse, prefiguring the Gothic inversion of the domestic into a space of terror, and the negative utopia.’[64] Opening with Urania discovering that the shepherds who brought her up were not her parents: ‘Of any miserie that can befall woman, is not this the most and greatest which thou are falne into? Can there be any neare the unhappiness of being ignorant, and that in the highest kind, not being certaine of my owne estate of birth?’[65] Urania’s quest to find her family origins symbolizes the quest for feminine identity: ‘[w]ithout the patriarchal parameters of “estate or birth” to define her identity, Urania must locate a separate position both from which to speak and from which to identify her kindred.’[66] By setting the adventures of the male knights alongside the spiritual quests of women, Wroth emphasizes how seventeenth-century women, however talented, were devalued and subordinate to men. While the women in Urania follow the traditions of earlier romances by relying on men, Wroth ‘redefines the traditional female figure of romance.’[67] Wroth has respect for women’s capabilities and her characters are not chaste, passive or obedient. Indeed, some of the women characters are talented hunters and fighters. Additionally: ‘Wroth changes the subject of Renaissance representations of desire through her treatment of women’s approaches to questions of identity and sexual difference, emphasizing bonds between women.’[68] Wroth is brave enough to write about women loving other women. Pamphilia and Antisia have an intense romantic relationship spanning two generations and Celina and Lady Rossalea have an amorous relationship. Also, Veralinda loves Loenius when he is cross-dressed as a woman, although in the end their love is validated because Loenius is actually a man. The characters Pamphilia and Urania articulate female desire as they: ‘forge developing conceptions of their identities based increasingly on affinities with other women rather than on social conventions of female sexuality.’[69] While Wroth paints her male characters as inconstant and unreasonable, Pamphilia, who possibly is appears to be based on Elizabeth I, is described as constant, selfless and virtuous. Moreover, like Elizabeth I, Pamphilia never officially marries,[70] but devotes herself to her people. Urania criticizes Pamphilia’s constant devotion to Amphilanthus suggesting that ‘the virtue of constancy is not absolute, but rather culturally constructed.’[71] While accepting that most women in the seventeenth century were dependent upon men, Wroth clearly considered that marriage was more for the benefit of family and politics than women. In the work of both Wroth and Lanyer the female communities they write about ‘promote a naturally feminocentric (and courtly) society based on virtue, constancy, female friendship and companionate marriages.’[72]

The literature has highlighted a similar constellation of factors influencing sexual desire for both heterosexual and lesbian women such as depressive symptoms, relationship satisfaction, sexual functioning, and social support [ 31]. However, some studies highlighted unique sociocultural factors that may influence lesbian sexual desire [ 17••]. For example, lesbian women reported diminished sexual desire related to sexual discrimination, minority stress, internalized homophobia, religious perceptions of sexuality as a taboo, sociocultural pressures to conform to heteronormativity, and stronger gender roles expectations [ 17••, 31]. Sexual cognitions such as “age-related beliefs,” “sexual desire as a sin,” “conservative attitudes,” and “affection primacy” were frequently reported in lesbian women with sexual desire problems [ 33, 40]. Additionally, Paine et al. [ 41•] suggested that sexual activity and desire may diminish due to health, aging, and family events in both lesbian and heterosexual women. In lesbian women, these authors additionally emphasized the negative role of weight gain, caregiving for adult parents, and dealing with menopause together with their partner [ 41•]. However, lesbian women also described an increase in sexual drive as a result of experiencing cultural openness towards sexual diversity, having access to safer and more visible spaces, and having partners that challenged heteronormative and stereotypic gender expectations [ 17••]. Sexual FantasiesPeixoto MM, Nobre P. Dysfunctional sexual beliefs: a comparative study of heterosexual men and women, gay men, and lesbian women with and without sexual problems. J Sex Med. 2014;11(11):2690–700. https://doi.org/10.1111/jsm.12666.