Lesbian Fantasy Rape

Lesbian Fantasy Rape
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There's a reason they're called fantasies — it's because you're thinking about things you might not necessarily try in real life. A sex therapist explains what this fantasy means.
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Vanessa Marin is a licensed psychotherapist and writer with over 20 years of experience specializing in sex therapy. Her goal as a coach and as a journalist: To help you stop feeling embarrassed and start having way more fun in the bedroom. She studied human sexuality at Brown University and has been... Read more
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Sex should be fun, but it can also be complicated. Welcome to Sexual Resolution , a biweekly column by sex therapist Vanessa Marin answering your most confidential questions to help you achieve a healthy, joyful sex life. Here, she answers a question about fantasizing about someone who is not your partner.
DEAR VANESSA: During sex with my boyfriend, I often catch myself fantasizing about other people. It feels uncomfortable, and want to understand why I keep doing it. There’s also one other detail that is hard for me to admit — I often fantasize about other women . I am straight and have no interest in hooking up with a woman in real life, so I really don’t understand why I think about women so often. Help! - Can’t Stop Fantasizing, 22
DEAR CSF: Most people feel some amount of discomfort or confusion about their fantasies, so let me start by addressing fantasizing in general: it’s perfectly normal, common, and healthy. All that it really means is picturing a sexual scenario in your head. It creates a different kind of stimulation at the moment and a lot of people really enjoy that extra stimulation. It’s also important to recognize that it’s common and normal to fantasize about things that you wouldn’t necessarily want to try in real life.
Sometimes that’s why fantasizing is so fun — because you know you would never do that thing in your real life. The same thing is true about non-sexual fantasies too, like dreaming about being a celebrity , even if you know you could never deal with the paparazzi, harassment on social media, and constant pressure. So the fact that you fantasize about women but don’t want to be with a woman in real life is totally fine. It’s also one of the most common fantasies women have. (That being said, if you ever felt curious about hooking up with another woman, you should also know that that’s perfectly normal and healthy. If you find yourself having a hard time allowing yourself to be attracted to other genders, it may be something to check in about with a sex therapist or counselor.)
When it comes to fantasizing about someone else when you’re with a partner, there are a couple of key questions you could ask yourself.
First, when you’re fantasizing, are you truly wanting something different at that moment, either from yourself or from your partner? For example, maybe your partner is going really hard and fast and you start fantasizing about someone touching you much more slowly and gently. Fantasizing at that moment may be a way that you’re circumventing asking for what you need or want from your partner. Maybe you feel too nervous or self-conscious to give feedback or make a request of your partner. If that’s the case, I definitely encourage you to speak up more when you’re with your partner.
The second question to consider is whether or not your fantasy is pulling you away from being with your partner in the way you want to show up at that moment. Try to get a sense of how fantasizing affects your ability to be present. Does your fantasy feel like it’s just a little scene that you’re watching in the background, or does it feel like it captures your full attention and pulls you out of the moment with your boyfriend?
Then, think about how that relates to the kind of sex that you want to be having. For example, if you and your boyfriend are still pretty casual, and sex is light and fun, it’s not a big deal to escape into a fantasy for a little while. But if you and your partner are having really meaningful, intimate sex , are you able to show up in the way that you want to show up while you’re also fantasizing? Or does fantasizing get in the way? I want to be clear that there are no judgments here; it just boils down to you being honest about the kind of sex you want to have , and whether or not fantasizing about someone else prevents you from getting there.
Fantasizing is normal and healthy, the important thing is that we're honest about how it impacts our real-world sex life.
If you find that your fantasies are often distracting, there are a few things that you can do. First, what about fantasizing about your boyfriend? Most people don’t think to give their partners a starring role in their own fantasies, but it can be surprisingly fun. It can allow you to still get that powerful mental stimulation while also helping you create the kind of intimacy you want to create with your partner. If you find that you often get really into the visual element of your fantasies, you can try paying more attention to the real-life visuals in the moment. Try having sex with the lights on, or watching your bodies as they move together. If fantasizing is usually a good way to keep your overactive mind at bay, you can also try practicing mindfulness or meditation , to learn how to stay more mentally present in the moment.
Want to learn more about fantasizing? Check out Justin Lehmiller’s great book about his research on fantasizing, Tell Me What You Want . No matter what happens, though, rest assured that you're not the only one with these types of fantasies. The bottom line: Fantasizing is normal and healthy, the important thing is that we're honest about how it impacts our real-world sex life.
Catch up on Sexual Resolution's latest columns:
Now check out 100 years of periods:
Vanessa Marin is a licensed sex therapist based in Los Angeles. You can find her on Twitter , Instagram , and her website .
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Seamus Duff Friday 18 Nov 2016 9:49 am

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Britney Spears has unveiled the music video for her remixed duet single Slumber Party.
The legendary 34-year-old pop princess has drafted in 23-year-old pop beauty Tinashe to create a sleepover of dreams.
Fire breathing, bubbles and lingerie are the order of the day in the lavish new music video – and then things turn a tad titillating.
Brit and Tinashe amp up the raunch as they tease sexy kisses and lay beside each other provocatively creating a fantasy scenario some music fans ‘didn’t know I needed.’
Indeed, Twitter became awash with comments from some fans who joked that their inner lesbian had been awoken by the saucy video.
Within seconds, Britney devotees were declaring they would ‘turn lesbian’ for the singer – among other comments:
This is the lesbian fantasy I didn't know I needed.
Guess what who would become a lesbian for @britneyspears ??? 🙋🏻🙋🏻🙋🏻🙋🏻🙋🏻🙋🏻🙋🏻🙋🏻🙋🏻🙋🏻🙋🏻🙋🏻🙋🏻 #SlumberParty
The colours, the dancing, the MILK, the lesbian realness I am going into cardiac arrest @britneyspears #SlumberParty
The track is taken from Britney’s recent UK Number 2 selling album Glory – which also includes the track Make Me.
Britney is due to appear on Children In Need tonight to help fundraise for the BBC charity in a special pre-recorded segment.

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We know rape is a national crisis—but we're missing one glaring side of the story.
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Alaina was 18 in March of 2012, a college freshman in the middle of spring break. She was visiting her friend at an Ivy League school for the weekend, bag packed with her favorite dress: a cotton rainbow halter that she had helped design.
The following night, Alaina's friend hosted a party in her dorm. Other freshmen arrived early to get ready and put on makeup—"nerdy outcast" types, Alaina remembers of the tightknit group who were all acquainted with her host. Alcohol and Coca-Cola had been bought for mixing, but Alaina opted just for the Coke; she didn't feel like drinking that night.
The party sprawled into two other adjacent dorm rooms, and suddenly Alaina felt her vision begin to blur. By 10 p.m., she'd lost the ability to speak coherently—her thoughts started to fade along with her control over her body. By midnight, she remembers being led into an empty dorm room down the hall. There, drugged and nearly unconscious, she was raped.
"I tried to repress it," she says of the memory that plagued her when she went home the next day. "I pretended it was a bad dream."
For five months, she didn't tell anyone about the assault, trying to focus on getting through her classes despite recurring nightmares. But after rumors started to circulate about what had happened that night—and after, horrifyingly, a video surfaced that her attacker had taken as "proof" of their encounter—Alaina had had enough. She found the number for campus security online, took a deep breath, and dialed.
Alaina explained to the officer who answered that she had been sexually assaulted by a current student—that she'd been drugged, choked, and penetrated by her assailant's fingers as she faded in and out of consciousness one night five months ago.
"The officer who spoke with me didn't even think to ask the gender of my assailant until I gave her the name," she remembers. "A girl's name."
Sexual assault is perceived as a straight issue, perpetrated by men against women. Thanks in part to the battered women's movement of the 1980s and the growing awareness of the current rape culture in the United States—from assaults on college campuses to abuse within relationships—we've been hearing a predominantly heterosexual story. But there's a scenario that, while less frequent, is no less damaging to the victims it claims: rape between women.
The issue's lack of national attention means that data is slim, but a 2005 survey by the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault (opens in new tab) (CALCASA) concluded that one in three lesbian-identified participants had been sexually assaulted by a woman, and one in four had experienced violence within a lesbian relationship. Eight years later, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conducted the first-ever national survey of intimate partner violence (opens in new tab) by sexual orientation and discovered that lesbians (and gay men) experience equal or higher rates of partner violence than the straight-identified population.
Stephanie Trilling, manager of community awareness and prevention services at the Boston Area Rape Crisis (BARCC), observes that for her queer female clients who have been assaulted by women, the first hurdle is simply understanding the assault as rape. Since this scenario is rarely portrayed in the media or in educational programming, "it can be especially challenging to identify their experience as violence," she says. "Many people have a difficult time believing that a woman could be capable of inflicting violence on another person."
These gender norms can directly contribute to distrust of a victim's claims, says Lisa Langenderfer-Magruder, co-author of a recent study of LGBTQ intimate partner violence (opens in new tab) in Colorado. "When someone is confronted with a situation that doesn't quite fit that major narrative, they may question its validity," she says. All of this amounts to a culture in which most research on partner violence focuses on heterosexual relationships. "So, in some ways, we're playing catch up."
Survivors are trapped in a cycle that delegitimizes their experience: first by downplaying the likelihood that it could happen at all, then by not validating it once it happens, and finally by not analyzing the data—and therefore creating awareness—after it does.
Woman-on-woman assault doesn't just happen on college campuses or at the hands of strangers—just like their straight counterparts, queer women often experience sexual assault within relationships. Not that they have the same protections. All states passed laws against marital rape by 1993 (with some exceptions per state), but while some of the legal language employs the gender-neutral "spouse" to explain assaults within a marriage, other states, like Alabama (opens in new tab) and California (opens in new tab) , default to "wife" for victim and "husband" for attacker. The implication is that rape only occurs in heterosexual marriages or long-term partnerships—which is, of course, not the case.
Sarah, 32, and her girlfriend had been dating long-distance for about a year—Sarah in California, her partner in North Carolina—when they decided they wanted to live together. Her partner was "very kind and very loving" before they moved in, Sarah says. But when after they'd hauled the final box into Sarah's Oakland apartment, Sarah learned that her new live-in girlfriend suffered from bipolar disorder, and had a terrible temper. She became increasingly demanding and physically aggressive when Sarah would disagree with her, particularly about money. The relationship started to feel like a rollercoaster, with extreme highs and lows.
"At first, the sex was good," says Sarah. "But she always wanted more than what I could give. One day she came home with a strap-on; if I loved her, she said, I would allow her to use it." Sarah wasn't interested. "It was just something that I didn't like and didn't want," she says. She declined for months, her partner repeatedly pressuring her, until one night, Sarah's partner assaulted her with the strap-on. "Even though I was crying the whole time, she never stopped," Sarah recalls.
Sarah left their home that night and sat crying in her car. As a child, she had been repeatedly sexually abused by an uncle —this assault felt just as violating. But she still wasn't sure if she would call it rape. "Because we were together, I thought that she had the right to have sex with me the way she wanted," Sarah explains.
For the next six months, Sarah's partner continued to rape her. She eventually mustered up the strength to leave the relationship after her partner made a particularly controlling demand: that Sarah financially support her. When Sarah reasoned that she was unable to, her partner attempted to hit her. She fled the apartment, her partner following her outside with a knife just as she drove away.
For her freedom, Sarah paid dearly: She financed her partner's moving expenses back to North Carolina. "I had to take out a loan so that I could pay for her to relocate." She never reported the assaults, nor has she spoken to her now ex-partner since ending their relationship.
Sarah is not an outlier. "Many of our clients in same-sex relationships are very hesitant to report at all," says Caitlin Kauffman, campus and community outreach coordinator for Bay Area Women Against Rape (BAWAR)—where Sarah eventually sought counseling. The consequences of coming forward with sexual assault allegations are fraught for any sexual violence survivor. But for queer women, who already typically live, date, and make friends within a smaller network of other queer-identified women, the risks can be even more complex.
"Friend groups can become divided and the survivor may fear losing her only LGBTQ support network," Kauffman says. "This can be especially challenging for survivors who live in areas where the community is small or there is a more hostile climate towards LGBTQ people."
There are larger, cultural implications of naming a same-sex attacker. Even as LGBTQ rights are on the ascent, "there's a fear that accusing someone of assault within your community, which is already marginalized, will give society cause to fear or marginalize you further," says Trilling. Queer women's historical legacy as "deviant" is not that far behind. In a climate where more and more openly queer women are assuming public roles—and gaining acceptance in straight communities—naming one of your own isn't just interpreted as a charge on them. It's an attack on your community's hard-won progress to be seen as equal.
And then, for women who might not be "out," shame about their sexual orientation or a fear of being outted significantly hinders their ability to report. If you're closeted—or even semi-closeted—formally coming forward with sexual assault allegations could mean compromising your professional or familial relationships by revealing your orientation. (The guarantee of keeping your job as an LGBTQ American currently varies per state.) The downward economic spiral of losing one's job to report a same-sex rape that won't even be deemed legitimate is simply not worth it—literally.
Weeks passed before Ella, 25, began to confide in her friends that she had been raped. While she didn't find them to be exactly unsupportive, there was still a consistent and major hurdle: "They are oftentimes surprised when they realize it was a woman who assaulted me."
In 2015, Ella was on a lunch date with a woman she had met at a restaurant near her Berkeley apartment. After lunch, they found themselves very close to Ella's home—and she invited her d
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