What ‘counts’ as lesbian sex as gay dating show sparks confused debate
One particular episode of The Ultimatum: Queer Love has sparked an interesting conversation online
It's safe to say that there are a whole load of different dating shows out there.
Whether it's Love Island, Love is Blind, Love on the Spectrum or whatever else - it's clear this specific sub-category of the reality TV genre is one of the most popular when it comes to viewers wanting a good old binge, inevitably coupled with some intense online discourse.
And one particular TV programme has recently got people talking about what actually 'counts' as lesbian sex.
On the reunion episode of The Ultimatum: Queer Love’s second season, Netflix viewers watched on as the show's contestants shared their varying definitions of what lesbian sex is.
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"With lesbians and queer people, there’s just such a broad way to say sex," contestant AJ Blount said during the episode. "Sex looks different for everybody, so what you deem as sex, I might not deem as sex."
There was some mention of key buzzword terms I'm sure many of us are familiar with now - 'touching', 'penetration' and 'oral pleasure' - with host JoAnna Garcia Swisher later asking contestant Mel Vitale if she 'had sex' with her trial wife Dayna Mathews.
"By whose definition?" Vitale replied.
And, while she may not have confirmed whether what she did with Mathews counted under her own definition of 'lesbian sex', it brought up the subject matter this season of what defines 'lesbian sex' in the first place.
Whether you've been tuning into the drama of The Ultimatum: QL or not, this particular episode epitomises the ongoing question in sapphic spaces of what exactly 'counts' as lesbian sex.
Unfortunately, we've been flooded with an avalanche of non-ethical 'examples' of lesbian sex - content which is largely filmed for and viewed by straight men.
It can, a lot of the time, have extremely narrow definitions and rely on heterosexual male fantasies rather than homosexual women's actual lived sexual experiences.
Yep, it's not just scissoring and strap-ons - there are so many ways to engage in lesbian sex.
The long and short of it is simply this, as Them - the award-winning authority on what LGBTQ+ means today - puts it so eloquently: "As long as you're a lesbian and you’re having sex (by your definition), you’re having lesbian sex."
Netflix viewers have since rushed to social media to share their thoughts on the episode, with one Reddit user writing: "Two individuals in a couple don't need to have the same definition of sex. That doesn't seem weird at all to me."
A second agreed: "It’s normal for queer people to define sex differently, including within couples. It reiterated both that we don’t know what happened with any of the (re)couples AND that one person can define an encounter as sex and their partner can see that same encounter differently. We don’t have to define sex the same way as our partners."
"Honestly even monogamous cis hetero couples who don't think to talk about it can run into the same problem," penned a third. "Everyone defines sex and cheating differently and if you haven't sat down with your partner and drawn the line, there's a decent chance they see it differently."
Another praised: "I actually love conversations about what makes sex between two women sex."
A final Reddit user echoed: "I actually quite like that they addressed this issue in this way. I think it's good, especially for hetero viewers to expand their mind."
So, there you have it, lesbian sex is anything intimate a lesbian defines as sex.
"That’s because, like all sex, what counts as sex is subjective and dependent on the person," Them brilliantly summarises.
Topics: Explained, LGBTQ, Life, Netflix, Reality TV, Reddit, Sex and Relationships, TV And Film
Rhiannon Ingle