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 partner Nimbi FM, Tripodi F, Simonelli C, Nobre P. Sexual dysfunctional beliefs questionnaire (SDBQ): translation and psychometric properties of the Italian version. Sexologies. 2019;28(2):e11–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sexol.2018.09.003. Of all Aphra Behn’s poems, To the Fair Clarinda experiments most openly with sexuality. In this poem lesbian desire is imbued with a passion equal to, if not surpassing, heterosexual desire. Behn makes use of the image of the hermaphroditic trope to describe the intensity of the union between the two lovers, so close that they become one person: Downey JI, Friedman RC. Internalized homophobia in lesbian relationships. J Am Acad Psychoanal. 1995;23(3):435–47. Sitting in meetings with her at the prominent literary agency where we both worked left me feeling weak. Usually never short of things to say, in her presence, I’d marvel at her ability to drain all quips from my mind, leaving my mouth bone-dry. But I knew the cliché and I refused to succumb to the stereotype of being the young, ambitious 25-year-old who screws the boss.

a lot like an avatar of the late nineteenth-century Boston marriage; both social forms spiritualize female emotional bonds; both derive sustenance from women’s intellectual capacities; both arise from within the confines of feminine domesticity; both defer to class decorum in matters of the desiring body.’[98] Joyal CC, Cossette A, Lapierre V. What exactly is an unusual sexual fantasy? J Sex Med. 2015;12(2):328–40. https://doi.org/10.1111/jsm.12734. Iasenza S. Beyond “lesbian bed death”. The passion and play in lesbian relationships. f Lesbian Stud. 2002;6(1):111–20. https://doi.org/10.1300/J155v06n01_10. Lau J, Kim J, Tsui H. Prevalence and factors of sexual problems in Chinese males and females having sex with the same-sex partner in Hong-Kong: a population-based study. Int J Impot Res. 2006;1:130–40. https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ijir.3901368.Seibel S, Rosser B, Horvath K, Evans C. Sexual dysfunction, paraphilias and their relationship to childhood abuse in men who have sex with men. Int J Sex Health. 2009;21:79–86. https://doi.org/10.1080/19317610902773062. In many ways Katherine Philips and Aphra Behn polarise the difference between the women writers of the late seventeenth century. While Philips’s work was chaste, modest and built around her spiritual love for a coterie of women friends Behn’s poetry was openly sexual, transgressive and challenged notions of fixed biological sex and constructions of gender. Following the Restoration there was an ‘emergence of the explicit idea of female same sex relations in the writings of women willing to appear publically transgressive and not loath to name or play at transgression.’[125] Unlike Katherine Philips, Aphra Behn made no attempt at respectability by hiding the eroticism or sexual orientation of her poetry. Following the re-instatement of the monarchy, it is not hard to imagine how the sudden reversal of Puritan morality must have caught the mood of the public during the Restoration period. Theatres that had been closed for eighteen years re-opened. Women not only acted on stage for the first time, they acted in “breeches roles”, cross-dressing while embracing a freedom, albeit on stage, previously reserved only for men. While Aphra Behn was ‘drawn to the libertine critique of religion and morality’[126] she was concerned about the consequences for women of an ideology that ‘typically figured women as provided by nature for men’s pleasure.’[127] As Susan Staves points out: ‘[t]he treatment of female sexuality in libertine writings of the Restoration period is highly ambivalent. Even those works by male authors which consciously subvert stereotypes of male power and female passivity….. frequently present women as servants of the divine phallus.’ [128] Typical examples of poems where women exist only for men’s enjoyment are found in the work of the infamous poet John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1647 – 1680). Behn considered herself a disciple of John Wilmot: ‘The Great, the God-like Rochester/His Softness all, his Sweetness everywhere.’[129] Wilmot admits to female sexuality in his poems and even wrote from a women’s point of view. However, although women in Wilmot’s poems are idealised, they are still there purely for the pleasure of men as in his poem A Song of a Young Lady. To her Ancient Lover: Behn’s clever use of semantics suggests that she has the expectation that her readers will read her poems closely enough to decode them and understand their true meaning: William Wycherley (1641 – 1715) would clearly prefer a ‘one night stand’ to the commitment of marriage:

While Spenser uses the hermaphroditic form to describe the sexual union of Amoret and Scudamour, he is also describing ‘a golden mean between masculine and feminine forms of dominance and the consummation of an ideal Christian marriage.’[143] The idea of the hermaphrodite representing equality between men and women is something that would have undoubtedly appealed to Behn. Rosenkrantz DE, Mark KP. The sociocultural context of sexually diverse women’s sexual desire. Sex Cult. 2018;22(1):220–42. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-017-9462-6 This paper highlights the female sexual desire from a biopsychosocial perspective, discussing important factors connected to the expression of drive. Nichols M. Lesbian sexuality/female sexuality: rethinking ‘lesbian bed death’. Sex Relatsh Ther. 2004;19(4):363–71. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681990412331298036. Hirshfield S, Chiasson M, Wagmiller R, Remien R, Humberstone M, Scheinmann R, et al. Sexual dysfunction in an internet sample of U.S. men who have sex with men. J Sex Med. 2010;7:3104–14. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1743-6109.2009.01636.x. Little 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]:

Is the girl crush good news?

Drumright LN, Strathdee SA, Little SJ, Araneta MRG, Slymen DJ, Malcarne VL, et al. Unprotected anal intercourse and substance use before and after HIV diagnosis among recently HIV-infected men who have sex with men. Sex Transm Dis. 2007;34(6):401–7. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.olq.0000245959.18612.a1. Inside the 2010 EMIS survey, almost 13,000 UK MSM described what constitute the best sexual life for them [ 55]. Most of men reported a desire for sex within committed relationships, followed by the need of emotionally and intimately connected sexual experiences. Many MSM expressed a desire for variety and a high frequency of sexual activities in their lives, and some men reported gaining the most sexual and emotional satisfaction out of casual sex contexts (e.g., hook-up, one-night stand) [ 56]. Other gay men reported a high desire for adventurous and exploratory sexual experience, free from social, psychological, and physical harm [ 55]. Interestingly, older men were less likely to idealize relationships or emotional connections than younger ones. Moreover, older men were more likely to ask for the sexual practices they wanted [ 55], as a result of a greater experience and consciousness about their own sexual desire and pleasure. Cohen JN, Byers ES. Beyond lesbian bed death: enhancing our understanding of the sexuality of sexual-minority women in relationships. J Sex Res. 2014;51(8):893–903. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2013.795924. While many people still use the term lesbian sex, any LGBTQ+ person will tell you it’s outdated. Lesbian sex implies it involves two women who both identify as lesbians. We know not just women have vulvas and vaginas (some transgender and non-binary people do, too), and that not all women and people with vulvas who have sex with other women and people with vulvas identify as lesbians (they may identify as queer, bisexual, or pansexual, for example). So instead of using the term lesbian sex, we should instead be referring to it with a more inclusive term, like vulva-to-vulva sex, sex between two women or people with vulvas, or even just queer sex.

Anne Finch, Friendship between Ephelia and Ardelia, http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/180926(accessed 18 August 2015).

Read all about same-sex desire

Parsons JT, Kelly BC, Bimbi DS, DiMaria L, Wainberg ML, Morgenstern J. Explanations for the origins of sexual compulsivity among gay and bisexual men. Arch Sex Behav. 2008;37(5):817–26. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-007-9218-8.