All About the New Breed of Girlfriends With Benefits

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I was having lunch with my widowed friends from my canasta group when two women like us, in their 70s or 80s, walked by. Their arms were entwined, and they were giggling like school girls.

Our conversation came to a halt as we watched them stop walking and kiss each other.

“Aren’t they a bit old to be behaving like this?” Dorothy said.

“I don’t think so,” Lillian said. “Did you see how they looked at each other, with such love? ... I’ll tell you a secret. In all the years I was married, I never felt that kind of love. As a matter of fact, I get more love and attention from you gals than I ever did from my late husband, rest his soul.”

“Do you think they’re lesbians?” Beth whispered the word lesbian.

“I don’t care if they are,” Lillian said. “After losing Charlie I’ve been rethinking my marriage. It was pretty dull, boring. I suddenly have the freedom to explore my own desires and I’m realizing that I have other options besides the traditional male/female relationship.”

Her confession did not surprise me. I’ve interviewed more than 100 women for my book Married Women Who Love Women and More. I found that nearly all of my sources agreed that women have always been physically comfortable with one another: touching, hugging, walking with arms linked. We understand each other. So there isn’t a huge leap for best friends to move on to more intimate relationships — and some, like me, get to have it both ways.

Although some people believe that I have remained in my heterosexual marriage for the privilege and perks that come with it, being married to a man and being a lesbian is not easy. I have remained wed because I have a deep love and a tremendous respect for this man who accepts and loves me knowing who I am. I am “out” to my family, and open and honest about my redefined marital situation so as not to send any wrong messages.

Alana and Susan, old friends of mine, have been in a same-sex relationship since the 1970s. Although very much in love, fear of being rejected by their families or losing their jobs, or their apartment, kept them closeted. Only a few close friends knew of their secret lives.

“There was a time early on when it wasn’t safe for us to travel alone,” Alana recalls. “So we traveled with a couple of our gay men friends. We served as shills for each other. Then, as the climate changed and same-sex couples became more accepted, we slowly began to come out. Traveling openly as two older women who love each other was the very best. And, in 2015, when the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage, we made ours official.”

Some, like Alana and Susan, knew they’d always been attracted to women, but most of us in our 70s and 80s were taught that “nice girls” married. Period. So many did and kept their feelings and needs repressed. Others totally believed that they were heterosexual — until they fell in love with another woman.

Marina and Jackie were two such women. Previously married to men, neither woman had an inkling that they might have intimate feelings for another woman. But the more they got to know each other, they became fast friends and eventually lovers.

Younger women have been increasingly experimenting with same-sex relationships. (They use the term GUG — gay until graduation.) But according to Dr. Elizabeth Gordon, a sexual health psychiatrist, “Older women may have had less exposure to sex positivity and comprehensive sex education so it might have taken longer for some to figure out and then act on what they want.”

For women of my generation, born between the mid-1920s and early 1940s, it is often a major life transition, such as divorce, widowhood or retirement, that prompts us to reevaluate our relationships and seek new connections. These transitions may lead us to explore same-sex relationships. The ratio of women to men is growing further apart as women are living longer than their husbands. This is another reason that we are beginning to rely more on our women friends for friendship and comfort, and for some, sexual fulfillment.

So, it’s no wonder that the term "Late-onset Lesbianism" is becoming more common.

“It is now a less terrifying option but it is still not without its terrors,” notes psychoanalyst Eve Watson. “For women who have had a very hetero-normative life, and an identity within a community as someone married to a man, with children, it is very difficult to introduce something different to that. A person’s world can be turned upside down through the realization that their long-held beliefs about themselves — beliefs that allowed them to fit in and get approval from a community — have to change.”

Some women have been raised with so much negativity that they can’t even fathom the idea that two women could be intimate — until they come to terms with their own sexuality.

I was teaching a writing course and referred to the emergence of women and women intimacy, and one student stood up and said, “That whole thing is disgusting,” and walked out.

Several years later, I was approached by two women, arms around each other. “Do you remember me?” one asked. “I was in your class and said the idea of two women together was disgusting.” She smiled and added: “I just want you to know, I’m living with this woman now.”

Jessica, another friend, was busy being a wife and mother. She said, “I had little time to think about myself, or being gay or straight until my children went off to college. Then I took some women’s studies courses. I fell in love with my female instructor and I knew, right then, that I was a lesbian."

By the way, Lillian and Dorothy just showed up for our Canasta game — together. I can see from their glowing faces that something has changed about their friendship. As for me, this past January, my husband and I celebrated our 60th wedding anniversary. And I’ve had the same special girlfriends for more than a decade.

 
Have you noticed that women increasingly are turning to other women for more than just friendship? Let us know in the comments below.