Lesbian chimps? How do they 'do it'. I have a hard time imagining two monkeys eating each other out (and I'm pretty good about things like that).

@2
Then you clearly have never seen any documentary bout Bonobos. They have oral sex all the time in all possible variations.
And they engage in mutual masturbation too if my memory serves me correctly.

As someone who is currently dating a "het-curious lesbian", I have to raise a question for the gay/les community at large. Why does it matter? I notice the gay community, her female gay friends specificly, seeming almost enraged by it at times and often offended at least. Even the direction of Savage's views on the subject seem judgemental and hostile. Your friends are happy, shouldn't that be enough without having to be upset they cast off one label for another? In the end aren't labels really just words anyway?

For a community so adamant on social openmindedness, this seems to me an extremely close minded attitude to have. Why the great hypocracy? When two people find love for one another it should be applauded, not judged.

As someone who is currently dating a "het-curious lesbian", I have to raise a question for the gay/les community at large. Why does it matter? I notice the gay community, her female gay friends specificly, seeming almost enraged by it at times and often offended at least. Even the direction of Savage's views on the subject seem judgemental and hostile. Your friends are happy, shouldn't that be enough without having to be upset they cast off one label for another? In the end aren't labels really just words anyway?

For a community so adamant on social openmindedness, this seems to me an extremely close minded attitude to have. Why the great hypocracy? When two people find love for one another it should be applauded, not judged.

@ 4 (&5): Can you please point out where D Savage is "judging" lesbians who switch to guys? Saying that being a dyke is "easily shrugged off" relative to being a gay man is only a judgmental thing to say if the speaker believes that it is a virtue to stay sexually consistent throughout one's life. I'm pretty sure D Savage doesn't feel this way. He's just making an observation and wondering aloud about it, so don't lump him in with your ladies' dyke friends/ex-friends.

Speaking of those women, even assuming that the anger some lesbians feel towards "ex"-lesbians (and probably their men, as well)is unjustified, is it really that hard for you to understand its basis? Ever ask any of them about it?

As to labels; they may be "just words" when others place them on us, but when we place them on ourselves (as in: "I am a lesbian"), they can be more than just words, they can be important parts of our identities. When a person decides to "cast off" an identity, that's not going to go unnoticed, Loadstone, even if it might be more convenient for you if it did.

You ask: "why does it matter?" This question implies that you think it doesn't matter if a dyke switches to guys, but "doesn't matter" can mean different things. It can mean "I accept this and wish others did as well" (which is how I think you probably feel), but it can also mean "this has absolutely no significance whatsoever" (which is how you are probably just pretending to feel). You can accept the fact that your woman has gone through an identity change while also recognizing that this change matters.

Well, that seems to be true for gay women but not true for gay men.

Well, that seems to be true for gay women but not true for gay men.

@kungfujew

There are plenty of gay men who scorn and shun "out" bisexual men. Likewise, when asked they'll admit that they feel that bisexual men are trying to have their cake and eat it to, or that bisexual men are adding fuel to the "Pray the Gay Away" faction of their religio-political enemies, and that's without going into the fact that there are plenty of marriage/life partnership-minded homosexuals of both sexes who believe that bisexuals aren't marriage material due to their desire to enjoy the attentions of both sexes. For a potentially monogamous gay man, a man who likes to eat pussy on weekends is just as abhorrent as a woman who needs bio-cock during her period would be to a lesbian, and that's why you're able to find such fervent anti-"ex-gay/lesbian" detractors on both sides of the gender divide.

Who thinks this is exclusive to women? There are plenty of guys that queer out and end up marrying women. It's just kept way more secret because it's less socially acceptable for guys to be bisexual.

This is more a cultural aberration than an actual social phenomenon.

It would be fun to throw a party where gay people could complain about bisexuals, black girls bitch about blondes, jewish girls whine about shiksas, and the "nice" guys could complain about the "jerks."

Then a whole party full of available people could bitch about having no one to date.

I personally think that 5-10% of people are heterosexual, and 5-10% of people are homosexual, and that leaves me some wiggle room with the other 80-90%.

Now if only I could find the right grrrrl. I like them mentally butch, but physically femme. I find the opposite, much more often, here in the NW.

As a postscript, I am quite sure that my father was bisexual until he married my mother. 20 years of that will make ANY man gay. And it did.

I saw a special on bonobos. They don't have nearly as much fun as you might think. Each instance of sex only lasts 8 seconds. (No foreplay, no nothing but an 8-second hump.) Sure they might do it several times throughout the day but 8 seconds? Nah, I'd rather be a human. Oh, look...I got my wish!

In the old days sex was simple, you have a guy, a gal, they fuck, and nobody ever ever talks about it.

In the last 100 years we have learned that sex and gender identity are far more complex than this simple model. What we don't know about sex and gender is probably still much larger than what we do.

I believe men and women are wired differently for sex, attraction, curiosity, arousal, etc. The neurological differences probably explain why many (most) gay identified men will never become curious about het sex, whereas lesbians sometimes do.

Who cares? Well if you are battling assholes who try to tell us that gay is a choice and we can change if we only beg Jesus, then we want to be very clear that at least for some gay people, gay is not a choice and there is no question of 'changing' .

@ 10:

"There are plenty of gay men who scorn and shun 'out' bisexual men."

OK. I wrote out of ignorance. However, I think an unspoken sub-text of what Dan S is saying here is that these "ex lesbians" are actually sexually attracted to their current men, whereas "formerly gay" guys who have long-term monogamous relationships with women (a better equivalent here than out bi guys) are just repressing their gayness.

If this is correct, then while the shunning of "formerly gay" men and women may appear similar, the legitimacy of the skepticism involved may vary between the men and women targeted.