Design by Yosef Phelan

A couple of months ago, I found myself back in the minefield that is the sapphic dating scene. But as I dropped ‘Looking for something casual as I’m recently separated’ into my bio, my queer friends laughed. “Good luck with that.” 

It does seem like they kind of have a point. The first person I met on the apps also wanted a casual deal, but before we’d even met we’d made playlists for one another. And as soon as we slept together, I made her pancakes and we both teared up watching CMAT’s Tiny Desk, intertwined on my sofa. “Wow, classic lesbians,” my friend despaired during our debrief. 

Since the dawn of lesbianism, way before Chappell Roan’s lover ate her out knee-deep in the passenger seat, sapphics have been stigmatised with a supposed inability to have sex with unattached strings. And when it seems like every sapphic person on the planet is behaving like I am when it comes to so-called casual, the stereotype of the ‘U-haul lesbian’ doesn’t appear so out of line. 

Since the dawn of lesbianism, way before Chappell Roan’s lover ate her out knee-deep in the passenger seat, sapphics have been stigmatised with a supposed inability to have sex with unattached strings.

One study from 2004 and another dating back to 1994 suggest queer women want casual sex just as much as their heterosexual counterparts. That’s certainly true for Daisy, a 37-year-old singer (a pseudonym), who tells GAY TIMES: “Sapphics absolutely do want casual sex. I know I do. And probably so do all the women I’ve had casual sex with. But typically, I find that casual sex is unlocked through uncasual methods.” 

She explains that you can't simply match with another woman on an app and invite her over within minutes; sapphics “need to wine and dine”. But 29-year-old pansexual customer service manager Tilly (also a pseudonym) finds this frustrating: “When I want casual sex, I just end up with men. It’s not because I’m not interested in having casual sex with women, but I find it’s really difficult to have more anonymous, quick hookups. I don’t want to bring emotion into the bedroom all the time and it’s easier to find that with guys.”

For 35-year old talent management agency owner Bethany, past successful no-strings-attached sex has been found in polyamorous dynamics where her lovers already have a partner, or a time constraint (such as someone soon to be moving away) has kept them in a casual spot. 

But right now, she’s in a trickier situation. “With the person I’m sleeping with now, I’ve found myself becoming increasingly emotionally invested, particularly when they are going through a difficult time. I want to check in, to know how they're doing and be there for them.” In other words, she's doing that very sapphic thing of accidentally developing feelings for someone she's supposed to be keeping things casual with.

But Bethany raises an interesting question: “Why should casual sex have to mean emotional detachment in the first place? Why does casual have to be unemotional?”

“Why should casual sex have to mean emotional detachment in the first place?"

Gigi Engle, sex therapist and author of Kink Curious, isn't entirely convinced by the idea that sapphics are inherently rubbish at casual sex. She tells GAY TIMES there's some truth to the stereotype anecdotally, but says it “doesn’t really do the [LGBTQIA+] community justice to paint with broad strokes like that.” 

She adds that the stereotype likely comes from the idea that women can’t separate emotion from sex, and that they’re typically more invested in their relationships. But, also, the expectation so many of us have that casual should mean unemotional comes from heternormative relationship structures. 

“Queer relationships don’t have to be bound by quite the same scripts as heterosexual ones,” Engle explains. “Without the traditional expectations of masculinity and femininity dictating how people should behave, [sapphics] have more freedom to write their own rules. There's less pressure to play it cool.”