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To All The Men Who Are “Lesbians, Too”
Your attraction to women and my attraction to women? Not the same.
We’ve all heard men say it at some point.
Wait, you like women? Me too! I guess we’re both lesbians.
Or words to that effect.
It’s intended to be comical; some use it to break the ice. Drake even rapped it towards the end of 2021.
On the surface, this might seem like nothing more than a harmless quip from a man trying to highlight a point of connection. And I’m sure it is, in most cases.
But it did get my cogs turning, especially given how much conversation is centred around the interminable complexities of romantic attraction nowadays. And also because I’m a lesbian and so are my cogs.
The truth is, attraction to women is not a universal experience that unites straight men and lesbians.
In fact, the assumption that we experience attraction towards women in the same way is not just inaccurate — it actually reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of desire itself.
Why?
Because attraction isn’t just about what you like; it’s about how you like it and why. And when you break it down into its smallest factions, you realise one thing:
Men and lesbians are not only not teammates in desire — we’re not even playing the same game.
The belief that heterosexual men and lesbians share the same kind of attraction to women isn’t just a modern-day misconception — it’s a centuries-old idea, shaped by society’s perception (and frequent dismissal) of female desire.
For most of history, mainstream culture simply didn’t take lesbian attraction seriously. In some places, it wasn’t even acknowledged — laws that criminalised homosexuality often focused solely on men, as if women simply couldn’t experience real romantic desire for each other.
The logic was simple: no man involved, no legitimacy.
This is still the case today in many developing countries, such as Nigeria. Homosexuality between men is punishable by death in some parts; and yet between women? Not valid enough to penalise at all.
