u/DotAltruistic5757

I haven't had sex with anyone in 4 years. Before that (when I thought I was bi) I had a few hookups with women where I went down on them. Otherwise just foreplay with grinding/stimulation.

Now as a lesbian no longer in denial, I want to get back into dating but I’m scared because:

1. I used to be an alcoholic and only had sex when drunk - both with men and women. I don’t even know if I was really that good for the women. I’m very open to feedback though and believe in listening to my partner to know what she likes. But yeah, I really don’t think I’m actually good and it’s been so many years (and now I’m sober). I also don’t personally like it performed on me bc I’m insanely ticklish and can’t relax, but I do like alternative things (big fan of toys/grinding) and feel like I’m just at a disadvantage.

2. I like my nails :( I really do. I file them so they’re oval/round shaped and I swear I’m good with my finger pads but it just seems like that became an automatic no for a lot of lesbians.

And I just don’t know enough about wlw sex outside of my drunken experiences. I know what I fantasize about and what I like personally, but I’m scared about being bad at reciprocating. Are there any toys or products that can be helpful if you’re not the most skilled yet?

Sorry if this post seems weird I really am just in my head about dating after being celibate for so long.

I clung to the title “bisexual” for years and years, but even back in high school at parties I’d leave my bf to go make out with other girls (and in private, not in public for spectacle or male attention). The bf was cool with it btw, don’t come for me. I just thought it was normal that every guys gf was a little gay.

I did really love my one and only serious adult bf, but not in like a romantic way but also not platonically? So I was convinced “okay I’m bi then” but then I would break up with him every other month bc something just was not clicking and I was so frustrated that I couldn’t figure out what. I thought the problem was just me and that I was incapable of being a good partner, that I was just a toxic pos. But like I said, I really had love in that relationship, but it just wasn’t the right love and I knew it wasn’t supposed to feel like this.

Anyways, we broke up 5 years ago and the last time I hooked up with a guy was almost 4 years ago and it was just so bad and I realize I genuinely never enjoyed sex with men. I did with my ex but I would still find myself sometimes closing my eyes and imagining women during it. I think I just felt safe/comfortable but it just….faded away.

Like I do fully believe I was bisexual at that point, I don’t necessarily think I was gay and in denial. But as the past few years have progressed and I’ve given up alcohol and gone to therapy and just done a lot of self-discovery I realize I cannot picture a future with a man. I cannot seem to connect with them emotionally outside of friendship. I am not attracted to them physically even when I can recognize they are objectively attractive men and great for them but it still just does nothing for me sexually. I just think “if they were a woman they’d be hot.”

To be clear, yes I have been with women physically so I have an actual metric to compare it to and my god is it so different. But I still clung to “bisexual” idfk why. I felt so scared to admit I was gay bc remember, at one point in time years and years ago I really was bisexual and did have sexual and romantic attraction to both. But once that frontal lobe developed something really shifted. Sexuality really is fluid and really can change. But a huge change in your identity like that is scary. And I didn’t like thinking that I didn’t know myself or that I’d even deceived myself. I‘m wording this poorly but it was a big internal conflict of me vs me.

Anyways, I finally stopped pushing back and just let my walls down these past few days and accepted who I am. And you know what? I’m no longer mad at myself for “deceiving” me. I’m so happy the real her is able to breathe. No more comphet shackles and self-frustration because something feels wrong. Tbh not touching a man in 4 years and genuinely having zero desire to ever again should’ve been my big red flag. Or orange pink and white flag.

Before anyone states the very obvious:

- yes, TV is fiction and not historically accurate

- yes, it glamorizes the past

I am aware of all of this and more. But it still makes me yearn for the past because all of history, from the Greeks to the Romans to the Vikings to Medieval Europe to the Renaissance and so on was full of people with drive, passion, ambition.

We just don’t have that anymore. Being nonchalant is the default and we enjoy our cush modern lives and creature comforts. It’s so hard for me to be attracted to people in todays day and age because the closest you get to ambitious empire builders are tech bros or day traders in Patagonia vests sipping on kombucha. I don’t know why it‘s a faux pas to admit to being attracted to power but I am lmao idgaf. Passion, ambition, drive, self-generated power (not the same as seeking external validation), a mythic attitude about destiny and legacy, all of that is worth the high risks, short lives, and stakes in everything you do.

I’m also a history nerd and I don’t just base this off TV where it’s made to look sexy and appealing. Even just reading accounts from historians of that era draws me in. Eleanor of Aquitane or Isabella the She-Wolf of France - what epic stories. And again - yes I’m aware of the difference in being nobility of royalty vs being the every day peasant. My overall point still stands.

Everything is beige bureaucracy nowadays and ambition outside of technology is frowned upon if not mostly non-existent. The world just feels so boring and passionless. Anyways this was just a vent so again please no lectures. Would love to hear if you feel the same or even what period in time you would live in if you could travel back in time.

I’m only about 15 years too late to this show but I cannot imagine this got canceled, especially during the period it was being made in. Game of Thrones, Reign, Marco Polo - I feel like period pieces were incredibly trendy for TV then.

Perhaps the issue was the transition to streaming? Yet GOT managed to survive that. I just don’t understand, it’s a very compelling show. The acting is nuanced and grounded, some margin for error - sure - but it’s made up for with Jeremy Irons and an exceptional script. This show has some of my top favorite dialogues, and each character feels as though they are a lived in, 360 degree person.

The pacing, the lighting, the costumes, the sets, it’s all incredible. I truly appreciate the costume accuracy, even if show runners still aren’t brave enough to put men in period accurate breeches and stockings, opting for unrealistic leather pants instead.

While I have my own quarrels with the unnecessary addition of incest (which most alleged “incest” in history comes from rumors spread by figure’s enemies to make them look like gross, sexual deviants and was not a common occurrence as people online like to joke about but rather constantly marred women who were casualties caught in the crossfire -Lucrezia deserved better than that shitty untrue legacy) it at least does not get played as gratuitously as it is in GOT/HOTD. It reaffirms how “only a Borgia can love a Borgia” and creates this sense of this family against the world. Still, wish Lucrezia got better.

I saw people say the show was too expensive, yet it doesn’t even use CGI/heavy VFX like Stranger Things or GOT. I just cannot imagine such a show would get canceled, especially 3 seasons in. What a shame. It deserved a longer run.