The Reluctant Lesbian

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Lyte, of Shirley, West Midlands, denies five charges of unlawful sexual activity with a child. The case at Liverpool crown court continues. Most Read We didn’t even know how we became friends, let alone best friends. Attending anatomy classes together and spending long hours over big fat books inside an eerie library decorated with skeletons brings people closer. It helped that we both came from a small town and were staying in the same hostel. One day I told her how much I love drawing and would like to sketch her. She stared at me for long before agreeing to be by muse. But that came with one condition—she wanted to see me naked. She thought I wanted to draw her nude (and I didn’t correct her). We all go through phases in life when we are curious about a lot of things—a girl may be curious about the body of another girl, but that doesn’t make her a lesbian, even if they take a bath together. I never wanted to know why she wished to see me naked. We never chose that moment to step into the bathroom of a girl's hostel together. We did it because we were curious. Weeks passed before Ella, 25, began to confide in her friends that she had been raped. While she didn't find them to be exactly unsupportive, there was still a consistent and major hurdle: "They are oftentimes surprised when they realize it was a woman who assaulted me." Friend groups can become divided and the survivor may fear losing her only LGBTQ support network," Kauffman says. "This can be especially challenging for survivors who live in areas where the community is small or there is a more hostile climate towards LGBTQ people."

Set in London in the early 1960’s, The Reluctant Lesbian tells the story of Sophia, a young American woman, who moves to England after the death of her wealthy parents leaving behind a disappointed fiancé. Sophia befriends Lady Graves, a sophisticated American woman married to an influential Member of Parliament. As their friendship deepens and becomes more complicated, Sophia must decide where her future lies and with whom. Inspired by the writings of Doris Lessing and Elaine Dundy, The Reluctant Lesbian explores gender, race and sexuality on the brink of the patriarchal establishment’s decline.More information is needed at all levels—government, collegiate, and otherwise. All the experts we spoke to point to an overall dearth of research on intimate partner violence in queer female communities as the biggest obstacle in developing more accessible resources for survivors. At first, the sex was good," says Sarah. "But she always wanted more than what I could give. One day she came home with a strap-on; if I loved her, she said, I would allow her to use it." Sarah wasn't interested. "It was just something that I didn't like and didn't want," she says. She declined for months, her partner repeatedly pressuring her, until one night, Sarah's partner assaulted her with the strap-on. "Even though I was crying the whole time, she never stopped," Sarah recalls.

It just happened. Sounds like a cliché, but I never imagined that I would share a shower with my best friend. And it was weird because we were both girls, young and impressionable, who were still pursuing their dreams and education to become a doctor.Mr Mason claimed the affair had been invented by the mother, who was angry when her daughter's tennis career faltered. It's been four years since Alaina was raped and she still has no plans to pursue formal charges against her rapist. She says, unflinchingly, that she has moved on in other ways: She's chosen to change her name, and has moved to a new city where she has pursued a successful freelance writing career, often writing about sexual assault within the LGBTQ community. The teenager said: "She said if I was to say anything, she'd hurt me and she would stop my tennis completely and tell the academy to get rid of me." Defence lawyer David Mason asked the girl why she had failed to speak out after she was allegedly found in bed at her Merseyside home and even lied to police that it was a "one-off". Sarah is not an outlier. "Many of our clients in same-sex relationships are very hesitant to report at all," says Caitlin Kauffman, campus and community outreach coordinator for Bay Area Women Against Rape (BAWAR)—where Sarah eventually sought counseling. The consequences of coming forward with sexual assault allegations are fraught for any sexual violence survivor. But for queer women, who already typically live, date, and make friends within a smaller network of other queer-identified women, the risks can be even more complex. But you didn't tell anybody, you carried on, didn't you? Why did you lie to the police?" The girl, speaking via a video-link, said: "I was still terrified of what would happen. I wanted to carry on with my tennis. It was always what I wanted to do."