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[–]millicentfawcett 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I either watched or read something a while back that featured a women who I think was a founding member of the GLF or Stonewall (maybe both?). She's not very high profile compared to the founding men but she is currently a TRA. She was talking about HIV and the lack of acknowledgement that lesbians in the community were at risk because some of them slept with gay men. It was a very old interview so she meant lesbians in the true sense and she was referencing the height of the AIDs crisis. It's the only time I've heard someone bring that up and I don't know how true it is, she inferred that it was taboo but more common place that people realised.

I wonder if that is the sort of thinking behind the statement or at least part of it? I can't remember where it was to link to but it stuck in my mind because the idea of gay men and lesbian women having sex with each other out of comfort or convenience hadn't ever occurred to me. I wasn't an adult in the 80s/90s and I don't move in those circles so I still don't know what to make of it.

[–]PatsyStoneMaverique 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

There have always been lavender marriages and bearding relationships. Not sure how common they were by the 80s. My thought would be that they mostly happened in subcultures: Mormons, Evangelicals, ethnic communities, Muslims, etc.

If you add up a couple of marriages and fake relationships from each conservative subculture in a large city you can start to reach dozens and dozens of couples. If there are fifty lesbians in NYC in the 90s sleeping with gay men- there's your transmission risk.

I honestly don't believe that, though. I wasn't alive then so who knows.

[–]millicentfawcett 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'm familiar with lavender marriages and bearding but I got the impression she was talking more about a 'friends with benefits' type situation. As you say though, who knows? I have no way of verifying what's true or isn't.

[–]Preachy_Jerk 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

the idea of gay men and lesbian women having sex with each other out of comfort or convenience

This is anecdotal but from what I've read, quaaludes were extremely popular back then, and many people find that they make you insatiably horny and willing to try anything. I can't remember where, but I've definitely read an account by a gay guy who would have sex with his female FWB when, and only when he was under the influence of methaqualone.

I can also imagine that everyone was a lot more sexually open in the 1970s, when it seemed like most STIs were curable with antibiotics.

Dang, now I want to go on the dark web and get some quaaludes.