March 30, 2016

When Women’s Friendships Turn Sexual -Part 1

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Ellen, we never saw ourselves as gay but rather as ‘Anna-sexual’ and ‘Beth-sexual*…this is how we felt about each other. We have never been in love with another woman or man in this way.”

This was the explanation one woman gave about her two-year, secret lesbian affair. Beth, in her forties and married, met Anna, a grad student who was visiting her church. Beth’s marriage to a ministry leader was, in her words, living under the same roof but being physically and emotionally divorced. With Anna, however, she experienced the deeply satisfying emotional oneness she had always craved. Since she had a significant church leadership role, no one seemed to question the intensity of her relationship with Anna. “Everyone just thought we were the best of friends and even envied our ‘connection.’”

Beth’s story contains a thread woven into the experience of many women who struggle somewhere on the spectrum of female homosexuality.1 This thread is the experience of longing for and securing what feels like an “emotional home” through connecting intensely and intimately with another woman.

Beth’s story. . . is the experience of longing for and securing what feels like an “emotional home” through connecting intensely and intimately with another woman

Beth and Anna’s description of their relationship as being “her-sexual” (to a specific woman rather than to women in general) is what I hear from many same-sex attracted women, and especially from young adult women who’ve experienced their first romantic awakening (and perhaps sexual relationship) with a woman. Many would not have previously self-identified as gay, nor would they express a sexual attraction to women in general. Rather, they are attracted to this woman.

This romanticized (sometimes sexualized) attachment grows as seeds of emotional intimacy are sown and watered, sometimes over a relatively short period. The harvest that results (a feeling of deep emotional connection) feels like “home” for a heart that is hungry and searching for a satisfying, comforting experience of being known, loved, nurtured, safe, and anchored. What feels like home emotionally leads to a sexual relationship that many are shocked to find themselves in. The sexual component that develops feels like a natural expression of the emotional haven and mutual “at-homeness” that has come to characterize the relationship. For many women, the next step of self-identifying as a gay or lesbian woman seems a logical fit.

A National Public Radio segment recounted experiences of older women who pursued their first lesbian relationship after many years of heterosexuality, which included marriage for some. Reflecting on the idea of the fluidity of female sexuality, Professor Lisa Diamond of the University of Utah commented, “It does appear that women’s erotic desires are pretty tightly linked to their emotional feelings [author’s emphasis]. And so for some of these women, they authentically did not really feel attracted to women before they met one particular woman they completely fell in love with.”2

Many women will experience at a young age significant “emotional crushes” for other girls and/or older women in their lives (educators, mentors, Sunday school teachers, and youth ministry leaders). These emotional feelings can morph into romantic desires and even sexual fantasies and usually exist alongside strong emotional cravings for verbal affection and affirmation, maternal-like nurture and nonsexual touch. As one woman said, “I didn’t have a close relationship with my mother. When, as a young woman, I connected emotionally and then physically with another woman, that sense of intimacy was overwhelming, and I didn’t want to lose it. I didn’t understand what was so powerful in the relationship, but I knew the physicality of being held and of holding another brought me to life—and I wanted more of it.”

In God’s design for sexuality, we are not meant to be sexually fluid

However, in God’s good and loving design for sexuality, we are not meant to be sexually fluid (heterosexual one day, homosexual the next, bi or pansexual or whatever later on). We are not meant to be ruled by our desires or find our truest home in another human being. God created us to live out of an increasingly devoted love for Jesus, unselfishly loving others, and giving ourselves for his purposes in the world. Our sexuality—and how we express it—is meant to be one part of who we are and how we express our “at-homeness” in Jesus Christ.

Unholy attachments (emotional and sexual) between women are attempts to mimic what we can only find in a dynamic, living relationship with Christ. The closest human expression of that is experienced in the oneness of union between a husband and a wife, even in its imperfectness. In fact, it is in the imperfection and brokenness of all human relationships that many women will move toward other women to find what no other human being (female or male) can fully and completely give.

Signs of unholy attachment

If you are a woman who is in this kind of relationship situation, or if you are someone who sees this in a friend, here are some relational dynamics that are indicators of unhealthy attachment between women.

  • Fused lives, schedules, and relational spheres. The relationship begins to feel like a marriage.
  • Exclusivity, possessiveness and a closed circle of two. Other people feel like intruders, as a threat to your harmony.
  • The relationship needs constant clarification of each person’s role in it. One woman will play the needy/weak/take-care-of-me role, and the other will be in the needing-to-be-needed/strong/caregiver role. Fear, insecurity, and jealousy are triggered when one steps out of her role.
  • Maintaining consistent emotional connection is vital. Texts, emails, calls, and time spent together grow and intensify to become life-dominating.
  • Romanticized affection through words and physical touch. Sexual involvement.

These idolatrous “emotional homes” happen between women in Christian mentoring relationships, too! When that happens, the spiritual component in the relationship adds tremendous confusion.

Do you see yourself here, or “almost here?” Do you have a friend who needs your help to move away from an unholy attachment and learn how to cling to Christ for her true home? The next blog post will give some important steps to take.

Click here for Part 2.

* Names in this article have been changed.

  1. By spectrum of female homosexuality, I’m referring to a continuum that, on one end, you find emotionally enmeshed (idolatrous) relationships that have a romantic/sensual feel to them, to the other end, where you would find a homosexual lifestyle. Female homosexuality is sometimes an experience that is ‘launched’ relationally when an emotionally dependent attachment to someone becomes sexualized. ↩︎
  2. Diamond, Lisa. “Late-Life Lesbians Reveal Fluidity of Sexuality,” NPR, All Things Considered, August 7, 2010, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129050832&sc=emaf. ↩︎

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Ellen Mary Dykas

Director of Equipping for Ministry to Women

Ellen joined Harvest USA in 2007 as our first full-time women’s ministry staff. Ellen received her MA from Covenant Theological Seminary and a graduate certificate in biblical counseling from Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation (CCEF).

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