• ELIXHER
• On June 5, 2013

ELIXHER founder and editor-in-chief Kimberley McLeod reflects on opening up to her mom and debunking myths about “lesbian sex”:

From music videos to movies, myths around same-sex relationships and intimacy are as overplayed as Beyoncé. For a culture that is so overly saturated with sex, it’s mind-blowing how few honest and healthy conversations we have about it. The sad reality is that most people get their (mis)information from a TV screen instead of an actual person that has lived and moved through the world in that identity.

Yes, what you do in the bedroom is your own business. But ignorance and stereotypes will persist until we talk about it.

This couldn’t have rung truer in a conversation I recently had with my mom.

Leading up to Mother’s Day, my mom explained that part of what helped her move along her journey of acceptance was having a lesbian daughter who was an unapologetic advocate for everyone, not just herself. (I had no idea that my activism to push the needle for full equality was inadvertently impacting the people closest to me.)

She also shared why she felt disappointed at first and how she reconciled her religious beliefs. A little ways into our conversation, my mom asked a question she had had for years.

How do lesbians have sex? (Of course, she asked it in her own eloquent mom way…”Do you all use those male parts?”)

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