Hey ladies - I got hands. They are exquisite and highly trained from years of fingering and fisting. My hands can kick your new boyfriend's hands' ass. All I'm saying is go for something a lesbian can't give you, like testicles or musk or unwanted pregnancy. Don't be bragging about how your man cries or listens to you. You can get that with us.

Trust was the sexual clincher for Dolores Alexander, the once-married early NOW member from chapter 3. "Once I had had sex with a woman," says Alexander "it was mind-blowing, it was so much better than with men. [My sexuality] just never became a question, I just stayed there. The issue was trust. I felt I could trust women so much more than I could ever trust a man. You are dealing on a truly peer level with women and you are not with men - or at least I wasn't.

In the 70's, there was a profound fear of being gay, to be sure, but with the burgeoning understanding of sexism and misogyny, it became harder to understand why one would want to "sleep with the enemy," either. For some, lesbian love was a pragmatic route to fairness. (The sex and foot massages were just a bonus.)

Bethany Martin, another Hope College senior, put it like this: "If i could have equality and fulfillment with a woman, but I couldn't with a man - then why wouldn't I choose a woman?

She's that bad boy you want, but in a girl who believes in recycling. Freud described the kinds of feelings I had for Amy as loving the same person twice, as a woman and as a man.