Do I Want To Be Her Or Be With Her: Ruminations On Gay Twin Theory
Written by Leah (Bunny) Overstreet
When I first started frequenting queer bars I would make a complete mess of my dorm room trying to sort out what I called my“ dykesona.” Which dyke am I tonight, and who will be unable to resist her? I recognized that my dyksona was going to make or break my night; I couldn’t just be hot, I had to be hot in a way that got me exactly what I wanted. For me, the dyke bar became a place primed for anthropological study. I was fascinated by the way the girls dressed, did their makeup, styled their hair. I loved seeing the ways we got done up in drag for each other, how we crafted irresistible cocktails of subtle yet effective queer visage with our ensembles. Everyone seemed to be tapped into that certain something, a way of walking, talking and dressing that was catnip to other dykes. I wanted to grab that something by the hips and swallow it whole.
I feel like it’s common for newly minted queers to go through a bit of a personal style crisis. Like ok I’m gay… now what? What kind of gay am I? Am I masc or femme? Something in between? Am I the kind of gay person who wears sequins? Are Doc Martens still, like, relevant even? It can be a tug of war between wanting people to know you’re queer at a glance and also not wanting to come off like a total try hard or poser. As a femme, it took me time to sort out what genre of femininity felt true to me and my queerness. Adding a whole other layer of confusion is the task of trying to be sexy to OTHER lesbians. Every day is a search for that sweet spot of loving how I look and adding those finishing touches that will make every dyke at the grocery store, on the train, and in the coffee shop stop in their tracks and take notice. These calculations became even more necessary at the dyke bar, where visuals are the only thing inspiring that hot girl to leave the safety of her friends and come DO SOMETHING about her desire. I think that these necessary calculations of lust are part of why gay people can feel comfortable leaning into our categories. Gay men have their tribes— bears, twinks, daddies, otters, etc— and sapphics have theirs — butches, mascs (yes there is a difference), femmes, studs, etc. While gay men tend to be sorted by body types and body hair ratios, sapphics are often labeled based on style and position along the spectrum between masc and femme.
But, if you zoom in even further, you’ll find high-femme bombshell Victoria’s Secret Angel lookalikes, hyper-femme all-pink sex-kitten bimbos, hyper-femme Lisa Frank edition with saturated colors and dyed hair and sparkly eyeshadow, Sanrio femmes who takes inspo from Japanese subcultures like lolita and gyaru, femme fatale gothic beauties, Black baddie classic, black baddie alternative, Erkyah Badu boho braid fairy types, girls that“ look straight”, etc.... And that’s just the fems. Despite the fact that there are so many variations, each of these categories is distinct and identifiable. These visual shorthands are extremely useful for narrowing down who you might be into, especially in an environment where you might not get the opportunity to chat to everyone and sort out who you mesh with. At the overcrowded lesbian pop up dance party, you need to rule out people quickly so you stand a chance of actually having one of those coveted dance floor makeouts. These categories, beyond the visual, also potentially imply things about the personality and interests of your potential target.
“you’ll find high-femme bombshell Victoria’s Secret Angel lookalikes, hyper-femme all-pink sex-kitten bimbos, hyper-femme Lisa Frank edition with saturated colors and dyed hair and sparkly eyeshadow, Sanrio femmes who takes inspo from Japanese subcultures like lolita and gyaru, femme fatale gothic beauties, Black baddie classic, black baddie alternative, Erkyah Badu boho braid fairy types, girls that “look straight”, etc.... And that’s just the fems. Despite the fact that there are so many variations, each of these categories is distinct and identifiable.”
Because of this reliance on“ types” I notice some dykes leaning heavily on stereotypical looks in order to attract the girls they want. I always understood the importance of understanding your type’s type and sometimes the easiest way to ensure that you attract the gal you want is to reflect her vibe right back at her. Being a mirror of the very thing that gets you going is one way to increase your chances of being something worth looking at. To a certain extent, queer flagging helps us find each other but, on a large scale, it can also homogenize the dyke image.
It’s because of this that I think doppelbangers have become such a thing. This is a lesbian stereotype based on a whole lot of hard evidence, often teased about but to be expected. So many of the dykes around me have been haircutting and caribeenering their way to becoming the queer women they’ve always wanted to be… and be with. I think part of it has to do with wish fulfillment. For many baby dykes, the girl of your dreams is also aspirational. She’s like soooo totally hot that you can’t help but emulate her.“ Do I want to be her or be with her?” Nothing screams dyke success like getting with the exact type of person you always wanted to be. And what better way to win her over than by being her ideal form of beauty? Sometimes these couples don’t even start off looking identical. It often looks more like two people who were already similar, beginning to share a closet and maybe splitting the same box dye and maybe even inspiring each other to finally get that haircut they’ve been putting off.
I also think that the limited amount of sapphic representation contributes to this phenomenon. We barely have any decent white lesbian representation in the media, let alone representation for Black, trans, fat, and alternative lesbians. For the most part growing up, the more mainstream objects of lesbian lust I knew of tended to be vaguely androgynous and white: think Kristen Stewart, Shane McCutcheon, Cate Blanchett. Now, thanks to social media, we have plenty of niche lesbian influencers to choose from. However, the ones that gain the most mainstream success do still tend to have a certain look. Lesbians can be very self-referential and even our modern day muses are often compared to queer icons of olde like Corky from Bound, Shane from the L Word, etc. etc., The optics can’t be ignored. It’s undeniable that a vast collection of lesbian stereotypes and beauty standards are made with white lesbians in mind… shocker! But, to a certain extent, I think sapphics of all races have found themselves specifically attracted to the kinds of girls they want to be (with or without a specific pop culture inspiration).
I think gay twin theory exists because of the queer desire for visibility. We want community and we want to get laid, and the easiest way to get this is by projecting our queerness outward. Of course we look to classic flagging techniques and try mimicking the hot gay chicks that we grew up with. This gives other dykes a frame of reference for their desire i.e. fuck me because I remind you of everything you’ve always wanted since you were a baby lesbian. We want to emulate the women who stirred up these desires in us because we want to capture some of that desirability for ourselves. We want to be a part of it, we want to lay claim to it, we want to feel like it belongs to us and in the same vein we are attracted to people who have achieved the very thing that we’ve always worked towards.
“Of course we look to classic flagging techniques and try mimicking the hot gay chicks that we grew up with. This gives other dykes a frame of reference for their desire i.e. fuck me because I remind you of everything you’ve always wanted since you were a baby lesbian. We want to emulate the women who stirred up these desires in us because we want to capture some of that desirability for ourselves.”
So yeah, it makes sense. Not my personal cup of tea, but I am fascinated by it and I think it goes beyond mere vanity. I think it’s a coincidental left-over of lesbian survival. A vestigial organ. The appendix of dykedom, forged from decades of lesbians fucking and falling in love with themselves and girls that were cut from the same cloth.
