Renate Stendhal - True Secrets of Lesbian Desire: Keeping Sex Alive in Long-Term Relationships

Praise for True Secrets of Lesbian Desire
(Loves Learning Place, in hardcover):

Renate Stendhal shows us, reassuringly and lovingly, how cultivating radical honesty about who we are, where weve been, what we want, and how we want it gives us the tools to start creating the relationships and sex lives we really want, without starting over from scratch.

Hanne Black, author of Big Big Love: A Sourcebook on Sex for People of Size and Those Who Love Them

This lovely book offers sound advice on how to relate with ones lover. Its emotionally honest tone posits that trust and truth are keys to unlocking long-term erotic pleasure. Stendhal is playful, practical, and philosophical. She is a warm teacher whose wisdom belongs in the life of every lesbian stuck on the myth of lesbian bed death.

Richard Labonte, BookMarks, Q-Syndicate

A few self-help books tackle womens issues with a more politicized lens and increased sensitivity. True Secrets examines womens long-term relationships and asserts that truth telling as political act can create a deeper love and is the healthiest, least costly, and most effective strategy available.

Nicole Braun, Foreword

Stendhal is onto something. True Secrets is the start of serious dialogue on lesbian relationships, emphasizing their validity and showing that, like any other relationship, they are worth working for.

Jano, Lambda Book Report

This book is a welcome addition to the small number of lesbian self-help psychology books on the market. Using examples of couple interactions in therapy sessions, Stendhal cites cases from her practice in which self-awareness was achieved. She takes special aim at the shame some women experience around sex.

Sonja Franeta, The Gay and Lesbian Review

Sex and Other Sacred Games
(with Kim Chernin)

Gertrude Stein in Words and Pictures

Cecilia Bartoli: The Passion of Song
(with Kim Chernin)

The Grasshoppers Secret

eISBN: 978-1-58394-396-0

Copyright 2003 by Renate Stendhal. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the written permission of the publisher. For information contact North Atlantic Books.

Published by:
North Atlantic Books
P.O. Box 12327
Berkeley, California 94712

First published in the United States by Edgework Books as Loves Learning Place: Truth as Aphrodisiac in Womens Long Term Relationships

True Secrets of Lesbian Desire is sponsored by the Society for the Study of Native Arts and Sciences, a nonprofit educational corporation whose goals are to develop an educational and cross-cultural perspective linking various scientific, social, and artistic fields; to nurture a holistic view of arts, sciences, humanities, and healing; and to publish and distribute literature on the relationship of mind, body, and nature.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stendhal, Rentate, 1944
True secrets of lesbian desire : keeping sex alive in long-term relationships / by Renate Stendhal.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Sex instruction for lesbians. 2. LesbiansSexual behavior. 3. LesbiansAttitudes 4. LesbiansPsychology. 5. Intimacy (Psychology) I. Title.
HQ75.51.S74 2003
306.7663dc22

2003005463

v3.1

Every part of you has a secret language.

Your hands and your feet say what youve done.

And every need brings in whats needed.

Pain bears its cure like a child.

Having nothing produces provisions.

Ask a difficult question,

And the marvelous answer appears.

Rumi

T he crude and inaccurate messages we receive from the culture are all white noise, drowning out the many truths about who we are and where our desire lies. They are the old stories; they make us afraid. The longer were in a relationship the louder the noise gets. The rituals of regularity, the comfort of familiarity, the satisfaction of finding our mate, and the excitement of sex can all lead us, paradoxically, away from intimacy and truth-telling. Its as if the driver on the wonderful road trip becomes preoccupied with the signs for exits to Motel 6 and WalMart. On the way we see nothing but the signs, while the true landscape is obscured.

Using the paradigm of the therapeutic setting and examining the noise around us, Renate Stendhal in True Secrets of Lesbian Desire points to the paths that lead to healthy sexual lives within the framework of the relationships weve chosen. By focusing on the three sets of couples she teaches in the truth-telling she advocates, Stendhal shows how the paralyzing fear of revealing ourselves to our beloved can be seen as a wall right down the middle of the bedroom. Because we are women, weve been taught to vacuum around the impediment and not mention it out loud, even when it concerns our own sexual pleasure. Chipping down the wall between ourselves and a lover is as full-time a job as any nine-to-five. This learning and relearning require commitment much stronger than any matrimonial ceremony can guarantee.

Stendhal examines the shadow in lesbian relationships that descends when women bond so completely that the intimacy becomes a merging, obliterating the space between individuals where desire lies. Lesbian bed death, the topic of so many comediennes, is examined and reined in, no longer an inevitable result of a solid relationship.

True Secrets casts an eye on the myths that burden us all. Stories larger than our lives make promises to us about how we will love and desire. These are myths we can learn to see past when we analyze them head-on. As we make our own paths through the muck and mire, we create a sense of both safety and excitement, one of the most important combinations any of us can hope to achieve in a relationship.

We unwittingly embrace isolation, cloaked in such phrases as Its too scary to share that with her, or This feeling makes me look like a fool, or She has more experience than I do she should be able to solve this! or Were both women, she should know what I want. The phrases have endless variations, but the final result is to separate you from your deepest desires and from the one who might share them. And whether we are looking for love from another woman at 20 or 50 or 200, like my character Gilda, the fears are the same.

Renate Stendhal can help us make our way on roads where we must learn to read the signs and look at the scenery. The heated moment between us when ecstasy and affection flame up is often fleeting, but can carry us through decades of days. In her exuberant, joyful, and positive style, Stendhal is a sure driver and guide. Listen in as she shares what shes learned and has taught so many couples for the past few decades.

Jewelle Gomez
San Francisco, California

T his second edition of Loves Learning Place is called True Secrets of Lesbian Desire. I want to tell you about the beauty and hopefulness lovers find when they begin telling each other their erotic truth. Its easy to say: Couples need to communicate better! Sex is communication! The language of intimate, passionate communication has to be invented and learned with every lover. The subtle truth of the body and its sensations tends to come in the form of revelations and confessions about the disappointment and resentment we feel about what our lover does or does not do. It comes as whispered secrets about what we wish to do to our lover, or long for our lover to do to us. When lovers master this language and refine the art of listening to the body, committed monogamy does not lead to sex-starved boredom. On the contrary. I claim that it is precisely in long-term relationships that growing intimacy can nourish sexual passion.