Who Makes the First Move? (the Sapphic Dilemma)
Chapters:
1. The Lesbian Dating Stalemate (Why No One Makes the First Move)
Why mutual attraction so often turns into awkward tension in sapphic dating—especially for people new to dating women.
2. Transitioning from Dating Men to Dating Women
How shifting dating dynamics exposes unspoken rules around initiation, desire, and vulnerability in queer relationships.
3. The Impact of Sexual Harassment and Assault on Dating
How lived experiences of harassment and assault shape hesitation, hyper-awareness, and fear of making someone uncomfortable.
4. Why Mutual Desire Still Feels Risky to Act On
Exploring the nervous-system response behind “we both want this, so why can’t we move?”
5. Patriarchal Dating Scripts vs. Queer Relating
Why traditional hetero dating norms don’t work in lesbian and sapphic dynamics—and what replaces them.
6. What Is Spacious Consent?
A countercultural approach to consent that prioritizes safety, authenticity, and nervous-system regulation.
7. Why “Just Asking” Isn’t Always Enough
How assertiveness can still feel pressuring—and when softening creates more trust.
8. How to Initiate Without Pressure (Real-Life Examples)
Practical ways to express desire for hand-holding, kissing, or intimacy without rushing or cornering someone.
9. Reading Body Language and Somatic Cues
Why consent isn’t just verbal—and how to tune into subtle signals, especially with trauma histories.
10. Creating Erotic Tension Without Forcing an Outcome
How slowing down and holding desire can actually increase attraction and intimacy.
11. Reprogramming Fear, Fawning, and Freeze Responses
How spacious consent helps undo trauma-based dating patterns and builds relational safety.
12. What Queer Relationships Teach Us About Trust
Why queer and sapphic dating models offer powerful lessons about consent, co-creation, and emotional intimacy.
13. Dating as a Practice of Presence and Liberation
How slowing down in love becomes a radical act of healing in an overstimulated world.
14. Reflection Questions for Your Own Dating Life
Invitations to notice what shows up in your body, thoughts, and emotions when desire meets hesitation.
So there is this phenomenon in lesbian dating, especially if you're very new to, like, dating someone of the same sex, where there's a stalemate that happens. It happens actually, like, incredibly commonly, where both of you are interested in each other, but you don't know how to initiate the first move. Or maybe, like, you have an idea of what it could look like, but you can't, like, bring yourself to do it. This is such a phenomenon. I've experienced this in my past. Literally everybody I know who's transitioned from dating men to dating women or dating females has experienced this. I have yet to know a single person who hasn't experienced this. And you might say, well, who the hell is this guy talking about lesbian relationships? I'm a trans man. I'm also female. And I have spent many years dating women as a woman. Um, I'm also a relationship coach. I've been doing this for six years at this point. And I've worked with hundreds of people. I've worked with a lot of lesbians and literally so many people come to me with this issue. So I thought, well, let's talk about it. So what I'm going to offer you today is why does this phenomenon happen so commonly? It's literally so common and how can you actually move forward? How do you not get stuck in it? So let's get into it. What if your sacred partnership could be a source of pleasure and stability amidst the chaos of these times? I'm your host, Forrest Williams, certified relationship coach and disciple of love. And I help you learn the art of trust by waking up from unconscious patterns so you can enjoy the pleasure of relating.
So why does this happen? To be just blunt with you, it's because there are so many females. There's so many women who have experienced either sexual assault or sexual harassment. I think sexual harassment is so normalized in a patriarchal society. But also like sexual assault is insanely common. I don't have a statistic for you. I don't know if you need to hear a statistic. I'm not like a statistics kind of person. I have a Pisces moon, so I'm very like touchy-feely. But I know myself, like living as a woman before I transitioned to a man, have experienced a variety of that kind of thing personally. And like literally every woman I know has experienced that. It just seems like the norm, which sucks. It's unfortunate. But because it is so normal, like most women, most females have experienced some form of sexual harassment or sexual assault. And so with that kind of life experience, it's this natural phenomenon where you think, well, oh gosh, I don't want to be that person to make someone else feel uncomfortable. Because I'm sure you've been in a position where some guy is hitting on you and you're probably not interested. Maybe it's like something very public and it just feels like straight up harassment. But it could also be when you're on a first date and someone's trying to make a move and you're like, oh God, what do I do? Like this guy is like leaning in to kiss me and I am not interested. It's a really uncomfortable position to be in. And so, you know, I'm sure some men experience this, especially gay men compared to straight men, but like a vast majority of women have experienced this. And so when you're in that dating pool of people who have experienced that kind of discomfort, it only makes sense that you are thinking about the other person and thinking about uncomfortable experiences that you've had that you don't want to perpetuate. You don't want to be on that side of the equation. And so what it naturally does is it creates some sort of hesitancy or some sort of doubt. And I know for myself, I've experienced this feeling when there was clear mutual chemistry. We were both clearly interested in each other. And I remember I had this feeling of like, like, so we were like sitting down next to each other, kind of like looking at each other deeply. And you could just feel there was a kiss coming, but the tension was lingering for so long that I was like, oh my God, who is going to initiate? Like you could feel it was going to happen, but it also very well could have not happened if there was never an initiation. It was kind of that feeling of like, oh God, it's just like that moment felt like hours. It was really uncomfortable. So for me, it's shown up personally as like there's a clear mutual desire, but there's still that hesitancy to actually like do the thing. Like, how do you make the move? Yeah. So I'm gonna offer you a solution. It's actually insanely simple and it's very counterculture. This does not happen a lot in the dating world and I would say especially in the hetero dating world. Um, but where I do see this normalized the most is in queer community and particularly I would say sapphic community. Um, if you don't know what sapphic means, it's like women loving women, um, or like female loving female. That's how I like to identify with it because I'm very sapphic. And I'm a man, you know, so it's nuanced and different people have different opinions about who belongs to this epic category, but that's my take on it. So how do you move forward in a situation like this where there is a dead stalemate? There is either mutual desire or you're in a position where you're like, I definitely like this person. I don't know if this person likes me or if they do like me, are they ready to kiss? Like, I don't know. So when you're in that kind of situation, the solution is a practice that I like to call spacious consent. You've probably heard about consent. It's very like popular concept. Um, there's this very popular, I think like mutually agreed upon idea that consent is fluid and it's ongoing. So you can change your mind at any point. And it's not like set in stone. It's not like in this moment I said yes. And so for the next 10 minutes, it's the yes to everything, you know, consent can be very nuanced, but what I don't hear people talking about is actually creating spacious consent. So to explain to you what spacious consent is, I'm actually going to start by telling you what it's not. So what it's not is let's say like you're listening to Apple music and you're listening, it's interrupted. The app says you need to accept these new terms of agreement or else you can't keep listening to our music. And let's say you've been using this app for years. You've got multiple playlists, like you're emotionally invested in this platform. You're infrastructurally invested in this platform. And so, of course, you're just going to click, okay, like you didn't actually read the terms and conditions, but like, what are you going to do? Not listen. Like, even if you were to take 20 minutes to get out of a magnified glass, read all the terms and conditions, what are you going to disagree with one? You're not going to agree, you know? So there's no space in this. It's technically like an agreement. I mean, it's not even, I wouldn't call that a technical agreement. That's what they're calling it. But in order for it to be an agreement, there has to be mutual consent, right? And when there's that power dynamic and when there's zero space, it doesn't really create the conditions for authentic consent. So when we look at spacious consent, this is the opposite. It's creating as much space as possible to give the opportunity to say no, so that you can really trust when it's a yes. It's all about authenticity and like saying what you mean, but when things are rushed, when you're pressured, you might not always give an authentic answer. You might be put in the spot. You might get nervous. You could even black out. You could even disassociate, you know? So spacious consent is really where it's at. It's literally so simple, but it is a practice. So the more you practice it, the more natural it becomes, the less you have to think about it and the more easily you can enjoy your dating experience. So let's look at some examples so you can work with this very practically. One example of spacious consent. So let's say you're at like a skating rink or something, you're on a first date and you feel this desire to like hold her hand. You might feel this tension inside of you of like, oh goodness, what do I do with this feeling? Because maybe a guy would just grab your hand or maybe he might even ask you, can I hold your hand? And while that is assertive to say like, can I hold your hand? It doesn't actually create a ton of space. So it depends on the context. I think assertiveness is just fine for someone with no history of trauma and particularly history of experiencing sexual harassment or sexual assault. But when you're establishing trust, you're still getting to know someone and you want to create as much space as possible. Sometimes assertiveness actually isn't the move. Sometimes softening it down can create more space around it. So one example of this is actually just saying out loud, hmm, I'm noticing I'm feeling like I would kind of want to hold your hand.
And that's a bold thing to say, to be honest with you. I think there is some assertiveness in that because I imagine it would bring some like butterflies or some feeling of adrenaline or some kind of rush to like confess this desire and, And in my opinion, I think it's very sapphic actually to like create space for there to be tension, like holding that desire without acting on it immediately. That's where the spacious consent comes in. I'm getting this image of like, if you were to play volleyball, you kind of like toss it a little bit, um, like in small ways to each other. And then somebody hits it over the net. It's kind of like that. You're just doing a light bump. I'm sorry. I don't play volleyball. I don't know the terminology. But you're just giving it a light touch. You're like, Hey, I'm noticing that I would like to hold your hand. And I think personally, I think that's really hot to like create that tension and be able to like sit in that tension together. So I think what's predictable for two sapphic people together on a first date, they most likely won't respond right away. Um, and I think that's actually like part of the romance is like being able to feel that tension and hold that tension together without acting on it right away. But the nice thing about feeling that tension and holding that tension is that it creates ample space for someone to say, Oh yeah. Hmm. That does sound nice, but I don't think I'm ready for that yet. Or like, maybe let's revisit that on our second date or something. This is funny. I actually dated a woman, um, back when I was a woman for two years. Um, and it was, it wasn't even our first date. It was like maybe the second or third, but I asked, could we hold hands? And she was like, you know what, that feels really intimate to me. And I'm not ready for that. And I was like really surprised, but at the end of the day, I always appreciate knowing somebody's honest, actual boundaries, like where are they actually at? Because I think what most sapphic people have in common is that they don't want to make someone feel They don't want to push someone past their own boundary. And so that's the practice of creating some space around it. It's not this assertiveness of like, can I hold your hand? Because they actually put someone on the spot. It doesn't create as much spaciousness as it could. It's of course, a spectrum. You're not just grabbing someone's hand. That would actually be aggressive. When there's like no communication or on the flip side, if you're asking, you know, I'm noticing, I kind of feel like I want to hold your hand and then you actually grab their hand. I would also qualify that as aggressive. So the art of spacious consent is being able to create the container for there not to be an immediate answer. You want to create as least pressure as possible while also creating an invitation around like, what would you like to do? Another example, let's say, um, you want to kiss someone. I've had this experience where I could feel the kiss was coming. I was telling you about this and I was like, how in the hell are we going to start this? And I remember I actually just asked, can I kiss you? And she was like, yeah, like, please. I've been dying for this. Like, come on, man. I've been waiting for you.
And that worked really well. Again, that's kind of assertive, but when you read the context, you could like feel it, it was palpable, this like tension and the kind of like leaning in, getting closer gradually. And that's another thing about the spacious consent, the kind of kiss you. It doesn't come out of nowhere. It's not like you're transitioning from one thing to the next. You're catching someone off guard. In this case, you're like brewing in the tension. It makes sense for the next step to be this assertive question of like, do you want to kiss? And again, what's really important here is like, you're asking the question, but your body language is not intruding on their space. Because I've also experienced this with men. I'm sure women do this too, but men are just socially conditioned to like chase the woman basically, you know? And so I've experienced it with men. Sometimes they don't use their words at all and they can just like kind of push themselves on you or like lean in for a kiss. And it can be incredibly awkward if you're not ready for that, you know? So the physical component is actually really important where like, you don't have to pretend like you're not interested in that person. You can maintain eye contact and still be kind of flirty, but you want to stay there. where you're at. You don't wanna lean in until they've had, like, an actual, spacious container to consider. Like, do I wanna kiss you? Am I feeling this? Like, you're feeling this? And if I am, like, am I ready to kiss right now? Or do I wanna save that for later? Because different people have different preferences and different feelings around, like, how quickly to go in what feels like deep intimacy to someone could feel like, oh, that's not a big deal to me. Or maybe someone just gotta have a seven-year relationship and the other person is like, been single for a year, and they're like, I'm ready to kiss. And maybe the other person just needs more time. So you just wanna create space around it. When I was dating as a woman, I remember it was at the end of a date where I was really feeling this girl, and we ended up dating for a little while. And she surprised me by asking me for a kiss. And I thought that was the sexiest thing ever, because I find assertiveness insanely sexy. And I think particularly for people who are socialized, because the social programming for women and females, like, if you grow up that way, is to not be assertive. It's to be passive. And then for the man actually to be kind of aggressive, like, to be making the move without communicating verbally, or to be pursuing, not taking no for an answer, you know, that whole social, like, programming. And so, me personally, I have a lot of Aquarius placements. I think, like, like, countercultural things are really sexy. So, it's not easy, I think, for many women. For some women, I'm sure. They're just naturally more assertive, despite the social programming. But for many women, and people who've grown up female and socially conditioned that way, it can feel challenging to be more assertive. Even if it's not this, can I kiss you question. It could be like, like, on the spectrum of assertiveness of like, Oh, wow, I noticed, like, I can't stop looking at your lips. And I'm kind of wondering what it would be like to kiss you.
You know, it's like, kind of direct, but it's not aggressive. You're not like leaning in, you're not saying, do you want to kiss, you're kind of like warming up and hinting at it. And that creates the opportunity for them to respond. And depending on their respond, that could lead you closer towards the kiss, or it could lead you further away. But you're creating the opportunity in a spacious way. So you're not funneling them in one direction. But you're just kind of seeing where will it go, you can co create the outcome together. Another way to check in with somebody and see like, would they also be interested in kissing you? You can ask something like, semi direct, but not aggressive. So it's something like, how would you feel if I kissed you? It's open ended, you stay in your space, you're not like, how would you feel? I kissed you. You're not like leaning in while you're saying it. And so, you know, you can also observe their body language and see what happens, you know, like, do they kind of tense up? Do they back away? Do they look relaxed? Are they softening? Are they getting excited? You know, like, are there butterflies? Are they getting kind of like, this expansive kind of energy? You can notice that in somebody's body language if you tune in. And I would say that's another sapphic thing is like slowing down, getting quiet, being more comfortable with the tension in the silence in the space, and noticing somebody's body language, because that can tell you actually a lot. Sometimes people's body language will match their words, and sometimes it doesn't. And for people with a history of trauma, where maybe they have like a fawning response, it wasn't safe for them to say no. I think it's important actually to tune in on those little details. And that's definitely what is missing from mainstream like hetero dating culture is like slowing down, tuning into subtle body sensations, and getting a full picture of like consent. So consent is so much more than just on paper consent, creating the space around it is going to give you the most authentic read on whether or not somebody wants to reciprocate a feeling or an action with you. So it can take you out of your head, and just put you back into the present moment. It's not always the easiest because it requires some reprogramming. So, you know, I think the beautiful thing about queer relationships is that they don't follow a script. Um, and this is what straight people have to learn from queer people is that we are so much better at consent, not because we're born that way, but because the conditions are created for us to really figure out like, what are we doing here? And how is this going? There's less of a formula, there's less of a playbook for queer relationships. And so it creates the opportunity for us to co-create things more and to really decide how do we want to relate with each other? And that is a beautiful, sacred thing. So, um, like I said, it's a practice, but if you repeat this practice, it will get easier with time and it will help you stay more present. And I think it's also going to help you reprogram some of that social conditioning. It's going to help you let go of some of that patriarchal conditioning, which, you know, patriarchy is oppression. So it's liberating and it makes your relationships richer, you know? So I hope you enjoyed this little episode. Let me know in the comments. Are you experiencing this right now, or is this something you've already gone through and learned from? I would love to know what helped you move through this yourself. Um, and if it's something that you're working on, I want to hear like, how is it showing up for you? What are you noticing in your body? What thoughts or feelings come up? Because it is a phenomenon, but it does manifest a little bit uniquely for each person, just depending on their past experience and their trauma, you know, their personality and that kind of stuff. Like I said, I'm a relationship coach and I'm always sharing information about how people can divest from these unconscious norms and really just be more present in their relationships, deepen the connection and facilitate even deeper trust. Cause it never ends. You can go really deep, honestly. And that I think is like the pleasure of existing on earth when all this crazy shit is going down right now. I know I find pleasure in my relationships and I find solace in my relationships. It's like, it's like the thing I can control over in my life is relationships. I can't control the economy, global wars, or all the crazy shit going on. But what I can focus on is how am I showing up in my most beloved relationship? relationships. So if that's something you're into, um, make sure to like this and subscribe. So you'll get notified when the next episode comes out. Thanks for being here.
