Between long-distance relationships and invisibility, lesbians and bisexuals struggle to flirt in the countryside

“Often the girls are an hour away, don’t worry. Or they are passing through, but live in the city. »

Lucile, bisexual and in her thirties, has settled in a small town in the Southwest after living in a big city. There, parties, concerts, associative places allowed him to easily meet people. He realizes he’s never even needed to download a dating app.

“Coming to live in the countryside was a choice after my studies in the city, but clearly, sentimentally it is the desert, if I compare with my old life in the city. »

Being single and living in the country doesn’t make it easy when you want to meet someone. AND when you like girls, it’s even a little more complicated.

A particular invisibility for lesbians in the countryside

Max, 24, is the creator of the Instagram account field dam. It was while moving to Corrèze in the autumn of 2019 that he came up with the idea to talk about the visibility of lesbians in the countryside. To prove that they simply exist.

The question of the love life quickly came up:

“It’s also a question I had. I had let not be in a relationship, and so I was wondering how I was going to meet people. I was wondering if it weren’t better to meet someone in the city and then go to the country already having an affair. »

Researcher, Élisa Champciaux is currently preparing a thesis in sociology to lesbian couples in rural areas. She has already conducted a dozen interviews, plus a questionnaire to which 300 women have responded. “We usually read a lot before taking the field”she says. “I was a bit disconcerted and surprised to find few works dedicated to this theme, most of which deal with urban or suburban environments. » She hopes with her research to fill this scientific gap in sociology.

With her works she also counts “going beyond the invisibility problem”. He observed, thanks to the answers to his questionnaire, that the women he interviewed claim invisibility :

“I thought they suffered from a double invisibility, as lesbians and because they live in rural areas. But actually not! They often say that they are integrated, that they have a life like their neighbors…

In the countryside we know each other, but we don’t see each other. It also protects. It is invisibility in the eyes of others. They are invisible to heterosexual eyes, but between them, connections are created quickly, they are identified quickly. »

Dating apps, a solution that has its limits

In the questionnaire by researcher Élisa Champciaux, all respondents met their girlfriend through Tinder or other dating apps or through social media. This is not abnormal at a time when these means are fully integrated into our ways of creating friendly or romantic relationships and where one in ten couples are formed through a dating application.

One might think that this is precisely the solution to meet people in rural areas, and that geolocation and the possibility of exchanging and getting to know each other from a distance allow you to meet lesbians faster.

In hindsight, it’s not that obvious. I remember : we are in the countryside and the distances and the way we live or suffer them are not the same as in an urban environment! Lucile experienced it:

“People she ‘makes up with’ get turned away quickly, often within an hour of here, and the fact that I’m away puts a damper right away. »

A “classic pattern” which makes it difficult to invest in the relationship: “It can complicate things having to plan time and money, for the train, the bus or the car, to make trips… “, he admits. The displacement constraint can then get the better of some emerging stories.

Max also experienced it with a first relationship, arriving in Corrèze. He then met his current girlfriend via Tinder. Having matched 140 kilometers away, they decided for their first date to cut the pear in half : “We agreed to meet halfway: an hour from his house, an hour from my house. »

Their story worked despite the distance: “We wanted so much to be together that we sometimes saw each other during the week, I arrived at his house at 21, I got up very early the next day to go to work. » A situation that inevitably precipitated the project of living in the same house. “It’s very cliché, but we moved very quickly together”Max jokes.

It should not be forgotten that even in urban areas, there are many disappointments about lesbian dating appsas evidenced by a survey by Numerama : fake profiles, threesome requests with a straight couple…

Growing up in the countryside as a lesbian

The question of romantic encounters, or being in a relationship in general, refers to the notion of a minority experience in the countryside. Is it still possible to come out as a lesbian or bisexual? Does not being in the norm always end up unmasking us?

“I don’t think my town was homophobic, I knew people in same-sex relationships without that being a problem. But, as the town was small, it would be known and I didn’t necessarily want to assume it, it was my stories, not those of the planet.”

Zoé*, 18, has lived all her life in the Aveyron before leaving to study in Montpellier. Even assuming and even in an environment that wasn’t exactly hostile and lesbophobic, certain things seemed impossible to him :

“Before, everyone in my small town knew each other. I couldn’t, for example, kiss my friend in the middle of the street or register on Tinder. »

In Local girls: they live and grow up in rural areasdedicates the sociologist Yaëlle Amsellem-Mainguy a chapter on the particular role of young lesbian, bisexual and transgender women in the countryside. In particular, it explains it “The stories of young LBT women met during this survey show above all that, no more than the urban environment, the rural environment is not characterized by a conservative and/or LGBTphobic ideology. »

Then he adds:

“The spatial constraints of the rural and social environment of the working and lower middle classes reinforce their minority status, constraints which, at the same time, compel young women to forge resources and strategies to play with. Those who have lesbian girlfriends or who are lesbians themselves say that the young people among them are “very open”, “tolerant” and that “there is no problem with this [homosexualité]”.

Growing up in the country when you’re a girl who likes girls, it’s possible, but also pay attention to the pressure on heterosexuality which ends up being felt from the age in which one traditionally has to settle down, potentially get married and start a family. Yaëlle Amsellem-Mainguy also underlines this:

“Meeting two young women is rarely problematic in adolescence and, in the discourse, we observe the interweaving of sexual, romantic and friendly ties.

Viewed from the outside, this friendly exclusivity can raise questions, even become problematic, at later ages, when first generation heterosexual couples settle down, marry or have children, i.e. from 23-25 ​​years old in accordance with They. »

A discreet injunction to discretion?

If the countryside isn’t more lesbophobic than the city, however, it is characterized by the absence of community places, thus preventing you from finding each other, from building an interpersonal relationship where you will have the guarantee of not being subjected to harassing or discriminatory behaviour. Where you can truly be yourself. And obviously, flirting, dating, having affairs.

Thanks to her militant experience in the city, Max was able to integrate easily into the local associative environment, an environment where she knows she is accepted, an environment “gaucho, green… and very straight”:

“Yes, fine, but where are the gays and lesbians? Everyone is very open, but not everyone necessarily understands that you are a lesbian and that you may have this need to be “between us”. »

Going to the countryside often means getting out of the anonymity of the big city, and the comfort it can represent for some. Are we implicitly invited to blend in more with the furniture, whether we come from the city to the countryside or have always lived there? Should we be more discreet, not flaunt too much, not be too outside the gender norms? The testimonies collected by Yaëlle Amsellem-Mainguy go in this direction:

“While the girls describe a rather welcoming social environment, they say at the same time that they are always ‘very attentive’. It’s about not letting people guess or show any signs of homosexuality so as not to shock, but also not to be recognized. »

Max, for his part, believes his militant background has given him that insurance to be out upon arrival :

“I was spotted 10 kilometers away, it wasn’t a problem for me. The questions arose when we moved in together with my girlfriend. We have been looking for a small house in a small village and until the last minute you wonder if we will not make you feel that your match is a problem. »

Whether we’re content to be visible in a rural setting or prefer not to be noticed, rural lesbians have different love paths than straight women. Their desires to live as a couple, but also to found a family, will materialize in another way, responding favorably to a social norm, but continuing to oppose the model of heterosexuality.

*Name has been changed.

Photo credit: Alex Brisbey via Unsplash