I don't know. But, I've wondered why Rosey O'Donnell claimed to have a crush on Tom Cruise and why Ellen Degeneres sometimes acts like she wants a man. I think some lesbians aren't really clear on what they want. That's kind of strange because gay men seem to know for sure that they want nothing at all to do with women sexually.

Well, that's primarily a stereotype. Most lesbian couples look like any other women. And the most ridiculous stereotype is the assumption that in gay or lesbian relationships, that there is the male/female role-playing! I'm a lesbian...my partner and I are both women....not men. Neither of us pretends to be a man. This is true in all of our gay and lesbian friends and any other gays/lesbians we know. I don't know why so many people believe it.

That's a dangerous thing to assume as always being true. Not all lesbian relationships conform to the butch/femme stereotype.

Some women are girlier than others, some women are butch-er than others. It has very little to do with the male-female thing. Overall I'm girlier than my ex but one of the things I loved about her was her wavy blond hair. Used to drive me BATS when obnoxious people at work would get all snotty when they saw us together and ask me, "So, which one's the GUY?" I would usually respond with "Isn't the point that there ISN'T one??" I've dated women who were more 'ladylike' than I am, and women who were less so. I loved them for who they were, not how they presented. The butch-femme roleplay thing is largely stereotypical.

Some people like to be 'looked after' and some people like to be possessive and 'look after' others. In our society the one who 'looks after' is seen as playing the male role. This is why in SOME lesbian relationships there is a dominant one.. I don't actually know though, I'm just speculating...

This is very sterio typical. We all know life doesn't fit to a mould, an dnor to couples gay or straight. But to answer your question, some women who have more Testoserone like femininity and thats just the way it is. Life is just like that...

In my role as a physician I ask the question a lot and it always is a surprise with women. Men give more clues it seems but still I can't tell very ofter if they are gay or not. There is very ofter domenence in any relationship gay or straight.

I think this is a sterotype as i can honelsty say that me and my gf are both very womanly and both there is no role playing , we love each other because we are women. There are bucth lesbains just as there are femine gay men but i think its unfair to tar us all with the same brush! Some bucth women are not gay and some femine man are not gay anyway!

I don't think "often" is a word to accurately describe your observation. I suppose the lesbian couples where there is at least one butch are just more apparently lesbian in the eyes of the public compared to femme-femme couples. Think about it this way: if you see two girls, both very feminine, walking together on the street, arm in arm and laughing with each other, would you think that they are a lesbian couple? Probably not; you may just assume that they are best friends out for some non-romantic fun. But they could just as likely be a lesbian couple. :) On the other hand, if you see a butch and femme together, or a couple of butches together, then you may assume that they are lesbian couples. On the other hand, they could likely be just friends. (I have a butch friend but I never was romantically involved with her -- though we are both bi ;) In the matter of butch-femme relationships, why does there need to be this kind of "role-playing"? There's no role-playing, actually. Some women are just more masculine than others (just as some men are more feminine than others), and it so happens that, sometimes, a masculine woman and a feminine woman fall in love with each other. It's no deal, actually.