I’m not a lesbian (unfortunately, and believe me, I’ve tried). But, I do have lots of lezzie friends who have complained about the lack of gay online dating options. Now, Velvetpark Media has launched a lesbian dating website called Velvetpark Mate, which is the first of its kind. Writes site editor Grace Moon: “I say the first lesbo dating site of its kind because we are NOT an affiliate program, or an ‘out of the box’ 3rd party package with a lesbian label slapped on it, NOR are we an afterthought of a male dominated media company, or the unwanted stepchild of a straight date site.”

• Cynthia Stewart, a 17-year-old junior in Alabama, event planner on the prom committee and out lesbian, allegedly asked her high school principal if she could bring her girlfriend as her date and was told no. When Stewart’s aunt/guardian appealed the principal’s decision to the school board, they let it stand. Happy prom, kids! [Feministing]
• For the first time ever, the Mormon church has announced support for gay rights legislation by speaking up for Salt Lake City laws which would ban discrimination against gays in housing and employment. The church still says it doesn’t support gay marriage, though. [CBSNews.com]

In his new memoir, Bobby Brown: The Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing But…, Bobby Brown dishes dirt on his ex-wife Whitney Houston, fueling the rumors that she may have played for the other team. He writes:

“[Our marriage] was doomed from the very beginning… I think we got married for all the wrong reasons. Now, I realize Whitney had a different agenda than I did when we got married . . . I believe her agenda was to clean up her image, while mine was to be loved and have children. The media was accusing her of having a bisexual relationship with her assistant, Robin Crawford. Since she was the American Sweetheart and all, that didn’t go too well with her image . . . In Whitney’s situation, the only solution was to get married and have kids. That would kill all speculation, whether it was true or not.”

Hmm ... his agenda was to be loved and get married, huh? Likely story! [OMG Blog]

I’ve been living with my boyfriend for a few months now. We’ve been together on and off for three years now and this is our third attempt at trying to be together romantically. Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about my future and where I see myself going. It’s been no secret to my boyfriend that I’m not interested in marrying him. He’s even stated that he accepts it. However, I’ve been seriously thinking of joining the military after I’ve gotten my second degree and he is now telling me that I’ll have to marry him prior to joining the military otherwise we’ll never see each other. The thing is, I can’t help the way I feel about him. I’ve always known, (and been honest with him about it) that I wouldn’t marry him and that’s not going to change if I do join the military. What I need advice on now is, should I continue this relationship or not? Part of me feels like it’s wrong of me to be in a relationship with someone I don’t see a future with, yet at the same time, he’s stated that he’s alright with it. —Military Brat

Ever since Shane broke up with me via TV series cancellation, I’ve been left alone, without an “L Word” to love. But now, there’s hope — six new West Hollywood gayelles will be seducing me America via the boob tube. The best part is, they’ll be real! The Showtime series creator, Ilene Chaiken, says she’s working on a reality show spin-off called “The Real L Word.” She’s currently conducting a nationwide search for America’s Next Top Lesbians. May the best women win! And co-producer Jane Lipsitz promises the new series will go there and touch us in places that have “yet to be explored on reality television.” Promises, promises. We’ve seen plenty of vag-on-vag action on reality TV from drunken “Real World” threesomes starring pseudo-lesbos. So lame. At least on this show, the hot sex will be fo’ realz. But will the “L Word” reality series live up to the scandalous amount of sexy times the series had? Patience ladies, we have to wait until the show starts airing sometime next year. [Entertainment Weekly]

One of the first times I went on a date with a girl, she asked me, “Are you bi or gay?”

“Well, I’m still figuring that out,” I told her.

Her response was: “I knew you were too good to be true.” I then fell all over myself in an effort to explain to her that, although I was unsure about how to define my sexuality, I was definitely into girls, more so than I’m into guys. I am not and have never been bi-curious, bi for attention or bi only when men are around. Since then, I’ve figured out that I’m solely into girls. So I guess I wasn’t too good to be true, huh?

But, alas, in parts of the gay community, being bi or being a lesbian who has hooked up with guys in the past is like having horns or an incurable disease.

Well, this is novel. A fine wine purveyor is targeting gay men with a line of special wines. Spanish UO! Wines has three vino options: Antinoo, Oscura Lágrima, and Ánima Blanca. Antinoo is a red: “young and mature, fruity, elegant, smooth…Mediterranean.” Oscura Lágrima, another red, is described thusly: “They say that the best sex is tumultuous like a storm cloud, and we’re inclined to agree.” Ánima Blanca is a white: “It’s fresh on the palate, potent…like a low whisper floating at you from behind your neck at just the right time.” Steamy! Nothing sells wine like sex, one imagines. Every bottle label features a hot, ripped dude in various stages of bondage/undress. Kinky! But where’s the line of wines for the lesbian ladies, UO!? [Notcot]

I gotta say, given that it’s 2009 and all, I’m just not impressed with how gay and lesbian folks are portrayed on television. Sure, you might see gay couples on TV, particularly of the lesbian variety. But often, these portrayals smack of being publicity stunts. This week, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation did a study of how the biggest 15 networks represented LGBT characters in their shows last season. They looked for shows that reflected “the lives of gay, bisexual and transgender people.” And, of course, they found that HBO did the best—with 42 percent of its prime-time programming hours devoted to this. Showtime, with shows like “The L Word” and ‘‘The United States of Tara,” was next with a 26 percent. But once the study got to the more mainstream media, the numbers dropped significantly. Of the five major networks—ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and the CW—ABC ranked the highest with 24 percent. NBC had only eight percent, and CBS came in with a pathetic five percent. At first glance, these numbers don’t sound too terrible. But I’m going to go ahead and argue that things are a lot grimmer than they appear.

The University of Illinois College of Nursing just got $3 million from the federal government to set the record straight about gayelles and alcoholism. “Myths and stereotypes of lesbians as alcoholics and heavy drinkers are largely based on studies conducted in the 1970s that recruited most of their samples from gay bars,” Prof. Tonda Hughes said.  Apparently, lesbians have been getting a bad rap for being big boozers. Huh, that’s funny, last time we checked our old MySpace account, it seemed like the reverse: drunkenness leads to lesbianism ... well, at least in photo ops. But Hughes thinks the real drinking problem has nothing to do with being gay, but is encouraged by the usual social factors that also affect heterosexuals like sexual abuse and discrimination. So, especially now, with the rash of wasted faux-lesbo co-eds mugging for cameras, this study is hopefully going to scientifically call bulls**t on the lush label for the whole lesbian community.

The gay pride parade in New Delhi, India may have just ended, but supporters of the gay right’s movement rose that striped flag once again in celebration of the decriminalization of gay sex in the traditionally conservative country. While the New Delhi High Court did not legalize homosexuality, it did grant gay Indians the freedom to make same-sex love.

Rachel Maddow just doesn’t give a flying f**k about “being pretty,” thank you very much. But she still has to put up with a lot of annoying busybodying. You know: “Rachel, if you just put more makeup on, why, you’d look so lovely!”

The Ivy League is making waves toward greater acceptance this week. First, Katie Couric was the first woman to give a commencement speech at Princeton. Now, Harvard University has become the first institute of higher education to create an endowed professorship in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender studies. Although other colleges and universities offer courses and degree programs in sexuality studies, Harvard is the first to set up an endowed professorship on the subject. Visiting scholars will teach on sexuality and issues affecting sexual minorities for one semester each.

The Harvard Gay & Lesbian Caucus raised $1.5 million to fund the role, which is named after F.O. Matthiessen, an American studies scholar and literary critic who kept his homosexuality a secret while chairing a Harvard undergraduate program. “It’s not so much that we’ve been able to raise this money, it’s that Harvard and the faculty at Harvard have accepted this perpetual endowment for gay and lesbian studies,” said Mitchell Adams of the Harvard Board of Overseers. Now, if we could only get same sex marriage legalized across the board, we’d be one progressive society. [Reuters]

Lesbians are hot. No, not like that, perv. I mean, they’re everywhere. There’s Ellen, Portia de Rossi, “Top Chef’s” Jamie Lauren, Cythia Nixon and, up until a few weeks ago, Lindsay Lohan and Samatha Ronson. According to CNN, more women these days are in lady-lady relationships, and a growing number are leaving male partners for women. [Oprah.com via CNN] Is going lesbian the new thing to do?

Ah, April — the month of fools, taxes and same sex kisses? Well, yes. Apparently, Starbucks, because it’s one of the most “gay-friendly, corporate spots in the world,” will be hosting Same Sex Kiss Day on April 15th this year. Exploiting the LGBT community, Starbucks is encouraging everyone to come out and buy a cup of coffee from them and uh, kiss someone of the same sex, because, like, LGBT people don’t yet have the same rights to file their federal taxes jointly and everyone knows a coffee and a kiss will solve that! Don’t have someone of the same sex to make-out with? No Problem! There’s a Facebook page, of course, where you can “find someone cute in your town.” And no, you don’t get a free cup of coffee is your participate. How would that help Starbucks, I mean, the LGBT community?!

How’s this for an evil/nonsensical “trend”—in South Africa, the number of lesbian women who’ve reported being raped to “cure” them of their gayness is on the rise. “What we’re seeing is a spike in the numbers of women coming to us having been raped and who have been told throughout the attack that being a lesbian was to blame for what was happening to them,” said Vanessa Ludwig, the chief executive of Triangle, a gay rights organization. Additionally, local authorities are not classifying these attacks as hate crimes when the women report them, nor are they taking significant steps in trying to solve these cases or curb them. These crimes are hardly few and far between, especially in a country where incidents of rape against women in general are disturbingly high.

The final season of “The L Word” is almost over, tear! This Sunday, the last episode of the groundbreaking show will air. Ilene Chaiken, the creator of the Showtime hit, lamented that she thought there would be more gayelle hours of TV power on the air before hers came to an end.  While LOGO has done a great job of identifying what we girls want to see—like the prison drama, “Bad Girls,” and"Curl Girls,” about lesbian surfers—what about the primetime networks?! We’ve taken it upon ourselves to pitch some shows we’d totally watch. Network execs, call us!

Yesterday, on “All My Children,” Reese and Bianca got married, creating a milestone in matrimony.  The first lesbian wedding on daytime TV was a real Kleenex-fest! With enough tears of joy to float everyone’s boat, the whole affair was a beautiful spectacle and a timely push for equal rights, in light of the struggle to stop Prop 8.  But dang girls, you just got hitched—we could have used some more hot action to go with those warm fuzzies! And the same sex lovin’ is headed from daytime to primetime—supposedly Eva Longoria and Teri Hatcher are slated to suck face on this season of “Desperate Housewives.”  It’s hard to imagine that this peck on “L.A. Law” caused such a scandal back in 1991!  I’ve put a thermometer in my mouth with more passion.  Anyway, all these awesome story lines combined are a clear sign that the times, well they are a changin’.  So now that we’re feeling the love, here are our favorite scenes of lesbian lovin’ on TV…

With the proliferation of straight girl-on-girl action being popularized in the media—from “Girls Gone Wild” and Miley Cyrus’ sleepover kiss, to Katy Perry’s hit “I Kissed A Girl” and super-babe Megan Fox admitting she had a girlfriend—there has been a great change in the way female sexual orientation is perceived. It has become more of an open spectrum than a box. There is a clear upside to straight women making out with another woman without anyone batting an eyelash—we should all be free to do what and who we feel without judgment. However, Details magazine has tried to explain the downside. In the article, “Flirting With Disaster,” men recount how their lesbian fantasies became an obsession that turned into a variety of devastating scenarios.  From the guy who pressured his girlfriend to the point that she felt violated, to a guy whose threesome dirty talk made his wife realize she was gay, sometimes taking a chance that seems irresistible can bring about the downfall of a relationship. However, the real problem here is that men often feel like they are responsible for and therefore dominate the desires and sexual expression of both people in a relationship.