Same Sex in the City - book discontinued by Simon & Schuster Books - review by Kayla

"Same Sex In the City" is a lesbian dating guide written by Lauren Levin and Lauren Blitz published by Simon Spolight Entertainment. One of the authors was an executive at Google while the other wrote for Teen Vogue. Both women identify as "femme" lesbians. The book is softcover with black and white pages. There are no illustrations. The book has 250 pages which are divided into eleven different chapters to read. The front cover shows pictures of a lesbian couple in a "photo booth" together being cuddly. The backside shows text about the book. I'd say that this book is pretty public-okay, but if you are a female reading in public, you may have to deal with people asking you if you are a lesbian.

Now, to be pretty honest, I do consider myself bisexual, but I've never honestly met a lesbian. Yes, that sounds absolutely awful, but this is Iowa, and they aren't exactly "out" whereever they are. As such, I've never actually had anything to do with the lesbian community. That's why this was such a neat book. It gave me insight into the lesbian community. I'd never known that lesbians had a penchant for moving in so quickly or that lesbian relationships tended to be so powerful then fizzle out. I never knew that the lesbian community usually ended up being so close-knit because of the lack of lesbians either.

However, since this book was written about a community in New York City (and other big cities), I do wonder how realistic it is to be applied to whatever community exists in Iowa. Iowa doesn't have lesbian bars, really, so I'm a bit confused how all of these points would apply to Iowa.

I suppose I should let you know what the book is about, right? Well, this book is not really a "relationship how-to" like I was expecting. The tagline for the book is the "relationship book for lesbians that tells it like it is", but honestly, this isn't much of a how-to or self-help book at all. Instead, at the beginning of each chapter, there are a couple pages that talk about points related to the chapter, and the rest of the pages are real-life tales that lesbians sent in for publication in the book about the topic of the chapter. I'd say that only 14/16 pages of the 250 pages are actually any sort of relationship help, so don't pick this up if you are looking for self-help.

However, what it does provide is the feeling of community. The women in the stories are all very honest with their emotions, and you can get a feeling of "I'm not the only one" when you pick up this book to read. In my case, I also got a look into how lesbian dating tends to differ from heterosexual dating. While I was expecting a "how-to" book, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the stories were actually really fun to read as well. The stories did keep me really interested, and it wasn't a bore at all. I actually enjoyed reading it.

What I didn't enjoy so much was all of the mentioning of bars. In every story, there was a bar where someone met someone else. It seemed like, no matter what was going on, someone was meeting or cruising a bar. This also applied to the sex. Usually when sex was mentioned, it was also mentioned that the two of them had had drinks before. This seems like a lot of drinking. Maybe I'm just not involved much with the dating scene (and I'm also against alcohol), but is this really what goes on? It made me question that the book had really gotten a good sample of lesbian dating experiences.

Like the other reviewer of this product said, this book does seem to focus on femme lesbian experiences. I don't know much difference between the femme/butch type of lesbians, but most of the women in this book were described as very girly and loving clothing, so I assume they are the femme type. There's no mention of packing, strap-ons, toys, or anything I normally expect to hear about with lesbians. But again, I've never really met a lesbian, so this is all guessing.

Your chapters include: The Label Lesbian, Path to Self-Realization, The First Time, Coming Out, How to meet Women, The Intensity Between Two Women, Passionate Friendships, Heartbreak, Hooking Up with Straight Girls, Lesbe Friends, Your Future as a Gay Woman. The book took me about two and a half hours to read straight through.

I think the book is a good book, but it's not a relationship-help book. I wouldn't really say it "tells it like it is", either, but it does provide good insight into lesbian dating experiences. I'm a bit concerned about all of the alcohol/bars mentioned, but maybe I'm just so far removed from the dating experience that this is normal. Who knows? Either way, it's a good book about realistic lesbian dating that will give you insight into the lesbian community.