Many women are socialized to seek love in relationships with men, but hooks challenges this assumption by exploring the ways women find love outside of heterosexual frameworks. hooks asserts that lesbians are both born and made. Some women know from childhood that they are lesbians, while others did not realize same-sex love was a possibility until the era of greater LGBTQIA+ visibility began in the 1980s and 1990s. hooks also asserts that women who no longer wish to experience relationships with patriarchal men choose to live as lesbians and seek relationships with other women. hooks does not claim that lesbian relationships have less strife, but the response to said strife is different. hooks, raised among women, found lesbianism a choice for women to make. According to The Hite Report by Shere Hite, while 90% of heterosexual women surveyed were dissatisfied in their relationships due to men’s emotional coldness, women in lesbian relationships were more satisfied due to consistent mutual communication.

The freedom of the feminist movement allowed women to explore relationships with men and women, pushing back against both sexism and homophobia. However, hooks states that lesbians are not more socialized in how to love than heterosexual women.