In June of last year, Twitter user kikosdreamworld tweeted one simple, devastating fact:
“every gay girl wants a green velvet couch.”
every gay girl wants a green velvet couch
— keek (@kikosdreamworld) June 10, 2021
I was shook because I, a gay woman, was currently hunting for a new couch and my top choices were emerald green and olive green. I was in a perpetual state of saving up for the couch and then running into financial emergencies that took those funds away for, arguably, more important things.
Perhaps I wasn’t ready for the gay green couch. I polled my close friends on Instagram to help me find a couch that would match a new rug I got for free from a date. Yes, they brought the rug on the date. Yes, I also got a new pair of shoes from this person. That’s lesbian dating.
In any event, it took me almost a year to acquire the gay green couch. I was torn about buying it before an impending move, but I found the most charming couch for sale and didn’t want to miss it, so I used a paycheck I got from writing to buy this new couch, and, reader, it’s a stunner.
This couch is a velvet emerald green with elegant arms, an almost ruched back, and little walnut wooden feet. It was five days late arriving and came in a weathered box weighing in at 56 kg. I had been asking friends all week to help me move it but two of my housemates ended up being up for the job.
So I got the gay green couch. What’s next? Assembling it.
The instructions for putting this couch together stated in bold print “this is a two-person job! don’t try and do it by yourself!” and I said, “I’m a dyke” and proceeded to try and put it together by myself.
The first step was unscrewing some screws with an Allen Wrench, and while most of them came out without hesitation, two of them were unprecedently stubborn. I was already in a tough spot. Nevertheless, I persisted, telling myself I would get them undone at the last minute.
I anchored the arms to the front base and slid the back of the couch into place with relative ease. Then I ran into my problem: The screws I couldn’t unscrew were integral in the next step.
I sent a sweet but pleading text to the house group chat asking for help again. The guy in the apartment next to mine came to my rescue with two (2!) sets of special Allen Wrenches and his gay wit.
The screws weren’t coming out because they needed a different wrench, and my neighbor had just the right one for the job. He helped me lay the base of the couch in place and strap on the cushion. Then, the deed was done. I sat on my couch triumphantly in my matching green Parade legging and bralette set. I was feeling very butch, girls! Even though I did ask for help, I still put most of the couch together by myself!
The instructions for the couch said to set aside an hour for assembly. It took me three. I put on some music and got to work with my toolset and my deeply underutilized muscles. I lay on the couch breathless, yet feeling triumphant, and dreaming of all the things I wanted to do on the couch.
These are the things I will do on my gay green couch:
Faint
While the style of my couch is not a fainting couch, it is a three-person seater and fits nicely in a one-bedroom apartment. So I plan to use it to be as dramatic as humanly possible. A poem got rejected for publication? Faint. I get another job rejection? Faint. An old flame reemerges in my life at 2 a.m. on a weekday? Faint.
I truly believe it is the regal velvet emerald green that lends itself to these kinds of antics! I never fainted on my old couch, a bulky cream sleeper with blue and orange stripes that I sold on Lex. While sturdy, it just wasn’t exactly built for Victorian-era escapades.
This new couch is perfect for this kind of carrying-on and I fully plan on using it for such.
Write Poems
I’ve already written a whopper of a poem on this couch, but I can only imagine that more will pour out of me when I sit on it again. A problem I have with this couch is that it’s so beautiful I just want to look at it, not sit on it. So I’ve been sitting mostly in my stylish pink living room chairs. But, when I do sit on the couch, poetry sort of does…flow out of me.
I’m writing poems about lesbian longing, about breakups, about bad memories. The sheer support and force of the couch against my body is lifting the words out of me. It’s magic, pure homosexual witchcraft. This piece of furniture has turned me into a more sensual woman and I have to commemorate it with some deeply sexual poems.
Kiss a Beautiful Woman
Full disclosure, I haven’t kissed someone beautiful in a long time. Every time I come close, we have another variant rising up out of the ether and I’m too scared to venture out again. And, to be honest, I don’t really see myself getting involved with anyone before I move. A move across states encapsulates so much work that I get exhausted thinking about it.
But when I am settled in my new home? Oh baby there’s gonna be some kissin. So much in fact I might have to revamp my morning and nightly lip care routines. So much kissing it is gonna be alarming to hear about, and trust me you will hear about it. Watch this space as they say. Nothing more than kissing though because I don’t want to get fluids on the velvet.
Take Thirst Traps
If you don’t follow me on Instagram or aren’t one of the friends I send sexy photos to, you may not know about my thirst traps. They are quite exquisite. They are alluring, sexy, captivating, legendary. My boobs, my hips, my thighs, all that meat on display! For free most of the time! It’s really a public service. A lot of people deserve to see me in a bodysuit or a garter.
I’ve already taken some very risque pics in a lavender babydoll that are just…too hot to handle. I know that if a beautiful hot sexy woman sent me pics of her lying half-naked on a forest green couch I would absolutely lose it. I would be having fevered dreams. I’m very attracted to myself if you can’t tell :).
Cry
As I am making a huge life change in the coming months, I imagine I will be crying a lot on my couch. I got my old couch with my ex. We picked it up at a sketchy man’s house in a far-out neighborhood and lugged it up the stairs ourselves. We fought on that couch, had sex on that couch, I did a lot of crying on that couch in the weeks leading up to our break up.
It’s only right that I shed some tears on this new couch, not full out sobbing but the kind of cry where you kind of let the tears roll then dab them away bashfully with a silk handkerchief. Which reminds me, I need a silk handkerchief.
As I move I’m also leaving behind two of the most important relationships I have, my two therapists. So I imagine I’ll be crying a lot over that and crying with my new therapist who I have to open up to and tell my whole life story to again. Like girl read the notes!
Contemplate My Future
I spend a lot of time thinking about my future and it only stands to reason that I would be doing the same on my new, fit-for-a-queen couch. I’ll be barefoot, curled up in the corner of the couch with my notebook, writing out all the things I want in the next five years of my life. I’ll think about my future wife, books and other projects to come, and how maybe if I want it bad enough, I could possibly grow a few more inches.
I have more hope for my future than I’ve ever had in my life and this new couch is a huge part of it. I’m now a sexy lesbian with a velvet green couch, nothing can stand in my way! The world is my oyster and this is that scene in Ratched, you know the one.
Read a Book
Picture me in my smart glasses, reading a book of poetry and going “mmm” out loud at particularly poignant lines. I lick my finger as I turn the page, brow furrowed, sharpie pen poised in the air as I underline lines that strike me. Reading on the couch is one of my favorite past times, but I imagine on this new couch it will be a more alluring endeavor. Like maybe I’m in a negligee, the sheer silk failing to conceal my alert nipples. Or something like that.
I use a bookmark from my favorite local bookstore to keep track of my place in the book. Maybe I’m writing a review of this book or going to put it into In Verse. Who knows, but I look damn good while doing whatever I’m doing.
Break Somebody’s Heart
Picture it, you and I are dating. I have invited you over to “talk.” You’re nervous because you kind of know what’s coming. I offer you sparkling water or a glass of juice. You decline and sit on the edge of this comfortable, luxurious couch. I place my hand on your thigh and tell you things just aren’t working out. Maybe I have met someone else, or maybe things just aren’t going as we expected.
You’re crushed, but also absolutely enthralled by the sheer quality of this velvet, the deep green of the couch like an inviting, warm forest. You can feel it against your thighs, your hands, you feel like you’re being sucked into the couch but supported by it at the same time. It’s a mind game, this couch. You want to cuss me out but you can’t because I look like a vision against the stark, emerald green. I’m smiling politely at you waiting for your answer.
You’re not in love with me but you will miss the couch.
What do you think I should do on the Gay Green Couch? Let me know in the comments!
“and I said, “I’m a dyke” and proceeded to try and put it together by myself.” – chef’s kiss
i am the queer person longing for the mustard yellow couch that is, alas, no longer in production and thus forever out of my reach: i posit that my relationship to the couch, or at least its picture on the internet, is canonically queer
my gf and i opted for the olive green, and we often battle to be the sole dyke assembling furniture.
i’m in the lead though.
i wonder, when we move should we get the emerald couch of my dreams?
I love this! I think emerald green is more enchanting than olive, there’s just something about it. Olive is awesome too!
Yay! Congratulations! I, too, love my green velvet couch.
I love this couch situation so much!! To add to your list of couch activities (which already sounds pretty ideal), maybe you could keep some kind of (stylish) blanket or sheet on or near the couch in case the kissing leads to further activities and you don’t want to relocate just yet?
Also now I even more so want to replace my saggy gray couch with a beautiful green couch.
This. Was. Fabulous. OMG, definitely one of my fave articles on autostraddle!!! 😂🤤🤓🧐 It hits all the feels. So well done, danijanae! Instant classic.
I am surprised by how much I love my bisexual blue velvet couch – totally agree with the sentiment that a piece of furniture can help you live your best queer life!
My wife and I like to nap on our gay green velvet sectional. 10/10 would recommend.
I am gay and this year I finally got the olive green velvet couch I’ve been dreaming of for the past 10 years. It was worth the wait. I recently re-positioned my green velvet couch to face my sunroom so that I can lie on it dramatically and watch the rain.
I’m a pink velvet shell armchair (google it!) sun, teal velvet couch moon, and a double hammock rising.
“this is a two-person job! don’t try and do it by yourself!” We all know that the “(or one-dyke)” bit in the middle is implied.
I giggled the whole way through this but now I am sad that I do not have any velvet furniture at all let alone a gay green one :(
literally the only thing stopping me from getting a velvet couch is the damn dog who will surely ruin it 😩
This is the only thing stopping me from getting a cat 😭😭
Great news!! I have both a dog and a cat and my velvet couch handles them with ease. It’s not an attractive texture for the cat, so she doesn’t scratch it (unlike a more knobbly weave). And the fur brushes off easier too, since it doesn’t work itself in like it would with a looser weave. There is nothing standing between you and the couches of your dreams!
Velvet is perfect for cats! Cats don’t claw (cut) velvet because the weave is too tight for them to dig their claws into.
Welcome to the gay green couch club Dani!!! I want to do all of these things (except break someone’s heart) on my green couch, now. Also really dying to know more about those poems written on the Gay Green Couch.
Hopefully some of these poems get published!
Yes!!! Holding this hope in my heart for you!
I feel blessed to be on/ahead of the trend with my emerald green velvet couch that I purchased in 2019.
the pull quote on this was everything
Can I get some pics?
Send pics please. Instagram @leoalert
Wow I didn’t know this was a thing! All through graduate school my motivating goal was a green couch. I ordered my custom teal velvet couch from interiordefine.com right after my dissertation passed. It took 6 months to arrive but it is totally worth it. As a craft gay I embroider on mine.
May I suggest drinking something fancy out of a fancy glass as a suitable velvet couch activity?
Seconding the blanket suggestion also. We have Too Many Cats for a nice couch, BUT I do have an emerald green plush heated blanket that the cats are not allowed to touch, and now I’m imagining that if I had no cats I could lie on an emerald green velvet couch under my emerald green plush blanket and have the most sumptuous of naps.
I have green chairs (also velvet, naturally), and a pink velvet couch, so my living room is the inverse of yours! My partner also calls it my fainting couch bc I love to be decadent and dramatic.
When I was growing up, my grandparents had an olive green, velvet couch and I loved it sooooooooo much. Looking back at how much I loved that couch, we all should have known much earlier than we did that I was a gay.
My jaw dropped at the title — I am part of the gay green velvet couch gang, but didn’t know we had a gang until now. Can we get t-shirts made or…?
as a certified furniture-assembly butch (i have put together an entire post-divorce three bedroom’s worth of furniture for a friend PLUS my own apartment) this spoke to me! my couch is a lovely grey but unfortunately has the most uncomfortable arms ever. it’s just a layer of fabric over metal. why this, ikea? why do you fail the budget home decorator?
my new goal is one of the ridiculously squashy boneless couches in a neutral color so that i can put whatever throw pillows and blankets i please on it!
omg! I never knew and yet all this time I’ve been loving my green couch and never knew it was a gay icon.
I used to have the purple velvet couch of my gay dreams. I waited months for it, and paid extra for the purple. Then I got bed bugs in and had to throw it out only a few months after getting it, and five years later I’m still afraid to buy soft furniture.
This is a tragic story!!
I just want to say that I loved this article so much!
My suggestion for couch activities is to use it as a reason in enforcing your boundaries -> “I can’t move in with you and your cat. I love my couch, everyone loves my couch, and your cat will love it too much. Better to just continue and not move in together”
I got a big dark blue velvet throne – like wing chair with metal studs just after I came out as non binary in 2017. There’s a blue velvet curtain on the window behind it & a blue velvet bench seat nearby. Now I just need a blue or maybe black velvet couch as well! I also really enjoy assembling furniture – I’ve built so many bookcases, chests of drawers, cabinets, etc over the years…so why oh why did it take me freaking so long to figure out I’m queer?
Your green velvet couch sound utterly divine – a mossy bower of bliss, a place to dream, & be completely at home with yourself…
I sent this article to my assumed straight cis friend who recently bought a green velvet couch, asking if there was something she needed to tell me, to which she replied that she’d been trying to figure out a time to tell me that she was asexual. 😅
LOL, @amandajean. That’s absolutely perfect.
We got a red clay flavored velvet couch, we’re desert loving gays.
I am not in the market for a green couch anytime soon, but this was a fun read….enjoyed it….I like your style…….
OMG, I love it! It’s always OK to ask for help.
I had no idea, but I just recently (3 weeks ago) bought a green couch myself…I put mine together solo, but I probably should have asked for help, some of the bruises are still not healed haha. Sadly, mine is not velvet…but it has a chaise attached!
So I owned an original 1950s/60s lime green crushed velvet boxy couch (and matching chair!) that I inherited from a great-grandma figure after her death in my early 20s, well before I was the queerest queer, and I kept them for almost 10 years despite the discomfort level. I’m not sure what that says about me except that maybe even the universe was screaming GAaaYy at me from way back.