For a long time in my life I didn’t really think about my sexuality. I was attracted to men and women alike, but identified as straight. Being gay was a taboo when I grew up (strict upbringing and such), so I mostly repressed my attraction to women. I made out with a few women in college, but it never progressed beyond that.
I met my husband while I was in college and ended up marrying him. I am very happy in my marriage and hubby and I are both monogamous. We have a very satisfying sex life that does not lack anything. However, I no longer identify as straight.
A few years ago I broadened my horizon in terms of the content I read on the internet. I started following sex positive people on Twitter and read more sex blogs and gradually I started to realise that my attraction to women and men alike is not an abberation, but is merely called bisexuality. I was very relieved to find out that there is nothing wrong with me and my attraction to women in no way invalidates my marriage and my attraction to my husband. I had always felt like an odd duck, as I’d rather look at sexy pictures of women than of men. I my fantasies, women play a prominent role, but men are not completely absent. In reading erotica, I prefer FFM threesomes over FMM threesomes. Finding out that I am bisexual explained a lot of these things.
Over the last year I have become a bit more open about my sexuality. My husband always knew that I am attracted to women, and had expressed concern that this would “make me a lesbian” at some point. With my newfound knowledge of bisexuality I was able to explain to him that just because I find some women attractive does not mean that I will leave him, or love him less. Bisexuality does not mean I will cheat on him with a women, it merely means I will admire men and women alike (though I have to admit I’d rather see a pussy pic than a dick pic).
Bisexuality seems to be very confusing for people though. It is almost as if the concept that someone can be attracted to members of either gender is too mind boggling for people to grasp. I have had people ask if I am into threesomes (not really, hubby is enough for me), whether I struggle with my attraction to women (not any more than my husband would), whether I am secretly a lesbian pretending to be straight. I don’t get it, it’s not that difficult. Bisexual people can be in monogamous relationships with people of whatever gender. This does not make them either gay or straight. We don’t stop being bisexual just because we have chosen to be in a committed relationship with whatever gender we choose.
I am happy to see that bisexuality gets a lot more attention in the media and on Twitter these days. I think part of the reason that my sex life is so much better these days is because I have stopped feeling guilty about fantasising about women. I now embrace who I am, secure in the knowledge my marriage can be strong even when I get turned on by seeing a sexy woman. I wish I had realised much sooner that I am bisexual.
Thank you for your openness Isabelle 🙂 I think the old image of a bisexual as somebody who just wants to f**k everybody if far gone for a lot of people these days. When somebody who is straight asks to explain bisexuality you usually get pretty good results when you ask them “You know how feel about the opposite sex? It’s like that but for both sexes.” without going into too many details and very few have issues with that, they pretty much figure it out on the spot! 🙂
I guess what I am trying to say is that although people get what bisexuality is, they don’t always understand when you tell them you are bi but you are married to a member of the opposite sex. In my personal experience, people often say ‘well, you have been married to a man for xx years, you must be straight by now’ and women who are in committed relationships with another woman often get told they are lesbian.
Well of course not, the attraction to other people is still there, but you make it a choice not to act on these compulsions, since you are in a monogamous relationship. That goes for every closed relationship, regardless of the sexual nature, otherwise that would be cheating on your partner.
Everything has to have a label, and everyone needs to be laid out on tidy shelves so that no one gets confused. People like simple binary choices.
That’s so true! It’s really sad actually. I wrote a piece about the Victorian times when people weren’t labeled as much. Seems much better (not that the Victorian times themselves were so good for sex). I’d love it if we did away with labels altogether, just let people be people.