It’s taken me a really long time to fully under myself as bi and to understand the different nature of the way I feel emotionally, romantically, sexually to different genders. I questioned myself for a long time - came out, went back in again as it were… I still am not fully open with everyone in my life as I have a partner who is a man and I am readily assumed to be straight. I had same sex attractions fairly early on and although I come from a liberal background I squashed it and didn’t feel I could be open about it to friends or family - I’ve never told my family, even though I had gay family and my parents have gay friends - I still think they’d be weird about it and it would be awkward. Probably because I definitely was always romantically interested in guys, hung around almost exclusively with straight people and I guess therefore largely culturally straight and with no place to feel comfortable to explore these issues. I often feel a bit of a fraud in gay bars or generally as a queer person - that I’m not queer enough, that I’m coded as straight. When I was in my late teens a lesbian friend told me bi girls were an HIV risk/various other negative tropes, and I fully realised that I’m not a dream partner for many lesbian women and that I maybe/probably wouldn’t be welcomed… it’s been a fraught identity for me until really quite recently in my 40s, still questioning. I wish I could’ve been more comfortable or knowledgeable earlier in my life and I could have explored more. I remember saying to a male friend in my 20s that I thought I was gay and he openly laughed at me and said no you’re not. People can be shit! This newsletter is fantastic and so much you say resonates for me. I hope there are people who can access this earlier in their lives than me - it might help the journey with less confusion and heartache along the way. Thank you!
It was a slow and gradual process. My first bi feelings were in middle school. My first sexual relationships with women were in my later teens, followed by a hellishly long strictly hetero phase. I have been either openly bi, or bi practing on and off since my late forties, but am currently in a monogamous relationship in my very much advanced 60 age. My attraction and appreciation of other bi and lesbian women abides. It's just so much softer and kinder. But I am monogamous, and a carer to a physically ill and vulnerable (male) partner now. Sometimes duty comes first.
3rd/4th grade my friends’ reactions to things I didn’t realize I was doing made clear that I was too interested in women in the wrong ways. I didn’t understand how or that I was different. Spent a long time after that sticking a toe out to maybe out myself to someone I trusted, not getting the supportive reaction I needed but couldn’t articulate, and then waiting another 5-10 years before trying again.
Ironically, it wasn’t until I came out in my late 30s that I truly believed in straight people. I assumed everyone else was “straight” the same way I had been... nope.
When did I know I was bi? Interesting question, with many answers. I was attracted to some of my classmates in junior high school. And then some of my friends about the same time. Before I even knew what bi was. There was one boy I crushed on hard, but he never knew that my interest went beyond just being platonic friends. As my romantic and sexual interests for males and females blossomed in my early to mid teen years, my interest in boys became more sexual than romantic. That is where it resides today. Some men hold a particular sexual interest for me while woman still hold romantic as well as sexual interest.
While I'm not looking for society's approval for my sexuality, it was and IS very difficult to partner with a woman who understands, supports and isn't threatened by my sexuality. My sexual attraction to some men doesn't in any way diminish my attraction to females. My sexual attraction to some men doesn't make it more likely for me to violate an agreed upon monogamous relationship. At this point in my life, I'm not willing to hide my sexuality, but I often identify—at least where a written declaration is requested such as online dating sites—as hetero out of exhaustion.
I don’t normally do this but after reading your thread on sex work and bias in reporting I signed up for your Patreon. I initially only did the £1 pledge with plans to upgrade my tier in the future but then this post arrived in my inbox and I started to read it. One sentence hit me so hard I immediately stopped reading and went to up my pledge to the next tier. I have NEVER heard anyone else describe their attraction to one gender as having “a different texture and feel” as their attraction to another gender. It feels so huge and important to me that I’m not the only one. Thank you! I feel like I’ve been given this huge gift of knowing my experience isn’t weird after all!
Not weird at all! I used to feel a lot of shame about the fact that I was attracted to different genders in different ways; I felt like a "real bisexual" was supposed to like everyone equally and in the exact same way. But attraction is way more complicated, and way less predictable, than that.
Thank you so much for the Patreon support, I really appreciate it!
The way you write about bisexuality and attraction and romantic relationships and queer identity has made a huge difference in my life. I’ll be 40 this year and I finally feel like I know who I am. And your work is a big part of that because you’ve given me the language I didn’t have to describe it and the “permission” to be me that I didn’t realise I was withholding from myself. Thank you.
I spent a long time thinking that the patriarchy and male bullshit was the reason that other men weren't able to see other man as attractive (kind of the inverse of "all women are a little bi because current culture sexualizes women"). I was in my late thirties before I realized/accepted that no, i'm not more open-minded, I'm just into men and women.
It hasn't changed my internal identity very much, but it has changed my external identity and made me feel much more comfortable in my relationship to queer politics and queer spaces.
(This could also be an answer for when I worked out I was ace and part of me does wonder how they affected each other)
Oddly I think the thing that's most reassured me I'm bi and not heteromantic and trying to be more interesting or whatever is realising that I usually consciously realise I find specific men attractive when drunk, but also awareness of it doesn't end when I'm sober. And the idea I stop repressing when drunk makes a lot more sense than me lying to myself more about who I find attractive when drunk, or something.
It’s taken me a really long time to fully under myself as bi and to understand the different nature of the way I feel emotionally, romantically, sexually to different genders. I questioned myself for a long time - came out, went back in again as it were… I still am not fully open with everyone in my life as I have a partner who is a man and I am readily assumed to be straight. I had same sex attractions fairly early on and although I come from a liberal background I squashed it and didn’t feel I could be open about it to friends or family - I’ve never told my family, even though I had gay family and my parents have gay friends - I still think they’d be weird about it and it would be awkward. Probably because I definitely was always romantically interested in guys, hung around almost exclusively with straight people and I guess therefore largely culturally straight and with no place to feel comfortable to explore these issues. I often feel a bit of a fraud in gay bars or generally as a queer person - that I’m not queer enough, that I’m coded as straight. When I was in my late teens a lesbian friend told me bi girls were an HIV risk/various other negative tropes, and I fully realised that I’m not a dream partner for many lesbian women and that I maybe/probably wouldn’t be welcomed… it’s been a fraught identity for me until really quite recently in my 40s, still questioning. I wish I could’ve been more comfortable or knowledgeable earlier in my life and I could have explored more. I remember saying to a male friend in my 20s that I thought I was gay and he openly laughed at me and said no you’re not. People can be shit! This newsletter is fantastic and so much you say resonates for me. I hope there are people who can access this earlier in their lives than me - it might help the journey with less confusion and heartache along the way. Thank you!
It was a slow and gradual process. My first bi feelings were in middle school. My first sexual relationships with women were in my later teens, followed by a hellishly long strictly hetero phase. I have been either openly bi, or bi practing on and off since my late forties, but am currently in a monogamous relationship in my very much advanced 60 age. My attraction and appreciation of other bi and lesbian women abides. It's just so much softer and kinder. But I am monogamous, and a carer to a physically ill and vulnerable (male) partner now. Sometimes duty comes first.
3rd/4th grade my friends’ reactions to things I didn’t realize I was doing made clear that I was too interested in women in the wrong ways. I didn’t understand how or that I was different. Spent a long time after that sticking a toe out to maybe out myself to someone I trusted, not getting the supportive reaction I needed but couldn’t articulate, and then waiting another 5-10 years before trying again.
Ironically, it wasn’t until I came out in my late 30s that I truly believed in straight people. I assumed everyone else was “straight” the same way I had been... nope.
When did I know I was bi? Interesting question, with many answers. I was attracted to some of my classmates in junior high school. And then some of my friends about the same time. Before I even knew what bi was. There was one boy I crushed on hard, but he never knew that my interest went beyond just being platonic friends. As my romantic and sexual interests for males and females blossomed in my early to mid teen years, my interest in boys became more sexual than romantic. That is where it resides today. Some men hold a particular sexual interest for me while woman still hold romantic as well as sexual interest.
While I'm not looking for society's approval for my sexuality, it was and IS very difficult to partner with a woman who understands, supports and isn't threatened by my sexuality. My sexual attraction to some men doesn't in any way diminish my attraction to females. My sexual attraction to some men doesn't make it more likely for me to violate an agreed upon monogamous relationship. At this point in my life, I'm not willing to hide my sexuality, but I often identify—at least where a written declaration is requested such as online dating sites—as hetero out of exhaustion.
I don’t normally do this but after reading your thread on sex work and bias in reporting I signed up for your Patreon. I initially only did the £1 pledge with plans to upgrade my tier in the future but then this post arrived in my inbox and I started to read it. One sentence hit me so hard I immediately stopped reading and went to up my pledge to the next tier. I have NEVER heard anyone else describe their attraction to one gender as having “a different texture and feel” as their attraction to another gender. It feels so huge and important to me that I’m not the only one. Thank you! I feel like I’ve been given this huge gift of knowing my experience isn’t weird after all!
Not weird at all! I used to feel a lot of shame about the fact that I was attracted to different genders in different ways; I felt like a "real bisexual" was supposed to like everyone equally and in the exact same way. But attraction is way more complicated, and way less predictable, than that.
Thank you so much for the Patreon support, I really appreciate it!
The way you write about bisexuality and attraction and romantic relationships and queer identity has made a huge difference in my life. I’ll be 40 this year and I finally feel like I know who I am. And your work is a big part of that because you’ve given me the language I didn’t have to describe it and the “permission” to be me that I didn’t realise I was withholding from myself. Thank you.
I'm so honored that I could be a catalyst for you!
I spent a long time thinking that the patriarchy and male bullshit was the reason that other men weren't able to see other man as attractive (kind of the inverse of "all women are a little bi because current culture sexualizes women"). I was in my late thirties before I realized/accepted that no, i'm not more open-minded, I'm just into men and women.
It hasn't changed my internal identity very much, but it has changed my external identity and made me feel much more comfortable in my relationship to queer politics and queer spaces.
Which time?
(This could also be an answer for when I worked out I was ace and part of me does wonder how they affected each other)
Oddly I think the thing that's most reassured me I'm bi and not heteromantic and trying to be more interesting or whatever is realising that I usually consciously realise I find specific men attractive when drunk, but also awareness of it doesn't end when I'm sober. And the idea I stop repressing when drunk makes a lot more sense than me lying to myself more about who I find attractive when drunk, or something.