Surprise! You’re Bisexual.

Human sexuality is a trip. One of the strangest things I have ever experienced in my journey is being in love with a woman for the first time… at 28 years of age. Before then I didn’t even know that was even possible! Sure, I had some girl crushes in college and even a couple of sexual experiences, but it was always a bit awkward for me. You see, there was a huge disconnect between crush and deep, fully activated love for a woman. It is a bit like being in middle school again, how I’d imagine it is for little boys, not knowing what to do about the girl they like… Do I throw rocks at her or chase her at tag? I knew my attention had expanded to include someone of the same-sex as me, but I had no context for what I was experiencing and I just didn’t know how to approach it. It seemed as though there was something about them I wanted to embody and have more of in my life. It was an unspecific magnetic admiration coupled with wanting to share life together but not knowing exactly how. I was most certainly intrigued and scared at the same time. Where is the handbook on this?! I was scared of so many things. Scared I would offend them, scared of being rejected or looking like an idiot, scared of being with someone more experienced, scared of not being able to say no if I was uncomfortable with the pace of exploration, scared I didn’t know ‘what I was’, and scared of the labels people would put on me.
College was a mess! I didn’t quite identify with the LGBT community because I didn’t seem to fit in. Maybe I wasn’t ready to see what was there for me. I was bi-curious with a boyfriend and I got pretty strong messages at the time that bisexual people were not fully accepted in either the heteronormative world or the homo-un-normative world. The gay and lesbian folks I knew in college largely looked down on people ‘in between’, straight women were afraid I would come onto them, and straight men were only interested if it fit into the ‘sexy threesome’ or ‘hot babes kissing’ box. I felt bad; as if I were letting the team down by not having this all figured out already!  I was teetering between worlds, and I was curious to explore with people who were in a similar place as me.
My first college roommate was my first conscious girl crush. She was amazingly beautiful, petite with long brown hair and huge blue eyes. She was bold and thoughtful, had a laugh that could melt the coldest heart, and was down to earth. She was the epitome of femininity and yet she wore cut off boy shorts and showered maybe once a week? And somehow always smelled amazing!! She was a walking paradox and I was hooked. We spent a lot of time together but I never dared to say anything to her or do anything about it. It was really just a clue that something was going on for me. The next semester I tried to ‘pick up’ girls from class to be with me and my boyfriend. One of the major problems with these trials that I’ve since realized, was that I didn’t own my own sexuality. I was unknowingly bringing these ladies back to my ‘pimp’ rather than having a pure experience of my own. I was using my boyfriend as a security blanket for what I didn’t have the guts to do on my own. This made things more complicated and actually moved me farther away from true discovery because the type of women I liked in college just wanted to experiment with sexuality rather than relating. There was an almost palpable quality to our interactions that made it obvious they saw it as their window to try something out with the free pass of ‘yeah I experimented in college’. In all fairness I didn’t know what I wanted either, but I knew I didn’t like premeditated blame of the ‘college years’ for decisions that were consciously made. I knew it was delicate, and it didn’t make sense to me that a puzzle so beautiful as my own sexuality needed to be relegated in shame to errors of my youth.
At that time I had no idea that polyamory or poly-fidelity configurations existed. I heard about swinging from a high school friend that understood my frustration to explore women without losing the security of a male partner and I was immediately interested because it seemed like a way to maintain my relationship with my boyfriend and still explore women. It was very intimidating as an 18-year-old going to parties with no one else younger than 28, but equally awkward because my boyfriend and I at the time had not had intercourse with anyone else. Unfortunately this was a dead-end for bisexual exploration. While there was a sexual ‘freedom’ I enjoyed in these circles, the emphasis seemed to be on lusting after hot bodies, and the focus of the girl-on-girl action seemed more about titillating their male partners than themselves. It was just like Goldie Locks finding the second bowl of porridge too hot. I liked the commitment that came from dedicated partnership, but I did not prefer the emphasis on sex and discouragement of intimacy. While I appreciate some of what this lifestyle has to offer, to me it was clearly a 2+2=4 configuration that discouraged deep relating between non-coupled units.
As a single 21-year-old I met ‘suck the marrow and squeeze the juice out of life’ girl. She was a fiery red-head with a runners body and the most enchanting laugh. I learned how to really love life with her. We had weekly foodie dinners where we would discuss various life topics, including male love interests, over sultry glasses of wine and intoxicating cheese. While we did not have very many sexual encounters, I began to feel fiery passion for a woman for the first time. She wanted to live in Paris and I had this fantasy in my head that we would live in a small flat in Paris sharing one bed. We could be two vixen seducing whatever men we wanted, living without a care in the world because we had each other and the beautiful city. Turned out she was a bit out of emotional integrity and it ended in heart-break for me. It got me a step closer in my discovery of women however, because I actually loved who she was and not just how she looked or the ‘idea’ of being with her.
The big step for me that really started opening the doors to loving relationship with a woman, was when I stopped trying to please my audience of heteronormativity. Everything up until this point had been about me wanting to manage my image, as a marriage-material attractive woman, whilst negotiating my attraction for women. It had been about maintaining my sense of control over how I was perceived by men and society. I discovered polyamory and realized that any configuration of relationship that turned me on was possible. I felt a bit cheated because I realized that these relationship structures had the potential to be more stable than the idea of family I had been striving for. I realized I could love a woman and a man simultaneously and build a pod family. I started talking to people about this and people started coming out of the woodwork to admit that they had this fantasy as well but just didn’t know how to do it. I met women who wanted what I wanted; to be with a woman and a man working towards stable structures of loving family. Rob and I started dating women who were curious about dating a couple. That’s when I met Honey Child; the gorgeous Lebanese American from Mississippi. She is like a fairy, little but long and thin with penetrating eyes and long wild hair. She knows how to ask for what she wants and with an impressive intelligence sees multiple levels of interaction all the while not taking herself or life too seriously. We did things together than altered forever what I thought was possible with another human being, let alone a woman. She was good for me and I was good for her.
I never would have dreamed when I was 18, that ten years later I would have a real relationship with an incredible woman who reciprocated my feelings and deeply, passionately, touched my heart and soul. It is an experience I treasure beyond words and look forward to experiencing again one day. It was also a huge learning experience for me about my sexuality in general. It takes a lot more than a crush to choose sexual intimacy with someone. It isn’t about preference for a man or a woman, rather it is about the individual. In the process of identifying my feelings and overcoming my fears, I’ve also come to terms with how much my conditioning has affected how I think about attraction, love, and sex. It is through these interactions culminating in my 28-year-old love relationship with Honey Child that I am beginning to discover what fits. I feel humbled and yet confident in my bisexuality, knowing I am fully capable of deep wholly involved love regardless of genital configuration. I don’t wonder anymore where I fall in the classification game and I even chuckle a bit when I meet people my age that are ‘sure’ that their bi-curiousity will never progress beyond crushes. It takes being met on so many levels to commit to partnership, woman-woman relating is no exception, and I discovered this 12 years after becoming sexually active with men. I’m glad, even though it didn’t work out this last time, that I had the opportunity to be with such a beautiful human being. It really raised the bar for me and unlocked my potential. I’m not into experimenting with just anyone anymore, now that I’ve been met, I instead desire to laugh all the way home with a child hearted woman I can love and adore without constriction. I am so happy I have found my particular ‘just right’ bowl of porridge for meeting my romantic needs. More than this however, I have discovered my own team, my own sexuality, now that I’ve lived and learned a bit. It’s called love-whoever-you-can-as-fully-as-you-can-ity. My dream for the planet is for people to realize that true love is so precious and rare, we shouldn’t let any artificial construct stand in our way of living it.