Bi Identification, Moving Out, and the Rhinestone-Encrusted Manicure

by Lindsay Miller

1. I am a lady who has identified as bi since she was sixteen, in an ‘I like people based purely on music taste and tattoos’ kind of way. I lived in a conservative town so I didn’t act on liking ladies seriously until uni, when I had some short-term relationships with unsuitable women. I ended up dating a man who got very turned on by the idea or inviting a woman into bed with us. He was really into BDSM, and we had a master/slave aspect to everything we did. He wanted it to be like that 24/7, but it was just the entirety of our private life. Eventually we did invite a girl to bed, and it was AWFUL. I felt really used, and hated that he seemed to like her body more than mine … I reacted by going VERY homophobic, and started to hate that side of myself. I couldn’t do anything after we left (dress myself without permission was an issue, for instance), and my homophobia was eventually sorted by my very sympathetic LGBTQ activist friends listening to a lot of bullshit.

Anyway, years later after getting over someone who essentially owned me, I’m in the right place to meet someone special. I’ve had flings with men and women in the interim, but every time I get close to a lady physically or emotionally, I think about my ex telling me to touch a lady. It makes me wonder: Am I even attracted to women? The rational side says I am … but I get repulsed by the idea that someone might see me with a girl, not the act itself. My question is: Am I just a bit traumatized? Has my ex changed my sexuality? Or was I just being a dick by thinking I was even bi when I have feelings I don’t act on?

Everything you’re describing sounds to me like a very reasonable reaction to an extremely unreasonable situation. Yes: You’re a bit traumatized. Well, maybe more than a bit. Your ex — your horrible, awful ex who I hope is currently on fire somewhere — did an enormous number on you, and your sexual desires are all mixed up with your memories of being coerced, manipulated, and abused. It’s no wonder you have a lot of conflicting feelings about sex with girls.

However, given that you’ve had flings with ladies since breaking up with Mr. Hopefully In Flames, I think it’s fair to say that you’re still as bisexual as ever. You’re just, if you’ll pardon me for using some highly technical advice columnist jargon, kind of fucked up about sex. And a lot of your fucked-up-about-sex-ness is expressing itself in your relationships with ladies.

So you need to go about unfucking yourself up. It might be tempting to avoid this, because it will be hard and time-consuming and it would be easier to just say “oh well; women are ruined for me forever,” and devote yourself to a life of banging dudes. It might even work, for a while. But I have a hunch that if you follow that path for too long without taking steps to address your issues, they will find ways of making themselves known in your hetero relationships as well.

Which means that, once again, it’s time for a rousing chorus of The Get Your Ass To Therapy Blues. You need to spend some time working out your residual feelings of anger and disgust before the next time you get in bed with a girl and explode like a sexy landmine full of feelings. You deserve the opportunity to pursue a satisfying love life with whatever ladies or dudes strike your fancy, but before you can have that, you need to sit down with a professional and work on clearing out everything that’s standing in your way.

2. I’m a queer lady in a complicated situation that everyone else seems to have a solution to; I’d really rather hear from someone objective what I should/could do.

Here goes: I was in a monogamous relationship with a woman for almost two years. We lived together (in her dorm room, and then in her parents’ home) and adopted a dog together. We took a break in September (I thought we’d get back together; she wasn’t sure); she started dating her boyfriend in December. All semester she said, “I don’t want a relationship” — and silly me, I believed her. I still loved her and wanted her back; desperately, I entered a threesome with her and her boyfriend before they started dating. We oddly maintained a three-person relationship for three weeks before I had a tearful 3 a.m. conversation with her now-bf about what I should do with my life. (I should have known to move on when she would only have sex with me in the threesome but would have one-on-one sex with him.)

I am still living with her parents. (My mom lives in another state; my dad lives with my stepmother [I tried to live with them; it didn’t work]. With loans I need a near-free environment, which is my ex’s parents’ home.) Oh, yeah, we still technically share a bed (but this semester she is studying abroad). I’ve already starting looking on Craigslist for a new bed for myself when she returns — but it would pretty much go in the same room as hers.

What the fuck do I do?

The fuck you do is, YOU MOVE OUT. I understand that it will be financially difficult for you, and I’m sorry for that, but girl, no two ways about this: you have to do it. You cannot continue to share a bedroom with your ex-girlfriend, who is in a relationship with someone else, and expect to function as an emotionally normal human being. There is no way to move on when the woman you’re trying to get over is the first person you see in the morning and the last person you see at night. That way lies obsession and ongoing, futile fantasies about trying to get her back.

Also, don’t you think you might someday want to date another girl? Take a moment to walk through that conversation in your mind: “I’m having a great time tonight.” “Me too! I really like you.” “So… want to head back to my bedroom at my ex-girlfriend’s parents’ house?” I’ll let you play out the rest of the scenario yourself, but we both know that it does not end with her bra hanging from your lampshade.

So: move out. Move out! You should definitely move out. Have you thought about moving out? I understand that you have loans — I too sold myself into everlasting debt for the privilege of being overeducated and underemployed — but there is literally no option worse than continuing to share a bedroom with your ex. If the Mafia comes to your door and breaks your kneecaps, at least it will be YOUR door, and your former girlfriend will not be looking down at you with smug pseudo-concern as you crawl across the floor to dial 911. Apply for forbearance, get a second job, move into a shitty apartment with four roommates, don’t eat anything but ramen and peanut butter for the next six months, sell your hair and teeth like Anne Hathaway in Les Mis (was anyone else shocked that she seemed to consider prostitution a step down from unmedicated dental surgery? Personally, I would have sex for money WAY before I’d sell my teeth). I don’t care how you do it, but by the time your ex gets back from studying abroad, you need to live somewhere else. Take the dog with you.

3. I’ve identified as queer since I was in middle school. I’ve always made it clear that I mean this in the ‘not attracted to one end of a binary’ way, but everyone I know has just assumed I’m just a lesbian with a hipster label. I’ve only ever been in relationships with girls, and only ever really been sexually attracted to girls, so I generally didn’t correct people when they assumed.

However, I recently fell head over heels with a guy — he’s the first guy I’ve ever really been emotionally and sexually attracted to, he’s super into feminism, and he’s really respectful and interested in my place/work in the queer community. It’s a solid relationship and I’m pretty invested. Most of my friends love him, and aside from some teasing in the beginning they’ve been cool with the whole ‘dating a dude’ thing. However, a few of them are really, really not. They seem like they’re taking this relationship as me ‘betraying the community’, asking me if I’m bi- or even straight now, and making queer organizations (that I run!) and spaces feel really uncomfortable and unwelcoming when they’re there.

It’s gotten to the point that I feel kind of weird asking the boyfriend to go to queer parties with me — even though 90 percent of the friends there are going to be awesome and welcoming, that 10 percent make it horrible for both me and him. It’s definitely put a strain on things with him, and has begun making me question my place in the community. Am I betraying my queerness by dating a guy? Even just typing that I know it’s a stupid thought, but — I can’t stop thinking it! : ( Any advice?

I do have some advice, but it’s not for you, it’s for your awful “friends” and community members. Dear awful people, gather ‘round, because Mama’s got something important to say.

Knock it the hell off. Stop making queer people in hetero relationships feel uncomfortable in queer spaces. Stop contributing to bi invisibility by insisting that queer girls who date boys are “straight now.” Stop acting like the person someone dates today negates the entire rest of their sexual and romantic history. Stop pressuring bisexual people back into the closet by ignoring the reality of their identities. Stop treating sexual orientation as an either/or. Stop policing other people’s sexuality. Stop being just as bad as the conservatives who ostracize people for being gay. We’re supposed to be the good guys, remember?

I have a dog in this fight, if you can’t already tell. When I was but a young and inexperienced Queer Chick, I spent a shockingly long time being informed by every lesbian I knew that I was not really queer, because I had dated a boy. So, in an effort to prove that I was actually The Gayest, I slept with all of their girlfriends.

No, I just felt awful and insecure about myself for a long time, and was afraid to pursue women because I thought they would reject me for not being queer enough, until one day some ineffable transmutation took place and for no apparent reason I felt ready to stand tall (well, average height. Well, kind of short, actually) and say: “I like boys and girls! I might like girls a little extra! And if you disapprove, you are more than welcome to not have sex with me!”

You, dear Letter Writer, will reach that point yourself eventually. You’ll have to, because no matter how much I complain about it, queer community infighting and erasure of non-binary sexualities are not going anywhere soon, and your options will be to find the strength within yourself to say “screw ‘em,” or to change yourself and hide your desires away because you’re afraid someone won’t like them.

But here’s the thing: If you were going to do the second thing, you would never have come out in the first place. You’re not the kind of person who chooses who to let yourself love based on what other people will think, because that kind of person never gets around to identifying as queer. You’re the kind of person who is tough, and honest, and ultimately more committed to being the best possible version of herself than she is to making everyone around her feel comfortable and unchallenged. And that’s why, ultimately, I don’t have any advice for you. Because I know that you’re going to be fine.

4. So, I imagine my extreme virgin status is showing, but I heard a description a while back about how to tell gay porn from girl-on-girl porn designed for straight men that mentioned that any time the women have long fake nails, it’s definitely NOT for actual lesbians.

But what IS the required/ideal nail length? Do they have to be cut to the nub? What is the/Is there a standard here?

You absolutely cannot go wrong with short as you can get ’em, spotlessly clean, and filed smooth. No one will ever refuse to fuck you because of those short, clean, and smooth nails; short, clean, and smooth is the Platonic ideal to which all lesbian fingernails must be compared. That being said, chances are good that no one will ever refuse to fuck you because of your fingernails at all, unless you are Guinness-worthy and cannot type unassisted, so don’t worry about it too much.

Length is negotiable; slightly longer nails do not generally cause your partner discomfort. My rule of thumb (ha) is never to let them grow past the end of my finger, but you might even be able to get away with longer than that. If you have really long nails and can’t bear to part with them, try this (which has never been applicable to my life, but some helpful Hairpinner shared it in a long-ago comment section and it sounded like a really good idea): Put a cotton ball inside each finger of a latex glove, then slide it on and go to town. The cotton protects your lover from your claws; the glove protects her from getting a cotton ball stuck in her vagina.

So it’s fine to have long nails, if you’re willing to make the extra effort to avoid lacerations. What’s not fine, ever, is having nails that are dirty and/or jagged. Keep them clean, including underneath, and keep them filed into ovals at all times. If it can snag on your sweater, it can snag somewhere much less pleasant. And no rhinestone-encrusted manicures for any reason. Someone might still sleep with you, but she won’t be glad she did — and in a small, gossipy, close-knit social circle like all queer communities everywhere, word-of-mouth can make or break your sex life. Have fun, and wear gloves if you have a hangnail, because that can hurt like a bitch.

Previously: Honesty, Asexuality, and the Un-Recloseting

Lindsay King-Miller is also on Twitter. Do you have a question for her?

Photo by Anna Sedneva, via Shutterstock