Dating a Closeted Bi Guy, Discovering a Boob Fetish, and Sleeping With Twins

by Lindsay Miller

So there’s this guy that I (a hetero, female college student) have been unofficially seeing for about two months, not exclusively. We recently had a conversation that could lead to this becoming a more serious relationship, but we’re taking a break for the summer because we’ll be in different places. Here’s where this gets messy: a friend intimated to me, shortly after the aforementioned DTR convo, that this guy is, in fact, gay. He has or has had a profile on an online hookup site for the gay community, and has slept with other guys. I had absolutely no idea about any of this (yikes!), and I can’t confirm that he has slept with other girls, having not yet gotten that far in the relationship ourselves. It appears that he is keeping this information extremely private, and I think it’s safe to say he would be displeased to discover that I have this information, especially because I got it from an outside source.

So here’s my issue: what’s the best non-intrusive, non-interrogatory way to ask him about his sexuality without putting him on the defensive? I don’t see our relationship moving forward until this conversation happens, because I’m afraid that he might be gay and using me as a cover while he comes to terms with himself. Or he could be bisexual, which would be totally fine! I need help coming up with better lines for opening up this discussion besides, “Hey, are you gay?” or alternately, “Do you have any desire to fuck me?” I want to encourage complete honesty, and I definitely don’t want to seem like I’m accusing him of anything, because I really like this guy. Argh plz help, I have no idea what I’m doing here!

I’m not entirely sure what “unofficially seeing” each other means, but if you’ve had multiple makeouts with this guy it seems reasonably safe to assume that he’s into you. In all likelihood, what you’re dealing with here is a bisexual dude who’s into you but isn’t sure when or how to disclose his bisexuality — probably because he’s had girls he likes ditch him over it in the past. To this day, people who are generally fine about The Gays get really weird about male bisexuality: it doesn’t really exist, it’s just an excuse to take advantage of people, bi guys will break your heart, etc. So it’s understandable that he might prefer to get to know you better and make sure he trusts you before he comes out. Give him some time and don’t push him to disclose before he’s ready (there is seriously no way to ask someone, “So, are you gay?” without being intrusive), and everything should be fine.

That said, there are a couple of other possibilities here that you might want to take into consideration. First of all, okay, yes: It’s not impossible that he’s actually just gay as blazes, not ready to come out, and willing to fake feelings for you that he doesn’t really have in order to recruit you as his unwitting beard. That would suck a lot, given that your feelings for him are genuine. (Dear closet dwellers, please don’t do this! It is so, so hurtful. Stay single until you’re ready to come out, or find another homo who’s willing to enter into a co-beard relationship.)

There is also, of course, a possibility you don’t seem to have considered: that the friend who told you about his history of dude-flings is fucking with you. Do you have any real reason to believe this story? I don’t know what it is about the human condition that makes us want to make shit up about what our neighbors do in their naked times, but most people who have ever been in high school or college has at least one horrifying memory about being the subject of a totally baseless sexual rumor. I myself was widely believed to be totally knocked up in 10th grade, years before I was ever in the presence of another naked person. Are you sure your man’s sordid boy-loving past is being reported accurately, or is it more like when a horror movie says “Inspired by actual events” and what they mean is “One time some people lived in a house”?

I still don’t think you should confront him about this question, at least not right away. The simplest explanation — that he’s bisexual and likes you — is most likely to be the correct one, and if that’s the case the best thing you can do is wait for him to trust you enough to open up. Just keep your eye out for any red flags that tell you his interest might not be sincere. If he seems like he’s hiding something, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask him whether there’s something you need to know, and let him take it from there. If you’re talking about your sexual pasts, as people often do in the early stages of a serious relationship, you can take that opportunity to ask whether he’s ever done anything with another dude. But if his past with boys never comes up, bear in mind that might be because it doesn’t actually exist, and try not to let your suspicions get in the way of building a good thing.

So here’s my issue. I’m 19, a girl, and straight, except maybe not that last part. I know — a teenager can’t figure out her sexuality! Shocking!

But I have a particularly specific thing I wanted to ask about. See, I’m a virgin, by both choice and lack-of-opportunity. I’ve only ever had romantic feelings for guys, I’ve only ever made out with guys (well — guy, singular, but we made out a LOT), and, despite the fact that I think dicks are kinda gross, I wouldn’t mind fooling around with one someday. The only real people — people I actually have met — that I’ve ever been into are male. So far, pretty straightforward.

But here’s the thing. I’ve been masturbating since before I knew it was sexual, like lots of people, and although I’m pretty low-tech about it, I do get myself off fairly frequently. And, like lots of people, I need a little something to get me going — not full-on porn, you see, but a suggestive scene from a book or a PG-13 .gif. And the thing that happens to turn me on the most is boobs. Not naked boobs, not boobs doing anything weird, just, you know, boobs. Same thing with text — descriptions of guys’ bodies do nothing for me, but descriptions of ladies’ chests? Incredibly freakin’ hot.

But I don’t want to see naked breasts (gross), and I don’t ever imagine myself touching or being pressed up against them. I guess I’m just aroused by their existence? I don’t get it. Queer Chick, is this a thing that happens to other people? Right now, I think of myself as straight, just with this one weird fetish-thing, but I don’t know if my appreciation for the female anatomy pushes me into bi territory. It’s just labels, and all, but I’m worried I’ve been harboring a misconception of myself, and that’s kinda frightening.

If you’ve only ever dated boys, only ever thought about dating boys, and are only ever interested in dating boys, I think it’s fair to call yourself straight, even if you do think about breasts when you and the Internet are alone together. Sometimes what gets you there has nothing whatsoever to do with what you want pressed up against you in real life, and that’s fine. Don’t get too caught up in worrying about what you call yourself, especially at this age. If you do end up eventually wanting to be near some naked boobs in real life (actually not that gross, I would argue), maybe you’ll revise your preferred label accordingly. But if all your life you’re just a straight chick who think about breasts when she masturbates, well, there are a lot weirder things you could be.

I am a late bloomer who’s only admitted my queerness to myself a couple months ago. Mid-20s are a confusing time for a gal looking for a satisfying career, and on top of that, realizing that the dude of her dreams may or may not be a dude after all. Months after my “revelation” I am still figuring this ish out, and I’m über confused since I’ve had very satisfying straight relationships in the past but now have conclusive proof that I also enjoy queer sex and lady dates.

I’ve told my sis, who was super supportive but said i should figure it out before telling the folks, but I worry that I will never have it fully “figured out” and I’ll just be waiting forever. I will be living in this small town for at least a few years so my girly dating prospects are — well, lets just say there aren’t a whole lot of fish in this pond. However, my parents have begun asking me about my dating life, in the “we want grandkids” sense. I want to tell them what’s going on in my life, because I feel a growing distance in the relationship and I’m afraid to tell them that grandkids might not happen in the traditional manner they have in mind. Also, my parents are super old-school so I worry they won’t take bisexuality seriously. I think they understand being gay or straight is not a choice, but anything in between isn’t really recognized. I know they won’t disown me (for which I feel truly, truly lucky), and I’m financially independent anyways, but it would hurt to lose their respect.

Anyways. Should I wait til I’m more sure of my sexuality before telling my parents? How does one come out as a maybe-transitioning-to-be-gay, maybe-just-bicurious-who-might-go-straight-later, or non-negotiable-bisexual-so-deal-with-it, while still having them take me seriously? Is it advised to wait until a serious girlfriend comes into my life to say anything?

I want to just tell you that it’s fine — to go ahead and come out to your parents, to let them in on your uncertainty and share your process with them as you figure out what you want and what you’re going to call yourself. Wouldn’t that be nice?

But it can be so hard to come out before you’re absolutely, one-hundred-and-twelve percent sure, and ready to defend your identity to the death, or at least to the severe inconvenience of everyone else in the restaurant. Because, with devastating predictability, the first thing people say when you announce that you’re any variation of LGBTQ is: “Are you sure? Are you really sure? Are you sure it’s not just a phase?” And if you’re not sure, they assure you that you’ll get over it soon and maybe it’s just because you’ve been single for too long.

As an aside, this is one of the ways I think the mainstream gay movement’s insistence on the “born this way” narrative does a lot of us a disservice: Straight people now assume that all queer folks have same-sex attractions from approximately the time we take our first steps, and that, since sexual orientation is immutable and unchanging, any hesitation in determining who you want to bone is evidence that you’re actually just jonesing for attention and should not be taken seriously. This is insulting nonsense: your attractions are valid even if they showed up last Thursday and will be gone in a month, but people get really attached to the idea that longevity makes an identity real.

All of which is to say that, if you think you might not turn out to be gay or bisexual in the long term, you may want to save yourself the stress of coming out to your parents. It can be enormously frustrating to go through the whole process of cajoling your family into respecting your identity, only to start dating a guy and watch them heave a sigh of relief, because thank goodness she got that out of her system. (Dear parents everywhere: Bisexuality! It’s a thing!) If you wait until you have a serious girlfriend, it might not make the conversation easier, but it will very probably make it shorter — and less likely to need repeating a few months down the road.

I want to stress that I am not trying to talk you out of coming out. If you think you can trust your parents with this information — that is, trust them to be supportive, and not push you in any direction while you’re still figuring things out — then by all means go ahead and talk to them about it. But considering that you’re not even in a serious relationship and they’re interrogating you about grandkids, it sounds like they might be people who do better with definitive answers and solid facts. Tell them that when you start dating someone seriously, they’ll be the first to know; in the meantime, if they want something to spoil, you’ll help them pick out a puppy.

Question: lets say you hook up with a girl. Lets say she’s really into you. She’s got a super fine twin brother who, she has made the mistake of telling you, is into you also. You go visit ___, where the brother lives. Can you hook up with the brother?!!

Oh, wow. Please don’t. First of all, if I slept with someone and later found out that person had also banged one of my siblings, I would have to scrub all of my parts down to and possibly through the bone. Second of all, if this girl really likes you and you go off and hook up with her brother, too, the hurt and disappointment you’ll cause her might not have much effect on your life, but it could do long-term damage to their relationship. And please don’t kid yourself that “she never has to know,” because sibling relationships are for life, and life is long, and that shit will come out eventually. Unless you are deeply and genuinely in love with her brother and have reason to believe that he might be The Last Person You Ever See Naked, just… walk… away.

I’ll try to keep this short. I am a cis-gendered female in her late 20s. I am polyamorous and married to someone who nominally identified as male when we first became interested but now identifies as genderqueer (and truthfully, likely would have identified that way long ago if it were a word; they used similar words to describe themself when we got together). I have identified as pansexual for awhile, because for awhile I had an ongoing relationship with another guy. However, after my experiences there and with other men in the past, I have been realizing that I have absolutely no interest in having another relationship with a man.

So, that leaves me confused as to my self identification. I have lesbian friends who have been quite angry when I have wondered if I should identify as lesbian, because for them, they have zero attraction to anyone male or male-assigned-at-birth. They feel it is misleading because my partner is read as male and that because I am with someone read that way, people like me open up other lesbians for crap from men about how because one person who identifies as a lesbian sleeps with men (even if my partner doesn’t identify as a man!) that they all should. Unfortunately I can understand where their concern comes from.

But that just leaves me confused as to where I identify because I am not generally attracted to men, I don’t see myself ever being involved with another man, and the pansexual label does suggest that I am open to relationships/sex with people regardless of gender, which is not 100 percent true. I don’t know what to call myself or where I belong, and I’ve taken to calling myself queer because it’s not as specific. Help?

I think it’s totally fine to just call yourself queer. In my experience, that tends to be the label preferred by folks with genderqueer partners, since neither “gay” nor “straight” really captures the nuances of such a relationship.

That said, there are quite a few folks in the lesbian community these days for whom “lesbian” doesn’t necessarily mean “a woman who has sex with women” so much as “a person who is not a man, and has sex with other people who are not men.” And, ultimately, labels are really personal. If your partner is not a man and you feel like calling yourself a lesbian, I give you leave to do so — even if your rather judgmental friends think you shouldn’t. (Also: If you’re a lesbian who GOES ON AND FREAKING ON about not being attracted to “male-assigned-at-birth” folks, congratulations on contributing to transphobia and trans* erasure in the queer community and I hope your cat throws up on your most expensive shoes!)

Since your partner is not a man, it doesn’t actually matter how anyone feels about lesbians who sleep with men. Anyone who wants to pass judgment on the dyke community based on a misgendering of your partner is probably someone you don’t want at your birthday party anyway. Call yourself whatever feels right to you, and the hell with anyone who tries to tell you who you are.

Previously: Lesbian Vocabulary, U-Hauls, and the Family That Comes Out Together

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