Becoming Bisexual, Part Two: No Longer Just for Ladies!

by Karen D.

1. Crush exclusively on boys until you see t.A.T.u.’s “All The Things She Said” video at age 10.

2. Realize that girls can like girls, too.

3. Realize quickly that a lot of people in Arkansas circa 2002 think homosexuality is unacceptable.

4. Quash any non-platonic feelings for girls.

5. Date no one until high school; then, date only boys.

6. Crush on a femme bisexual girl in ninth grade.

7. Crush on her girlfriend, who wears clothes traditionally worn by teenage boys and has the cutest freckles.

8. Tell your mom that said femme bisexual girl is bisexual. Your mother says it’s disgusting and unnatural and even worse than homosexuality.

9. This is your first taste of biphobia.

10. You remain quiet about your own sexuality, except to the boy you dated in ninth grade. You tell him the summer after your first year of college that you think you like ladies, too. He finds this totally normal.

11. Date a boy the first three semesters of college and then have an amicable break-up that has nothing to do with bisexuality and everything to do with incompatibility.

12. Start going to gay clubs with your best gay male friend; you are only hit on by men, which something that you find endlessly frustrating.

13. Your mom starts asking you if you’re gay. You say no, and it’s the truth.

14. You figure that answering that question with, “Yeah, but only 35–50%, depending on the day,” would confuse and anger her.

15. Befriend a wonderful group of educated, tolerant women. Figure out that out of the six of them, only two are straight. Three are bisexual and one is heteroflexible.

16. Come out the second semester of sophomore year.

17. Make out with ladies, go on dates with ladies.

18. Make out with men, go on dates with men.

19. Fall in love with a really great guy who doesn’t care that you’re bisexual and who understands that you are both bisexual and monogamous.

20. Realize you’re going to probably marry this dude and never do sexy things with ladies ever again.

21. Realize that this is okay, and doesn’t make you any less bisexual.

22. Still worry about bi-erasure.

***

1. At four years old, ask dad why mom kisses you on the way out the door but he doesn’t. Note obvious discomfort.

2. At age 12, notice a girl for the first time. Fail to get her to notice you. Dad gives The Talk, asks pointedly if you like boys. Think it a dumb question because of situation with girl. Later wonder if he sees something you don’t. Feel afraid.

3. At age 16, see Memento. Think a lot about Guy Pearce and his smile for several weeks.

4. At age 17, talk with female friends over lunch break. Subject of undesirable sexual acts comes up. Girls all vehemently agree that most effective method for quashing boyfriends’ desire to do undesirable things is to propose a trade in which woman performs acts, but boy agrees to MMF threesome. Be surprised to find that proposition far less revolting than it’s apparently supposed to be.

5. At age 20, fall madly in love with a woman for the first time. Spend several years basking in her rays, before she leaves you.

6. At 24, at a party, meet friend of friend who is into all the strange music you are. Agree to the idea of a shared project. Invite him over, see him, feel the air sucked out of the room. Sit in near-silence. Resist the strange magnetic pull. Make an excuse to get him out of your apartment. Have panic attack. Delete from phone. Never hear from again.

7. At 24, see therapist. Try to interrogate feelings, but feelings are slippery and unrecognizable. Therapist points out that you’ve never had trouble articulating yourself, even around the most shameful things in your past.

8. At 24, listen to a lot of Dan Savage podcasts. Savage pays lip service but clearly doesn’t believe you exist/puts you on continuum of straight. Decide on being straight, but weird (so, straight). Wake up one morning with feelings in a box. Put box away, wall it off.

9. Friend asks if you’re bi, say “no” and feel something moving against the wall you put up.

10. At 25, move to a big city. Attend interactive theater performance. Revisit five more times to see two dancers: small dark woman and tall ginger man. Fantasize about being a dancer, dancing with them.

11. At 26, date women exclusively. Pine after old girlfriends. Meet nice boys, disengage ASAP. Feel tired.

***

1. Have massive crush on Natalie Portman.

2. Realize massive crush on Natalie Portman might be massive crush, and not an admiring of her as a role model.

3. Tell best friend “I might like girls.” Realize you had underestimated how much she’d gotten into being an evangelical Christian as she now refuses to have anything to do with you.

4. Agonize for a year.

5. Come out to family as bi, they react like you’d announced you were going to the library tomorrow; are confused given their general disliking of everything else about you.

6. Come out to friends; all thespians, they react with hugs and groping.

7. Date/kiss a couple girls.

8. See a Playgirl, worry you are not actually attracted to men.

9. Have abusive non-relationship with dude. Find that you are really not digging the dude thing.

10. Come out as lesbian to everyone.

11. Cut hair, buy a butch jacket to wear everywhere.

12. Find Boy who assures you Playgirl is not how to figure out your sexual orientation, goes down on you a lot.

13. Find self oddly interested in reciprocating oral sex toward Boy.

14. Continue having reciprocal sexytimes with Boy, agonize a lot, but find orgasms help with the agonizing.

15. Tell Boy you think you might be bi, he responds with “yeah, I figured as much.”

***

1. Begin puberty and start to notice girls.

2. Become fascinated and curious about everything that has to do with girls and being a girl.

3. Fascination and curiosity leads to trying on women’s clothes. Learn that you really like the feel of women’s clothes.

4. Go through high school and college sporadically dating women and enjoying your private time dressing like your girlfriends. Begin to wonder, when dressed, what it is like to “be a girl.”

5. After college, think you will explore more of the dressing side of you. Meet a pleasant woman and think that all you need is to find the right girl so you don’t need to dress and think confusing thoughts.

6. Marry this woman. Find out that you were wrong, you still enjoy dressing and are now full-on confused about your sexuality.

7. Do you want to be with men? Who the hell knows?

8. Admit your confusion to your wife who, despite being an admitted bisexual who openly dated other women while you were dating, is disgusted by the thought of your possible bisexuality.

9. Cram your feelings into a pit of resentment.

10. As your marriage disintegrates around you, meet with another cross dresser and have some sexy times with him. You are immediately thrown and confused. Feel guilty afterwards.

11. Get a divorce. Later you will privately admit that while there were a ton of other issues, suppressing these aspects of yourself certainly didn’t help your relationship.

12. Start dressing again more often and meet some other guys for sexy times. Come to realize that, under certain circumstances, you enjoy being with men.

13. Meet an awesome girl who is slightly out of your league. Desire her and convince yourself of the lie in Step 5, again. Tell her about the dressing, but not about anything else.

14. Find out that you were wrong, again.

15. Make some really poor decisions that end the relationship with cool girl. She, although angry, remains your friend and counsels you as best she can. She thinks you might just be gay.

16. Realize she is wrong. You actually enjoy women slightly more than men, but you still like men as well.

17. Don’t tell any of your friends or family about this, because you think it really isn’t their business, but you debate it almost constantly.

17a. Watch the entire library of “How to be a Girl” videos by Jane Marie, and wish that you could do your make-up half as well as she does hers.

18. Decide, at the very least, to be honest and open about this with all future dating partners.

19. Go on a first date with a girl. The next day, make a crack about dressing up in your favorite party dress which leads her to ask if you are a cross dresser.

20. Take a deep breath, and reply honestly, about everything.

21. The world doesn’t end.

***

1. Enjoy a friends with benefits relationship with your best male friend. Sex and conversation are great, no emotional connection.

2. Start new job at a hospital. Become intimidated by one of the female attending physicians. First encounter nearly puts you in tears.

3. Resolve to bring your A game every time you work with said physician.

4. Physician warms up to you a bit, even asks you for advice regarding a patient.

5. She shows interest in the album you’re listening to, thus cementing a mutual love of music.

6. Notice that every time she enters the room, your stomach does flip flops.

7. Start picking up overtime, but only when it means your schedules will coincide.

8. Continue to fuck FWB, but mind is always on the doctor; who she fucks, how she fucks, if she fucks.

9. On your last day of work at the hospital, physician is looking for reasons to linger, has a tear in her eye (!) and finally says “I think we are kindred spirits.” Gives you her email address. SHUT THE FRONT DOOR.

Previously: Part One.

Karen D. loves reading your dark, sexy bisexual stories for strictly honorable, non-perverted reasons. Keep sending ’em in:[email protected].