This community has tons of followers but lacks content. It is up to those of us that follow here to create content. We all have our stories. Here is some of mine.
I’m in my upper 40’s, bisexual, atheist. I’m married to a woman and I have children. She is aware of all of this and knows the story I’m about to tell.
I was raised in a conservative Christian, Southern Baptist church (US, SE). My father was a deacon in the church and lived true to what he believed, from what I could see. He was generally a really great father, with a few exceptions. One big one is that he hated gays. Somehow he justified it against his faith (or with his faith more likely) and would rant against gays in a vitriolic way sometimes. From a young age he taught me that homosexuality was a “sin,” “disgusting,” “sick,” “perverse.” Even prepubescently, I prayed that I wouldn’t be gay. Even that young, I worried about it a little too much.
I had already experimented and played around with a few of my friends. I already liked it. I liked the way my friend looked naked. It turned me on. Now my dad is telling me that makes me unlovable and broken. He once said gays should be committed. I really wanted him to still love me. I stuffed all the gay thoughts down deep inside.
I suppose its lucky for me that I am bisexual. I often think that gay people and trans people have it harder, generally. I was able to lean into my sexuality with women and publicly was a cisgender straight man. I believed it mostly. I considered myself bisexual secretly, eventually, but there has long been a block that kept me from really acknowledging it. It seems crazy that I just came to terms with my sexuality in the last few years.
Backing up to the beginning; I always knew I was bi. Even as a child. My first memory is of a childhood friend. We experimented with each other when no one was looking. In the end he didn’t want to go further so we didn’t (we were really young, pre teen age) so we didn’t. A few years later I met another boy in our neighborhood. He was like me and didn’t want to stop where my other friend did. This time I balked. My dad’s rants were happening throughout this process. I kept him at arms distance after a few encounters that we had where I was upset at how much I liked it.
Into my early teens, I had a church friend that loved to wrestle with me on his trampoline. I only now understand everything that I felt when he and I were wrestling around and laughing. I wanted him but it was all strictly forbidden, the trampoline in the sight line of his mom’s kitchen window.
Late teens I had stuffed it all back down more but it came out with my buddy that I got high with. We’d get super stoned and party with other girls and boys from my high school. When I’d get super baked I couldn’t help it. I wanted to kiss him so bad. But it freaked me out and I recoiled, stuffing it all down again. My dad wouldn’t love me if I was gay. Move away.
Many series of misses follow. It makes me sick to think about because I denied a whole part of myself throughout my life.
18 - hooked up with a guy but not really the right guy. Left the encounter more confused. Liked it but didn’t like him.
22-26 -I had several opportunities that I missed. My father died at the beginning of that stretch and I started taking a bunch of ecstacy, amphetamines, and cocaine and drinking heavily. That trajectory put me in contact with the gay community in the town I was in. What do you know, I fit right in. I did have a tryst or two, I sucked some dicks and got my dick sucked, but we were so high that still, my fucked up brain tried to write it off. I did realize during that time that I was bi but I rationalized that everyone was probably bi to some degree.
I got clean in my 20s and my life stabilized. I met a woman that loves me and we had children, all of whom are turning out awesome. Now stable with my father long dead, I realize that other side of me is right there. It started a few years ago and I finally see it in focus. I’m an older man who just realized this is an important part of me that I stuffed down. It feels like it needs to come out. I’ve come to terms with it mentally (finally) but am mourning not coming to terms with it physically, when I was younger and hotter.
I still enjoy sex with my wife and am really grateful for her. I also want sex from men I meet. Objectively, I feel that about women I meet too. I am bisexual. If I asked my wife to let me experiment she probably would. I don’t want to risk losing her though. It feels like a slippery slope but I suppose I’m already on it. Still I’ve been monogamous my entire life and will likely stay this way. Kind of hoped this would help someone else, younger, that might read it. Figure it out for yourself sooner than I did.
There is obv much of the story I am skipping over but that is enough for one rant. I’m happy to discuss or fill in missing pieces if there is interest. I’d love to hear someone else’s story? What happened in your life?
I found out I was bisexual when I was 23 or so, in 1998. I was in the U.S. Navy. I was a submariner. There was a guy named J.J. that I was hanging out with a lot. Not so much off the boat, but when we were on watch together or underway we’d talk. I had a dim realization that I really liked hanging out with him and talking, a little more than I did with other people, but it was nowhere near a realization of what was to come. I was walking back to the barracks one afternoon with another one of my shipmates, and he said something about J.J. being “funny” or “bent” or some such euphemism. Something hit me. I carefully asked him what he meant. He said, “Oh, he’s gay.” … Holy cow it hit me like a ton of bricks. I knew that instant that I was attracted to J.J. and that that was what I’d been feeling around him.
I had known that I was into girls, but this guy thing was new to me. I spent a good year or two after that questioning my sexuality and experimenting (in my head) with what actually I was into. But really, that moment when I realized I’d been attracted to J.J. was all it took. I knew then I was bi, and all the questioning and exploring since has only confirmed it over and over again.
I did, though, start piecing together some past experiences. For example, I had another shipmate who was quite swishy. Definitely gay, especially considering that this was during the U.S. military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” period. To be that outwardly gay at that time meant you couldn’t act straight even if you wanted to, because you’d definitely want to. He got a brick through his windshield once, and I’m sure he often felt unsafe. But anyway, there was an instance some time prior where I was standing somewhere and as he passed me by he poked me in the stomach and said something cute. It made me feel good, even though I wasn’t attracted to him. But I didn’t make the connection then that I was queer.
And then there was the neighbor boy when I was in high school. So cute! He played guitar and had long hair. I liked when he came around and I remembered feeling a certain way around him. I even bought him a magazine about his favorite musician and delivered it to his house a day or two before I left for the Navy. Boys giving gifts to other boys? Who does that? I did.
Oh, and the time I wrote a short story about a sexual encounter between two people from the perspective of the woman, and then my homophobic dad found it in my pants pocket. He wasn’t very happy. He called me a faggot. You’d’ve thought that I would have started questioning my sexuality at that point, but no. I was oblivious. Maybe autism had something to do with that.
It’s been twenty-some years now, and I’ve had wonderful experiences with both guys and gals. I like being bisexual. It’s just a part of me that I get to experience, and it’s a community of people that are cool to be around. The world of LGBT people has changed a lot since I came out to myself. I never actually hid my sexuality from anyone ever, but that was made easier by the fact that I’m fairly straight acting and I do still like women, so I pass as straight easily, even when I don’t want to. But nowadays you almost don’t have to hide it anyway. It seems like people don’t need to pass their whole lives now in the closet. At least not after becoming an adult.
I’ve told upfront every partner I’ve been with since. I told my Dad before he passed away. He was okay with it, I think. He was already thinking about his mortality at that point, so he didn’t have much energy left for hate. I told my Mom. She was a little uncomfortable with it, but embraced me and told me she loved me. I’ve spent time at any Pride Center I’ve been around, and I was on the board of the Pride Center in the last place I lived.
It’s now very common for people to call themselves “pansexual” instead of “bisexual”. I asked my last girlfriend what she meant when she said she was pansexual. She tried to explain it, but it just sounded like bisexual to me. She told me that bi people only like cis men and cis women. That’s demonstrably not true, but she didn’t appreciate it when I told her that. (Ah yes, still an aspie, I am.) When I say bi, I just mean that I acknowledge that I have in myself the potential to be attracted – romantically and/or sexually – to people of more than one gender, not necessarily at the same time, not necessarily in the same way, and not necessarily to the same degree. Nowhere in my understanding of being bi does being cis or trans come in. And that’s how I understand the pansexual identity as well. I’ve also since had a few periods of gender fluidity, but nothing lasting, and I am polyamorous.
And proud!
It’s interesting reading people’s stories about this. Honestly, I’ve always felt like a bit of an imposter in the gay community because I’m mostly hetero, but every now and then there is this… Spark. I’ve never really known what to do about it. I don’t have enough experience dating generally to make the Right moves with either sex.
Thank you for the reply. You should be proud! Sounds like a life well lived so far and you make me wish I’d joined the Navy, lol. You understood yourself better than I did back then. Around 23 I met a gay guy named Shane in the Meth/Ecstasy world. He was so sexy, and built too. I didn’t understand yet at that point at all but looking back, he kept offering to take me on the journey. Part of me wishes I’d listened but I do love my children and life would have turned out differently if I’d had an awakening in 1998, sitting on Shane’s couch, him next to me with his shirt off, with him asking: “Are you sure you’re not at least bi? I swear I feel it off of you buddy.” Instead, my old man still fresh in my head then, I made an excuse to leave, keeping it strictly business. He looked sad and disappointed and I felt the same as I left. I felt the rush from the attention from him and there was always attraction between us, the twink straight man and the buff, out and proud, gay man. I chose what I chose but I regret what I clearly missed.
About the “pansexual” bit, I see your point. My understanding is that pansexual means possible sexual attraction regardless of sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity. It sounds like you define bisexual similarly. It seems like its just semantics. I’d say by my definition above I am pansexual also. I am also attracted to some trans folks I’ve met. It seems like the term seeks to broaden the classic definition of bisexual.