Well, I've had bisexual experiences ( I dunno if that makes me bisexual or what). I just know that flesh-on-flesh contact feels good, wherever it's coming from, and that somehow I managed to overcome whatever inherited hangups I had about that. I also know that I have a ravenous ego, and that admiration (no matter where it comes from) is a big turn on, for whatever that's worth.

I think the best thing to know is that attraction comes at you in many ways, in many forms, and to open and honest with yourself. I don't think it's a matter of knowing how I knew, as much as me being open to it and allowing myself to see where it went.

The fallout was for me some really interesting evenings and conversations, but nothing serious yet, anyway.

Just remember to trust yourself and your partner and be safe above all else. Good luck!

By the way, you weren't by chance going over to Agropyron's house were you?

I was in my mid-teens when I realized I was bisexual. I'm not sure how to explain how I knew except that I noticed that I liked girls in that way as well as guys.

No fall out or anything negative has happened that I've noticed. My husband and my mum know. I think at least two of my other brothers (oldest and youngest) know. Various friends (mostly online) and ex-coworkers know. I don't hide it but I don't blurt it out randomly either.

PS: I'm not all that fond of labels such as "bisexual" because for me it's more being attracted to individuals rather than whatever dangly bits they have.

i got to first base with another guy once, but i don't think that counts... but after that moment i understood how important it is for men to shave before make-out sessions.

The first person I fell in love with was a boy, when I was 12. The next was a girl. That's when I realized that I wasn't set up to give a shit about someone's gender orientation. There wasn't any fallout because I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area and that was great.

It hasn't impacted relationships at all because I've never actually dated someone who considered themselves heterosexual.

I'm not bi, but I want speak up just because I'm slightly buzzed and in a sharing mood. My partner is somewhat bi, and I have several male friends who are bi but tend to end up with women in their relationships (including one who is happily married to a woman but is always emailing me about the "bear cubs" in the classes he teaches).

I've always thought that if sexuality was a choice, we'd ALL be bi. I mean, I know *I* would. People are so beautiful, regardless of gender, that I've often wished I had the same kind of appreciation for both.

after that moment i understood how important it is for men to shave before make-out sessions.

Do not believe syntax, handsome as he is. There's nothing more delicious than the friction between two bearded faces. (YMMV.)

I also know that I have a ravenous ego, and that admiration (no matter where it comes from) is a big turn on, for whatever that's worth.

Now I know why most of my male fuck-buddies are straight musicians! :-D

I also used to think I was "born that way" but I now tend more to think that bisexuality is the default state, which can be altered perhaps genetically but most definitely societally.

That's actually pretty perceptive, wolfie, and I'm inclined to agree. And, epecially during adolescence I thing it gets warpped up and mixed up with admiration and hero worship and all kinds of other things. And like I said before, there's the simple fact that bodily contact and admiration feels good.

It's murky territory, is what I'm saying here.

Thanks for sharing, folks. Hearing your answers makes me think this thread should be combined with the "Should've had more wild sex when I had the chance thread" down below. I think your answers are great for folks who figure it out earlier on in their lives and can just go with whomever they're attracted to. But what do you do when you're already thirty-something and married before you figure out that you really want to sleep with a woman?

Well, I had the usual same-sex exploration sessions growing up, and there were a few more ... serious instances during college, but nothing since. I had been exposed to some fairly advanced sexual literature as a kid, thanks to my parents (Joy of Sex, Xaviera Hollander, etc.) and learned of the 1-through-7 scale thing early on, and although I've forgotten which direction it goes, I knew I wasn't at the far end, but wasn't quite in the middle either. I'd done enough to find out that while it wasn't objectionable it wasn't my primary interest either. Not a whole lot of fallout in that regard.

I was also blessed with a somewhat wild older girlfriend, although alas it was not meant to last, who helped me accept the less conventional parts of myself.

Holy cow! "Usual same-sex exploration sessions"! Was I really that sheltered growing up? Did everyone else figure out this shit in the seventh grade or something while I was hiding out in the library?

Too complicated to go into how I knew, but just wanted to chime in as well.

Holy cow! "Usual same-sex exploration sessions"! Was I really that sheltered growing up?

Didn't everybody do this? It wasn't something that was openly acknowledged or anything, just something that happened.

And as stilcho mentioned, we all had access to sex manuals and porn (at least clandestinely) so we all had fairly kinky ideas even as kids.

Pickles - I feel ya. Your home life description is daunting for this issue to say the least. My whole two-way street trip is something I had to negotiate a lot as I grew older also. It was more a fact of just realizing there were men who were just as fascinating and great as the women I was attracted to, and it hurt worse to cleave to what was expected than to admit that beautiful people are everywhere.

I think you should look for a group of people near where you live who can support you right now, get a counselor or something. This is bedrock stuff you're dealing with, and you want to give yourself plenty of time and space with it and make sure you're not backing yourself into a corner. Be open to your feelings, and live with them for awhile. But definitely find some folks near you who are offline to help you sort this out.

Peace, LT

Holy cow! "Usual same-sex exploration sessions"! Was I really that sheltered growing up?

Didn't everybody do this?

Erm, no, not everybody. Maybe I do not count because I was raised in another country and probably along the lines of your parents' generation (maybe older? I do not know). I met the first lesbian woman (openly gay I mean) in my mid twenties. I have not experienced bisexual relationships nor attraction for that matter and I find myself frustratingly overwhelmed by my attraction to men. But who knows really, I do realize I have been raised very differently than you all.

I like women and I admire them physically (in the street or at the gym) but it seems that "dirty" thoughts pop up only in relation to men. I really cannot claim anything more than that one way or another.

Theoretically I endorse BoringPostcard's idea: it seems to me only logical to be attracted to both sexes.

And, pickles,

what do you do when you're already thirty-something and married before you figure out that you really want to sleep with a woman?

that cracked me up. What really do you do when you find yourself attracted to another man when you are a woman, thirty something, married, and with kids? Is it that very different, you think?

please, you understand the term 'dirty' was used jokingly. I do not find them dirty at all.

I do realize I have been raised very differently than you all.

I wasn't raised at the Playboy mansion. My parents are very middle-or-the-road and knew nothing about the naked groping that went on occasionally when they were out. I just figured lots of others had similar experiences.

Is it really the same, though, carmina? Most straight guys would never be ok with their lady fooling around with another guy, but I'll bet if you asked ten straight guys on the street if they'd be ok with their lady being with another woman, at least eight would say yes. Are guys just paying lip service to some stereotypical fantasy they are supposed to have, but when it comes right down to it, they don't really want that?

if you asked ten straight guys on the street if they'd be ok with their lady being with another woman, at least eight would say yes

I'll have to paraphrase Dan Savage here, where he eloquently states the concept that 'whether logical or no, most men aren't threatened by the thought of their wives running off with another woman.' in reality we do know this does, in fact, happen...

And pickles, I don't think you should feel repressed or that you had such a different childhood. Many suburban Americans do, indeed, grow up in very sheltered environments. I deal with them at CU on a regular basis.

I feel that expressions of sexuality in adolescents (when we all naturally start exploring everything about this) have a LOT to do not just with parental attitudes, but with how adventurous and bold the child is as an individual. Jonmc (also no surprise) strikes me as a very bold and adventuresome type. I was a shy kid... and the sort who until a certain age would have never thought of challenging my mom on her morality issues.

That said my first living experience outside of home was with four gay men (I was 18) and, um... holy cow. I learned a lot about sexuality at that point, along with how mutable gender roles and attitudes can really be. Thank god for them, is all I can say.

I had a few of those "grope sessions", with both sexes, as a kid and don't really know how I managed as shy as I was (and still am).

As for parent morality, sex just wasn't talked about. I mean, we had the usual birds 'n' bees talk when I was eight and mum made it clear I could come to her with any questions. However, the morality of sex was never discussed. For example: I remember when I was in fourth or fifth grade there was talk on the playground of Rod Stewart giving blow jobs to men (usually people like Mick Jagger, etc.). I distinctly remember thinking "so what?". Mum had never said that sex between men was wrong and it didn't occur to me on my own that it was. And it's not that mum doesn't have issues with it (I'm sure she's pleased I married a man), it was simply never discussed and I never thought to question it.

I'm not sure where I was going with this and I think I'll leave it there. Heh.

And man, thinking back, damn we were a precocious bunch of kids but this was the '70s.

I was a shy kid, too -- that's how I got drawn into those same-sex experiences, by bolder guys. It wasn't something we thought of as gay or even really had much of a concept for, it was just "Have you ever done this?" sorts of stuff.

And I also lived with a gay couple, though I was in my early 20s by then. What was funny was that the one guy, a co-worker, asked me if I wanted to take the extra bedroom so they could afford a larger place, we agreed to most everything, and then ... he leaned in and said to me, "You do know I'm gay, right?" I had to laugh, it was so obvious. ;-)
Alas, the third guy, his lover, died of AIDS less than a year later, and I was so freaked out by the experience I left New York for good.

And jonmc, most of the guys I knew learned from Hustler, or maybe Juggs if that was around -- not the hifalutin books my parents let me snoop through! *shudder*

I wasn't raised at the Playboy mansion.

Jon, I never said you were. OK, I got misunderstood and it's my fault. Sorry if I offended someone.

I was raised in something more than a "sheltered" environment (think about what your own parents were raised in and maybe that would compare). At the time (the 70s-80s) society in Greece was still a lot more closeted than here or than it is now. I knew of very few homosexuals (heard only and mostly artists) not because they did not exist, but because they were mostly closeted and/or the rest of the society kept hash about it. The fact that my parents never spoke openly about sex to me, did not help either. And seriously, even though I had heard about girls and boys playing "touch me" when I was a teenager, I had never heard girls with girls or boys with boys. The fact that I did not hear about it and that it wasn't happening as much is by itself weird, I think.

I hope I will be a better parent in this way.

And jonmc, most of the guys I knew learned from Hustler, or maybe Juggs if that was around

This is a total tangent, but my initial exposure to gay porn was from the more hardcore (yet still available at your local 7-11) porn mags of the day like Hustler. Always--always--in the back of the mag there were ads for gay porn, at first quite clandestine (bodybuilding and wrestling videos wooo!) then as time progressed, magazines, then gay 976/900 lines.

Hell, I didn't even know Blueboy magazine existed until that frickin' Cyndi Lauper song!!! Was it She-Bop? Yeah, I think that's the one.

I soon discovered the text-only Penthouse Forum digest mags had quite a noticeable amount of male-male or MMF encounters that focused more on the MM than the MF(M) ... and obviously it was popular enough back then to spawn Penthouse Variations ... and ... and I know too much about porn, don't I?? PRANK CALLER! PRANK CALLER! *click*

stilcho, my exposure to porn and sex manuals was not through my parents (although my dad, and some of his friends who I later worked for had the occasional Playboy in a desk drawer). They were not Aspen hot-tubbers. They were your typical repressed Catholic high-school/Vietnam/marraige non-hippies. The sex manuals I found at Waldenbooks in the mall, and porn..well, there was a more 'liberal' family up the street (they were into meditation, they also were the first family on the block to own a computer, an apple IIe, me and their younger son spent hours playing Space Invaders and Adventure on it), the older brothers kept a stash of Penthouse and Hustler that we raided regularly along with the abandoned porn we found in the woods. But the odd by product is that, like many people in my generation, I knew what fist-fucking was before I'd ever been french kissed. (My first exposure to a naked female was equally weird. I was playing with a female friend who was being raised by her grandma. She spontaneously decided to get naked and lay on the basement rug in front of me. I looked on in reverent awe for reasons I didn't quite grasp at the time. I had told my nonna (my parents were on vacation) that I was going to her house for 10 minutes. I was gone for 2 hours. The girls grandma also walked in and freaked out. She moved away two years later. I still wonder about that girl occasionally)

(carmina, I'm not offended, I just wanted to clarify)