So it finally hit me

[tootsie_too]

I'm bisexual.

I've been avoiding the label for oh, eight years or so, but I figure two months shy of my 23rd birthday when everything is up in the air I should be honest about some things. It's shockingly easy to hide behind that heterosexual label when you fit half way behind it.

I'm not much for labels, I've never really liked them or thought they were anything important but so many people in my life do. I grew up in a community that has some very deep prejudices and have spent a lifetime defending the bisexual lifestyle to my friends in a very impersonal way. The disdain for the general homosexual was nothing on the way that people treated the idea of bisexual in my hometown, including some of my closest friends. So much easier to stick with the label of heterosexual that they all liked.

But then, this week, I had the hottest, most emotional dream of my life about my (former) boss, who is drop dead gorgeous-and totally female and woke up in tears (she was going to leave her fiance for me...it was pretty cool). And it hit me, that I have feelings for her, on some level...and well, that I had to at least be honest with myself.

Still a bi virgin, but definitely bi.

[JoyJoyHollywood]

I waited for eight years too....and I activley knew I adored women.

[Philbert]

i never considered myself as bi until a close friend of mine came out to me, it wasn't until she said she was bi that the idea made sence to me, it was like someone turning on a light, it suddenly seemed so simple. i had always considered myself straighht until then, even though i would think about guys and watch the odd bit of gay porn. i just put that down to having a vivid imagination.

[JoyJoyHollywood]

I think that a lot of us are really conditioned to have a negative view of our latent homosexual tendancies. And I think that it's almost a subversive sort of denial. We may not have any problem with it in others, we may even be supportive to efforts to make it a less negative postion in our society, but in ourselves it is something that we don't find ourselves able to admit to with great ease.

[Skater Boy]

I pretty much grew up around heterosexuals. I had NO CONTACT with anyone even REMOTELY homosexual until I went to university. I guess because my social circles were pretty homophobic, I kept that side of me compartmentalized. But that said, on some level I have ALWAYS known. It just didn't become a conscious realization until much later, when I stopped "feeling guilty" and actually admitted to myself who/what I was.

[Herbwoman39]

I unconsciously repressed my bisexuality until I was smacked upside the head with it 2 days before my 38th birthday. I'm 40 now.

Like you, I think I always knew. I was just so afraid to face it that I shoved it down until I couldn't deny it anymore.

It's taken me a LONG time to get to a place where I enjoy this part of myself. It took my husband even longer but now he's actually better about it than I am at times.

I can honestly say that it was this community that saved me from running back into the closet and permanently locking the door. The caring and support I receive here is something I will be grateful for for the rest of my life.

BTW, I'm still a bi virgin too :)

[the mage]

I did it backwards.....

I started with guys at age 9 and had several partners all around my age till I was 17. then it was women only till I was in my early 30's. Actually 3 women only..... Then things opened up and the parties started....