No, no, I'm not referring to me! I'm referring to others on both this website and the other dating site I hang out on. As I mentioned in my last post, this 22-year-old guy wrote a blog post Tuesday evening on the other dating site about what polyamory means to him and his wife. By this morning, the comment count was up to 190 comments. Granted, it seemed as most of these people were talking amongst themselves rather than to the blogger, but nonetheless, this fairly simple blog generated a great deal of activity. It probably took the blogger all of 15 minutes to write.
I decided to sit down last night and write my own post about what polyamory personally means to me and my husband. I've posted it here and on that other dating site. You know what? I got zero comments. Not one. As far as I know, it was completely ignored or never seen.
Why is that?
Yeah, I know. I'm 52-years-old and certainly not in the prime demographics for dating sites. Who wants to even look at the profile of a 52-year-old woman? Who cares what she has to say? She's old!
Then again, maybe I truly do leave people speechless. I'm sharing my experiences rather than asking for their opinions and advice. Their opinions aren't going to change the the dynamics of my marriage after 35 years.
I'm not seeking approval or validation for my lifestyle and choices. No one else has walked in my shoes. This journey is mine and my husband's based on how it all came together for us.
I'm not seeking a sense of belonging. You'll never find me joining a group or club that has Poly-Anything in its title.
I'm not out to promote the polyamorous lifestyle or tout its benefits or try to sell anyone on it. I feel that how I conduct my intimate relationship is my own business. It's a very personal decision that came from the consideration of many factors and alternatives. I don't discuss it with my coworkers, my casual friends or acquaintances. People know about my nonmonogamous marriage in Real Life on a "need to know" basis.
So, the score? 22-year-old male, married for one month: polyamory post generates 190 comments. 52-year-old female, married for 35 years: polyamory post generates 0 comments.
My husband and I were young when we got married. I was six weeks shy of my 18th birthday on our wedding day in 1973, and my husband had turned 23 a month earlier. We got married with some conventional, tacit ideas about what our marriage would be like. It was unspoken but assumed that we would be sexually faithful and monogamous. After all, that's how decent and moral married couples behave.
But what happens then when the young wife starts to come to grips with her bisexuality? When I first started to become aware of my fluid sexuality, I was a sophomore in high school. I didn't have a name for it then. I didn't know how to put it in perspective. I didn't know what it all meant. I didn't really think that I was a lesbian, but to be honest, that thought scared me when I was 17-years-old in 1972.
By the time I had been married almost a year, my feelings made more sense to me. I tried on the label bisexual to see how it fit, and it felt pretty comfortable. I started talking to my husband about these feelings, which came as no surprise to him since I told him about my sexual relationship with my high school best friend before we were married.
He was supportive and accepting. He was insecure, tentative, and a little scared at times when I actually started dating some women in my early 20s, but at no time did he deliver any ultimatums or force me to make a decision about either being married to him or dating a woman.
Oh, I thought plenty about it for both of us during a couple of those years in my early 20s! There was some part of me that was convinced that a person couldn't really be attracted to both sexes, that a choice would need to be made. And I knew I didn't want to give up the pleasure of being with a woman! Ergo, I must really be a lesbian and I should just get it over with and file for divorce, thus freeing my husband to be with a woman who could love him without ever thinking of anyone else and I could find my true fulfillment with a woman.
I couldn't do it. I had plenty of people trying to convince me to do it, but deep in the core of me I knew that getting a divorce wasn't the solution. I could project at that time what would happen if I got a divorce. First of all, he and I would probably end up back together because the truth of the matter is that we really like each other and enjoy each other's company. We always have. We share a lot of interests in common and have a similar set of values. I love so many things about him. I've never loved a man the way I love him, either then or now. I didn't want to live without him as a part of my life!
If I divorced and fell in love with a woman and we decided to live together, what then? I knew that I still found certain men attractive. Did I want to live the rest of my life never having that experience of making love with a man again? I didn't really think so.
The experience of making love with a woman and the experience of making love with a man are two different things for me. Granted, there are similarities. And each experience depends on the individuals involved. But generally speaking, being sexually intimate with a woman has a much different feel, flavor, texture and aura to me than being with a man. They each have their own set of attributes, and one is different from the other. I enjoy them both for what each one brings to my sexual and emotional fulfillment.
Dave did not ever insist that I choose between those two aspects of my sexuality. Instead, he offered me the opportunity to explore those aspects without fear of losing his love and his place in my life. Some ground rules evolved, although they were never formal in any sense. Again, they arose from our shared set of values: caring for ourselves and our relationship, concern for the wellbeing of others, the belief that sex should be a part of caring, loving relationships and not a careless, haphazard activity. Our marriage is very important to us, and there is a strong commitment to it for both of us. I put him first in my life, and I always want him to know that. My sexual relationships with women must work well within the framework of my marriage or I simply don't go there. That has become my Number One rule when considering whether to get intimately involved with a woman or not.
And we communicate. He knows how I feel about who I am, what I'm doing, who I'm seeing. He is NEVER out of the loop. If he has concerns about anything or anyone, I want to hear it. We'll hash it out.
Polyamory was a word that didn't exist in my vocabulary back in the earlier years of our marriage. Since that time, I've seen a lot of textbook-type definitions of what it is. Those definitions don't mean a lot to me. What means something to me is the reality of my 35-year marriage. That marriage was built on respect, trust and love. It grew in intimacy because of the sharing of hopes, fears, and desires. What polyamory means to me is the recognition of desires that go potentially beyond the scope of what a single relationship can provide. It is the flexibility to see more than one answer to the fulfillment (or denial) of those desires.
What polyamory doesn't mean to me is that there has to be more than one person in my life sexually. That isn't a compelling, burning need. I was monogamous with my husband for a 17-year period in our marriage and was content with that during those years. I was still bisexual; I still talked openly about those feelings and embraced them. It just wasn???t a need during those years to pursue other relationships.
My working definition of polyamory includes the freedom of choice, the freedom to include another relationship as part of our lives if that's what seems to be the most fulfilling path to take. It is the antithesis of ultimatums, control, demands, and threats. It has been a concept borne of love in this marriage in many ways.
Over the years, I've come to the conclusion that there are many flavors of bisexuality, which must be why it is so hard to find compatable partners. "Bi" can mean so many different things, unlike the descriptive words "gay" or "straight."
For some, the label "bisexual" means that they are mostly straight with an occasional, fleeting desire for someone of the same sex. It's a very "discreet" thing, not anything to make a big deal about or disrupt a lifestyle over. On the other hand, it can mean, "I'm mostly gay/lesbian but I had a relationship with the opposite sex once, so I guess that means I'm kind of bi. I don't know if I'd ever do it again, though."
It can mean that a person is basically monogamous with a relationship with the same sex in the past. It can mean that a person would like to have a relationship with both a man AND a woman at the same time in their lives. It can mean that one is equally as important as the other.
It's no wonder that the word "bisexual" leads to confusion and avoidance, even among those people who may call themselves by that descriptor. It's hard to know what it means to any individual person. It is really wading into the "shades of gray," which is by nature uncomfortable for human beings.
I love this site. I really do. I feel very at home here, more so than I have felt on any other site where the majority of profiles are for straight people looking for other straight people or gay people looking for others of the same orientation. This is the only site I've been on worth a grain of salt where there are some interesting people and profiles, all people looking for a bi experience, relationship and/or lifestyle.
HOWEVER, there is little activity in my designated age range (35-65) from women in the Twin Cities on this site, or even within a couple hundred miles of the Twin Cities. *Surprisingly* little, considering that this is a major metropolitan area in the Upper Midwest, and Minneapolis in particular is known for being quite liberal. Is everyone here in Minnesota just too frozen solid to post a profile, or does every bi woman over 30 have exactly what she needs and isn't looking? I'm really perplexed.
I wish that there was a way to get the word out about this site so we'd get more bi-oriented profiles posted HERE instead of scattered around on sites geared mainly towards the straight or gay/lesbian dating scene. I don't like having to weed through the profiles on other sites of women looking for women BUT "no bi's, please!!!" (Oh, no!! That horrible "B" word!!! Shudder and shiver!!)
It's been awhile since I've had a romantic relationship of any note with a woman. My history?
From 1981 to 1998, I was in a 17-year period of no romantic/sexual relationships with women, although I still considered myself bisexual. I just wasn't actively pursuing a relationship and none were dropping into my lap. Bisexual relationships don't tend to drop into a married woman's lap! (Prior to 1981, I had had a number of experiences with women but nothing very fruitful in terms of relationships. Hence, the weariness and the "semi-retirement" from pursuing it.)
From 1998 to 2001, I was in a relationship with a woman where I had "officially" been designated her girlfriend. However, it was a lopsided affair with the world revolving around L. She was very self-absorbed and high maintenance. The fact that she got married a year-and-a-half after we met, got pregnant a month after the wedding, and delivered a child nine months after her wedding did not smooth our relationship any. It just demanded more of her than what she was able to give, and it's not hard to imagine that I was relegated to the bottom of the priority list. I am NOT high maintenance and am a centered, giving woman who can deal with a certain amount of that kind of relationship, but I reached my limit with it, especially when they decided to relocate to a town in Wisconsin which was a six-hour drive from the Twin Cities. That was the last straw for me. We weren't doing well with her living a 20-minute drive from me at that point. We probably weren't going to be doing any WORSE with her living six hours away from me, but it wasn't going to improve the relationship, either. It was time to end it and move on... (to be continued due to imposed space limits)
Since my relationship with L ended in early 2001, I can summarize quite briefly what has gone on in the female-female arena of my bisexual life. Prior to the most recent relationship with C, there were four women, three of whom were met on a dating website where I've been SaintPaulGrrl since about 2003. The other woman was a fellow attendee at a 1997 bisexual women's support group in Minneapolis, and I had kept in sporadic touch with her for years since that introduction. One of these relationships resulted in an ongoing four-month sexual relationship. The rest consisted of some dates, some intermingled e-mail correspondence, and sexual relationships that ended up being a one-time-only event, disappointingly.
The reasons for ending all of these relationships can be summed up with the following four statements offered by each of these women:
1. "I can't emotionally commit to a married woman."
2. "My husband doesn't mind me having a no-strings encounter, but he'd feel threatened if we continued this."
3. "I'm not a lesbian. I just want a 'friend with bennies.'"
4. "YOU are a 'married lesbian.' Maybe you'll figure out what you really are someday."
C, a woman almost 16 years younger than me, responded to my profile in March of this year. I found our interests and lifestyles to be compatible, found her attractive, and enjoyed exchanging e-mail with a woman who could intelligently string some sentences together -- unfortunately, a quality that seems to be hard to find! We didn't waste time chatting but decided to meet soon after our online introduction. This was mid-March....
(This site doesn't allow a person much room to write! To be continued...)
C and I dated for 6 weeks before making love. She cried and said how good it felt to be in my arms. We saw each other regularly after that. She was always eager to hug me, kiss me, hold hands with me. She didn't care who saw us! She introduced me to her kids. Her youngest, J, 3-and-a-half, wanted to know if he could call Bonnie "Mommy," too, since I was Mommy's girlfriend. We had a wonderful day a t Pride, "out and proud," our arms around each other for everyone there to see.
Then she says the stuff she said to me a week ago Saturday...
I've been happier these past few months than I've probably ever been in my adult life. It's not because I was in love with C. I hadn't gotten there yet. I saw what was going on in her life with the multiple partners and general unsettledness and it wasn't a place where I was going to put my trust just yet. I was observing to see what was going to happen in her life before I let my emotions run towards "being in love." We never said those three little words to each other.
What I've been happy about is the integration of my orientation into a fulfilling configuration in my life. I've been "out" to more people than I've ever been: some coworkers, my doctor, my sister, my niece, other friends. I've allowed the faceless public to see what affection looks like between two women. I've reveled in that! For once, I felt like I was in a relationship that embraced my love of women and my love for my husband, without those two facets of my life being a t odds with each other. Those pieces of my life were blending into a whole -- the whole much greater than the sum of the parts. I always knew it could be this way! My bisexuality is a positive thing, not a negative, not a stance of confusion. It's the blending and embracing of a spectrum of feelings, appreciation and desire in a way that many people will never experience. It's a beautiful thing! It's a blessing and a gift...
My bisexuality is a positive rather than a negative trait and certainly not a stance of confusion. It's the blending and embracing of a spectrum of feelings, appreciation and desire in a way that many people will never experience. It's a beautiful thing! It's a blessing and a gift.
But no, it hasn't been a happy place for me for most of my teen and adult life because it's not an accepted orientation. It's a tough road to travel. I've often refuted the claim that bisexuality is a stance of a person confused about their true gay/lesbian identity. If I were predominantly lesbian in my orientation, would I choose this path called bisexuality? The answer is undoubtedly no. It is much easier to be either lesbian or straight, and if I were either of those things, I wouldn't have any trouble being one of those orientations and living openly as straight or lesbian.
I'm not either/or, and I realized that many, many years ago when my lesbian friends were encouraging me to leave my husband and come out as the lesbian woman they felt I was. I'm bisexual, and I have chosen the path that allows me to experience the range of emotions and fulfillment inherent in that orientation rather than denying myself one or the other. This is a stance of courage, of being true to who I am, not a stance of fear and confusion.
For the first time, with C, I felt integrated and whole, pleased with who I am. There was a tremendous joy inside me in a way that hadn't been there before.
I felt so wonderful and joyful during this time that I was afraid I would crash, afraid that this would all be a dream. C pulled away from the relationship ten days ago, and I felt the crash was a t hand, and it scared me. Temporarily.
Then I discovered that all those feelings of wholeness, of integration, of self-acceptance and self-appreciation were all inside me. They were all still there! Those feelings aren't dependent on C or anyone else. They're part of ME. I'm still VERY happy -- and very proud to be me.
This is just too bad! My husband travels a great deal on business. I was just informed that the one week trip to Europe in January and the one week trip in February has now been expanded to two weeks in both January and February, with a trip thrown in there somewhere to South Africa! I love him dearly and there is no question that he is the primary partner for this polyamorous woman, but there is a HUGE space available in my life for an intelligent, warm, adventurous woman who would like to share a relationship with a comparable companion.
I'm asked this question repeatedly: "Does your husband date other people, too?"
The answer is: no, he doesn't, but he doesn't because it's his choice not to. He is monogamous by nature, feels emotionally committed to me. Therefore, he says he doesn't feel the need to have sexual relationships with other women. (He's straight.)
In this sense, it is admittedly a "mixed marriage." I'm bisexual and poly, wanting both a man and a woman in my life, and he's monogamous. He knows that if he wanted another partner, I would agree to him enjoying the same situation that I desire, provided that the circumstances fit within our code of behavior and ethics. I don't feel any guilt because of what I am in this relationship. I was honest with him the summer we got engaged 35 years ago. I was sexually involved with my best friend at that time and told him about it, suggesting that if this was a major point of contention and discomfort for him, he would be better off getting out of the relationship with me before it went any further. He married me with his eyes wide open, and there have been no surprises in this regard along the way. I've always been able to say that it's his choice to be in a relationship with a bi- and poly woman, and it's his choice to be monogamous in that relationship.
My husband came home from a week-long business trip this past weekend, and as we were sitting together Sunday evening, having a glass of wine, I told him of some of the interactions I had had the previous week on BiCupid.
"BiCuspid Dot Com?" he quipped. "Isn't it that site for DENTISTS?"
I found his twist on words to be hilarious and nearly choked on my wine! Then I couldn't get the vision of a bunch of dentists wandering onto the site, thinking that it had to do with molars, and then finding out that they had gotten into something else!
Maybe there ARE some dentists out there who would like to get up close and personal with my bicuspids! Sometimes a misplaced "S" can make all the difference in the world!
(P.S. Take your laughs where you find them. I do!)
Although I may be a woman of many words and write long journal entries, I only write when I have something of note to say. I am not a journaler who writes about the mundane tasks of everyday life. My blog here contains the essence of who I am. Reading it would well-acquaint a person with who I am and what I'm all about, at least concerning my orientation and my aspirations to find a woman (or women) with whom to have a caring relationship, be it platonic or romantic.
I know that many feel I share too much and too freely of the intimate details of my life. "TMI!" they say. Okay, TMI. Read it if you want. Don't read it if you don't care to. I, however, see no benefit in keeping those details under wraps. I'm not embarrassed about any of it. It's made me who I am.
Take a look. See if something sparks your interest. Drop me a line or make a comment if it does.
I have a confession to make. I spent a Friday evening at home alone and searched EVERY SINGLE PAGE that came up in response to my designated search parameters on this site. 52 pages total! Do you know what I found? Zip!! -- that would lead to an actual meeting/dating situation for me, at any rate. There is nothing going on here in Minnesota on this site, at least in the age range that I specify. (I have to admit that I'm a bit cautious about getting involved with women who are young enough to be my daughters, and let's be honest: they're not interested in an "older woman," anyway. Why should they be with an abundance of options in the late-teens-to-30 age group?)
I am quite open to email, friendship situations as well. In fact, I welcome them and look forward to them. Some years back, I actually met four or five of my email friends from Maryland, Nebraska, eastern Wisconsin, and Iowa, and it's an enriching experience. However, things aren't going very well on that front, either, these days.
Any advice, consolation, good jokes, restaurant recommendations, recipes for comfort food out there? Send cyber-chocolate, if nothing else!
I requested my STD screening in June at my checkup, which I knew I was going to do this year after my now ex-girlfriend, C, said to me, "I make it part of my routine health care. I'd like it if you did, too." I was nervous about it, though, wondering what kind of reaction I was going to get from my Family Practitioner!
He didn't bat an eye but asked me what was going on in my sex life to request the screening. I told him that I'm sexually non-monagamous and in relationship(s) with partners who are also sexually non-monogamous, and I think I should be screened. He agreed. In trying to assess my risk and what tests to order, he asked me how many partners I've had in the last few years. At that point, I just came out and told him the unvarnished truth: "Since my last STD screening in 1999, I've been with one man: my husband. And I've had sex with six women since that last screening."
Again, absolutely no inkling of surprise or discomfort on his part at this revelation. "Condom use with your husband?" he asked.
"No."
"Husband involved in other relationships?"
"I don't think so." (I'm 99.9% sure he's not, but how can one ever be absolutely sure what another person is doing, so that was my answer.)
We talked about the relatively low STD risks imposed by female-female sex. He mentioned the risks involved with sharing toys, although he said that this risk is lower than one might think. He mentioned the health risks that oral-anal contact can cause, which I'm aware of. (The health risks are the contraction of viruses, bacteria, and parasites normally spread by the oral-fecal route.) He mentioned that contact with blood (as in sex during a woman's menstrual period) can increase the risks of transmitting blood-borne pathogens, again something I knew.
Dr. S was very matter-of-fact. He never made a judgmental comment, treating the request and the knowledge I shared with him with respect. He asked me if there were any sexual orientation issues I needed to discuss, given the fact that I was a married woman who was having sex with women -- a valid and caring question and one that I would have asked as a health care practitioner to a patient in that same situation.
I explained to him that I had come out to my husband as a bisexual woman when he was still my fiance 35 years ago and that we have a very open, caring, honest and supportive relationship in that regard. I told him that we were both in a comfortable place with my orientation. He said, "Good. Just checking." And I think that it was great that he did. It was a very professionally competent thing for him to do.
He noted that we should make STD screening a regular part of my annual health care -- just assume that it should be done rather than not done -- and I agreed. I said that I have felt guilty about not making it a part of my annual care over these recent years, but it was hard to bring the subject up. He apologized to me for not doing so himself and for making assumptions based on my marital status. He acknowledged that assumptions aren't good. LOTS of points to him for that. In the future, the annual screenings will be done as long as there is any need for them.
All test results came back negative, as I figured they would.
And then after I go through this nerve-wracking experience, C and I break up two weeks later. Who knows if there will ever be a need for this screening again? (That's the little pessimistic, whiney voice in me piping up who is convinced I'll never experience a woman again!)
But I'm glad I did it, and I'm glad I'm out to my primary care physician. I think it's good he knows so we can take the best care of me we can.
Finally, at the age of 51 and an acknowledged bisexual woman since my teens, I attended my first Pride Festival today in Loring Park next to downtown Minneapolis. I've always wanted to go. I just didn't have anyone to go with me and share the experience.
That's been the big change in my life since March. There is a woman in my life now who shares my orientation and my lifestyle and moves fluidly and comfortably between the many facets of her world. When I mentioned to her a couple of weeks ago that I've never been to a Pride Festival, she said, "Well, then, we should go!"
I was just in awe of the Festival today. So many different organizations in our Twin Cities community were there to celebrate diversity, everything from churches to health care organizations to artisans, musicians and crafters. I felt a huge outpouring of acceptance and caring there, and I just reveled in it.
C. and I shopped and ate, chatted with vendors and representatives of many organizations. We held hands, we laughed, we strolled with our arms around each other's waists. We got silly and had our picture taken in the big chair draped with the rainbow banner.
I stopped at the PFLAG booth to say hi to Peter and Leslie if they were there, but they weren't. However, I bought a new PFLAG pin to replace the one I had lost, and C. and I both pasted ourselves with big yellow stickers that proclaimed, "I'm PFLAG Family" and adorned ourselves with rainbow bracelets.
I hated to cut the experience short after several hours but other obligations today demanded my time. As C. and I said our goodbyes at the bridge that would lead me away from Loring Park, she told me that this was her best Pride Festival ever. Of course, this was my FIRST Pride Festival, but it was the best ever for me, too, and I hope that it's only the first of many.
Just after the start of the second semester of our sophomore year, J. and I both acquired steady boyfriends. The conversations really got interesting then!
One Sunday afternoon that spring, as we were up in my bedroom and alone in the house, we were talking about stuff and I started messing around. "Did he do this?" I asked, rolling over on top of her. "Did you let him do this?" I wanted to know, my hand moving to her breast and giving her a squeeze. She was getting worked up, and I was getting a kick out of it. I could also tell that she was a little frightened by what was going on. I really don't know how far I would have taken things that afternoon if my mother hadn't come home and inadvertently broken up the party.
It was probably a month or so later that my boyfriend broke up with me [note: he returns later in the story as my husband] and I was devastated. I invited my best friend to spend Friday night with me because I needed the companionship. I was really quite grief-strickened and wanted her closeness that night. It was not she who seduced me; it was the other way around. She was still hesitant, wondering f we would wake up the next morning and feel "queer," thus ruining our friendship. I was firm in my belief that nothing like that was going to happen. She wanted to be convinced, and it didn't take me all that long to accomplish that. We got no sleep that night, making love off and on until dawn.
I've thought a lot about the issue of bisexuality being an avoidance of coming out as a lesbian. Early in my twenties, I spent a lot of energy and thought on that issue. I had many lesbian friends, went with them regularly to lesbian coffeehouses and bars (and, yes, slept with more than a few of them on a casual basis), and attended a GLBT church. I allowed myself to be filmed in the front row of that church for a TV special about the gay community in the Twin Cities. I was quite "out" and understood completely what it felt like to be same-sex oriented, even though I was a married woman. I couldn't tell my husband to buzz off because of his gender, however, even though that's what some of my lesbian acquaintances encouraged me to do. He's a very sensitive, gentle, caring and giving man, and I can't imagine life without him. (He's been a part of my life for 36 years now -- 69% of it already!)
This era of my life also speaks quite pointedly to the fact that if I sincerely felt deep in my heart that I was a lesbian and wished to have intimate relationships only with the same sex, I have the inner courage to follow that path. Indecision and lack of inner courage have never seemed to be traits that apply to me!
If my husband were to predecease me or we were to divorce, I have given consideration to what I would do. Would I then come out as a lesbian? The answer is still no. If my relationship with him were to come to an end, my next serious relationship could be with a woman, a woman I may spend the rest of my life with in happy sexual monogamy. But I would always have that knowledge of my potential to love and appreciate the opposite gender and would remain self-identified as bisexual, even if I chose not to have a sexual relationship with a man again.
I have felt different and alone most of my adult life because of my sexual orientation. At one time, some years ago, I erroneously believed that the lesbian community would be supportive of me but I've found out that that definitely is not the case. (Definitely not the case as in, "I'm looking for a GENUINE lesbian. No men, couples, bi's, or drugs...") The "straight" world doesn't know what to make of bisexuality, either. The only women who really understand, I believe, are those who have been in the same position at some time in their lives, and it's hard to meet those women. They tend to be invisible out there in the world unless you know specifically how to connect with them.
I know that some lesbian women view bisexuality as the inability or unwillingness to make a commitment to lesbianism, and as such, it's considered a phony and frivolous stance in life. There is suspicion and mistrust there because we bisexual women act as though we like women but at the same time we're perceived as wanting to retain our "heterosexual privilege." Granted, there are plenty of women out there who just want to give sex with another woman a try for the novelty and intrigue of it or to please a male partner with a threesome, with no interest in it beyond that superficial physical level. I have no interest in a sexual involvement with those women, either. I need and want the emotional connection with a woman, the kind of closeness that comes from sharing interests, spending time together, allowing another person to see beyond the superficial traits.
I probably became aware of my sexual attraction towards women in some subliminal way through my early short-story writing. I began writing stories when I was in seventh grade. Sometime during ninth grade, I introduced adolescent romance into my stories. The interesting thing was that I would write from the male character's point of view -- or at least how I understood it. The "steamier" things got, the more into the male role I became. I didn't read anything into this at the time.
It wasn't until much later that I really began to look at this tendency in my writing and what it might mean. At that time, though, it was definitely an acceptable way for me to write about my sexual feelings for women without it being a lesbian story of any sort. (Interestingly enough, the first time I wrote about a same-sex encounter, it was between two boys. I never have written a story where sex occurred between two girls.)
It was during this same time frame, probably late 9th grade and definitely 10th grade, when I had my first infatuation with a classmate. I didn't try to explain it. I just went into the role of one of my male characters and wrote her into the script! No one was the wiser that I had gone temporarily insane over Mary O.!
And then there was J. my best friend since early in 9th grade. There was nothing sexual between us for that first year. However, the one thing that we had in common was a lack of inhibition about talking to each other sex!
