Hotel Bliss Guest Blog

Are you coming out or staying in?

You’ve seen someone do it. You’ve probably done it yourself. I have.

I had recently been introduced to someone by my friends, and I made the casual-yet-daring remark that I was bi. As soon as I said it, I hit myself mentally. I felt overextended, overexposed. Here was a near stranger, and I was already telling them I was bi. Is this how I want myself defined? As the bi girl?

Well, you’re probably saying, where’s the harm in that? You should be proud to be bi. And yes, I know that people tend to describe others by things like gender, sexual orientation and race. But is that the thing you want to sum up your identity? Is that how you want to be judged by others, by who you have sex with?

Love is one thing, and sharing who you love with people is quite different… but what kind of sex you have is not something people have to acknowledge you for. Many women are with men, married or dating… yet like to play with girls on the side, or have a secondary relationship with a woman… Why would you need to tell your parents you have threesomes? Who really is on a need-to-know basis about your sex life besides your lover(s) and your gynecologist? Why does being private and secret about one’s sexuality/sex life equal being ashamed of who we are? It’s not shame; it is reserving the knowledge of who we are to our lovers and friends.

It is none of your parents’ or boss’s or coworker’s business whom you have sex with. Long term relationships, marriages, those things are different. But the type of person or acts that are involved in your sex life is not their business. Do you need to know about your boss’s or parent’s sex life (besides the obvious your parents had hetero sex at least once to have you thing)?

In a perfect world, we would be loved for all the depth and breadth of who we are as people. Yet most everyone sees only a slice of who we are: who you are at your job, who you are with your parents, or your siblings, your friends, your lover, your spouse. You will show different aspects of yourself based on who you are with. That may or may not include your sexuality. You can be respected, admired, loved for an aspect of you without being loved for all of you. That is why it is so special when someone comes along who does love all of you.

Being bisexual is not the only thing that makes you lovely, lovable, interesting, sexy, or open-minded. There is much more to you than who you have sex with and someone can appreciate who you are without knowing or appreciating your sex life.

No, you can’t watch!

I had just started dating someone, when I made a big mistake. I mentioned my ex girlfriend. You could see the wheels in his mind crashing to a grinding halt. I blushed in the silence and said, “I’m bi…..” Then I added, “But I don’t do threesomes!”

His answer, “Well then, what’s the point?”

I rarely get a negative response from a man for being openly bisexual. This response really struck me. It reminds me of another, more common response: “Can I watch?”

I don’t do threesomes, and no you can’t watch. And so, the appeal of my bisexuality is lost completely on most men.

Sometimes it’s hard being a bisexual woman. We are seen as promiscuous, attention-starved means for men to live out their fantasies of two girls at once. We are seen as dishonest and that we have it “easy” because we can “masquerade” as straight and don’t have people railing against a bisexual agenda. Yet let me tell you, when a man sees no point and no beauty in your bisexuality because it isn’t serving his own sexual needs, it can make you question the point of it all and whether bisexual women have it all that “easy”.

I’m bisexual, but that doesn’t mean I am incapable of devoting myself to one person.

I’m bisexual but that doesn’t mean I want my intimate moments with the man or woman I choose to love to be put on display for someone else.

If only he knew then how much his comment had hurt me. And how often I heard it echoed in the responses of other men.

That is part of the appeal of joining a website like Hotel Bliss. Instead of having your sexuality treated like a tool for other men, it is celebrated and enshrined for what it is by other women who have been made to feel as isolated and objectified as you, yourself, have felt at times. You are not alone and you are not an object. The beauty and openness you show by being bisexual is amazing. We need more ethical, honest, lovely bi-girls like yourselves in the world.

I was the last to know I was bi!

I was twenty when I finally decided that there was no getting around it. I was unashamedly, irrefutably bisexual. The funny thing was, I had been saying I was bi since I was fifteen. Now, before you accuse me of being the type of girl that would make out with another girl at parties just to get attention, let me explain that I was hopelessly clueless about who I was even when I was staring straight at myself. Until I was twenty, I called myself theoretically bi. I knew I thought girls were stunning, but I had never felt a deep emotional attachment to one.

That changed when I met Jaime. Jaime was a bi girl who was an acquaintance of mine. I was dating a man at the time and they had fooled around. Overcome with guilt, she insisted to him that she had to tell me. Up until that conversation, I really didn’t know her that well. We started talking and I immediately became interested in this delightful and complex girl. After one conversation, it didn’t matter that she had fooled around with my boyfriend. In fact, I was happy because I never would have discovered how wonderful she was otherwise.

Jaime was just as surprised as I was at my reaction. I fell head over heels for her in a surprisingly short period of time. My man became convinced that I liked girls more than I liked boys. I was fighting spontaneous romantic urges I had never felt before in my life. I called her my inamorata.

Now here’s what I valued most about this precious bit of time where I had my inamorata’s affection. I began to look at women differently. I had always had a somewhat uneasy relationship with other women. I found them intimidating, inscrutable, or too catty for my liking. Now, everywhere I turned I found something wonderful in the women around me. Their beauty, their intellects, their hopes and their creativity. They all reminded me of her. I also had far more self confidence because I loved her and I was a woman just like her, so I began to love myself. I looked different when I saw myself in the mirror. This is what my love for Jaime did to me.

After she left and the glittery distraction of infatuation began to fade, I started thinking back on my life. I realized that I had not been theoretically bi for years, I had just been plain old bi in reality.

When I was a kid, I had been interested in other girls my age. In junior high and high school, I had checked out female celebrities and flirted with my best girl friends. At the age of fifteen, I had come close to losing my virginity to another girl before I had been scared that someone might find us out. At sixteen, an ugly rumor circulated that I had tried to have sex with a girl I had harmlessly flirted with.

And yet I still dared to say that I was only theoretically bi. I was half in the closet all those years. I fully admitted I was bi, but still had my own doubts. Maybe I would have sex with a girl, but I didn’t think I could love one. To commit to another girl emotionally would condemn me to a life of bisexuality. There are a lot of places I could go with this discussion, but I am going to talk specifically about self identification.

You can be bisexual and still not incorporate it into how you see yourself.

There are women out there who are interested in other women and want to be loved by someone like them but do not identify as bi. There are women out there who identify as bi and yet still insulate themselves in doubt to help preserve a semblance that they might be normal. Some bi girls may desperately want to believe that other girls are a passing fancy, just so they do not have to face the pressure. It is difficult to be gay. It is getting easier, but what some people don’t realize that it is hard to be bisexual too. It comes with its own variety of intolerance, misunderstanding, and objectification.

I cannot stress the benefits of authentic self-identification. The world may be raging around you but you will be the calm center. Be authentic and live with integrity. There is nothing worse than having to hide the love you have to give and who your heart gives it to.

GETTING HER NUMBER – A BABY BI-GIRL SHARES HER STORY

Darling Bliss Warriors, Our featured guest blogger, Jungle Jane, returns, sharing the true story of a baby bi-girl’s search for the perfect girl. Enjoy! XOXOXOXO BW

My favorite coffee/wine bar has the cutest barista named Violet. I’ve been several times and she’s always my server.

One night I visited the shop with three of my guy friends and, like always, Violet was our barista. She was wearing a black mini-skirt, black and white striped Alice in Wonderland socks, low-top black Chucks, librarian glasses, and a tight Led Zeppelin t-shirt that clung to her all natural, perfectly large breasts. Goodness, she was charming, vintage, and such fine service.

Our table of boys was slobbering and so was I. “Should I get her number,” I asked David.

“What are you my agent?” he snapped at me.

“Not for you, for me!” That was how I came out to my friend.

He looked at me with bug eyes and a surprised smile. “No, really? You wouldn’t, you couldn’t…”

“Watch me,” I said.

Violet came back to our table and I ordered a hot toddy, looking right into her eyes. The boys stumbled over their words as they tried desperately to hit on her.

“You’re into soccer,” David found out a piece of information about Violet. They’re all soccer players and immediately tried to convince her to join their team. She sweetly declined.

She came around my side of the table to ask how I liked my drink. “It’s good, huh,” she asked with prettiest smile.

“Very,” I said.

“I’m glad you like it,” she said.

“It’s made with Black Bush liquor. How could I not,” I asked flirtatiously.

She smiled big, flashing me her pearly whites. “Exactly. How could you not,” she said with a blush.

“You should come to the party on Friday,” I said.

“Yeah! The whole soccer crew will be there,” the boys jumped in.

“I tell you what. I’ll come if she calls to invite me.” She looked at me and asked, “Can I give you my number?”

“Please do,” I said, feeling all smooth in front of the sloppy boys. She smiled as she wrote her number on her pad and ripped it off and handed it to me. We watched her walk away to continue to do an amazing job serving her customers.

The boys turned and looked at me in amazement! It was just too easy.

I did call her. She didn’t answer so I left a message. She didn’t call till the next day to apologize about whatever came up. I thought it was nice that she called to explain - she could’ve completely flaked.

I didn’t see her after that until last weekend. My man and I brought our friend from out of town to her bar. Violet saw me walking up, waved, smiled her big, beautiful grin, and said, “Hey, Jane!” What a nice way to start a night, right?

After a bottle of wine and laughing till the bar closed, I invited her back to the studio where we were taking the party. She really wanted to, but it was the end of a long shift and she was tired. We all gave it a valiant effort to change her mind - sometimes girls need to be convinced. But it didn’t work.

She called me the next day and we had a nice long conversation. She invited me to an art show with live music. Finally, she asked me about my relationship with my man. I mentioned my bisexuality and the conversation quickly ended. She told me she would call with the details of the show, but I never got the phone call. I called her just to check in, but no answer, and no return.

I could’ve read it all wrong or she could’ve been into it, but afraid of it or she may just be a flaky chick. Whatever the reason, it was slightly disappointing, but the flirting was still fun. Good practice!

Until the Next Time,
Jungle Jane

P.S. Thank you to all the lovely ladies who commented on my first blog.
It’s fun to share this journey with such a foxy audience.

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If you missed Jungle Jane’s first post, click here to read: A BABY BI-GIRL SHARES HER STORY.
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If you enjoyed reading this blog, you may also enjoy:
MISS BLISS, FIND ME A BI-GIRL
ADVICE FOR BABY BI-GIRLS: FINDING A FEMALE LOVER
ASK MISS BLISS: THE ART OF FLIRTATION
WHEN YOUR STRAIGHT FRIENDS FIND OUT
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