Quote:
Originally Posted by indigo
But why is that so? I can't yet draw on broad experiences as I am like "in the making" with this part of my identity. I have lesbian friends who have absolutely no problem with bisexual women/ people - and also, why should they? Yet one of them told me that for some this is problematic. For me this term somehow fits because I had relationships with men and this didn't feel wrong but at the same time it was not "it", so to speak, and yeah I was always into women as far as I can remember, at least since my teenage-hood. Then, doesn't the term bi-sexual indicate the dichotomy of sexes - a notion that I find questionable in many ways.
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I am only one lesbian, so take my perspective as non-representative of the entire lesbian community!
For me, I started my journey as a straight woman, not in touch with my true sexual orientation.
Looking back, as a kid, it was always there but I didn't know what "it" was. I played house with my little friends but the femme that I am was always the husband or dad. I played doctor with the little girls and got dragged home by my mother after literally being naked in the back of an abandoned car (at about 8 yrs old) with my girlfriend, feeling each other...in her back yard. I saw my first butch at 16 and my stomach dropped out but my straight friends whispered she was bad news but I was fascinated.
I kissed my first boy at 13 and he was my boyfriend. I had sex at 16 with my next boyfriend but wasn't crazy about it. I was with him until my next boyfriend that I married at 18 to escape my parents. At 21 I had sex with my female best friend but truly panicked. At some level, I knew what it meant for me. I would have to cross the homosexual bridge and I knew that I would lose my (tenuous) family. I had my first baby at 19 and was pregnant again at 20.
This was the 70's when swinging was a big deal, sexuality was more out of the closet and I knew that everyone in my life (except parents) would think that it was "cool" for me to say I was bisexual.
For a long time, it felt right to me but then, I had to acknowledge to myself, that it was a safe way to keep one foot in the heterosexual camp and one foot in the homosexual camp because I was so scared.
I wasn't trying to fool anyone except maybe myself. I had relationships with men and women for years after my teenage, doomed-to-end marriage ended.
This went on until fell I head over heels fell in love with my best friend and she with me. We both were dating each other and dating men until we realized that we really were gay.
It was terrifying for both of us. I feared losing my children and I did lose my parents (that I never really had anyway) and my two brothers were not about to make any kind of stand in support of me so I really lost them, too.
My first girl-friend still had attraction for and to men. It scared me. Maybe it is internalized homophobia, to worry that heterosexual privilege would be a bigger draw than to live life as a lesbian but I don't think that many would disagree that heterosexuality is in many ways a more accepted life than a homosexual life.
It is the reality of our world. It is the fear that I felt back then. I can't speak for other lesbians but perhaps they have some of the same fears of losing a love for the same reason. I place no blame, it is what it is. We all have our fears.
Once I made my peace with who I really was and then met my long-term ex, I never did look back. I could see that I truly was a lesbian and that it fit me like a glove.
I don't hate, fear or dislike bisexual people any more than I do trans folk.
My journey is mine, as is yours.
None of us know where we will wind up in when we start that journey in the beginning.
I do believe that sexuality is a continuum. I do believe that some of us are bisexual in the same way some of us are lesbian, gay, trans or genderqueer. I don't think any of us are any better or worse than the other. By the same token, nor do I want anyone to feel that being a lesbian is "less than" or something to fear or to be afraid that someone would think that they were a lesbian.
Sometimes, I feel badly when I hear or read that folks want to emphasize that they are not lesbians. It makes me think that they feel it is something not ok to be. Maybe we all want to not be misidentified because it was a hard journey to arrive where we are. I can accept that. We are all human.
We all have to look in in the mirror at some point and own who we really are.
Our sexuality is our own.
People that live in fear have their own journey. I am glad that I am not afraid anymore.