I’m a 50-year-old married bisexual American man living in Europe with my wife and kids. The “bi” part of me is still extremely new. Two years ago, I started seeing a sex-positive therapist to address my significant interest (and feelings of guilt about) kink and BDSM. Long story short, I admitted to myself that I wasn’t just into kink, but that that I was also bisexual. All the things I thought would be difficult —coming out to my wife, discussing an open marriage, having my first gay experiences — have gone really well. My wife and I are in a great place, and I feel better about myself than I have in a long time. The part I struggle with is identity. I consider myself bisexual, Dan, but I have no idea what being queer means. If I were in the U.S., I would find some social groups and meet some other queer people, but I am in a foreign country where it is easy to get a hand job from a man but hard to have a nuanced conversation about sexuality. I considered not worrying about it. I present as a boring suburban dad and could have gone through the rest of my life with only a small group of people knowing. However, I felt a tug to understand this (and myself) better. I know nothing about gay culture and feel adrift compared to people who come out younger. My roadblock is basically, “What’s next?” I have no problem calling myself bisexual, but I don’t feel like I can call myself queer because I do not know what that means for me. Any suggestions?
Bi Dad Seeking Meaning
One mistake the LGBTQ2SIA+ movement made over the last decade — in addition to all the variations on our acronym — was convincing people that being queer or being an ally meant homework. It wasn’t enough to be queer, it wasn’t enough to be cool with queer people. No, you had to do the reading, attend the struggle sessions, and pass the vocabulary tests. We turned “queer” from something a person was into a 400-level course a person might fail. Take BDSM here. He’s bisexual and he’s out — and he’s out there getting hand jobs and hopefully more from other men — and he’s nailing this queer shit. But he’s somehow worried he’s flunking queer.
So, BDSM, you can relax. If you’re not straight, you’re queer. And your queerness, however you choose to express it, is just as valid as the queerness of a gender studies TA. And while you might present as a boring suburban dad, you’re actually subverting — or you’re “queering,” as the gender studies profs like to say — what it means to be a boring suburban dad one hand job at a time. So, well done.
That said, BDSM, you don’t have to identify as queer; lots of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people don’t. If identifying as bisexual makes you feel less anxious — if you don’t feel like you’re gonna flunk bisexuality — then you can just identify as bisexual. It has the virtue of being both true and clear. Because unlike telling someone you’re queer, which is a broad term that invites at least one follow-up question (“So, what kind of queer are we talking about?”), when you tell some hot European guy you’re bisexual, BDSM, he has all the relevant information needs.
P.S. Sometimes when a person comes out to a spouse and gets the go-ahead to explore their sexuality outside the marriage, the newly out person goes full kid-in-the-candy-shop and winds up neglecting their spouse. I hope you realize how lucky you are to have your wife’s support and that you don’t screw things up for yourself by neglecting her sexual needs. Give her cause to regret giving you her blessing to explore, BDSM, and she might withdraw her blessing.
P.P.S. It sounds like you want a sense of community, BDSM, not a bunch of reading assignments. But community isn’t something you find once you’re out, it’s something you create. The more gay and bi men you meet (and jerk off) — the more gay and bi men you’ll get to know — the better you’ll come to understand your queerness and the queerness of other men, and the more connected you’ll feel to that amorphous thing queer people call “community” for lack of a better term.
P.P.P.S. Some gay men and lesbians — including some gays and lesbians old enough to know better — seem to believe “queer” was imposed on us by a bunch of non-binary AFAB femme-presenting allosexual phallophiles. (Or “straight girls,” as they used to be known.) That’s simply not true. Gay and lesbians activists launched “Queer” as a unifying term… for gays and lesbians… in a “QUEERS READ THIS,” a manifesto that was distributed at the 1990 New York City Gay Pride Parade.
“We use queer as gay men loving lesbians,” the anonymous authors wrote in the “WHY QUEER” section of the manifesto. “Queer, unlike GAY, doesn’t mean MALE. And when spoken to other gays and lesbians, it’s a way of suggesting we close ranks, and forget our individual differences because we face a more insidious common enemy. Yeah, QUEER can be a rough word but it is also a sly and ironic weapon we can steal from the homophobes.”
Just as annoying — way more annoying — than gays and lesbians who complain that “queer” was imposed on us are those queers (or wannabes) who insist that being gay or lesbian isn’t “enough” to make a person queer.
To those who seek to exclude gays and lesbians from “queer,” I say this: Gay men and lesbians were the O.G. queers, you gatekeeping little shits. Gays and lesbians literally made “queer” happen. And to gays and lesbians who insist “queer” was imposed on us, I say this: They didn’t impose “queer” on us, dummies, they stole “queer” from us. I suppose we could let them have it — we could let them get away with appropriating “queer” from us — but I think stealing it back would piss these modern homophobes off more. So let’s do that.
I’m a 25-year-old woman who has been crushing on one of my girlfriends for almost six years. She’s absolutely amazing. We were intimate a little bit in college — we even went on a couple of dates — but our lives went off in different ways. I’m now engaged to an amazing man and have a one-year-old with him, and she just got out of her long-term relationship and lives in a different state. We’ve been talking a lot more lately and it’s stirring up a lot of excitement for us both. (These feelings are reciprocated!) My fiancé is open to the idea of inviting her into our intimate life and possibly even our romantic life. The vibe from her is that she’s totally interested. HOWEVER! I tend to be an anxious over-planner and I’m now looking up all sorts of books and podcasts about ethical nonmonogamy in an effort to be best prepared to add her to our lives in a romantic capacity. My mind is already going crazy with worries like, “My family will be cool with it but what will my fiancé’s more conservative family members think?” and “What if she wants to have a baby, what would that look like for us?” I guess I have two questions: What books or other resources do you suggest for learning about ethical nonmonogamy? And am I getting way too ahead of myself?
Very Hopeful Romantic
Your fiancé has the right idea: “Let’s fuck, let’s see.” Meaning: fucking the shit out of this woman — the two of you inviting this woman into your intimate life — is the right first move. If all three of you click sexually (a big if) and emotionally (an even bigger if), VHR, then you can begin to have a conversation about the possibility of discussing how you might formalize and structure your relationship. But that conversation shouldn’t take place for at least six months or after two dozen successful threesomes, VHR, whichever comes first.
And while it couldn’t hurt for you to read the poly books and listen to the poly podcasts, VHR, asking your husband to read the books and listen to the podcasts could hurt your chances of getting what you want. Because just as no single person wants to listen to you talk about your dream wedding on your first date — not even a single person who dreams of getting married wants to hear that on a first date — no engaged/married person wants to listen to their fiancée/spouse talk about their dream poly triad before their first threesome.
While being informed about polyamory is a good idea — especially if you’re going to have an opinion about it (which fucking everyone does these days) — you don’t have to do quite so much homework in advance your first threesome. You’re into the idea, your husband is open to the idea, and this woman vibes on the idea. That’s a good place to start. If the three of you are still fucking six months from now, VHR, write me back and I’ll send you a list of poly resources. But for now, VHR, you should be focused on the fucking, not the reading.
I’m a 37-year-old single cis woman. A few years ago, I was starting to get serious with a guy who already had kids and a vasectomy. Being with him meant forgoing having biological kids and I was trying to weigh if that would work for me. Then, he tragically and unexpectedly died. In the aftermath of his death, I had a deep knowing that I will have a child someday. It’s been a year and a half since then. I have been hooking up with a good-looking, kind, smart divorcé for the last few months. Originally, I was interested in dating him but now I’m only interested in being FWB. I was honest with him that there isn’t a romantic future here, so he put his strong “love” feelings for me aside because he likes hooking up and wants to keep doing it.
He has never wanted bio kids (he has a grown stepchild). We use the pullout method. I’ve made it clear that I desire a child and if I become pregnant, I’m keeping it. He’s OK with that. I’m aware of my ovulation schedule and am pretty confident in the pullout method. My question is, should I consider asking him to help me become intentionally pregnant? I’m not sure what level of involvement he’d want but I’d be okay with doing it solo or letting him have a relationship with the kid. I’ve been pregnant once before, but the timing was wrong, and I didn’t want to be stuck with the guy who knocked me up. But now I wonder if I didn’t blow my opportunity to have a kid.
I’d love to have a partner and choose to do this together, but what if I fall in love with someone who doesn’t want a kid? Or perhaps I don’t find a partner at all and miss out on these childbearing years. I’m pretty content with my life, loving being an auntie to my friends’ kids, and am always rejecting the BS rhetoric of “geriatric pregnancies.” Should I hold out for a few more years and see what comes my way? Or should I take a leap with my fuck buddy?
Baby Games
Read this week’s column here! And this week on the Lovecast: A kinky submissive woman’s last relationship went down in flames when her dom insisted on a 24/7, power exchange all-the-damn-time lifestyle. She is raising kids and caring for her sick father. She doesn’t have time for this kind of commitment. How can she set reasonable boundaries in the future?
A married man despairs that he’ll never kiss his wife again. Smooching is central to his experience of sexual pleasure, and the wife is repulsed by it. Sounds grim.
Speaking of kissing, on the Magnum, it’s a “What You Got?” with Dr. Matilda Brindle. The evolutionary biologist recently published a paper looking at whether early primates or even Neanderthals kissed. They also talk about kink in the animal kingdom, which leads to the story of one very freaky monkey. Do not miss this. Pay attention. And LISTEN HERE.
