From: NewNowNext
There’s an increasing amount of wiggle room for self-identified heterosexuals to admit they’re not exactly a zero on the Kinsey Scale. But even in this enlightened era, you can be surprised by the unenlightened response of a love one.
Take Reddit user mcjiggerthrow, who is in a relationship with a woman, but says in the past he’s been “passingly curious about men… on an entirely sexual level”—and once experimented with another guy to explore those feelings.
“It was okay, but I didn’t feel the need to ever repeat the experience,” says mcjiggerthrow, who defines himself as straight.
Fair enough. But when he was engaging in a little pillow talk with his girlfriend, she revealed that an ex had disclosed a similar one-time experimentation with another fellow.
“As soon as he [told her] that, she lost all attraction to him,” he writes. “As she told me this, my body went into full panic mode and she immediately realized something was wrong.”
And then she turned and asked if he had experimented. “She said ’Have you, too? Or do you like men, too?'”
I said no and she said that she felt like I was lying to her for the first time. After an insufferable silence I went onto to explain (very badly – I’ve never felt the need to explain/quantify this before) that I am a little heteroflexible.
I couldn’t bring myself to tell her about the experimentation at the time and still haven’t told her. I am incredibly open-minded and don’t really care for labels, what other people are into, etc., but clearly this is not the case for her.
She [got] upset and didn’t know what to say.
It ended up with her deciding that I am lying to myself, that I should allow myself to explore these feelings. Basically that I am at least bisexual and maybe even gay, but in denial.
I tell her that this is offensive—I am quite capable of exploring my own feelings and have come to my own conclusions. The conversation ends in tears on my own part (over her reaction), with her comforting me but refusing to say anything positive about the conversation, saying she doesn’t know what to think.
mcjiggerthrow said he felt dreadful after and that, while he loves this woman “more than I have loved somebody in my life (truly),” the idea the she sees him as emasculated, or that she’s lost her attraction to him, is “devastating” to him— especially since he doesn’t consider it a major part of his life.
“She just can’t comprehend on any level how I can have a passing interest in penis/male sexuality, and maybe fantasize about it every now and then, without this being a defining part of my sexuality,” he writes.
“She thinks it HAS to mean that I attracted to men and want to be with men.”
Mcjiggerthrow is looking for help in expressing himself in terms she might understand.
“Please don’t just say she should be more understanding and that I should dump her—she is an empathetic person but this is just beyond her comprehension,” he writes, “plus, I understand why she doesn’t like it.”
I think we can all agree his girlfriend is in the wrong—that no one should be shamed or disbelieved about their sexuality. But where does he go from here? Just dump her? Stuff down his feelings and forget about the conversation?
And remember, he only told her about his heteroflexibilty—not that he actually experimented with a guy, which might send her out the window.
Commenters ranged in opinion from “dump her sorry ass” to “be 100% honest with her.”
Personally, I agree with Dan Savage—who says a relationship is not a deposition: You don’t have to share every experience or fantasy with your partner.
But while some tales might be better left untold, being a teensy bit bisexual is hardly anything to freak out over. (Even being a lot bisexual is no grounds for a freakout, but that’s another issue.)
We’d be more concerned if our partner insisted they’ve never, ever, EVER considered peeking over the other side of the fence.
What say you? Leave your wise counsel in the comment section below.
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