“I have been going with this amazing man for 6 years now. We are very much into sex. Since Dec 2006 I have been bi. I love the feeling of a woman touching me and he loves to watch us. Just recently we have been experiencing some new things, as in his bisexuality. We have talked about having a guy play with us, my boyfriend and the other guy doing oral to each other and me watching and joining in.
I guess the question is about the male bi part.
Is there a reason to be concerned about my boyfriend leaving me for a guy OR that he would still be interested in females but wanting a guy with us all the time?
The past 6 times that we have been together he wanted to have the toys and was really not interested in me. It hurt me since I wanted him to want me and he didn’t want anything to do with me. Please let me know what I can do or say.”
Stereotypes about bisexuals abound. Bisexuals are considered by some “fence sitters” (that is, they are REALLY gay or straight and they just haven’t chosen a side yet). Bisexuals are considered by others to be hedonists, wanting it all and having, by nature of their sexual orientation, a voracious sexual appetite. And some people don’t believe bisexuality exists at all.
What is particularly shocking to me about all of these ideas (other than how wrong they are) is that they are often held by people who themselves are categorized, cliched, and boxed in by others based on their sexual desire. You’d think that someone who knows what it’s like to be completely misunderstood, to be judged based on a single aspect of who they are, as if it says everything there is to say about them, would be less likely to be judgey themselves.
But usually, you’d be wrong.
I’m starting here because you identify yourself as bisexual. And based on your description, being bisexual and wanting to have your boyfriend as a primary partner is what being bisexual looks like for you right now. So your experience of bisexuality doesn’t mean that you have stopped wanting sex with your boyfriend or that you want out of your relationship. Which is great.
And I guess I’m wondering why you think that your boyfriend’s experience of bisexuality would necessarily be any different? Identifying as bisexual, or even before that, being someone who wants to have sex with people of different genders, does not make one more or less likely to want to be monogamous, nor does it make them more or less capable of love or lust for one or many people. It sounds like you are living this. I’m not sure there’s any reason to assume that if you and your boyfriend start to explore sex with other guys it will lead to anything different than what your sex with other women leads to.
But maybe I should back up and make a distinction which all too often gets lost in the way we talk about sex. That is a distinction between sexual orientation, sexual identity, and sexual desire.
Sexual orientation and sexual identity are ways that we categorize others and ourselves. We might call ourselves bisexual and do so not only because we want to describe who we like to have sex with, but because the label, the identity, feels right for us. It feels like when we call ourselves bi we’re aligning ourselves with a community that we are part of. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this of course. Although when we want to identify someone else, and call someone else something because WE think that’s the sum of who they are, or that’s the community they belong to, it can be a problem.
Sexual desire is something else entirely. Sexual desire is all about us. How we feel sexual, who turns us on, what we desire to think about, to feel, to do. Sexual desire isn’t a continuum or a grid, it is an experience. We might desire one thing today and something else tomorrow. And any student of the history of sexual desire would have to admit that desire can and usually does change independently of how we usually describe ourselves or the labels or identities we choose to adopt.
So as you’re thinking about your situation with your boyfriend it might be helpful to separate this issue of being bisexual from the question of what is he desiring? What does he want? And what does that mean for your sex life and your relationship? These are questions you need answered, and it sounds like right now you aren’t sure.
My advice isn’t going to be a surprise. You’ll need to talk about it. You might want to start with yourself though. Do you know what you want? What do you want your sex life to be like? What do you want your relationship to be like? Do you have plans or dreams for both now, and in the future? Your concern that he might always want another man involved in your sex life makes me wonder if you want to have sex with him and another man? Maybe that isn’t part of your desire? Or maybe it is, but only once.
You don’t need to have all the answers, but going into a conversation being able to talk about how you feel and what you want is usually a good idea. If for no other reason than it can take the pressure off your partner who may feel put on the spot.
When you do talk to him, if you are worried about how it might go, you may want to consider laying down some communication ground rules. Try to take responsibility for your concerns, and don’t make it about his desire or orientation (since it sounds like you aren’t even clear about what those are). It’s okay to say that you’re afraid of what will happen if you bring someone else into your bed. But it will be helpful for you to be able to say how bringing a man into your sex life feels different from what you’re already doing, bringing women in.
It sounds like you also need some clarity about his desire. Does wanting to explore sex with other guys have anything to do with his desire for you? If you’re feeling neglected or like you’re getting lost in the fantasy, that’s something he needs to know, and he should be willing to attend if he wants to stay in a relationship with you.
Finally, don’t expect perfect answers right away. It might be that he’s just working this out for himself. And it’s possible that neither of you will know what’s going to happen until you actually give it a try. This doesn’t mean you have to do it, but the truth is that it’s hard to know how something will go if you’ve never done it before. It does mean that neither of you should move forward without talking about how you’ll deal with difficulties if they arise. What happens if you bring another guy into your sex life and then you have a big problem with it? Thinking it through won’t always protect you, but it can be a preventative measure and it usually makes talking about it afterward easier.
These can be choppy waters, and in this world of compulsory monogamy we don’t have a lot of great role models. So good luck, and let me know how it goes.
