have I come out to you?

I am definitely a lesbian. I have definitely been a lesbian my whole life, but I didn't know it until quite recently. I officially “came out” to myself in the beginning of 2012, after the last few months of 2011 left me in a state of depression I hadn't seen the likes of in over a decade. I was distancing myself from my girlfriend Gabriel. I was floundering to save my marriage, which I feared was unsalvageable. I spent months internalizing, trying to figure out what, exactly, was wrong with me. Why wasn't I having sex with my husband? More importantly, why didn't I miss it?

Any attempts to rekindle the passion in our relationship died before the embers could even catch. I even gave him the task of learning how to get me off without using his penis—something which could have been fun, experimental, a way for him to learn new things. But he neglected the prompt, finally trying once half-heartedly, and went right back to expecting sex to be the same old routine it had been before. I didn't want to admit it, but the nagging thought kept returning to me: it isn't the sex I was missing, but the closeness. I still wanted to be close to Ark, but I was just not interested in his genitals at all. Sex fizzles out in a lot of marriages (so I'm told by television and magazines), but this didn't feel like the “normal” decline of sexual activity. I was still a highly sexual being. I was just a highly sexual being who was no longer turned on at the prospect of heterosexual sex.

Sex with Gabriel was a different story. Sex with a woman is something entirely different. One of the last times I saw Gabriel, we had sex on the couch while my boy Kiba sat on the floor in front of us and played video games. With a woman, my sex drive is on seventh gear.

Was it just because my relationship with Gabriel was newer? Was it because the sex was explosive, unpredictable, experimental?

It soon came to me that a large part of my unhappiness was being caused by Gabriel's dependence on me. I needed her to back off. In short, I realized that I could not give her everything she needed in a relationship, and have everything I needed to be a happy person. I had to end it. She could not grow, clinging to me, and I could not breathe.

With my sexual outlet gone, my lack of sex with Ark became more obvious to me. I wondered why I didn't miss it. I still loved every other aspect of our relationship. The illusion of our marriage crumbling proved to be false—a landmine in my mind planted during my depression. Ark loved me just as much as ever, and was continuing to evolve in our polyamorous relationship in ways that I was still apparently too wounded to see. He had opened up, and was finally willing to embrace our relationship as it was, but I was too busy looking at the pieces from the past and trying to fit them all together. I love my husband, but I still needed further introspection.

I guess I realized it slowly. The puzzle of my sexuality came together in achingly tiny bits. And the first time I thought to myself, “Maybe I'm a lesbian,” I thought it jokingly. But the more I thought about it, the clearer it became, and the more sense my life made up to that point.

I was never interested in sex. The way other girls looked at boys and would fawn over them, “Ooh, Johnny is so cute! Look at that ass!” It didn't make any sense to me. I dated boys who I came to love, but my love had nothing to do with sex. The first time I saw a penis, I was repulsed by it. My experiences with oral sex were awkward and uncomfortable. When I finally lost my virginity at eighteen, the part I enjoyed was the closeness to the person I loved. It was a special moment, and I wouldn't trade it for the world.

I figured maybe sex and penises and ejaculate was just something I'd get used to. I figured everyone felt the same way at first—grossed out, squicked by cum, totally grossed out at the idea of putting a penis in your mouth. Only, I never really got used to it. I just accepted it as part of a normal life.

I think that's basically the root of everything here: I grew up assuming I was heterosexual. I mean, everyone else I knew was straight, or at the very least bi-curious, so why wouldn't I be straight? I knew, and later admitted to my sister, that I liked girls. My first long-term, real crush was on a female friend of mine from elementary school. Then, later, in high school, I harbored a crush on a girl from England. Aging into adulthood, I began to amass a collection of Penthouse and Playboy, and probably hundreds of pictures of sexy girls of all sorts on my computer. Girls were a mystery to me. My relationships were years-long and with men, one basically starting right after the other (with overlapping, in one instance).

I didn't grow up in the kind of household where you'd be afraid to be gay. I always knew that if I brought home a girlfriend, Mom would be happy because I was happy. My sister didn't care what I did, either. I just never even considered it, when I was younger. And now, at 26 and married to a man I wasn't willing to lose, I was considering it.

I was terrified.

One of the good “rules of poly” I've seen is that if you're afraid to tell your partner something, that means you need to tell them. I'd been brutally honest and open with Ark up to this point, and now was not a good time to start changing that.

I came out as a lesbian and polyamorous to my family (and the general world) around the same time. I kind of cheated—I deleted my Facebook account and made a new one. At first, I sent out friend requests only to people who already knew or people who I felt were ready for the news. My profile picture was this bright yellow square with the words "nobody knows I'm a lesbian."

My “interested in” said “women.”

My “relationship status” said “in an open relationship.”

I was able to list my partners under my “family,” due to a recent update, which was nice but I'm still waiting to be able to list them all under my relationships, like you can on Fetlife.

I never censored myself on this new profile; I was 100% myself. I was coming out as Blue, the polyamorous panromantic lesbian married to a man, who I intended on keeping, and yes, we were happy and we made the choices we wanted to make for our relationship. I was unapologetic. I even posted links to my personal blog as it was updated, and family members read it. Some even reached out to me about its contents. I have nothing to hide. I am not ashamed of what I am.

Slowly, the rest of my family was added to my friend list. I guess it was a half-assed way of coming out, but I didn't feel the need to really make a big deal out of it. I didn't need to stand before all of them with my poly triad-sometimes-quad-sometimes-pentad (is that a word? it is now.) and tell them to accept us all or lose me. It isn't that dramatic. My family will probably only come in contact with our long-term, committed partnerships, and even then, it will/has been in (mostly) slow and comfortable increments for all of us.

I've been pretty blessed in my family's acceptance of us. I was terrified for a while there and—let's face it—kind of bitter about the “friends” we did lose along the way. You see so many stories about people being disowned by their own parents after coming out of the closet. Do you think it was more for my family to handle, because Ark and I stayed together, or easier because of it?

There are a lot of resources out there for being the “straight spouse” (and a lot of them say that “it's hard to get support during this time”). Don't think I'm downplaying Ark's pain in this. I think we had plenty of time leading up to it—I discussed my fears and feelings with him thoroughly, probably too thoroughly, so when I finally did say, “I think I'm a lesbian,” his reaction was something like, “Well, yeah, I kinda figured.” But we have the kind of relationship and understanding of each other where he realizes that my sexuality is through no fault or shortcoming of his own—it isn't his fault he's a man, and I love him no less for it.

What I didn't find was a lot of information on couples where one of them comes out gay—but they stay together. This view is usually speculated upon as something that's difficult, unfair; it's said that the gay partner usually was cheating with someone of the same sex, or hiding their sexuality. This wasn't true in my case and I refuse to believe I'm the only one out there who's been honest the whole time. My sexuality wasn't just a self-discovery, it was a discovery for both of us. The decisions we made, we made together, as a couple, for the well-being of our relationship both as a couple and as individuals.

In some relationships, it seems, this is an unavoidable end. But for me and Ark, it was a new beginning—to a stronger, unique relationship. Sure, folks look askance at us. They ask probing questions. They don't believe us when we say, yes, we're okay. Nobody has to take sides. He and I are in this together. 'Till death do we part.

Satisfaction Brought It Back

Let's talk about sex, baby.

I mean, how important it is to you in a relationship? How important is it to monogamous people? Polyamorous people? What is the optimal amount of sex you'd like to be having? What do you do when that need is not fulfilled?

I'll admit it. Sex is pretty important to me. And that makes my relationships kinda tough.

Let me start with my primary relationship: Ark. At the beginning of the relationship, the sex was great: frequent, exploratory, enthusiastic. As we settled in, the sex died down of course, but it still happened often and still retained passion. After we moved away from home and began to experience the real world as a couple (later married), there were moments where the sex simply wasn't happening, but all it would take was for me to bring it up and we'd be having sex again. It wasn't that neither of us wanted it, but that we were too busy or too stressed or too tired to consider it. I felt, and often feel like, I am the only one missing it and craving it back in my life.

But, now, here's a different problem. As sexless time progressed and I explored other avenues, and I wrote in my personal journal and I dug deeper into myself, I came to a few startling revelations. The biggest one being that even though I was still in love with my husband and wanted to be with him, I had no desire for traditional heterosexual sex. What I mean by that is that I just wasn't interested in having his penis in me, and for a while just the thought of it was disturbing and I didn't want to touch it or look at it (though this stemmed from something else entirely). Physically distancing myself from Ark sexually bothered me. I love the intimacy, I love the closeness. Though I no longer crave or enjoy sexual intercourse, I still crave that. I want manual stimulation, oral stimulation, kissing, touching, feeling a warm body against mine, making me feel loved, making me feel sexy.

When we were recovering from the event that put me off sex with him in the first place, I gave him a task: get me off without using his penis. It was something he'd never accomplished before, so I thought it would be a learning adventure for both of us. I even thought it would be something we'd both enjoy and would bring us closer together as lovers and partners.

Well, it didn't quite work out that way. It took a long time for Ark to make his attempt, and it wasn't without a fair amount of prodding. And once he did get me off, it seemed that he immediately wanted things to go back to “normal,” that we would just continue having the same old sex the same ways we'd been having it before—no change, nothing learned, no revelations. The moment where I expected to feel joyful and warm-and-fuzzy was more or less ruined by the expectation that, since he'd gotten me off, now it was “his turn.”

I've only been with one other man besides Ark, and sex with him was also very penis-centric. At the risk of sounding sexist, it seems to me that men are very orgasm oriented. And I don't mean oriented to their partner's orgasm—their own. Sex for them isn't sex if it doesn't include ejaculation. And maybe that's just because it's simpler for men to reach climax, so they take it for granted? The two women I've been with don't/didn't seem to be as focused on their own orgasm so much as mine. And I can honestly say that I am far more interested in getting them off than I am in getting off myself. Sex between women takes skill and practice; the same thing won't work every time.

I feel that maybe our decision more or less to not have sex at all was made in haste. If only I could convince him that sex doesn't need to include his or my orgasm; it doesn't have to include penis insertion; to redefine sex, to start from scratch. Does he remember how to turn me on? Do I know how to make him feel desirable? Does he even want to have sexual contact with me, or is the romantic aspect of our relationship enough for him?

Since we're polyamorous, I don't feel pressured to be satisfied with only one partner. I have the option of seeking out things I need or want from other people. But as I find my sexual appetite exceeds even my new girlfriend's, I kinda start to wonder if there's just something wrong with me? How do I view sex in a relationship and how much do I need it? Enough to seek out many more romantic and sexual partners? I hope not. I doubt I would have much issue finding people to have sex with (in fact I have one or two options already), but I don't really want to have to seek out a new partner every time the honeymoon stage is over and my motor's still running.

So, back to the root of things. How do I view sex? How much do I need it?

I already admitted that sex is important to me. I need it to feel connected with my partner. Long periods of time without sex makes me question the health of the relationship. It makes me wonder things like: Am I not attractive to them? Maybe I've put on weight? Am I too clingy/do I want too much attention? Maybe they don't like my technique? Maybe I'm boring? Maybe I ask too much? Is the magic gone? Is it over for them?

Yes, I really do think all those things. It doesn't take much for me to doubt and feel insufficient.

This feeling doesn't last forever, though—it goes away eventually, once I've reassured myself that most of this is all in my head. At that point, I have to trust that if there is something wrong in the relationship or something wrong with the way we have sex/I do things during sex, that my partner will tell me and I can fix it. I have to accept that they don't want sex as much as I do, or that they don't need it the same ways I do (to feel wanted/loved/needed/sexy). Sometimes I feel disappointment at this (am I the ONLY ONE with a sex drive?!) but again, it's something I get over.

But then, and this may be a defense mechanism, after I accept this and start to move on, my libido drops drastically. So much so that when my partners do want sex, I'm either completely disinterested or I am interested, but can't get my body to respond. It's already hard to get me aroused (the best way: let me get them off first) and hard to get me off. And if I'm really craving a particular kind of sex (slow/fast, manual/oral, rough/gentle, vanilla/kinky) and it isn't what I'm getting, all I can focus on is what I'm not getting right at that moment and I can't get into it. Or if I'm stressed or worried about something... well, I guess those are normal libido killers. Anyway, I digress. Mentally, in order to be happy and remain happy and to not cause stress in the relationship, I pull the emergency brakes on my sex drive.

Communication could solve all of this. Maybe. I did talk about all of this with Ark, a long time ago, and we live now in this strange yet mostly comfortable sexless marriage. Is it fair to ask him to be the lover I want and need, to make love to me, but respect my wishes (sex without penile penetration)? Is it fair to ask more of my girlfriend? (I won't; we're too new, and I still have practically no idea what she wants/likes/needs.) Or should I seek satisfaction elsewhere?

I Do (Not)

I have a fear of commitment.

It's written on my Limit list on Fetlife.

I have run from marriage before, from the Idea of Settling Down and Having Kids. In general, when someone expresses the urge to do these things with me, it makes me very, very uncomfortable. So why, and how, you might ask, did I end up marrying Arkanum?

I can't really explain it. We are just super compatible. And I knew it early on. I know what you're thinking; NRE, the fuzzy pink stupids! Of course I knew I wanted to stay with him forevorz! But no, my friends, you only say this because you don't know me. When I say I have a fear of commitment, you are underestimating the depth of this fear. The thought of being someone's wife literally turns my stomach. I feel anxiety; my heart speeds up, my palms sweat, my breath quickens. Except Ark. When I met him, initially the magic wasn't there, I admit. I got to know him over time, and soon we were dating. When I realized I could spend the rest of my life with him I was terrified, but it made perfect sense to me. He doesn't complete me—as I've said, I am a complete person—but he does compliment me very well. He's a stable rock for me in this tumultuous sea.

I clicked with him. How long did it take for me to come to this realization? Less than a month. I wrote him a letter and held onto it for a few days. In the letter, I told him how I felt... and I asked him to marry me. I said I knew it was early and I didn't expect him to say “yes” right away. I knew I wanted him in my life and I was willing to wait.

Now, here we are, almost seven years later, together after many trials and stronger and happier than ever. I have him every day, and nothing brings me more peace.

Commitment is an issue in my other relationships. I know that in some ways, Anita feels the same way I do; “forever” is a big, scary, intimidating word. Nice in theory, but like a cage when dropped on top of you. Gabriel continuously makes me feel uncomfortable with words and gestures of commitment, though I have made it clear I don't feel comfortable with it. I need to write her a letter and talk to her about it, but the ideas and feelings aren't settled enough and I'm also afraid to approach the situation. I know she'll act hurt and it won't end well.

But I digress.

My new relationship with Dawn, someone Ark and I have known for a couple years, is gathering snow like a stone rolling down the mountain. I'm so totally and completely smitten with her. I found myself standing knee-deep in puppy love, gazing around wide-eyed and wondering how the heck I got there. In just two weeks, our friendship has blossomed and the fruit is something sweeter than I'd have ever guessed. As a general rule, I would only consider starting a relationship with someone I was already friends with, but Dawn was in that unattainable category; she isn't poly and had expressed disinterest in giving it a whirl (yet, here we are a-whirling).

Something I've realized is important in the beginning of a poly relationship is for me to find out what the other person expects. Do they expect a long-term commitment? Short-term relationship? Someone to go on dates with? Someone to fuck? Is “I love you” a hard limit? Is sex a hard limit? Are they out, are they poly, are they monog? What do they want, that I can give them?

I asked Dawn what she wanted, and her expectations were very reasonable. But then, something happened that really caught me off-guard: she returned the question. What do I want, what do I expect? I was thrown. I had to think about it for a moment.

My answer at the time had been that I want whatever I can have. Inside, what I want is different. I can't just explain it at the drop of a dime. What if the words come out wrong? What if the words come out right and it's the completely wrong thing to say?

I'm truthful. Sometimes I feel like a parrot, though. When Dawn asked what I wanted, I said the same thing I'd been hearing myself say a lot lately. “I want you to be happy,” “I'll take whatever you want to give me,” “Whatever you're comfortable with,” etc. This goes back to when I was growing up, and being constantly told I was selfish and that what I wanted was tertiary to the wants of anyone else. This isn't to say I'm not telling the truth—I do honestly want the happiness and comfort of my partner. Right now in the fragile stages of our relationship, I don't want Dawn to feel pressured into doing or committing to anything that she doesn't really want (not that I don't think she's headstrong enough to tell me to fuck off, but you never know).

That being said, I went home and kept going back to the conversation. What was said between the lines—what was left unsaid—told volumes. It was close to my heart and I wasn't sure I should talk about it. I talked to Ark about it a little, and that helped me get comfortable with it. The whole truth is that I want to keep Dawn. I want her in my life. We just work in a way that, I know, it's too soon for everyone else to see. Of course, I can't write her a letter detailing the neurotic workings of my heart, all leading up to the grand finale of a proposal—spend the rest of your life with me, I'll take care of you, I'll love you as long as I can. I can't do that. And I really can't explain to anyone why or how I feel this way, how I just know we'd work and we'd work really well.

I just got a feeling.

Re-reading some of what I just wrote, a few paragraphs back, I realized that a year or so ago, I could have written the same things about Anita. Both Ark and I really love her, we've known her for a long time (all the way back to school for me), and the three of us are highly compatible. For a while, I let myself fantasize about her being our Third. (Longtime readers will remember that I have a fluffy dream about living in a poly homestead.) But she was skittish, a flight-risk, and we were afraid to push her into anything she wasn't ready for. And though we all talked about seeing her more often, her coming to visit us, staying for a while, being more serious... and we all wanted it, or at least it was expressed that we all wanted it... it seems that Anita is more of a memory or a story. It's so sweet when we see her, but we see her so rarely that I know we've got to just accept that there won't be any more. She has other lovers now, ones that live closer to her, who she can see without the hassle of finding time off and driving hours away.

What do I dare dream, wish, hope for with Dawn? I guess my answer was the most truthful and realistic when I said that I just wanted whatever she was free to give. I dare not hope for more.