Can we talk about bisexuality?

Exactamundo.

Well said!

Is it not more accurate to say that you don't have an awful lot in common with hetero-married women with children and grandchildren?

The gap in experiences is the meaningful dividing line - not the gap in what kind of attraction you may or may not hypothetically feel.

No, I just haven't anything to say to it. There are plenty of posts in MN where I don't respond to every single point. It doesn't mean it's gone over my head.

All the posters saying perhaps there needs to be spaces for bi women, nothing is stopping you setting that up. If you’re a bi woman in a heterosexual relationship and want to meet others and discuss your invisibility and missing women, then do so.

I find it interesting because my bisexuality is also hidden by being in a long term same sex relationship, but I don’t recognise the longing for a man or the need to let everyone know my sexuality is different to what they assume.

@EBearhug you've picked the most irrelevant sentence in the OP's reply to you. She's given you some insight which has completely gone over your head.

The world is still very heterosexual, which you only notice if you're not.

It's very coupley, and as someone who's been single most of my life, that's very noticeable. But as you say, people only notice if they're not part of it.

And why do you assume that LGB can't know? Is knitting the preserve of straight folk?

I'm not assuming that at all, but it's their knitting knowledge which is pertinent in that context, not their sexuality. I've been involved with various groups (not knitting, though,) over the years, and I often haven't known whether people are in relationships at all, and if they are, what sort of relationship, because it's generally not relevant.

For some, it's about community. Being with other lesbians sometimes, we have experiences in common, it's different to anything else. Just because your lesbian cousin doesn't need or want it, doesn't mean others don't.

I'd love to meet others who understand it too. I'm super happy with my DP, he's amazing. But that doesn't mean I don't want to connect with people like me. I'd love to meet people who 'get it'. I have incredible friends, but they can only ever understand it to a certain extent because they haven't experienced it.

I'm plunged back to one particularly awful night when I was fairly newly out on the scene and had been chatted up by an older woman at a lesbian-only venue. We went to her place and after we'd had what seemed to me like pretty good sex, she sat in bed crying about divorcing her ex-husband and asking me whether I thought she'd make a mistake.

That would probably have been just as awful if she'd been crying about her ex-wife, though.

Yes some men in relationships do actually harrass their bisexual partners for Threesomes etc. Again, its not rare. It's much harder to leave once you have kids (for me, he didn't start pestering me until AFTER we had a child, if I'd known my DC probably wouldn't exist. Hindsight is 20/20). I eventually did leave but it took a long time because I didn't want to break up the family unit. I'm not poly, I never have been. Hence why we're not together anymore but that relationship formed a large part of my adulthood so far. It's not easy to leave abusive relationships, particularly without support.

I've never been to a gay bar when in a relationship with a man.

Being in a straight relationship doesn't make me straight. Being bi in a straight relationship can come with it's own set of challenges due to stereotypes. It doesn't mean that I don't want to connect with others in the community and be accepted for me. Am I less deserving of support if needed by the community just because I'm bi? Regardless of relationship status. I'm not asking to be accepted into lesbian only spaces, I'm asking to feel welcome in spaces where bi women ARE supposedly welcome. I'm asking to not be treated with visible disgust as soon as I say I'm bi.

Currently the only way I'm accepted as a Bi woman is if I don't talk about it, and that's wrong.

If it was a bi women at a LB sports club, knitting group or similar i would assume she just wanted to make friends.

Why does one need LB knitting clubs? If I wanted to go to a knitting club, I want people who can show me how to use a cable needle or knit a lace shawl or something. My L cousin refused to join a local LGB gardening club, because she wasn't the allotment for her vegetables not her sexuality. It isn't relevant there, or shouldn't be, what anyone's sexuality is. I haven't asked if this is something she thinks about only now she's older, or if she always thought it back in her 2nd wave, politically active youth. (She's still politically activein retirement, to be fair.)

I can understand single sex sports clubs, where it's about physical difference, but that's single sex, not single sexuality.

Wow, this thread is something else!
still feeling from reading @MoreAgreeableMyArse ‘bi women don’t ‘face’ anything’
the hostility on here towards bi women such as myself is shocking.
i came in here to support LGB spaces but am now also agreeing that perhaps bi women need their own space where we don’t face ignorance such as the comments above.

i have had serious relationships with both males and females, and am married to a male, very long term.
im very happy with my DP, and yet I also have the gap, the ‘constant craving’ of not being with a woman.
i would like to meet others who understand this, and who also appreciate that we do ‘face’ stuff - not least the blatant hostility of that type of comment!

I have no problem with straight couples wanting to spice up their sex life with a third

Ugh, I have a lot of problems with that. That was one of the reasons we needed support groups for partners. To separate "my partner is bisexual" from "my partner is polyamorous" from "my relationship is fucked".

From my understanding of these spaces as a bi woman with a lot of lesbian friends, the vast majority of lesbians are more than happy to include bi women in events.
However, what they don't like is the spicy straights and there's a LOT of that. I have no problem with straight couples wanting to spice up their sex life with a third but that third needs to be fully interested. It's not appropriate to use lesbian spaces for that.
I've come across so many 'bi' women on dating apps who aren't interested in relationships with women but are openly about looking for sex where 'my husband will just watch'.
A lot of lesbians have had to deal with that nonsense. I don't blame them for being wary.

I don't have have any insight into how people are doing it nowadays but just thinking back into my distant past as heterosexual partner of bisexual man... Where I lived in the late 80s & 90s (not London!) there was a bi-specific group and bisexuals organised themslves separately. There were bi meetings, support groups, activism and socials. It wasn't just about finding partners though there was plenty of that going on. Access was all self identified and given the range of bisexuality it couldn't really have worked any other way. The bi group met in the local LG centre (later LGB centre), they organised for themselves, support groups, and also did activism along with L and G groups, campaigns against Section 28, demos, buses to Pride marches, etc.

As a heterosexual partner I didn't go along to bi meetings or events unless they were "bi + allies" or "partners of bisexual support" meetings. I did once go with them to a gay club where I felt like a pork chop at a barmitzvah.

As far as I was concerned DP was a bisexual man in a heterosexual relationship. Heterosexual relationships are privileged over same-sex ones and that is one of the reasons I wanted gay marriage and gay equality so I could have confidence my DP was with me for my sake not for the sake of safety or privelege. However naive that may sound now.

Same as, I went to women's events but not to specifically lesbian or bi women's events. As a heterosexual partner I didn't expect to be included in everything LG or B, why should I.

I struck me hard, when there was a big push, maybe a year ago, for supposed protection of asexual as a sexuality. I found myself wondering, why does anyone need protection for something invisible.

Exactly the same applies to bisexual people in heterosexual relationships.

The reason gay and lesbian people need protection in law and elsewhere is because they deserve to be openly in a same sex relationship. It’s something you cannot hide if you want to live a normal life where you go out with your partner or spouse, like heterosexual couples do.

So if you are socializing with other gay people, or lesbian people, because you enjoy being with others who are also living through that, then it makes sense to only have those currently in homosexual relationships involved.

If you want to get together with others who more broadly identify as “being other than heterosexual” because you value that, perhaps because you feel they have some understanding of homosexuality that heterosexual people can’t understand, then fair enough.

But I think both are reasonable and you should be able to arrange meetings for either without others getting offended. The problem now is that the perpetually offended have the upper hand and demand entrance everywhere, and they have been backed by all kinds of institutions that should have been protecting gay and lesbian people as well.

It’s a mess.

I would be interested in a GC bisexual women's group @TheColourOutOfSpace. There is no LGB alliance group near me, and in fact based on my previous experience of being rejected by the lesbian community I probably wouldn't have joined anyway as I would've assumed I wouldn't be welcome, but maybe things have changed. I did identify as a lesbian for the first 10 years of my adult life, and I'm not in a relationship with anyone now. The rejection by my former lesbian friends and the wider community is as much a part, maybe more, of being wary about a relationship with a woman as it being "easier" to have a heterosexual relationship as @selffellatingouroborosofhate also highlights up thread.

This. Totally.

Why did I go to LGB groups when I was in a monogamous relationship with a man? Because I needed a space for my sexuality, where I wasn’t assumed to be straight. It’s bloody lonely and I wanted some friends who understood I had something missing in my life- and always will do.

Why do I still go, now I’m in a monogamous relationship with a woman? Exactly the same reasons.

I haven’t changed, my reasons haven’t changed-yet some people are saying I wouldn’t be welcome before but am now.

The different way the world views me and treats me when I’m in a relationship with a man vs a woman has been a bit of head-fuck. I’d naively assumed that was a hetero-normative problem. It’s sad to see it’s just as bad on the lesbian side too.

If you aren’t willing to embrace all the complexities of bisexuality then take the B out of the name of your group. For me, going to a space like that was a massive step towards a same sex relationship. I’m glad I met more open minded women than some on this thread.

they will always be bisexual and may well have a same sex relationship in the future.

100% and this is what's in danger of being forgotten. Your bisexuality doesn't desert you when you are in an opposite sex relationship. I would struggle to believe that lesbians in a relationship only ever think sexually about their current partner, never feel attracted to another woman, never remember exes with some fondness, even though they wouldn't dream of being unfaithful.

As I mentioned earlier, and sorry if it sounds dramatic, it's a source of despair to me sometimes that I can't be with a woman at the same time as being with a man. There might be some bisexuals who feel complete fulfilment with whichever orientation they are living with long-term, but I'm not one of them - there will always be something missing in a monogamous relationship. That's why I have always been open with partners about my sexuality; it helps to be able to talk about it and not to have to be in denial about part of myself.

Perhaps I should be more 'out and proud' in settings such as work, but I don't want to be seen as an attention-seeking bore in situations where it's not relevant. As a matter of fact, I did join the 'LBGTQ+' group as a 'member' rather than an 'ally' but I doubt anyone noticed 😃 and I'm not very active in the group because it tends to centre things that are of no interest to me, such as drag.

There is one that exists now for bisexual women. 😊