This entry is extremely long, and extremely personal. Probably one of the most revealing things I’ve ever written about myself. If you can sit through the whole thing, I think you’ll see me in a completely different light.

There are tons of footnotes in this entry, mostly because I do not want to abuse parenthesis and brackets. You’ve been forewarned.

I am bisexual. I am not a “proud” bisexual, but I am bisexual. Before you start pelting me with rotted fruit or lit torches, let me explain why.

I do not believe that I was ever straight. Being bisexual is all I’ve ever known. And just like (most) straight people are not specifically proud of being straight, I am not specifically proud of being bisexual. It’s all I’ve ever known. I am no more proud of being bisexual than I am having freckles, or small hands. It’s just a part of who I am. And while I am proud of myself AS A WHOLE, I am not proud of individual aspects of my being. Much like I love having black eyes, I also love being bisexual. I just find proud to be the wrong adjective.

That being said…

Lets start at the beginning.

I was not exposed to other children when I was young. I was exposed to my grandparents, my mother, and my mother’s friends. My first experiences with other children came in elementary school. I started kindergarten at age 4², I could already read and write, and my vocabulary was at a “late second grade” level. The only reason I was not skipped to first grade was due to age.

As you can imagine, these factors made me socially awkward to say the least. I preferred the company of adults to children, and women to men. At 4, of course, I thought nothing of this. I latched onto females, and greatly ignored males. Some of my first crushes were on female friends of my mother.

That changed when I hit second grade. I have always had horrible handwriting.³. My teacher decided that a boy with beautiful handwriting would tutor me and my handwriting would improve⁴. The boy had cornsilk hair, crystal blue eyes, and a wide smile. And so marked my first “feelings” for a boy. I also faked being bad at math, since he was the best math student in my class. I did eventually get caught (as the teacher found it suspicious I went from an A in math to a D), and in a fair amount of trouble.

As I got older, I had more crushes on both sexes. I didn’t think anything of this until I was 8 or 9 and laying around in my room. I overheard my mother on the phone discussing sexuality. It was at this point I first heard the word “heterosexual”. And I thought it meant “lesbian”⁵ mostly because of the context it was used in. “Look, really it’s no one’s business that I’m heterosexual”.

It was the fear of my mom being a lesbian⁶ that took me to the library⁷ under the guise of wanting to read hardback Babysitters Club. I started reading up on human sexuality at my local library. And not only did I learn my mother was not a lesbian, I learned she held no attraction for women at all.

And the world fell out from underneath me, as it was at this point I realised that I was not “normal”. And that after reading what I had just read, I would never be normal. And I couldn’t pretend. One trait that I have always had is that I refuse to be something I’m not. I knew that day, that I would never pretend to be straight. And I never have.

I put my sexuality out of my mind for awhile, as other changes had started to occur. In the fourth grade, at the tender age of nine, I developed breasts. Not “Mom I need a training bra” breasts either, “Mom my tshirts are tight up top” breasts. At the time (early 1994), a girl going through any type of puberty was rare. My doctor was sure my period would start soon, and I would have my growth spurt.

My period, nor my sorry excuse for a growth spurt⁸ didn’t come for another 3 years, however. The only thing to make an appearance was my sex drive, the summer I was 10.

I was introduced to porn, by a male friend of mine⁹ who was 2 years older. Our mothers were best friends. He was spending the night once, and methodically searched for my mother’s boyfriend’s porn. We found 2 videos, and a whole lot of magazines.

Porn was a wonderful experience for me. I knew what sex, condoms, and all that were¹⁰ but I did not know the mechanics. Porn taught me where the penis went¹¹. At one point, while watching a video, my hand wandered south and I discovered my clitoral hood¹². About 10 minutes later I discovered orgasms. A few days after that, I discovered vibrating objects¹³. This discovery was a turning point in not only my sexual awakening, but my life.

I developed what I can only describe as an addiction to masturbation for the next few years. In the summer it was 10 or 11 times per day, to the point where I could have an orgasm on mental command while masturbating. I did not need any visual or mental stimuli. During school, it was several times from when I came home until I went to bed.

The summer I was 12, I discovered a porn novel. I can’t even call it Erotica. It was honestly a terrible book, and completely unbelievable but it did it for me.¹⁴. Both my mother and her boyfriend left for work around 3, I can still remember laying in bed on the warm days reading the book and mastubating non-stop through the whole novel and then starting again only stopping for dinner. I would put the book away around 12am before they returned home and masturbate to the thought of it.

Why is this relevant to my bisexuality? Because the thoughts I was masturbating to were all about the women. I would think about how they sounded, how they looked, how they felt, how they smelled, how they tasted. I would read the lines and imagine I was watching them. The male was completely irrelevant. To this day, I do not fantasize about men when I masturbate. I will mention that this does not apply to when I am having sex with a man, the man is COMPLETELY relevant then.

This went on for awhile, even after I lost my virginity in 9th grade (age 13). I masturbated thinking about women, but had feelings for boys. It was around then I started to question whether I was only sexually attracted to women, or if I could feel emotional towards them as well.

About a year or so later, bisexuality became trendy. Many bisexuals hated this trend. Me? I loved it. Yes, many of them were posers, but at that point I just wanted to be with a woman for the first time. I did not care if she regretted it the next day or was just experimenting.

That year I kissed my first girl, and someone took a photo of it. I hung the photo in my Catholic high school locker and the entire school knew within twenty minutes. I became known as the only bisexual in my school. Some people thought it was awesome, some were horrified, and some had already realised it (and didn’t care) when I hung pictures of Alicia Silverstone in my locker 2 years earlier. But this was it, this is when I truly came out. If I was asked I said yes, I liked girls.

The administration was not happy and demanded I take it down and I was “forbidden” from speaking of women. I told them when they took down pictures of boys kissing girls from lockers, I would remove my photo. When girls speaking of boyfriends in the hall were forbidden, I too would stop talking. While it was a Catholic school, they did hate when they got called on equality issues and the photo was allowed to stay the rest of my high school career. At this point I still had not had romantic feelings for a woman, merely sexual.

Bisexuality got less trendy, and there were no more girls to kiss for awhile. The timing was good, as I went through some hard times. My mother and her boyfriend split after ten years, we moved, I met new people, had my rebel phase, had uterine surgery, and then finished high school.

In 2002, a year out of high school, I met Isabelle¹⁵. I don’t know what there is to say about Isabelle other than she was wonderful. I didn’t know what to do with my hands when I was around her, I was completely nervous. I bought her a pair of purple Janis Joplin style glasses, that to this day, I can still close my eyes and see her in. Isabelle had an off/on girlfriend so I knew it would never work in the long run. But I enjoyed her while I could. We had something so minor I don’t even know that it would qualify as a fling, but it meant the world to me. We had sex¹⁶ and it was pretty intimate. For me, sex with a woman isn’t about orgasms or penetration, but it’s an emotional experience. While orgasms can and do occur, they aren’t important. The whole experience was more erotic than emotional, and I still questioned whether or not I was capable of loving a woman or just lusting for one. I got tingly with Isabelle but nothing I could describe as love or even “really really like”.

After Isabelle, I had a long (voluntary) dry spell with women. It was in early 2007 I met Ella¹⁷. I met Ella on a lesbian/bisexual personals site. I felt something draw me towards her. She was beautiful and her profile was nice, but it wasn’t just that. I could not explain this incredible pull I felt. So I paid $9 for a subscription, and got her email address.

Ella and I emailed back and forth off and on for several months, as she was a) shy b) extremely busy with university c) dating a guy. She was a photographer, also taking some Fine Arts courses. And there was just something about her. I held out hope she would eventually have time to meet me. And one morning, when I was up uncharacteristically early, she did. She had broken up with her boyfriend recently and I knew it was time to act. I convinced her to skip class and meet me by promising to buy her waffles at Waffle House. And so we met at Waffle House, and I ate 2 chocolate chip waffles with her¹⁸. We hung out the entire day, to the point where she was late meeting her mom for dinner. We talked more frequently after that, started spending 1-2 days a week together. It wasn’t easy, as we lived about an hour apart and both had commitments, but we made it work. I liked her, a lot.

I knew that I was falling for her the first time we kissed. I was spending the night (as a friend, her parents did not know she was bisexual) and neither of us could make a move. Eventually though, when all the lights were off and we were both drowsy, it happened. And I felt beautiful, and understood. We spent a lot more time together after that night, and soon after we were intimate. I don’t know that there was ever a time in my life where I was that happy.

Unfortunately, the relationship was ill fated due to her not being out, and her parents expecting her to date men. They were getting suspicious of how much time we spent together. It worked out for the best, as I had ended up needing to relocate cross country shortly after our break-up.

Before my relationship with Ella I had identified to people (when asked) as bisexual with a preference for men. I would then elaborate saying that I had sexual feelings towards women but both sexual and romantic towards men. Turns out, I just hadn’t found the right woman to feel romantically about aside from minor crushes as a child.

Ever since Ella, I am 100% confident identifying as bisexual. Just turns out I’m very picky about the women I fall for.

1. I got that term from a book about 15 years ago, started using it, but I’ll be damned if I can remember what book it was
2. Everyone else was already 5, or turning 6.
3. To this day, my handwriting is not what you’d consider “feminine” or “good”. I have unique, distinctive handwriting that I like but I will not wax poetic about how that’s more important than readable
4. it didn’t
5. While I had heard gay, straight, queer, lesbian, and dyke I had never heard the terms hetero, homo or bisexual.
6. she was in a long term relationship with a man and my fear mostly stemmed from not wanting them to break up
7. At this point, Internet was not really in homes yet. AOL 2.5 didn’t come for another 4 years
8. I went from 5′1” to 5′3” and then slowly made it to 5′5” over the rest of high school
9. who I happened to have a crush on
10. I learned “where babies come from” at 6, and about STD, the pill, etc around 10
11. I hadn’t really discovered my own vaginal opening at that point
12. I never really discovered my glans clitoris and to this day I do not like when it is touched. Hood stimulation only please!
13. In the form of the Squiggle Wiggle which to this day I will still maintain can be one of the most intense clitoral vibrators
14. The book was called Her Sister’s Husband and to this day, I still use the scenarios in that book to masturbate. I would love to get my hands on a copy. I also discovered a book called Helen’s Insecurities that I remember, but do not use as “material” anymore.
15. not her real name, for obvious reasons
16. I have not had the urge to engage in penetration or oral sex with females, there are other ways to have sex and I and my female partners have been happy with it so far
17. again, not her real name
18. Strangely enough, I just found the shirt I wore to meet her yesterday afternoon

A few years ago some studies came out saying that HIV transmission in males could be reduced by circumcision. The percentages varied based on who was reporting but it was anywhere from 30% all the way to 75%. What was never mentioned is that this only applied to female-to-male transmission, one of the lowest types. It was touted as “Circumcision can reduce HIV by up to 70%”. Very misleading, but the media ate it up.

This always struck me as odd, right from the beginning. The United States has one of the highest circumcision rates in the world and is the only country left routinely do it at birth¹. 3/4 of the women infected with HIV in the US are infected via heterosexual contact, most likely with circumcised men². While over in Europe, there is less HIV and barely any circumcised men.

Now, I am not saying the foreskin is the Holy Grail in HIV prevention. Not at all. What I’m saying is that it is not the almighty evil HIV magnet that the media made it out to be after one study that was shady, at best³.

What I am saying is this:

CONDOMS, not cosmetic surgery⁴, are the best way to prevent HIV.

This article is a pretty good read about the subject. This is the part that stuck out to me.

As thousands of young men in Nyanza Province troop to health centres to be circumcised in hopes of fending off HIV, new studies show it might be too early to claim victory. Although circumcision has been touted as one of the ways to prevent HIV infection, recent findings show an increase in HIV infection in regions where most males are circumcised.

Within a span of five years, HIV prevalence in North Eastern and Coast provinces increased from 0 to 1.0 per cent and from 5.8 per cent to 8.3 per cent respectively. In the same period, HIV prevalence in Nyanza Province, where about 48 per cent of males are circumcised, stood at 15 per cent, the highest in the country.

I’m not surprised. Sex with multiple partners WITHOUT a condom, no matter WHAT skin is on your dick, is going to eventually lead to HIV. Period.

The worst part is this: Even if circumcision was effective again, the important thing that’s not mentioned in most articles (but is available in the full study) is that it does NOTHING for male-to-female transmission. It was only ever described as effective in female-to-male transmission, the lowest type.

Maybe it’s just me but the “studies” done were irresponsible and ridiculous from the beginning, and they have gambled with people’s health. Not just to the men (and their partners) in Africa, but to the people in the US who heard these ridiculous claims in the media and believed them. I’ve heard MANY guys (mostly people I know, met, or have overheard) say that they were stoked about the studies because it meant they didn’t need condoms if their GF was on the pill because, and I quote, “cut guys can’t get AIDS”. This plus teenagers being told by abstinence only fanatics⁵ that condoms aren’t effective is going to lead nowhere good.

Would I be the only one surprised if the US HIV rate in young people dramatically goes up in the next 5 or so years?

1. The term routine in this instance refers to non-ritual circumcision
2. The circumcision rate in 1980 and before hung out around 80% and started to drop in the late 80s. Today it sits at 50/50 but infants aren’t having sex so I’m not really including them
3. The intact males were given NO condom education and started sexual activity 6 weeks before their circumcised counterparts, the circumcised men were given information on STDs and condom usage. Several months later when the numbers were starting to show the cut guys catching up to the intact ones the study was ended a year early
4. There are 3 medical reasons to ever remove the foreskin: cancer, frostbite, gangrene. Everything else is treatable with either pills, cream, or even masturbation [no joke]. All major medical associations consider the surgery non-therapeutic
5. I am fine with “wait until marriage”, but when they start saying shit like “condoms have holes in them” and “abortion makes you sterile” I get a little pissed off

One of the biggest misconceptions about sex work is that workers don’t or can’t have normal lives or relationships. That all we do is fuck, shop, and do drugs. That we take home hundreds of thousands a year that just gets pissed away on designer duds and designer drugs. We all have implants, model bodies, plastic surgery, perfect faces.

And of course anyone logical knows this isn’t the case.

Many of us are students who don’t want loan debt. Many of us are frugal and want a good sized nest egg.  Many of us are childfree hedonists who want to enjoy life. Many are mothers who want to spend as much time as possible at home with their children. Some are having a hard time with getting jobs with the near double digit unemployment rate in the US.

But the one thing we all have in common is that we have lives outside of work. Some of those lives involve husbands, wives, children. Some of us live alone. Some of us live with our significant others. Some of us have significant others we see off and on.

Maintaining a relationship while being a companion is not easy, but it is doable. We are still real people. We laugh, we love, we hurt, we cry. What we need is a person who understands that. And when we find that person, we fall into a niche with them. They ask how our day was, laugh at the anecdotes, sympathise with the bad days. They understand what we do for money, and they don’t mind.

How you ask?

The same way anyone with a controversial job or viewpoint does. You think doctors who perform abortions or people who picket clinics keep their significant others in the dark about what they do? Not in most cases. The significant other knows and either agrees with it, or comes to terms with it.

The same thing goes for sex work. Believe it or not, there are men and women that understand that there are those that choose to be companions willingly. They believe that we enjoy our jobs, that we are safe, that we are just normal people. They realise that despite what we do at our jobs, we can come home and be “normal”. We are no different than anyone else who works in customer service. We are no different than anyone else with a controversial job. We are people, providing a service. All we require from a significant other is that they remember that, and that they have an open mind.