Gay, Bi-, Queer Polyamory

Ooh, women who have transitioned from lesbian to bi intrigue me! Now I know you and Redpepper, there are probably others on this forum. Female sexual fluidity is something I spend absurd amounts of time thinking about, since I've moved a fair bit between identifying as a gay woman and identifying as a bi woman. Just now I'm comfortable with flexbian - primarily interested in women but willing to make exceptions for a few specific men.
Ah! Me too! I'm a flexbian! :D

I used to think I knew it all about myself. In high school, I was "definitely straight". When I was 20, I was "definitely bi". In my mid-20s, I was "definitely lesbian". When I hit 30, I was "maybe straight...??" for about a month, then to "1000% lesbian". At 35, I was thinking "lesbian... pretty much." At 38 now I'm "queer." I got tired of looking for the right thing to try and define myself, and then wondering why I had to at all. I just roll with 'queer' now - or flexbian :D - it seems to cover all the bases in a general and uplifting way, and I don't get headaches and complexes from analyzing it anymore.

When it comes to the idea of dating, though, I'm just willing to go out with the person first, and decide later if it should go further. I will concede that most of the "go further" times have been with women, as there is definitely something in the touch of a woman I desire, in a far different, and more compelling, way than the touch of a man. I'm not sure if I would ever be satisfied, wholly, in a relationship with just male partner(s), and I worry that if I try I'll fail miserably... this actually reminds me of something I need to ask for advice on in another thread sometime.

I am biologically female, and very woman, but pretty andro in my thinking and personality. I have no problem getting comfortable with my "male side". But a random stranger on the street would probably classify me as "hetero gender normative" based on looks alone. These ideas are pretty fluid with me, however, so the terms to describe them, I find, usually fall very short and are misapplied. I'm always thinking and challenging ideas of gender and sexuality even within myself. Gender is a very complex idea. It wouldn't faze me, though, to put a little Venus symbol in my signature or anything, or a little rainbow flag or something.
 
When it comes to the idea of dating, though, I'm just willing to go out with the person first, and decide later if it should go further. I will concede that most of the "go further" times have been with women, as there is definitely something in the touch of a woman I desire, in a far different, and more compelling, way than the touch of a man. I'm not sure if I would ever be satisfied, wholly, in a relationship with just male partner(s), and I worry that if I try I'll fail miserably...

The more I am with women the more I realize how strong my preference for them is. The men I tend to go for have very definitive feminine/boyish streaks in them.

I am biologically female, and very woman, but pretty andro in my thinking and personality. I have no problem getting comfortable with my "male side". But a random stranger on the street would probably classify me as "hetero gender normative" based on looks alone. These ideas are pretty fluid with me, however, so the terms to describe them, I find, usually fall very short and are misapplied. I'm always thinking and challenging ideas of gender and sexuality even within myself. Gender is a very complex idea.

And gender isn't the be all and end all of sexual attraction either. I am somewhat of a chubby-chaser, I must confess. I'm size 14 myself and prefer people with real bellies. I know a lot of lovely men and women who don't do it for me because they are very athletic/thin/petite.

And though I self-identify as vanilla, I'm definitely versatile and like to both top and bottom, depending on my mood. To quote a woman I greatly admire; 'I think the best sex is to be had between too versatile self-confident bottoms'. My sweetheart, despite being very male and very fit, definitely fits that bill!
 
River--- It was a very interesting post, thanks for sharing.

If I had to guess, it sounds like he's typical of a lot of gay men in "open relationships"---sex with others is ok but you're only allowed to love one man. And in that same breath, they'll turn around and say something negative and/or stereotypical about polyamory ("dangerous" in his words). I know...the irony! :rolleyes:
And the sad fact is, I'm convinced most of the time, these guys in open relationships would actually benefit from true polyamory. (It's certainly more healthy than sleeping around and trying to act like you can never love anyone you screw.)
Sigh...it can be exhausting trying to find gay men who actually know what polyamory is about.

To the question at the end of your post...should you forget him? Well, if you can be a friend-with-benefit with him, knowing that's all he wants, then more power to you. Nothing wrong with that...have fun, play safe, etc.
But...only you can know if that's what will make you happy in the longterm.
 
... were you saying you didn't want people to do that? I'm sorry!

No, no. I just didn't want anyone to NOT reply because they don't want to post in someone's blog. That's all. I wanted people to have a choice between responding there or here.

No problem!




RfromRMC,
Thanks for your response. Pondering....
 
Reply to NYCindie

Recently, I had the somewhat startling realization that the more I fuck men, the more I realize I have little in common with many mainstream, straight women.

When I started sleeping with men, I had some expectations - some of which happened and others not. For example, I expected some reaction from my LGBT friends because many people in those communities believe sexuality to be a fixed characteristic. However, that has not been my experience so far.

I've always had sympathy for straight men because, well, I've tried to pick up women too. And I expected that I would learn more about men which has been very true.

I also thought I would align myself more with straight women - that me and straight women would have more in common. After all, I am now doing one of those things that make a straight women - fucking men. I guess I envisioned more bonding over the goofy things men do.

I chat with my guys during pillow talk - admittedly, this is their perceptions - and find that their experiences of dating and being with women surprise me - largely because it does not line up with my experiences of dating women or how I think of myself as female. I'm amazed at how little communication there is, how so much of it seems to be assumed, or extracted solely from behavior. Given my recent experiences, I'm hardly fool-proof at this myself - but I know that communication needs to happen, even if I fail at it sometimes.

I'm also surprised at how passive during sex some women seem to be. Both male lovers have commented that I am more responsive than other partners. SW asked how I was afterwards and I purred back "REAL good" which made him laugh - when I asked why (I didn't mean to be funny) he said that my responsiveness made him chuckle. I told him he must have dated the quietest set of women ever.

Telling a partner they did good just seems the right thing to do. I love feedback myself and have a hard time imagining being with a very quiet, or unresponsive partner. It's difficult to wrap my mind around - I guess I always selected female partners who also love to give and get feedback.

I realize that I am generalizing from a small sample and that not all straight women are quiet in bed or don't communicate well in relationships. I also don't mean that I never connect with straight women, mainstream or otherwise, but I thought sleeping with men would leave me with more in common with straight women. So far, that has not been the case.
 
I'm also surprised at how passive during sex some women seem to be. Both male lovers have commented that I am more responsive than other partners. SW asked how I was afterwards and I purred back "REAL good" which made him laugh - when I asked why (I didn't mean to be funny) he said that my responsiveness made him chuckle.

:D That's happened for me too! Or a combination of 'wow, you really are wet' or 'oh my, you really like to fuck :eek:' or 'you are horny again?!?'. I am left wondering at how many women actually fuck guys when they are not really in the mood? How much bad, non-fulfilling sex do women tolerate from their men? I have been with some excellent male lovers and when I ask who taught them they just remark that they are good at observing. But if you give no feedback whatsoever how are they ever supposed to learn?
 
Educating gay men about polyamory...uphill battle.

After reading River's story...and thinking about some of my own observations (see: http://www.polyamory.com/forum/showpost.php?p=58188&postcount=39 as example), it really seems that, at least in the Queer community, the bisexuals and lesbians seem to decently comprehend the whole concept of Polyamory way better than gay men do.
Again, it goes to that craziness that you have to be one extreme or the other: either 100% monogamous angel, or a rampant slut who sleeps with anybody and everybody. (And sometimes it seems like the latter outnumbers the former 2:1) :rolleyes:
And they see us in a committed triad and think we're the weird ones. :eek:

It seems like an extremely uphill battle convincing most gay men that there is a middle ground. Either they don't know it exists...or they just don't want to understand it because of cognitive dissonance.
There's been very little discussion of it in the community. The only article I think I've ever seen on it in a LGBT magazine was an old Advocate one ( http://tinyurl.com/4vcjckm ) from 5 years ago.
In NYC, I know the local Poly group marches in the LGBT Pride parade. That's probably a very good start. Maybe something worth pursuing nationwide.
 
... it really seems that, at least in the Queer community, the bisexuals and lesbians seem to decently comprehend the whole concept of Polyamory way better than gay men do.

I was reaching out online in an endeavor to start a local-regional chapter of www.GayOutdoors.org, when a lesbian woman contacted me, wanting to be involved. She said, "There sure are lots of men on that site". I explained that it is a gay men's club, then said an LGBT club would be a good idea and that I'd be happy to help start one up. (I have a history of organizing things, and some relevant skills.) Then I realized the poly folk would have to be included.

And then I was out hiking with Kevin (my sweet) and Andy, my straight friend, and the three of us talked about that club idea ... and I just had to include Andy ... So we decided the three of us would start up a club focussed on bringing LGBT, poly, and their admirors together under one umbrella.

(Welcoming club name suggestions!!!)

Anyway, there is a local organization / group / whatever of poly folk ... and I'm getting ready to share my idea with them.

This should be quite an educational experience for everyone involved!

The club is for hiking, bicycling, picnicing, skiing, camping, backpacking, kayaking ... anything outdoors -- but there's no reason we can't also have indoor potlucks and the like, or bowling / roller skating....

The idea is to let club participants / members invite folks, via a calendar (online, etc.) to join in specific activities. Sometimes just the gay men are invited, or the lesbians. Other times it would be for everyone. Sometimes just poly folk. Sometimes just LGBT -- by design of the one posting the calendar item.

Anyway, the bar scene is very limited!

My main point in this post is that the plan is to bring poly folk together with gay (etc.) men, women, folks, etc.

Spooky! I mean poly men round those other kinds of men! Very spooky. BoooOOOooo!
 
queer poly

From my experience, I don't know if my particular lesbian community is more accepting of poly than gay men. While I haven't encountered anything negative when I've told my queer friends about my poly situation, there also isn't much positivity or asking questions about it either. They just seem to take it in and move on. It's not dismissive but it also doesn't seem to really dealt with. Of course, it's early days. They may be mulling and will get back to me at some point. Or they think I'm fucking around and don't want to call me on it.

Also the poly groups I'm involved in are pretty straight. (I believe there is a thread about this somewhere.) They are not homophobic but just mostly collections of straight (or mostly straight) people. I have not found the equivalent grouping of lesbian poly types or gay men or queers. I'm sure they exist but the organization, at least in my neck of the woods, is missing.
 
I recently joined up over at ...

http://www.connexion.org

It's for LGBT folks, and there are some poly folk there, too. I recommend it.
 
Yup, them's a lot of fine lookin yunguns over there. I git to tell 'em 'bout the ol' days when
we had black and white tv and rotory dial telephones -- and Superman still had phone booths to change in ... and we walked to school in the snow, uphill both ways!
 
What's the geographic coverage for that one, inquires one young but rather isolated.
 
Which one, the http://www.connexion.org ? or the clubs I mentioned?

http://www.connexion.org seems to be US and Canada -- but mainly US, I suppose. But I'm not really sure. I've just noticed that most of the folks I've seen on it are scattered all over the USA.
 
Connexion - :D when I want to experience closeness with nature, I take a look out of the window and then curl back up with my covers.
 
A week backpacking and camping in the wilderness can cure that.
 
I remember connexion....they advertised for a while as a "gay facebook" so to speak. Don't recall any poly people on there though...but that's cool if there are some now.

I remember tribe.net had a ton of poly people on it... even had a "Queer Poly" room as well as a "gay/bi poly men" room. Postings on it became sporadic though over the years from what I saw. But they are still up and operating regardless.
 
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