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I would never have jumped into bed on the first date with any man I ever dated.
I did exactly that with my first girlfriend, and did the same with Grace. If the circumstances were right, I'd probably do so with a certain lovely lady I've met online recently.
I've struggled with what label to use for myself. I've had sexual relationships with men, but was never satisfied with them. I'm currently in an long term relationship with another woman, but I wouldn't be entirely opposed to including a man in a threesome, as there is one element of a heterosexual relationship that I did enjoy and occasionally miss a bit, that being giving a man a bj. On the other hand, having a third woman involved would be even better.
Am I a bisexual more strongly oriented toward women, or a lesbian who might occasionally enjoy a nice bj? As I've never met a woman who identified herself as exclusively lesbian who would say the same, I'm going to have to go witht the first, though I might say differently tomorrow.
I think sexuality isn't a neat binary, or in this case, trinary segregation system. It's a continuum, and I'm on the border between bi and gay. I think women seem to be distributed a bit more flatly along the continuum than men, which is to say that men tend to be more likely to identify as exclusively straight or exclusively gay, with a small number in the middle and the nebulous areas inbetween. Women tend to have smaller clusters at the ends, and many more who are somewhere in the middle. Also, women's sexuality seems to be more fluid, more susceptible to change.
I also think it has as much to do with how society percieves men and women. It's much more acceptible for a woman to have masculine qualities than for a man to have feminine qualities. Like it or not, being sexually attracted to men is considered a feminine quality in our society by most, and vice versa. It isn't acceptible for a man to say he likes women, but finds the idea of sex with a man intriguing, and would like to try it sometime to see what it's like, but most people find a woman saying the same perfectly acceptible and normal.
On the other hand, even within the gay community, you'll find a lot of people taking on the same traditional roles. Go into a lesbian bar and you'll find a range of presentation styles from femmes to bull dykes who go out of their way to adopt a hypermasculine persona, with most being somewhere in the middle. It's eerily like a hetero bar in the way the traditional roles are reinforced. A butch or bull will always make the first move on a femme, and it's generally considered bad form for the femme to approach a butch. Being passive is part of the femme role; being aggressive is part of the butch role. (not that it's relevant, but Grace and I are "lipstick lesbians"--femmes attracted to other femmes)
What's the point there? If we apply this to bisexual women, we can that they approach men from the female role--defined in our society as passive--but feel more free to approach women from a masculine perspective. Which is to say, a bisexual woman may feel free to take on the masculine, assertive role in a relationship with another woman that she didn't feel comfortable doing with a man. She's not only shifting sexual roles, she's shifting social roles as well.
Having said that, my case works backwards from what I just
In addition, I think part of it stems from how men and women relate to each other in non-sexual ways. Growing up, I was always more open and free with my sisters than my brothers. I've always felt closer to my female freinds than my male friends. I've always felt more emotional intimacy with my female casual freinds than with the boys I would date. The emotional intimacy comes easier with women than with men.
Many women link emotional intimacy with sex. We don't want the former without the latter, or at least the strong promise of an emotional bond to come. Many of us have also found that a strong emotional bond comes easier with women. When you combine those two elements, it could make for an easier, quicker route to the sack for many bisexual women than for men.
If there's an element that separates lesbians from bisexual women, I think this may be it, or at least one of them. My experience has been that women who identify themselves as exclusively lesbian are more reluctant to have a one night stand without that emotional connection already in place, while the bisexual women are more likely to be a little more free with their sexuality.
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I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.
~Steven Colbert
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