lurkette

So, I've been pretty sure since I was about 14 that I am bisexual. I am very attracted to women, but I've never done anything about it besides fantasize. And now I have the opportunity to do something about it and I'm scared shitless and don't know what to do.

I'm married (to Ratbastid, hi hon) and we've been together for 12 years, married for 8. He knows of my sexual tendencies and we get a kick out of the fantasy aspect of it. It's not that I don't want to be with women, it's that before I met him, I was still technically a virgin and had only ever fooled around with 2 other men, and had never had the opportunity to be with a woman. After we started dating and got serious, I thought about it but ran into a lot of the same problems I'm having now. Read on.

Ratbastid and I have a friend who is bisexual, also married, but they have a more or less open marriage. She's said she's attracted to me, and I know she's free to act on that attraction, and with Ratbastid's permission (granted already), so am I. BUT...

what if this changes our friendship? my friendship with her husband?
what if this changes Ratbastid's friendship with her/her husband?
what if this changes our marriage? will things ever be the same? will this make us closer, just another experience, or will it create tension and emotional stress?
is it safe (STD-wise)? I'd gotten used to not having to worry about that.
how will I act when she's around with our other friends who DON'T know I'm bi? (Only my husband, my mom and my sister know). Will I have to be out? Will I be able to live with myself if I'm not?

Argh!!! What should I do? The default, of course, is to do nothing, and to leave this aspect of my sexuality unexplored. I've lived with it this long. But that feels, somehow, like a cop-out. Do I do the "safe" thing - physically, emotionally - or do I take a chance and grow, whether the consequences are good or bad?

__________________
"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France