Q:
I am a 33-year-old man. I’ve spent my whole life oscillating between calling myself gay and bisexual. Recently I’ve found an identity that seems to fit perfectly – “biromantic homosexual”, meaning that I can fall in love with and enjoy kissing both men and women, but I only enjoy sex with men. I’ve tested this extensively, making sure that I’m not secretly being swayed one way or the other by compulsory heterosexuality or trauma. I’m not secretly either fully gay or fully bisexual. I really truly am attracted to both men and women, but I’m also really truly repulsed by full on sex with women.
The problem is I’m not sure what to do with my orientation. So much of discourse on sexuality is about coming home to your natural desires. But my natural desires towards women cause confusion and pain for all parties. I feel extremely attracted to women and love kissing them… but then have to awkwardly cut things off before things go further, leaving us both frustrated. I’ve also fallen head over heels in love with women and enter into loving relationships… but then have to navigate an extremely unfulfilling sex life.
In contrast, things with men are easy, since I’m fully romantically and sexually attracted to them. But I find it impossible to shut off my initial feelings for women, and since straight women are everywhere, I’m constantly finding myself in confusing situations of mutual attraction.
Should I learn to ignore and stuff down my natural attraction towards women? Should I choose to set a boundary to only pursue men, since I know logically that relationships with women are never fulfilling? And finally, am I totally alone in this bizarre orientation?
A:
Just answering your final question right away: No, you’re not alone in your orientation. The spectrum of bisexuality covers so many configurations of romantic and sexual attraction. You’re included among the many. It might not be the normative experience of bisexuality, but that doesn’t mean it’s not normal.
Since you mention that relationships with women are ‘never fulfilling’, I’m going to assume that sex is part of what you’re looking for in a long-term relationship. I’ll spare you the parables about how sexless relationships can be wonderful and valid for the right people. But it is worth pointing out that there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to pursue women solely for romance. No one’s orientation should be ‘stuffed down’ simply because it doesn’t fit some heteronormative script we were sold.
I’m a bisexual homoromantic. Unequal attraction between men and women is my entire dating experience. Unfortunately, it’s generally easier to pursue sex with new people than romance. As asexual people know, the societal script for relationships usually dictates that the former follows the latter. So while I have experience with the attraction disparity, I do think my variant is easier to navigate socially. I’ll hopefully have some insight that’s helpful to your specific situation.
A thought experiment with a woman
You mentioned ‘extensive testing’ in figuring out your sexuality. I love that! Because we’re going to do a thought experiment to see if reframing the concept of sex with women does anything for you. Having a diverse array of sexual experiences with different genders will make this much easier.
You’re ‘repulsed by full on sex with women’, and I’m guessing that’s shorthand for penetrative sex. I’m also assuming you default to being the penetrating partner with women because that’s the default social conditioning. In man/woman sexual pairings, it can feel impossible to separate masculinity from being dominant, or the pursuer. I can understand your distaste if that’s not the role you want from sex.
Scripts are restrictive, but learning about them helps us realize that they’re fundamentally optional. There’s no inherent dominance to being a man. There’s no rule that you must be the penetrative partner. The main separator of sex with men or women is your partner’s gender. All of the individual sex acts that you enjoy with men can be performed with women – even those requiring a penis, thanks to trans people.
Now, imagine two events with me. They can be a memory or fantastical. First, picture a really enjoyable sexual experience with a man. Then picture a woman that you’re very attracted to. No judgments on the content of each scene made by me. It’s your mind and you can have what you want.
Next, superimpose that woman onto the man in your sexual fantasy. Keep everything else as-is. If he was dominant, she’s dominant too. If he had a penis, so does she. If he penetrated you… well, you know. She just needs to look like the woman you pictured and be a woman in your mind. She’s just replaced a man in role and positioning in your mental image.
Does the fact that this imaginary partner is now a woman still repulse you? Do you enjoy the idea of sex with women when you’re not expected to perform the traditional masculine sexual role?
Spend some time on this thought exercise and the questions that arise from it. What sex acts do you find most enjoyable with this hypothetical woman? What does a fulfilling sex life look like with her? What would be non-negotiable with her? The conclusions and answers to these questions are yours and judgement-free.
Navigating sex and dating
Regardless of your conclusions, they don’t change the fact that sex and dating are tricky. Maybe you’re fine with having sex with women so long as they’re a top or traditionally dominant. What if a woman with a penis or strap-on fits your ideal sex life? If your original conclusions stand and you just don’t want sex with any woman, that’s cool too.
If you find a vision of sex with women that does suit you, it might deviate from that mainstream heteronormative script. That could narrow your dating pool down, but it means that there’s someone out there for you. In your situation, it’s logical to wonder about restricting your dating pool to men. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with narrowing it to people you know you’re more compatible with. There’s just room near the edges for mental experimentation. You can trust your mind on this.
Practically speaking, it’s probably easier to pursue men in casual dating contexts. When those ‘confusing situations of mutual attraction’ do arise with women, don’t discount talking it out with them. Understanding your orientation places agency in her hands too. With this knowledge, she can decide whether or not to join you. Talking them out beforehand also makes it less likely that she’ll fall back on those unfulfilling societal scripts that don’t work for you. Hell, maybe that script is a terrible idea for her and she didn’t realize it.
Ultimately, I hope that you find a relationship that is as sexually fulfilling as it is romantic. You deserve both. It’s hard to navigate a sexuality that’s not spoken about in the mainstream. Even queer circles miss out on us. On the bright side, you’ve already done a lot of reflection required to figure yourself out, and I hope that I’ve added another small piece to that puzzle with this response. Remember, uncertainty isn’t always bad. Uncertainty pushes us to question and explore outside of our safe zones.
Comments
I want to say this is not meant as a dig at the writer (I love your work Summer!) but I am hesitant whenever I see one of these responses that jumps to a suggestion of trying to get someone to “reframe” sex with a demographic they’re not attracted to when they have mentioned already exploring it extensively. If Summer’s assumption is correct, and the LW meant PIV by “full on sex”, then sure, but if not I fear things like this may feel invalidating to someone who has already grappled heavily to reach this conclusion. I definitely think there could be helpful advice here, depending– But just in case here’s another: LW, congrats on finding an identity that speaks to you! It may seem like a niche label, but I actually believe situations like yours are much more common than we think. I don’t think repressing your natural feelings for women is a healthy way to go; no guarantees it will be easy, but I think if you are very up front with yourself and other people about your limits, there’s a world of connections you could have. Lots of people don’t want to have sex (any kind of sex, not just heteronormative sex) for a lot of reasons (asexuality, sensory issues, just preferring making out in casual contexts) and if you’re open to it you may find rewarding connections that way. Obviously there are a lot of factors here (are you looking for long term relationships only? are you monogamous? etc) and if you may need to be more selective and cautious with connections to women/may have times where you just want to pursue men because it’s easier, and all that is ok. Not saying it’s a simple or easy road. But if this is who you are I say, I think you have to own it! Best of luck, we’re rooting for you!
Hey no prob, I always welcome constructive alternate perspectives. A lot of my fave comment sections on these have been people offering alternatives to what I wrote. It all comes together into something helpful for the LW <3
As i understand it, the IP has strong romantic attraction to both men and women, but sexual attraction only to men.
I think it would make sense to specify what causes the revulsion during sex with women, is it body parts, smell, acts etc. Acts might provide a little wiggle room, like Summer described, while body related things are probably a dealbreaker. In that case again being specific might help to understand which body compositions work or don’t work.
If sex is completely out, there are women who would enjoy a romantic but not sexual relation to a mostly gay man or even a couple etc. But it would need some luck that this is also a woman that the OP is feeling attracted too. But you never know!
Its just important to navigate this very honestly, to avoid creating a situation where the woman would agree to no sex, out of romanric attraction, but secretly wants more.
So this is a bit tricky.
Ideally OP would probably find a bi or otherwise queer woman, who also enjoys men romantically, but wants to have sex with other people. These types of relationships are pretty common, similar to lavender marriages.
Or another variant would be that threesome in Sense8, where the woman wants to watch the gay men, and this is her turn on, but sex with the gay men is not interesting. OP could ask himself if different threesome situations would be interesting or not.
Finally i want to say that this orientation is pretty common, i have known plenty of people who ticked in a similar way. Some choose to focus on being gay, others marry a woman and have an arrangement, but rare this is not. It’s just something that nobody really wants to acknowledge for some reason.
<3!
You’re not alone, LW! I’m also biromantic homosexual, and seeing your letter made me so happy (I literally went yay, I’M not alone!)
I’ve always been romantically attracted to both men and women, like kissing both, but sex with men is just a total no-go. Like you, I also had to experiment a bit to figure out if it was a trauma thing or just in my head, but finally realized that nope! It’s just how I am.
For me, that ultimately led to choosing just to date women. I wanted a monogamous relationship that included sex – so for me, that meant exclusively dating women. I’m now married to a woman and really happy. But I think the key for me was not to repress my feelings for men or “pretend” to myself that I was fully a lesbian (even though outwardly I often identify that way to friends and coworkers bc it’s just easier). It helped to acknowledge those romantic feelings for men and to go, yes those are real, but I don’t want to pursue that particular person bc I’m not going to be happy with them long-term if we can’t have sex. It helped to see it like any other incompatibility, like different views on kids or money or non-monogamy.
That may not be the path that works for you, and I’m not saying you shouldn’t date women – I think there’s about a million ways to have relationships that are open or don’t include sex or only include certain sex acts or all kinds of configurations. But! I just wanted to share my experience as someone who really just wanted a monogamous relationship that does include sex.
Best of luck to you, and please know there is nothing wrong with you and there are other people out there like you! :)
You’re not alone! I’m panromantic and like to do kinky power exchange with many sorts of folks, but I only want sex with other butch and masc dykes. I’d love to have intimate partnerships with other people too tbh, but I find these special relationships require such a high bar of radical honesty and willingness to challenge norms that the pool of candidates is small. Not many people are willing to prioritize a nonsexual partner in a mixed-orientation relationship. I don’t bother seeking for it anymore, my energy is limited and my encounters with men have been scarring… but if the right person fell into my life I’d give it a try again!
Imagine this: I am heterosexual homoromantic. No attraction overlap at all. I often feel kind of doomed. I don’t know anyone irl who also feels that way, only a few people on the internet after explicitly searching for it. I’ve often wondered if I should just choose between having a love life or a sex life. I’m only now starting to consider ENM out of convenience, although I don’t really feel drawn to it.
But I’ve learned that split attraction / cross-orientation, in any of its possible combinations, is more common than it may seem. Not many people are familiar with the terms, but since I started talking to some friends openly about it, I’ve found quite a few of them (usually within the bisexual spectrum) who were like “wait, I don’t think I’m fully aligned either, I think I’m bisexual heteroromantic” or something similar. (Yet with some degree of attraction overlap in all cases.)
Let’s keep the conversation going and create spaces for people to discuss and explore this. Visibility is everything, as always.
Holy. Shit. I’m starting to realize that this may be how I’m wired too, and I cannot tell you how much of a relief it is to read this comment. Like, intellectually I knew I wasn’t alone, but it’s another thing entirely to hear someone else say it out loud. THANK YOU!
Hey! Wow, thank you! And it works both ways – hearing you relating to it also helps me as much as it did you.
You’re so right, intellectually we know it’s a possibility, but finding each other helps so much. Because otherwise it’s easy to believe it’s something we need to work through or deconstruct in order to re-allign how we feel. (I myself had tried to explain it away with all sorts of convoluted overrationalizations, until I realized it all made much more sense when I thought about it this way.)
So I hope this helps you know that, if it turns out to be your case as well, there’s nothing wrong you need to ‘fix’, it’s just part of human diversity, and there are ways to make it work with a partner. Wish you all the best!!
(Sorry this comes so late, I didn’t get a notification. Just happened to come across this piece again and saw your reply.)
Here’s something to consider: Just because you feel the way you do about women doesn’t mean you have to do something about it other than to fully accept that, yeah, whew, women – I can love them, don’t like having sex with them and gimme a man for that any time!
Then stop worrying about it.
From my early beginnings as a bisexual male, I thumbed my nose at romantic interest in guys… and then I fell in love with a guy, and it was amazing, eye-opening, and educational and totally debunked my belief that falling in love with a guy was impossible. And I remained just as bisexual as I always had been and since nothing changed about me other than, man, I really do love this guy, then I stopped thinking about it in that “WFT…” kind of way. And he had me laughing until I was in tears when he seriously told me that I’d make for a lousy gay man so don’t even go there.
I’ve told many a guy that once you find your… niche in this, stop worrying about it because if you keep worrying about it, all you’re going to do is mess yourself up in the end and you won’t be enjoying the happiness that your uniqueness brings to the table. If this is how you roll, then keep rolling and don’t worry about anything that’s going to slow your roll…
the ideal woman for a biro homo would be one who is ace lol
i am in a similar situation but on the opposite end. i think my longtime friend to is biromantic bc he flirts with me and we have a deep emotional connection. he says he is gay, but he really comes off as being romantic towards me. i am a sex-repulsed demisexual woman, so honestly, i wouldn’t mind if he was in fact biro homo.
the only problem is i am scared to broach the topic with him. i will have to talk to him within the next week or so tho, so i am wondering if you have any tips for talking to him abt this other than obviously being honest.
loved the article btw, it helped me process some of what i am going thru <3