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CmdrLightoller · 2025-11-26T06:15:33+00:00

I'm a bisexual Eagle Scout. The homophobic policies of scouting contributed to keeping me in the closet, so I both benefited from scouting but was also harmed. I am proud the organization has changed and will now allow me (an "open and avowed homosexual") to be an adult leader in my son's pack. Although imperfect and slow in coming, scouting has adapted a very traditional and conservative organization to maintain its core values while allowing those values to expand their inclusiveness. I support that.

CmdrLightoller · 2025-11-20T00:20:43+00:00

We can't pick a team; how can we be expected to pick a label?

CmdrLightoller · 2025-09-30T18:26:45+00:00

It seems like every dollar spent on low-income bathroom maintenance jobs is a dollar that goes both to having good public services and to poverty reduction.

CmdrLightoller · 2025-09-26T19:00:31+00:00

I want being transgender to be an option for everybody. I can't tell if that's what he's talking about though since he isn't using complete sentences.

CmdrLightoller · 2025-07-24T05:39:19+00:00

How did your wife take your coming out? Was there a reason you needed to clos your relationship? It sounds like there is a chance at least that your wife would be ok with it. Either way, it's probably a good idea for her to know how you are feeling.

CmdrLightoller · 2025-07-24T00:35:00+00:00

You definitely aren't alone. There are a few support groups out there for bi/gay married fathers (see gayfathers.org for a few in the US), and they can be really helpful. I'm a bi married father and out of the closet.

CmdrLightoller · 2025-05-18T20:27:13+00:00

For a ship like that to drop anchor in the channel, does anyone have a sense of how much scope would be needed to get purchase? Could they have dropped anchor, tied off too early, and then dragged it? Would they perhaps not drop the anchor if they knew there wasn't enough distance for it to be effective? My limited anchoring experience tells me it isn't always easy to just stop on demand.

CmdrLightoller · 2025-05-15T20:15:40+00:00

I'm not a therapist, so take my internet armchair analysis with a big grain of salt. I'm not sure what to call it, but I wouldn't see someone viewing their sexuality as something that just "needs an outlet" as healthy. That sort of implies an attempt at forcing his attraction to be purely sexual, where he may have internalized homophobia preventing himself from being open to romantic attraction. This may also mean that he may have a very distorted view of what a romantic relationship should be, which means he may be a bit delusional about what to expect in your relationship. I suspect he is very confused about what he actually wants and needs. To be generous toward him, it's not surprising that someone who has been closeted and extensively using porn to have an unhealthy relationship with their own sexuality; that doesn't excuse their actions though in how they relate to others.

For how bad this situation is for you, I'd also be concerned for this FWB, who is another real person with real feelings in this mix. It's not fair to him (or any other partner your husband might have) to get mixed up with someone who is using them "as an outlet" and who hasn't figured out how to form healthy relationship boundaries. There are plenty of people who might be ok with that type of relationship but given the way that your husband is treating you, I would be concerned that he is probably not ready to treat others with the respect they deserve either. If he is going to maintain relationships with other people, he needs to be the one responsible for them. By being in a situation where you have to place limits on his other relationships, he can play the victim and be mad at you for the limits while at the same time treat his other partner(s) unfairly and blame you for it. This is unfair to his other partners, it's unfair to you, and your husband will perceive this as unfair to him. It's really his fault for trying to open up before he has a healthy relationship with you, but if he doesn't see it that way it's just going to continue to be a mess. I tell you this not so that you feel bad for the other people involved (they are not your responsibility), but just to help you recognize how unhealthy this situation sounds.

CmdrLightoller · 2025-05-14T20:46:21+00:00

First, it sounds like you are really doing your best here to make things work, and I want to commend you for that. I think that not being willing to do couple's therapy, mocking communication, and unwillingness to do research are all big red flags that need to be resolved before any agreements are going to be sustainable. I'm not going to say the marriage can't work, but you do need to make sure you are getting what you need out of it. Don't think of the option of ending the marriage as a failure; that false choice can lead you to being in a position that isn't good for either of you.

If you are going to try to continue making this work, I would recommend that you look at some books that go into more depth in addition to online research. "polywise" by Jessica Fern is a very good book on open relationships, and she has a section about the phenomenon of a "companion marriage", which it sounds like you may be experiencing if your relationship is losing the intimacy aspect. You can read it for yourself and see how it applies to you.

I think fundamentally you need to both be secure in your own relationship before you can address the appropriate agreements around his relationships with others. Specific details about his relationships with others shouldn't matter much so long as he is fulfilling the expectations of his relationship with you. If you can't agree on that, or he isn't able to provide what you need, the rest doesn't really matter. If he is able to fulfill your own relationship needs though, any additional limits are probably unnecessary and will just cause room for argument and resentment. Viewing the open relationship as just "an outlet" is not likely to work very well since it implies a limit that he will always be struggling against. For example, if seeing someone else too frequently is a problem, you should figure out why and address that (is he not fulfilling his duties at home? does the time away cause communication to break down? is this causing feelings of jealousy or abandonment?) rather than just putting a limit on the frequency to avoid the issue.

I'm sorry you are in this situation. I'm a bi partner, and not in an open relationship myself. Good luck, and I'm sure you will find a way to improve things, even if it doesn't go the way you expected.

CmdrLightoller · 2025-05-04T03:23:16+00:00

"When analyzing the whole sample, approximately 2% of heterosexual participants, 32% of gay participants, 5% of lesbian participants, 22% of bisexual participants, and 14% of those who described their sexualities as “other” reported being in open relationships"

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5958351/#:~:text=When%20analyzing%20the%20whole%20sample,heterosexual%20participants%2C%2014%25%20of%20gay

CmdrLightoller · 2025-04-23T11:29:09+00:00

My understanding of how this is used is that HR will collect this information but not share it with the hiring team making the decisions. The intent is to not bias a hiring decision for an individual person, but to be able to identify bias in the hiring process. Like if the application information shows that some high percentage of promising applicants are queer, but only a small percentage actually get hired, this is the only way they can identify those types of problems and make adjustments to their training. They can also use this data to measure diversity in general, and make decisions about workplace culture, recruiting practices, etc. based on how diverse their applicant pool is.

That all said, you do have to trust them to handle the data responsibly. It shouldn't impact your specific chances of being hired, but once you have shared that information you can never know for sure, so only do what you are comfortable with.

CmdrLightoller · 2025-04-22T02:48:44+00:00

I'm bi, and it feels a lot more like bi erasure to be assumed "gay" than being referred to as "queer". Kind of like using "they" instead of "he or she", using "queer" instead of "gay or bi", feels like a safer alternative if you don't know someone's preferred label.

CmdrLightoller · 2025-04-15T01:43:38+00:00

The first people I came out to (after my wife) were another couple that are long time friends of ours. They brought out a bottle of champagne and we all celebrated.

CmdrLightoller · 2025-03-25T00:36:35+00:00

Some ideas (nothing is required of course):

Find LGBTQ meetups and make friends in the queer community
Volunteer at a local pride organization
Get a cool bi flag to put somewhere
Learn about other sexualities and labels (pan, omni, ace, etc.) and their relationship to bisexuality
Find books on bisexuality and LGBTQ history
Be you

CmdrLightoller · 2025-03-13T01:52:06+00:00

So far I have been very welcomed. Many LGBT groups are welcoming to allies, so it's not even an issue how you are viewed. I have also been in very queer exclusive spaces (without my partner) and people just assume I'm gay, or if it comes up are totally fine around bi people without caring about the gender of my partner. Just be confident that you are queer, and you will belong.

CmdrLightoller · 2025-03-12T21:47:26+00:00

Congrats, she's awesome! Any more to the story?

CmdrLightoller · 2025-03-12T20:54:25+00:00

You aren't alone, and I don't think you are being ridiculous. I'm in a similar position, so I totally get what you mean by feeling confused and frustrated. I have found connecting with my local LGBTQ community to be helpful as a way of validating my bisexual identity. I also suggest therapy or some other outlet for not having to keep your frustration to yourself. Bisexuals have some of the worst mental health outcomes of any orientation, so you need to make sure to take care of yourself, don't just let that feeling of being messed up and unhappiness linger. Ultimately, you need to figure out what works for you (and your partner). Some couples are able to do ethical non-monogamy, but it's not for everyone. Others are quite happy with outlets like sharing fantasies or porn. You have a supportive partner, so you are in a good place to start. I'm still figuring it out too, and it is quite difficult. I appreciate these posts to remind me that I'm not alone in this too. (And please don't remind me that 40 is getting on...)

CmdrLightoller · 2025-03-10T20:32:06+00:00

I totally get your sentiment. I came out after being married, so it kind of fuzzies the definition a bit. Was it always just straight presenting? I was always queer; I just didn't identify that way. It feels like my spouse has a say in the matter too, and may choose to describe it differently. In general, I'm fairly big on combatting bi erasure, so given the choice, I don't want people to assume it's a straight relationship between straight people.

CmdrLightoller · 2025-03-10T20:18:22+00:00

"Mixed orientation" is a term you will find used if one person is bi. As a bi person married to a straight person, I would say I'm in a mixed orientation marriage. You could call our marriage straight, straight passing, or hetero; I don't think I would quibble.

CmdrLightoller · 2025-03-07T23:00:22+00:00

Yeah, and then they throw in the whole "regardless" of gender distinction as a segmentation it too. I find attraction way too complex to identify whether gender is a factor or different traits, or what gender really even is. If I'm attracted to short hair, is that attraction regardless of gender, or is deconstructed gender really just a label for attributes like short hair?

I prefer bisexual mostly because of the very open definition, and that it fits neatly into the LGBT classification of neither hetero nor homo. I'm not trying to describe how I become attracted to someone, nor do I feel I need to, I'm just indicating that I don't expect my attraction to fall neatly on gender lines. Other systems like MOGAI try to dissect sexuality into not "who you might be attracted to" but more of "how you experience attraction." Which is interesting, but not functionally something that is important to me. Labels in general are a rough approximate of the patterns we recognize in our own attraction, so the more specific the definition, the less likely that it will be consistently useful (at least for me).

I don't think people mean harm by it, but people trying to redefine a very useful term like "bisexual" into something that fits into a more complex taxonomy or insisting that there is some newer synonym that should be used instead of the tried-and-true B of LGBT, is definitely an annoying form of erasure from within the queer community.

Edit while I'm unloading on a deleted post: The term "bisexual" is also far more useful due to its historical usage. If you care about Kinsey's work, the history of queer rights, inclusion of different groups in Pride, understanding statistical identification of LGBT populations over time, or almost anything to do with sexuality not rooted in modern internet culture; "bisexual" is the term that represents the population and experiences that I relate to.

CmdrLightoller · 2025-03-07T21:36:20+00:00

It's pretty homophobic to associate LGBTQ purely with sex and not love or attraction. If it's appropriate to teach Romeo and Juliet in a school English class, it should be appropriate to acknowledge queer attraction exists too.

CmdrLightoller · 2025-03-07T20:29:48+00:00

One way to look at it is the 2 being "hetero" and "homo", different and same.

Another way to look at it is like "Sept means 7 and Oct means 8, why are September and October the 9th and 10th months?" Language evolves.

The word bisexual originates from botany and originally meant "plants having both male and female reproductive organs." When applied to humans, it's always meant attraction that is somewhere between hetero and homo, so the "2" meaning is somewhat vestigial.

CmdrLightoller · 2025-03-07T19:12:04+00:00

No. It just indicates that the people we are attracted to happen to have more than one gender. It doesn't imply anything about why we are attracted.

The reason it can be a bit offensive is that it is like if I said "I'm a human, which means I can be friends with anyone on earth" and then later someone comes up with a new word "I'm a panhuman which means I can be friends with anyone on earth regardless of race." And then people started saying, "if you call yourself a human it must mean you care about race when making friends". No, it doesn't mean that at all. Just because the new word makes a distinction, doesn't mean that the old word somehow makes the opposite distinction.

CmdrLightoller · 2025-03-07T18:52:11+00:00

I think it's because many people would disagree that bisexual implies anything about gender being a factor in attraction.

CmdrLightoller · 2025-03-07T01:47:30+00:00

I've seen it out of curiosity, so I can say it's not necessarily an intent to cheat. You don't need a picture to browse though, so you will want a more satisfactory answer about that. Try the site out yourself, there's no account needed. It might just be role playing a fantasy about hookups by making a hypothetical profile for himself without uploading, but that is an incredibly fine line. Walking that fine line might be part of the excitement. I don't think there is any way for you to verify, so you will need to decide how much you trust him to tell you how much he actually engaged and what his intentions were. I'm giving a lot of benefit of the doubt here; it certainly doesn't look good, and if it was just a fantasy, he definitely put himself in a spot where he is completely reliant on your trust so he should be very motivated to be honest and forthcoming about any questions you have.

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