A Threesome With My Husband Gave Me The Freedom To Be Bisexual

I don’t know how to flirt with women. From what I understand, this is a very typical experience for pan/bisexual women who have mostly dated men.

Our hetero-normative sex and dating lives don’t teach us the skills to connect with women beyond friendship. Everything we’re exposed to in media and culture also emphasizes how different men and women are in our communication and sexual desires, and although I really appreciate direct sexual advances, I’ve been taught that other women don’t.

Maybe that’s not true, though, but I don’t have enough experience to know better.

I’ve always been into women. Well, as long as I’ve known it was a thing for me to be possible to be bisexual, I’ve known. And thinking back to my childhood of sneaking into my older brother’s room to look at the porno mags in his closet and get especially titillated by the gal on gal action, I was into women before I knew it was a thing.

Growing up in a small town in northern Canada, I’d heard the term lesbian whispered by schoolmates but knew it didn’t apply to me because I liked boys. Boy, did I like boys! Clearly I wasn’t a lesbian, so I didn’t think anything of those "feelings" I had. I had a lot of stirrings in my late teens/early twenties but it wasn’t until Flick and I started dating, and he was so open to me sharing my fantasies, that it became something I talked about, and the word bisexual* came into play.

(*Little note here that I tend to use the term pansexual now — since gender is not binary. I know many bisexuals say that the term bisexual means ‘more than one sex,' but the pedant in me can’t help but argue that bi means two! Anyway, I’m cool with people using whatever term fits for them. Pansexual is my preference. I was oblivious of the sexual/gender politics of all of this until last year when I burst forth from my monogamy bubble and described myself as bisexual.)

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My husband Flick was open enough to support me exploring with women in the early days of our marriage, since we’d paired up so young that I hadn’t had the opportunity or confidence to do said exploration before we met. I spent a few nights with a couple of equally curious friends, and it was fun and lovely and sexy, but once I’d settled the craving for the unknown, established that yes, I did like sex with women but it wasn’t something I couldn’t live without, it was back to monogamy as usual.

When we opened up our marriage last year, we started with a threesome with one of our friends.

It was awesome — so sexy — and I was really into being with her, and switching back to platonic friendship when we weren’t in the bedroom has been effortless. The same goes with the other women we’ve played with. I think they’re super sexy, we have a great time enjoying each other’s bodies, but it’s never gone beyond that. I figured that was my level of queer — into sex with women but nothing beyond that.

I’ve definitely met a few women that I’m quite smitten with — *waves at Elle and Raina* — but I find I’m kind of intimidated by them, and my brain goes into this “Pretty! *giggle* Can’t. Talk.” shutdown mode I haven’t figured out how to breakthrough.

If we went out on a date, I would have no idea what to say. I just don’t know how to talk to or flirt with the ladies.

I tried going on a date with a woman from OkCupid when Flick and I first opened up last year. It seemed to go fairly well, but she wasn’t into me, so I concluded I was bad at women and decided not to pursue any further female dating connections. As everyone knows, if you fail once, you never ever try again. I’m pretty sure that’s the common theme in most Life Success handbooks … right? Anyway, I decided that although I was pansexual, I must be heteroromantic when it came to relationships. Men I was good at. I’d stick with men.

My whole paradigm shifted recently when I met Iris.

We met through the dating website for swingers, Kasidie, after Cooper Beckett, wingman extraordinaire and founder of Life on the Swingset, a website about swinging, polyamory, and open relationships, pointed her in our direction. After the usual schedule wrangling and delays due to the holidays, we met for drinks in our default date pub. Within an hour the three of us were making out at the table as the rest of the patrons played Trivia Night around us.

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I felt a spark with her that I haven’t experienced with a woman before — enough of a spark to tamp down my discomfort with make-out level PDAs.

Our first sexy date occurred under the cloud of all three of us suffering from a horrific cold. The sexual charge was strong enough that we decided we’d go ahead with the date anyway, and despite sore throats and hacking coughs, we had a spectacular time and planned immediately for our next.  

In between our dates, Iris and I flirted and sexted like crazy, in a way I never have with a woman before (Iris and Flick did as well, but that was much more typical for our fmf dynamic). It felt easy, in a way it doesn’t normally when I’ve tried to flirt with women, perhaps because she was flirting with me at least as much. I send saucy pics back and forth with the other gals I play with, and we chat, but this is the first time I’ve received messages in the middle of my day from a woman saying she was thinking about me.

Our next sexy date was even hotter — day sex at our place with the added frisson of knowing we were having vanilla people over for a party that evening after debauching all afternoon. She made me orgasm minutes into the proceedings, and the vision of her looking up at me is going to be masturbation material for a long time.

I can’t quantify what is different with Iris, and I guess interpersonal chemistry is one of those things that is about as unquantifiable as it gets, despite me always seeking to figure out the whys of attraction. She’s amazing–beautiful, smart, funny, and sexy — but so are the other women I play with. For some reason, though, I have feelings toward her that have previously been reserved for guys. I can see us out on solo dinner dates, holding hands as we walk down rainy streets, and having solo play dates, as well as the awesome time we have as a trio with Flick.

It’s confusing and new and scary, but awesome, and I’m so glad that this non-monogamy adventure has given me the opportunity to experience yet another first — my first real requited feels for a woman.

I love that I’m getting to explore new pieces of my sexuality and queer identity, with Iris as catalyst.

If you need me, I’ll be over here — sexting and squeeing — and getting ready for where this journey might take me next.

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Kat Stark is a geeky, Canadian, queer, bi/pansexual, feminist who came to ethical non-monogamy 21-years into her relationship with her husband. After a quick toe-dip to test the waters (and hours of obsessive reading and podcast consumption), they dove in and she almost can't imagine they ever lived any other way.

This article was originally published at Life On The Swingset. Reprinted with permission from the author.