A Reader Shares His Bisexuality 

My father was in the military, so we moved around a bit. Therefore, I was never able to form lasting relationships with the people around me. And my extended family were always far away, so I never really grew attached to them.

In addition to my father's job, my mother also worked. We (my sister and I) were put with babysitters, child care, and the like. I wasn't close to my parents or my sister, but they were the only people who were always with me wherever we moved to. I was, of course, dependent on them for survival, but I didn't know them and they didn't know me.

I remember once that my parents were talking about one of my dad's step-cousins. He was a bisexual male living with another guy, and they were both looking to have a woman move in with them. I remember the disgust my parents had about his "confusion," "not knowing what he wanted."

I've talked to a few men online who said their first bisexual/homosexual experiences were with classmates or friends. Most of them seem to follow the plot of, "He said we'd do things to each other (uaually oral), then after I did him, he left." Personally, I never had a friend long enough that it would have even been conveivable to do that with.

Anyway, after I left home I joined the Air Force. My parents expected me to do so, and I had (undiagnosed) dysthymia (chronic, low-grade depression) and didn't have anything better to do with mytime anyway. I was stationed at Kadena AB, Okinawa, Japan. That was where I had my first few male-on-male sexual encounters.

My first time with another man wasn't the fantasy I'd been dreaming of. Heck, it was a spur-of-the-moment, sordid little thing. I was in a bathroom stall at the Rec(reation) Center on my military base. The stalls had walls that went almost down to the floor and about a foot from the ceiling. The walls had holes in them that, if you were sitting on the toilet, you could see the groin area of the next door neighbor.

One time when I was sitting there, doing my business, I saw some strange movements from the stall next to mine. It looked like the person in there was rubbing himself.

But now there was a stranger in the next stall, seeming to signal that he was interested in me.

Breathing hard, feeling a bit faint, I started to rub myself.

After a few seconds, he passed some toilet paper where he used a felt tip pen asking if I'd like to have some fun. Well, I was interested and we got together in one of the stalls.

And I freaked out about it afterwards.

Before this, I never really considered my sexuality. I mean, I knew I was interested in women. Since I never felt important (something I still have to work on to this day), I never really looked at people thinking, "Gee, I'd like to have sex with them. Wonder if they would feel the same about me..." I did have fantasies, but always when I was alone and always with a woman as my fantasy partner.

It took me a while to come to terms with my desire for male-to-male sex. And I regret that it took a while. My best friend (a straight guy) in the military married a lesbian so they could move out of the barracks and in! to a pla ce of their own. His wife had her partner living with them. I was supposed to not know the score, but, well, I did. In addition to the two lesbians (who were both friends to me, even though they didn't know I knew), there were lots of gay visitors who were happy to have a safe place to meet up. If I had been able to come to terms with my sexuality, I would have been able to join in the group.

Since that first time, I have met with a few men, both in the Air Force and in college afterwards. Mind you, most of them were one night stands, nothing more. About the only man I wanted to be with as a lover was my best friend back then. I told him a few months ago about the crush I had on him, telling him that I knew it wouldn't have come to anything. He said that he felt flattered about it, but agreed that he wouldn't have been able to do anything else about it.

By an Alabama reader