I think I might be gay. I remember once wanting to kiss my best friend when I was maybe twelve. I also remember seeing an actress look too good in a movie and going home and pacing around thinking, "It's ok for other people to be gay, but not me!" Then I forgot about it for a while. I went to an all girls high school and wished I had a boyfriend. I had a huge crush on a guy in my twenties. For me, it's less about looks—some men have this aura about them that turns me on. I always thought women were more interesting to look at but I just thought that that was some sort of truth about people and not my own sexuality. I had a close female friend in college ask me if I wanted to touch her boobs and take a shower together once, and I didn't want to. We're both with men now. I recently had very short hair, and tried to become a barber, and it had a lot of people questioning my sexual orientation. Could they see something that I was blind to? That whole time was filled with sexual tension, both from the questioning of my identity, and from being surrounded by men who were horny for me. This would build up a hungry desire for my husband, who would happily oblige. Yes, I'm married. And I've been thinking a lot about having kids, and I'm worried that I might be gay. He knows this. He finds my worrying over whether or not I'm a secret lesbian to be comforting somehow. He says he's most worried about the things he doesn't know to worry about while I worry about things he wouldn't have thought to worry about. I'm ok with being gay, but I don't want to leave my husband and the life we have together. I love showing my husband my body, I love how he reacts to it and touches me, I love our intimacy. I love gazing at his body and being naked together. He makes me come. But sometimes I have dreams I'm with a woman and wake up with the thought, "I'm gay!" Is this just OCD or my truth trying to burst through? I know I need to know myself, but I'm just so unsure. Help!

Some Confusion Unconsciously Rousing Real Emotional Distress

P.S. Your advice gives me so much understanding.

I think you might be bi.

A lot of people are.

It sure doesn't sound like you're faking an attraction to your husband—and you're not just into him because he's into you; being wanted by him certainly seems to inflame your desire for him, SCURRED, but you're attracted to him as, well, as an object. A male object. You love gazing at his body, you love getting naked (and off) with him, etc. If you were gay... well, there are plenty of lesbian-identified women out there who were once married to men with whom they had enjoyable sex lives. But most of those women describe a disconnect, something missing, some sense of incompleteness they weren't quite able to articulate. (Or weren't fully conscious of at the time.) They knew something was missing but didn't know what it was or couldn't bring themselves to admit it.

But you don't want something else, SCURRED, you want something and. Dick and pussy, pecs and tits, your husband's body and some hot woman's body. You seem clearly into men—male energy, the male gaze, your husband's body—and you're also attracted to women. It's really not that complicated. But despite reading my column for however long (sigh), you somehow have it in your head that you can only have one (male partners) or the other (female partners) and that you can only be one (gay) or the other (straight).

You can have both. You can have it all. You don't have to have it all, of course, and no one is entitled to anything (much less all), but you can have male and female partners, SCURRED, if your husband is okay with opening up your marriage. If he's not interested in an open relationship (or you're not), well, then you can't have male and female partners—but you can still identify as bisexual, even if you've never had sex with a woman and aren't, for the time being, able to have sex with a woman.

Soooooo... stop wasting time and energy on this debate/dilemma/d'whatever. You're bi.

P.S. I'm guessing your feeling angsty about this now because you're thinking about getting pregnant and having kids—like having a kid will prevent you from ever exploring your interest in women, so you have to figure this out right now. Not true: you can have a kid and keep exploring your sexuality.