Two for joy?

Being a bisexual woman has been fetishised for the male gaze for ages. But here's what the reality of being bi looks like.

- Saumyaa Vohra

I first realised I was bisexual when I was 25. It came after years of confusion, dismissal, and denial. It felt so easy to live with the veneer of straightness. I did, after all, like men. I did, after all, like them more—or rather, was more attracted to them, even though I’ve always preferred women as people (but doesn’t everyone?). But when I did eventually come out, several years later, reactions were mixed. There was an inordinate amount of acceptance and kindness—I was lucky that way.

It wasn’t all rosy, though. I was asked, often, if I was “sure”—I had been with the same man for over a decade, how could I be confident? Boundaries were crossed by men, assumptions made that I was jonesing for a threesome. It was waved away by straight friends, who assured me “phases were natural” and “we’ve all kissed a girl in college—or at least wanted to try.” And, worst of all, women friends began to wonder if I had been in love with them all along.

But the more I sought out other bisexuals (especially women), the more I found how universal this experience seemed to be. The same sense of trying to straight-pass, the same feeling of unbelonging, the same trivialisation of your identity as a mere moment in your timeline... In this story, I speak to six such women about the shared experiences of being bisexual in India—and how, no matter our differences, our roads will always converge.

“WANT TO HAVE A THREESOME?” HARITHA PRAKASH, 33