Hmmm... Coming Out... This gets complicated for me:
My first male/female sexual encounter happened in the 3rd Grade (yup, just 9 years old) when I was on my way home from school, walking through the woods that I did every day, and happened onto 2 5th-Grade girls comparing tits and pubic-hair. I got to see theirs, so they got to see mine... We kept our encounters very VERY SECRET. (NOTE: I DID have a "real" dick at that age - it was NEW to me - that's precisely when my own public hair started to come in! Awesome timing, eh?) My first male/male sexual encounter came shortly after I started the 6th Grade (11 y/o), and it was with my 15 y/o neighbor. Again, we kept the whole thing a COMPLETE SECRET! There were others throughout middle & early high school: both boys AND girls... and it always a HUGE SECRET!
While I liked playing "sex games" with guys, I also REALLY liked fucking girls & playing with their tits! (The guys I was fooling around with then didn't do anal sex (we were dumb kids!) - so the only FUCKING at the time was with girls!).
But it's important - in terms of coming out - that I didn't know you were "allowed" to do both boys and girls! And NO ONE I was having sex with was telling me about anyone else they were having sex with - so I thought I was TRULY breaking ALL the rules! I was a FREAK! I had no label for myself - I had learned about heterosexual and homosexual, but knew no other labels. I lied to the boys I was playing with (saying I was homosexual, like them), and I equally lied to the girls I was playing with (saying I was heterosexual, like them). I knew of NO ONE who was LIKE ME in that they liked boys and girls...
However, late in the 8th Grade, my SECRET was revealed: it turned out that one of the boys and one of the girls I was playing around with were brother & sister (I swear I didn't know!)... and they talked! I was TOTALLY OUTED to them. I was hugely embarrassed... and they were FURIOUS with me! But they came from a VERY unusual (nudist) family, and eventually they thought it was cool, so long as there was no deception - though they were ADAMANT that they would NOT play together! I vowed to NOT be in that position ever again! Truly from that day onward, no sexual partner of mine has NOT been aware that I've had sex with both men and women in my past!
But still, other than those 2, and relatively quickly thereafter, all of the others I was having sex with, I was a completely closeted - and unique person. Not one of them admitted to me that they were attracted to both boys and girls. I dared not tell anyone else about this - especially my parents. What kind of freak did they raise?
Let me reiterate here: I (like many teens) had LOTS of sex in high school - some with boys, some with girls - and all knew that I had-had sex with both boys and girls... and no one - not one other person - ever told me they were bisexual too!
Then I went to college...I didn't expect it to be the SAME as it was in High School, but I went to school in "a big city" - Atlanta, GA - and while it was the "Queer Capital of the South" in those days, that WAS NOT TRUE on our campus! I got "outed" my freshman year by a roommate who found my porn stash... and I was nearly thrown-out of my Fraternity as a result. They LITERALLY had a VOTE on whether to keep me in, or expel me - for the "offense" of being bi-sexual! Mind you: I never disclaimed being bi - I just asked them why they cared so much if they didn't want (themselves) to have sex with me? I "won" by just 2 votes! Funny tho: in my Jr year, I was elected VP of that frat!
That happened in the Spring, so I was freshly 18 - and out, although not of my own volition. Not only as I "out" to my frat, but I was basically "out" to everyone - my fraternity brothers couldn't keep a secret to save their ass!
It wouldn't be until my Sr year in college that I ever met someone ELSE who got off just as well with girls as boys (and wasn't looking for it as a way to cheat of their bf/gf)... He was in a different frat - and was totally out to them, and totally accepted by them. That was an awakening to me! He was "allowed" to be himself - he could bring girls OR guys to his room and no one batted an eye over it! (I had been asked to "be discrete" and never bring a "gay guy" to the frat - where I lived.) So, any way you look at it, I was OUT virtually all through college.
But here's where it gets weird: In my first job after graduation, I needed a military security clearance - and being gay (or bi) was considered, at the time, to be a legitimate cause for losing said clearance (and with it, my job and my career!)... so for that time of my life, while I was still "out" to the people I had sex with (or wanted to have sex with), I was TOTALLY closeted in the rest of my life! It is the ONLY time in my life I have ever LIED (publicly) about my sexuality: I declared myself "straight" on multiple occasions - including on my clearance applications.
That didn't stop me from having boyfriends and girlfriends... but it DID mean I never went to gay bars or gay pride events (though I DID attend the first ever Gay Days at Disney - and I wore the requisite RED! ... I truly considered even that small act to be a risky one, and feared for weeks afterward that I would lose my job over it!). I didn't.
I didn't get married until I was 35 - to a woman, and she knew my sexual past. I told her I would never cheat on her, and I never did - except for porn... which she would later claim ACTUALLY WAS cheating on her... but that's another story. While we were married we had, and adopted, a total of 9 children - and during this time the world's appreciation for LGBTQ+ changed immensely! I even helped write the new laws in my state that legalized gays & lesbians becoming foster parents, and later adoptive parents!
While my sexuality never changed, my sexual ACTIVITY while I was married remained STRICTLY monogamous and heterosexual. (Though my now-ex-wife claims vociferously otherwise... but, remember: she considered watching porn "cheating" - and I DID watch porn!) Anyway, as my children got older, and I taught each of them about the "birds and the bees", I came out to each of them (as pansexual) as well. That wasn't risky: they got their morals from me and their mother, so I knew it was SAFE to do so.
Still, especially after 15 years in a straight marriage, I was never "public" about my LGBTQ+ "alignment"... I never hid it, but I certainly never advertised it either.... at least not until I met the love-of-my-life: David. Once we became a couple, it became VERY CLEAR to EVERYONE that I was queer. And to this day (even though David passed 4 years ago), I wear a rainbow mask, gay pride t-shirts, and so forth. Today, I'm 57, out and proud, and some of my children attend gay pride events with me!
So, as you can see: mine has been a long, strange journey - probably VERY different from yours. But I do have suggestions:
- Come out for you, not them (whoever they may be).
- Come out when it is SAFE for you do so, and have a plan in place in case it doesn't go well - a place to stay the night, a way to separate from whoever in case it becomes a dangerous situation - JUST IN CASE!
- TRUST your family: assuming you were raised by them, you share (largely, at least) a common moral code. Clearly there are exceptions to this - some families ARE NOT SAFE for LGBTQ+ people... of any age! But trust yourself too - to make the right call!
It hasn't always been easy: I've missed out on some hot, sexy, men and women who were NOT OK with my pansexual nature and history, and flat-out rejected me because of it... c'est la vie! But, I've also had a LOT of incredible and interesting sex with men and women who were far more willing to be EXPERIMENTAL with me because they knew of my full sexuality!
