"Slowly dawned on me in a series of experiences and confessions until I was willing to accept it totally."View Entire Post ›
As a bi man, it can be hard to find a community that accepts you in both the gay and straight worlds. Men are often told that they can be one or the other.
Many bi men are confronted with what I can only describe as hierarchies of masculinity with popular culture, and society's polarized views about male bisexuality in comparison to women's. Which is why when I found the Reddit thread "Guys, how did you know you were bisexual?" I couldn't help but read every single answer.
Here are some of the best responses:
1.
"I started out thinking I was 100% straight. Then, in the summer going into ninth grade, I wrestled with a friend. I was turned on that night. My hand grazed his privates, and he was aroused. I started rubbing, and then it led to more. Afterward, I felt gross and angry with myself. Pretty sure he felt the same. Another night, I made a move, and we hooked up again. He was my best friend and stayed at my house almost every weekend. We did this multiple times a week for months. As time went on, my internalized homophobia lessened. The weird thing, though, is that every time we did anything, we always told each other that we were not gay. This went on for years, multiple times a week."
"The wild part is I never thought of it as sex, really. I never questioned it; I didn't realize that I was even bi until I was engaged to my wife. I was listening to a podcast when they were talking about bisexuality. I live in a conservative area, and the only thing I had heard about bisexuality is that it's not real, you can only be straight or gay, and gay is bad. She talked about on the podcast that straight men are not attracted to other men. I was and am very attracted to both men and women. She went on about bisexuality, and she described me."
"I came out to my wife after we were married, as I realized only a couple of weeks before the wedding. She already knew that I had had sex with a guy, just not to the extent and length of time we had done it. She cried at first, but then realized that I didn't want someone else, and I didn't change, except that I realized and learned stuff about myself. As I was explaining why I came to the conclusion, she realized she was also bi. So now we are a happily married bi couple and have been together for well over a decade. I don't know what I would do without her."
—-_-_-throwaway-_-_-0
2.
"Acknowledged I was a little homophobic. Worked through that. 'Huh wait, I'd totally smash that dude.'"
—PseudoCalamari
3.
"Slowly dawned on me in a series of experiences and confessions until I was willing to accept it totally. Took a long, long time."
—greatsleepofblue
5.
"I knew, absolutely, since I was three, that I was very into women. Then, when I got my hands on adult content online, I got really curious about oral sex with men. But I figured everyone was curious like that."
"Well, one day when I was 14, my friend Alex was over, and somehow he mentioned that he thought he was bi. And I said I thought I was too. And it wasn't too soon until we had our pants off, and I was scared, but I knew this was something I had to do."
—ExtremelyOnlineTM
6.
"It was difficult for me (23M). First, I discovered I liked men (at 12), then I fell deeply in love with a girl (at 13/14). I was so confused. Then, I think at 15/16 I was introduced to the concept of bisexuality, but I thought it was only 50/50, and I liked men a lot more, so I thought I didn't fit in with that. It was a process between 16 and 18 that I was casually gathering information and came to understand that I was bisexual. It wasn't until I was 21 that I could accept myself, and at 23, I came out of the closet for the first time. It was definitely difficult for me, but I'm glad to have left all that behind and to be able to be myself now."
—HinchaDeFenix
7.
"It started by me fantasizing about MMF with my wife and then I talked to her about it. She then told me it would be hot if she watched me have sex with another man."
—[deleted]
8.
"By just looking at my past and acknowledging it, and stopped feeling ashamed of it. I felt attracted to my best friend in high school and also my best friend in college. Although the love and attraction I felt for them was not as big as the ones I feel for the women I fall in love with, it was still there. I think I am 30% attracted to men and 70% attracted to women I guess? But I am still bisexual regardless of the percentage."
—helder_g
9.
"When I was 38, a guy kissed me for the first time, and after a couple of moments I was like, "Oh ... I liked that!"
—_Snuggle_Slut_
10.
"When I started asking if straight girls think 'this and this' about girls and being told 'no, you might not be totally straight...'"
—Professional_Sky_212
11.
"Interesting that so many only discovered it in adulthood or through sexual exploration. I guess that's just how strong the bi/anti-gay feelings are ingrained in us from childhood are. I think I knew I wasn't quite like others, but I only started thinking of myself as bi at age 14-15 when I learned about the concept."
—Florestana
12.
"I found out and accepted that I'm bi when I had sex with a beautiful trans person. But I couldn't come out or tell anyone because I was in the military."
—curius619
13.
"Honestly, I had that initial feeling when I started playing sports in middle school, when I wanted to fit in with everyone. As time went on and I got older, I realized that men were a valid option as well as women, but I would try to suppress the feelings because everyone around me thought that being bisexual was a bad thing. It just sucks that it took me 10 years after realizing that I was bi for me to really accept it."
—AH-Shadow
14.
"For the longest time, I considered myself a liberated straight guy. How people couldn’t separate sex from romance when gender was involved seemed incredibly silly to me. Already being an artist, I fancied myself a little rebel, having sex with men if the chance offered itself, while 'educating' people who assumed I was bi. That was the case till I was 27, when I labeled myself a heteroromantic bisexual, and at the age of 30, my dreams of being a cool rebel were smashed when I had a genuine crush on a man."
—Oystskan
15.
"I thought I was bi-curious and brought it up when I was 12 to my friends at the time, one was fine with it, and the other was incredibly uncomfortable about it, so I changed my mind. I went a whole decade in long-term relationships with girls, with the last one ending horribly, but either way, for those 10+ years, I never thought about men (but when attractive guys were brought up, I always preferred more masculine men)."
"Covid hit. Being locked in the house for a couple of years, being sober, not being in education, and not having to work meant I finally had time to think about stuff I'd been ignoring. A big one was why I was comfortable with the idea of being in a romantic relationship with men, but not sexually being with them. A quick browse on some gay subreddits confirmed what everyone had sort of assumed about me."
—[deleted]
16.
"My attraction to men started with Action Man, I had one of those toy dolls as a kid. Big muscles, especially chest and arms. My attraction to women also started with dolls. I couldn’t convince my mom to buy me a Barbie doll of my own, but my grandmother owned some Victorian-era Barbie dolls with crocheted outfits. When I put two and two together, I realized I wanted to be between them."
—Malefic_Nightshade
17.
"I’m a heteroromantic bisexual. I think the first time I realized this was in college when I caught my roommate masturbating when he thought I was asleep in a bed across the dorm room from his. I wasn’t sure what to do. Do I ignore it and let him finish? Do I tell him I’m awake? But instead, I went with a third option because watching him had made me incredibly turned. I pulled back the covers and joined him."
"I had never considered that I might be bi, but I knew I was really turned on by that. It opened up the door for the two of us to experiment together. Worked out great in the long run as we both realized we were turned on by playing with another guy but we had zero romantic interest in guys (didn’t want to date, didn’t want to kiss or cuddle or anything like that in the way we liked being with women)."
—TyHay822
And lastly, one with a happy ending!
18.
"I didn't tell anyone. I dated girls, but would meet men anonymously through Craigslist and chat rooms (dangerous as hell, and led to some pretty traumatic experiences). I hated myself; the internalized homophobia was so strong. I came out slowly, first to a close female friend when I was 23, who was also bi. I had a crush on her, which wasn't reciprocated, so that friendship died, and I was back in the closet. Took me three months to come out to my first serious girlfriend at 24, who was also bi, and of course, she understood. When that relationship ended, I told everyone except my parents (my sister told me not to). I'm now married to a woman, we've been together 9 years, married for 3, she's also bi, and I came out to my parents finally a couple of months ago. Nobody cared! Caused me a lot of mental health issues holding it in so long, but I think it's a happy ending!"
—Smelly-Pirate
Looking for more LGBTQ+ or Pride content? Then check out all of BuzzFeed's posts celebrating Pride 2026.
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