Dear Daddy Advice Column, January 2025: How to Figure Out If You're Straight or Bisexual

Or whether you need to label your sexual orientation at all

Welcome to the January 2025 installment of Dear Daddy, Open Secrets Magazine’s monthly advice column. You can find more about the column’s mission statement here. This month Daddy is giving advice about bisexuality and figuring out your sexual orientation. Submit your questions at deardaddyopensecrets@gmail.com.

Dear Daddy,

How do I know if I'm straight, bi, or something else? I've kissed guys, but I’ve never felt the way I did with a girl. Then again, I've never been with guys I actually liked.

—S.

Dear S.,

Before I answer your question, let me tell you a story:

The first time I had an inkling that I wasn’t entirely straight was right after college. I was at my friend’s apartment—I’ll call him Mark—with a bunch of other people, sitting around and drinking. At that point in my life, he was one of my closest friends.

Joining us that night was one of Mark’s childhood friends, a woman I’ll call Mary. Conversation turned—I don’t know how—to Mark’s very large cock. It was a running joke between Mary and Mark, I guess. I expressed some disbelief. Mark was a hundred pounds if he was wearing a heavy coat.

After a little back and forth he raised a sly eyebrow at me and asked, “Do you want to see it?”

Reader, I was drunk, and I was curious, so of course I said yes. We went into his bedroom and he took it out. And yeah, it was big. Length and girth. In that moment, something clicked in my brain.

He must have noticed.

“You want to touch it, don’t you?” he asked.

I did. I reached my hand out and started to stroke it. Then he said, “Now you have to show me yours.”

I complied. We were roughly the same size—although I was twice his size, so his cock looked a little more massive on his slim frame. Before I could say anything he was on his knees, and his mouth was on me, and…

Yeah. So that was the start. Up until then I’d kissed a few guys in college (I went to a gay-friendly liberal arts school, so it felt like an “all in good fun” kind of thing). That night with Mark was the first moment I thought maybe there was more to it.

The two of us would fool around on occasion. And over the years, while presenting as straight, I would have the occasional hookup with a man.

I eventually married a woman, and then got divorced. I hadn’t told her I was bi, because I never really put any kind of description to my orientation. When I did tell her, years into the marriage, it became a point of contention. She thought I was just gay.

I’m currently partnered with a woman who thinks my orientation is hot as fuck, and the two of us are talking about bringing in male play partners, for both of us to enjoy.

It’s only been in the last few years that I’ve been open about my bisexuality. Mostly with friends. Not with family, because that’s a can of worms I don’t feel like opening.

What I discovered is that I’m bisexual but heteroromantic. That means I experience romantic feelings toward people of the opposite gender, and enjoy sexual experiences with people of the same gender.

Which sometimes feels like an oversimplification.

I’ve had some very hot one-off hookups, off Grindr, or in the steam room of New York Sports Club (our generation’s bathhouse, iykyk…). I remain open to the possibility of feeling a romantic connection with a man.

Because Mark and I used to be very close. Less so these days. But I remember one morning, waking up in his bed. It was early, and I had to go to work. The sun had only just come up. I was sitting on the edge of the bed, pulling my clothes on. He reached his hand over to me and put it on my thigh and he said, “Stay.”

I leaned down and kissed him, his stubble raking against my face. It was cold outside, and that bed was so warm, and more than that, he was in it, and sometimes I wonder what it would have looked like, if I had.

This is all to say: Only you can tell you what you are. And even if you decide on a way to explain it, remember that the heart is a house with many rooms. You may think you know the layout, but then you stumble across a room you never knew was there. That’s okay. Take a look around and see what you find.

We worry so much about putting titles to things, so we can understand them better. Don’t worry too much about the answers. Just keep asking questions.

And maybe figure out what kind of guys you like.

Read previous Dear Daddy advice columns.

Have a life or work quandary you’re not sure how to handle? Email advice columnist Daddy at deardaddyopensecrets@gmail.com for consideration for future columns.