1. I am a 21-year-old cis-female who identifies as bisexual.

2. I see my sexuality as a net of experiences, desires, and practices (both unconscious and deliberate). So, this list will be a mix of past experiences, confessions and introspection. In no way is this a complete portrait of my sexuality.

3. I became sexually active at 15 with my first serious boyfriend. Since then, I have slept with 8 men and 6 women, and made out (i.e. kissing, petting, etc.) with countless others.

4. While my first PIV experience was at 15, I had been somewhat sexually active for over a year before that with a male friend. We were pretty much "friends with benefits," indulging in everything but actual intercourse. In reality, it was really just me giving him blow jobs whenever we were alone together, and then sometimes he would finger me. In retrospect, I realize this relationship/arrangement was not satisfying sexually or emotionally for me. I felt I had to be sexually available to him at all times - my own pleasure/wants/needs be damned!

5. I think I use sex as a means of bonding with people, whether it be having sex with them, or even just casually discussing it between however many people are around. I like hearing about other people’s experiences and desires. It allows me to feel closer to them and makes me realize we’re all not really that different. I like that.

6. Slightly related to #4, I think I also see sex as a way of keeping someone interested in me. If I give them sex then they’ll keep coming back, so in this way I also use it as a measure of my own self-worth. I have had my feelings hurt/self-esteem damaged many times in the past through doing this. I’m working on not doing that anymore. I’m worth more than that.

7. I’ve known I was bisexual since I was about 12 or 13. I read a sealed section in Cosmopolitan about lesbians and was incredibly turned on by all the stories. I decided that this must mean I was attracted to women. Knowing I was also attracted to men (or really, boys, at the time), I came to the conclusion (rather easily, it seems in hindsight) that I must be bisexual. I had no problems with this. I liked that it made me slightly unusual.

8. Now, at 21, I now realize that while bisexual best describes my sexual history and desires, I’m definitely on the more heterosexual side of the scale. I fall in love with men more easily. I’m attracted to women and hope to have more sexual experiences/possibly even relationships in the future, but ultimately I see the bigger, more important Significant Others in my life being male, as they have been in the past.

9. Over the last 6 years of being sexually active I’ve become much more in tune with what my sexual needs are and how to get them within sexual and romantic relationships. With my first boyfriend, for instance, whenever he’d go down on me I’d just start moaning, not because it felt good, but because I thought that’s what girls did when they got eaten out – it was supposed to feel OMGHOLYSHITBALLS AMAZING, right? Wrong. I think exposure to mainstream porn may have tweaked my expectations a bit there. But now I’m a bit more apt at expressing myself "in the bedroom" and also getting feedback from my lover. I want to be a good lover and experience good sex myself, so honest communication is key.

10. I finally started being able to orgasm from oral about 6 months ago. A boy who was a good friend and FWB managed to make me come through a combination of fingering and teasing my clit with his tongue. Honestly, best feeling ever. I woke him up the next morning to get him to do it to me again. I was so excited that I could now come from oral – up until then I’d always just seen oral as something like a slow, gentle massage; a nice feeling but nothing to wet my panties over. Now it’s totally different, and I am so, so grateful.

11. I love the feeling of a guy coming inside me. The feeling as he collapses on me slightly and pulses into me is indescribable.

12. My first experience with a girl was with someone I had just met and wasn’t entirely attracted to. It left me questioning my sexuality and smelling my fingers for days. I’ve since had more positive lesbian experiences, and count a few as "most memorable."

13. I’m tempted to anonymously submit nudes of myself to amateur websites/tumblrs. Maybe one day.

14. I cheated on my first boyfriend with another guy who I’d been interested in for a while before my boyfriend came along. I caused a lot of pain in that first relationship, purely out of my own selfish want to keep boys interested in me (read: hook up) while also having a boyfriend. Eventually it all came back to bite me in the ass when my boyfriend had had enough and dumped me for a friend of ours who treated him better. Nevertheless, I don’t think I’ll ever cheat on a significant other again.

15. Multiple boys that I’ve had relationships or flings with have moved on rather quickly or "picked someone else over me." Nothing hurts more than feeling like you’re not good enough.

16. I’m currently in a new relationship. It’s long distance at the moment, which is temporary, but has actually contributed to us developing a strong emotional-sexual bond, rather than a physical-sexual bond. We discuss our sexual desires a lot online, and flirt and tease each other, and swap photos and videos of ourselves, which is exciting. I feel very comfortable sexually with this boy and ready to explore my sexuality a lot more once the whole distance thing ceases to be a problem.

17. I would love to try pegging.

18. I love having my ass spanked.

19. I generally feel more comfortable taking on the submissive role when it comes to sex. I think this is because it means my partner has to "pursue me," in a sense, pulling me, pushing me, taking control. I like being pursued because for most of high school I felt I was the fat, unattractive friend, and to be pursued, even now as an adult, makes me feel good.

20. Surprisingly (or perhaps not surprisingly at all), I find most men I attract end up preferring me to take on the dominant role once we get into the bedroom. This sort of bothered me at first, as I couldn’t figure out what signals I was putting out in order to continually attract guys with this preference. Recently, however, I’ve started feeling more comfortable with the idea of asserting sexual dominance, particularly with my current boyfriend. I realize now I don’t have to "overact" and take on a full-on dominatrix role in order to be the dominant one. I now look forward to pursuing a more natural mode of control in my sexual interactions with others.

21. I think I started masturbating between the ages of 11-12. This coincided firstly with my discovery of the sealed sections in Cosmo and, slightly later, my discovery of internet porn. I started with what I now realize is a very common method of achieving an orgasm: rubbing against a pillow/soft toy/etc.

22. My first orgasm was achieved while rubbing myself against my giant stuffed teddy as I watched some porn online. I... didn’t know what had just happened. I knew about orgasms, but I thought that because I hadn’t been touching my vagina with my hands that it wasn’t a proper orgasm. I soon learned to accept that what I felt was an orgasm, and I kept doing it this way (rubbing against something) until I was about 14-15 when I started using my hands instead.

23. Through my experiences with "friends with benefits" arrangements and open relationships, I’d say that they don’t really work for me. I get jealous easily, so they only really work if I’m able to sleep around while the other half of the relationship doesn’t, which isn’t fair. For me, sex is very much intertwined with emotional attachment and intimacy. If I’m having repeated sexual encounters with one person, I can almost guarantee that I’ll become attached to them in some way, so it hurts when they sleep around too – I take it as a sign that I am not an adequate sexual partner (and depending on how strong my attachment is, I then take it as a further sign that I’m not good enough in a general sense).

24. Over the past 6 months or so, I’ve started becoming more accepting of my romantic tendencies. I spent a long time running from love, because I felt I wanted to be a "strong," "independent" woman. I ignored my true feelings and in the process got hurt... I’ve learned some difficult lessons the hard way, but ultimately I’m coming out on the other side stronger and wiser. The heart wants what the heart wants, and I’m going to honor that as best I can – honestly and within reason.

25. Sometimes I wonder if I’m not bisexual at all, and I’m just attracted to women that I want to look like. But then I remember what it feels like to have sex with a women and all doubt leaves my mind. Sexuality is a funny thing, for me. Sometimes it’s straightforward, sometimes it’s not. There are a lot of things I still don’t know.