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"   Of course, the first person you need to be honest with is yourself. Yes, I remember only too well those long hours (OK, months) spent trying to convince myself that watching The X-Files just spookily happened to induce random attacks of &amp;quot;indigestion&amp;quot; in me every time Dana Scully was on-screen \u2013 not the same feeling as I got when I saw my best mate&amp;#039;s brother wrapped in a towel, not at all. Ahem. Google &amp;quot;coming out advice&amp;quot; and you&amp;#039;ll find a plethora of resources aimed at gay people. Despite the fact that studies show bisexuals make up more than 50% of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans) community*, they are often totally overlooked within this group. It&amp;#039;s no surprise, then, that a lot of bi people either play straight or come out out as gay. There is a growing bisexual activist community but it still needs a lot more voices, and it can only find those if more bi people feel they have the courage to come out. When Elisa, 40, told her mother that she was bisexual, &amp;quot;she kept on asking &amp;#039;Are you sure?&amp;#039; until I snapped and asked her &amp;#039;Well are you sure you&amp;#039;re straight?&amp;#039;&amp;quot; Elisa&amp;#039;s mother initially reacted badly to this question but later admitted that it had given her food for thought. Kate, 26, grew sick of her brother asking &amp;quot;Which do you prefer?&amp;quot; She recalls: &amp;quot;In the end I just told him it depends on the person. Historically it&amp;#039;s been more likely to be a woman \u2013 just as you&amp;#039;ve dated more redheads than blondes or brunettes - but I&amp;#039;ve fallen for men in the past too and I can&amp;#039;t ignore that.&amp;quot; After Jaime, 36, told one of her closest friends she was bi, the friend stopped talking to her for two weeks. &amp;quot;Eventually I managed to reassure her that a) even if she was my type I&amp;#039;d never ever do anything she didn&amp;#039;t want me to and b) we could actually still go back to cheerfully fighting over Zac Efron.&amp;quot; The &amp;quot;slut&amp;quot; assumption is one of the most infuriating things about coming out as bi. &amp;quot;It was pretty depressing when I mentioned to some of the guys from my evening class that I was bi and they went on to make constant jokes about which female celebrities I&amp;#039;d want to join them in an orgy with,&amp;quot; complains Ellie, 24. Trying to explain that bisexuals don&amp;#039;t need both male and female sexual partners anymore than a straight woman needs two boyfriends, that being bi doesn&amp;#039;t make you more likely to be a &amp;quot;slut&amp;quot;, and that &amp;quot;sluts&amp;quot; come in all sexualities (all power to them if they&amp;#039;re not hurting anyone) can be an uphill struggle. So, you&amp;#039;ve finally (half?) persuaded your mother that bisexuals don&amp;#039;t operate in covens and consort with the devil, your Salsa partner has stopped trying to introduce you to his wife and your best mate is now satisfied that you can still pass out in the same bed on a Friday night without anything happening. Now for the unique challenges posed to bisexuals out there in the dating game... &amp;quot;When you tell them you&amp;#039;re bi, some men&amp;#039;s minds leap to fake-titted blondes on the internet rather than a serious potential longterm partner,&amp;quot; says Ashanti, 25. &amp;quot;And others find the idea that you can be attracted to women as well as men an affront to their masculinity. On the other end of the spectrum, many lesbians will see you as an untrustworthy tourist from Straightsville, trying to have the &amp;#039;best of both worlds&amp;#039;.&amp;quot; And once you&amp;#039;re in a relationship? Jane, 29, has been married to a man for the past five years. &amp;quot;When you&amp;#039;re with a bloke they say that you&amp;#039;re &amp;#039;straight now&amp;#039; and if you&amp;#039;re with a woman they say you&amp;#039;re &amp;#039;gay now&amp;#039;,&amp;quot; she sighs. &amp;quot;They don&amp;#039;t listen when you say it isn&amp;#039;t like that.&amp;quot; Indeed, some people go further than that and insist it&amp;#039;s just not possible to be bi at all. Not existing sounds a bit exciting at first, like a Harry Potter invisibility cloak... except without the potential to shoplift gin with impunity, haunt your own private box at the Albert Hall or stalk Dylan Moran (is that one just me?) or Laura Prepon without getting arrested. These days, most liberal-minded people would never demand that gay people erase their identities, but unfortunately as bisexuals we are still consistently confronted by people who&amp;#039;d like to herd us into more convenient boxes. Convenient for them, that is. It&amp;#039;s not easy, but the more of us who have the courage to come out and help dispel the myths and smash the stereotypes around bisexuality, the more likely we are to see the next generation of bisexuals treated with a bit more respect when they kick open the closet. Good luck! - Charlotte Dingle is editor-in-chief of Biscuit, a new website aimed at bisexual women. RELATED: 10 THINGS TO NEVER SAY TO A BISEXUAL WOMAN "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.co.uk/love-sex/relationships/a27350/coming-out-as-bisexual/>