A little confused

[Volleygirl22]

So you may have seen a post from me recently about my new relationship (with a girl). We've had sex a few times now and I've loved. More than I ever did when I did it with my boyfriend. Here's where I'm a little confused. I always considered myself bisexual. But would the fact that my relationship (both in general and sexually) with this girl is better than any other relationship I've had with a guy...would it be more accurate to consider myself a lesbian?

[Sam W]

Hi volleygirl22,

Glad to hear your current sexual relationship is a happy and satisfying one! When it comes to how this relates to your identity, it might help you to think about sexual orientation as being made up of multiple different pieces, including patterns of attraction (who you get crushes on, who you choose to date, etc) as well as your feelings about the people you date or have sex with (do you enjoy it, does it just feel like you're going through the motions, etc). It may very well be that your current relationship is an indicator that you actually prefer to exclusively date or be sexual with women. However, it could also be that you still feel attraction to multiple genders but for a number of reasons, like chemistry and communication, your current partner is a better fit for you sexually than your dude-partners were. So your enjoyment of your current sex life may have more to do with how she is as a partner rather than the fact that she's a woman. Does that all make sense?

[Volleygirl22]

Yeah that makes sense

[Heather]

I want to add, though, that you get to identify yourself as you want, and what brings you to any identity or terms for that identity are okay.

By all means, some lesbian women have arrived at claiming that identity when they have had just one very intense love affair with another woman: sometimes something about that one relationship or experience is how they feel they know. So, if it turns out that happens with you and this one, that is certainly okay.