As a collective of strong powerful females, we’ve never felt the need to explain or justify ourselves. Our ladies represent all parts of the rainbow and indeed, most of them rank themselves as a one or two on the Kinsey scale when they sign up to Skirt Club. But as our concept and operation has spread across the globe over the last six years, we’ve seen the tide turning. There have been wins in terms of LGBT rights - great milestones like the legalisation of gay marriage in 26 countries so far.
But the politics and politicisation of sexuality and gender in general have created a divisive space. Rights are being rolled back in some places, the brave battles our brothers and sisters fought from the days of the Stonewall riots are in jeaopardy of being lost on legislators and elected representatives. Women’s rights are once again up for debate, an unfathomable idea for those of us who dared to believe we might live in an equal society.
Since last year, we’ve been more reflective and open about our place in the LGBT space. We’ve come out (excuse the pun) in support of our bisexual members. We need to do more to rally the cause and this is just the beginning. We’re now locking arms with other female-led initiatives in the sex ed and sex tech space, squaring up to sexist and mysogynistic service providers like Stripe and HSBC about their outdated views on ‘obscene content’.
It takes a lot of courage to come to terms with being a queer woman who wants to explore her sexuality, or facing up to your same sex attraction. Our members are sometimes in a transitional phase of their sexual lives - they aren’t even sure how to categorise themselves. But as we’ve highlighted in the past (and will continue to do so), bisexuality is at risk of being sidelined. Bi phobia is real and ugly. It’s misunderstood, marginalised, fetishised, diminished as a concept. But our stories and experiences are real and raw.
We asked members to share their experiences of coming to terms with their bisexuality. To celebrate Bi Awareness Day, we’re celebrating these women and our 12,000 members across the globe - no matter where they are on the Kinsey scale. Our love and admiration of women binds us together...and that’s a beautiful thing in our book.
My first sexual experiences as a young teenager I had with other girls. But then I met my husband very young, and for many many years we chose to live a monogamous life. My father, who was bisexual himself, but never lived it openly, got infected with HiV after a secret affair, and died of Aids. Due to this experience, monogamy seemed for a long time the only possible way of life for me. I could never have imagined me having an affair or an open relationship. And life was running so fast, building up a business, havings kids etc.
I had no time to think about anything, but of course I kept being attracted to women, even more so than to other men. If I hadn’t been in the relationship I was, I could have seen myself in a relationship with a man or a woman. In 2016 some of our best friends got separated and divorced. This re-started some discussions between me & my husband - about sexuality, desires, experiences we would like to have. He read an article about Skirt Club and sent it to me, asking what I think about it. I applied for membership on the same day. The best thing about being bi in 2019? Probably the Internet. Communities like Skirt Club make it so much easier to find like-minded people.
As the cliche goes, I always knew I was into girls, I was lightly obsessed with Xena the Warrior Princess and Missy from Bring It On so it probably shouldn’t have taken be until my early 20s to act on it. I’ve been from long term relationship to long term relationship with very little gaps (and maybe a few overlaps) in between and I never went to uni so I feel like I really limited my stereotypical ‘opportunities to explore’. With my ex partners (all male) I had told them I wanted to sleep with other girls and we’d discussed the ideas of threesomes or going to sex parties together but I simply didn’t trust them enough and the relationship wasn’t balanced enough to genuinely consider it.
As soon as I met my current partner (when I was 21, 8 years ago) it felt different, our relationship was safe, we wholly trusted one another and knew that we would always be one another’s priority. We started experimenting with other couples we met online and I finally got to kiss and have sex with another girl. Group sex felt like a safe space to explore for the first time because I had a guy in the room (well two guys) and I knew my way around one of those at that point, so if it turned out I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would, there were, well, plenty of alternative activities that I could focus on. We played in that realm for a fair amount of time, dating couples, going to mixed sex parties, having the odd threesome. I loved that we did it as a team, we always had each other’s needs at the forefront and we made sure to keep it an ongoing conversation in our relationship so if either of us ever felt uncomfortable about something, we would discuss it.
A few years after that part time hobby started up, I was enjoying having sex with other girls but I felt like it was really missing an intimacy I was craving. We had a conversation where I said I wanted to start dating girls on my own and having sex with them one on one, I was lucky enough that he just wanted me to be enjoying myself and encouraged me to do whatever made me happy. I set myself up on dating apps (clearly stating in my bio that I was in a non monogamous relationship), I had a few crazy flings, a couple more long term things and then I ended up introducing one girl to my friends at my birthday and I had to explain to everyone in my inner circle about mine and my partner’s fairly non conventional (perhaps not so much anymore in 2019) relationship.
Everyone took it totally well and just wanted to make sure we were happy, don’t get me wrong, a few girls from back home were super confused by it, but everyone took it in their stride. One of my favourite things about being bisexual and non monogamous (apart from all the fun sex) is that by being more open about it with my friends, I’ve found they are a lot more willing to talk freely about their sex life with me, which I think is great. Some friends I’ve cheered on from the other side of London knowing they’ve gone off for their first threesome and others I’ve dragged away from potentially toxic threesomes with couples who aren’t in a healthy, balanced place (or simply aren’t doing it for the right reasons). I love that in 2019 we are candidly questioning the societal expectations of relationships and of women in general, we don’t all have to fit into a set mould and sometimes it’s fun to break those chains.
It took a long time for me to come to terms with being bi because my sister is a lesbian and told all her friends that they should stay away from me and never ever think of doing anything with me because I am her little sister and straight. So I was super unsure how she would react, insecure if I was really bi and just recently (1.5 years ago) came out at dinner, by telling her I was seeing a woman and having an open relationship with my boyfriend. Of course, she was super accepting and all those years of doubt and worry were for nothing!
I was raised in east London with parents from Afghanistan, and enrolled in an über conservative mosque at eleven years old. I ended up leaving school early, and my most influential years were spent being indoctrinated with cultish ideas of who I was supposed to be how I was supposed to behave. I was segregated from the world outside my religion and I adopted fear-based beliefs about almost everything. Coming out of this entrenched and highly conservative religious community was not easy. And this new life came with its own set of challenges; feelings of guilt and shame that attached themselves to sex were just the beginning.
Re-learning my world as an adult was a struggle. The relationships I had known before taught me to continue to expect similar patterns of co-dependency, even when I was no longer in the community that demanded it. Skirt Club opened up to a safe space to explore women in a casual way. Being part of this new community that didn’t judge or expect traditional roles to be adhered to, helped me to disassociate sex with relationships while still holding onto a sacredness in the beauty of its experience. I have felt the enormous release of sexual liberation within Skirt Club. The events help me to get in touch with my body, and that, in turn, leads me to be able to share my experience with many other women that may not be as body confident as they should be.
I ‘came out’ to most of my close friends around the time I joined Skirt Club, about 6 months ago. They were all like ‘oh, cool, what’s for dinner?’ which was both reassuring and infuriating! Obviously I wanted them to be accepting but it was a big deal to me and I couldn’t believe they were so cool with it. We’ve spoken about it more since but now it’s just part of who I am to then. I had told newer friends much before that, because it’s easier to come out to a new person than explain to a close friend that you have been hiding a part of yourself for so many years. Some close friends were hurt by that.
The first boyfriend I told did not react well, he sobbed and made me feel like it was something really awful. He was very jealous, he used it as a weapon to make me feel dirty and that I wanted to sleep with everyone including my friends. Luckily although this was traumatic I decided I would start to explore that side of me and went on a date with a woman. Unfortunately we had a bad experience of men shouting at us in a bar, trying to force our heads together and whispering vile things in our ears when we did kiss. Our date was being sexualised for male pleasure. That put me off wanting to come out and I starting dating a man again for another year.
***
Want to get something off your chest? Share your stories, opinion pieces and experiences with us at jem@skirtclub.co.uk.
But the politics and politicisation of sexuality and gender in general have created a divisive space. Rights are being rolled back in some places, the brave battles our brothers and sisters fought from the days of the Stonewall riots are in jeaopardy of being lost on legislators and elected representatives. Women’s rights are once again up for debate, an unfathomable idea for those of us who dared to believe we might live in an equal society.
Since last year, we’ve been more reflective and open about our place in the LGBT space. We’ve come out (excuse the pun) in support of our bisexual members. We need to do more to rally the cause and this is just the beginning. We’re now locking arms with other female-led initiatives in the sex ed and sex tech space, squaring up to sexist and mysogynistic service providers like Stripe and HSBC about their outdated views on ‘obscene content’.
It takes a lot of courage to come to terms with being a queer woman who wants to explore her sexuality, or facing up to your same sex attraction. Our members are sometimes in a transitional phase of their sexual lives - they aren’t even sure how to categorise themselves. But as we’ve highlighted in the past (and will continue to do so), bisexuality is at risk of being sidelined. Bi phobia is real and ugly. It’s misunderstood, marginalised, fetishised, diminished as a concept. But our stories and experiences are real and raw.
We asked members to share their experiences of coming to terms with their bisexuality. To celebrate Bi Awareness Day, we’re celebrating these women and our 12,000 members across the globe - no matter where they are on the Kinsey scale. Our love and admiration of women binds us together...and that’s a beautiful thing in our book.
Marina’s story (Berlin)
My first sexual experiences as a young teenager I had with other girls. But then I met my husband very young, and for many many years we chose to live a monogamous life. My father, who was bisexual himself, but never lived it openly, got infected with HiV after a secret affair, and died of Aids. Due to this experience, monogamy seemed for a long time the only possible way of life for me. I could never have imagined me having an affair or an open relationship. And life was running so fast, building up a business, havings kids etc.I had no time to think about anything, but of course I kept being attracted to women, even more so than to other men. If I hadn’t been in the relationship I was, I could have seen myself in a relationship with a man or a woman. In 2016 some of our best friends got separated and divorced. This re-started some discussions between me & my husband - about sexuality, desires, experiences we would like to have. He read an article about Skirt Club and sent it to me, asking what I think about it. I applied for membership on the same day. The best thing about being bi in 2019? Probably the Internet. Communities like Skirt Club make it so much easier to find like-minded people.
M’s story (London)
As the cliche goes, I always knew I was into girls, I was lightly obsessed with Xena the Warrior Princess and Missy from Bring It On so it probably shouldn’t have taken be until my early 20s to act on it. I’ve been from long term relationship to long term relationship with very little gaps (and maybe a few overlaps) in between and I never went to uni so I feel like I really limited my stereotypical ‘opportunities to explore’. With my ex partners (all male) I had told them I wanted to sleep with other girls and we’d discussed the ideas of threesomes or going to sex parties together but I simply didn’t trust them enough and the relationship wasn’t balanced enough to genuinely consider it.As soon as I met my current partner (when I was 21, 8 years ago) it felt different, our relationship was safe, we wholly trusted one another and knew that we would always be one another’s priority. We started experimenting with other couples we met online and I finally got to kiss and have sex with another girl. Group sex felt like a safe space to explore for the first time because I had a guy in the room (well two guys) and I knew my way around one of those at that point, so if it turned out I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would, there were, well, plenty of alternative activities that I could focus on. We played in that realm for a fair amount of time, dating couples, going to mixed sex parties, having the odd threesome. I loved that we did it as a team, we always had each other’s needs at the forefront and we made sure to keep it an ongoing conversation in our relationship so if either of us ever felt uncomfortable about something, we would discuss it.
A few years after that part time hobby started up, I was enjoying having sex with other girls but I felt like it was really missing an intimacy I was craving. We had a conversation where I said I wanted to start dating girls on my own and having sex with them one on one, I was lucky enough that he just wanted me to be enjoying myself and encouraged me to do whatever made me happy. I set myself up on dating apps (clearly stating in my bio that I was in a non monogamous relationship), I had a few crazy flings, a couple more long term things and then I ended up introducing one girl to my friends at my birthday and I had to explain to everyone in my inner circle about mine and my partner’s fairly non conventional (perhaps not so much anymore in 2019) relationship.
Everyone took it totally well and just wanted to make sure we were happy, don’t get me wrong, a few girls from back home were super confused by it, but everyone took it in their stride. One of my favourite things about being bisexual and non monogamous (apart from all the fun sex) is that by being more open about it with my friends, I’ve found they are a lot more willing to talk freely about their sex life with me, which I think is great. Some friends I’ve cheered on from the other side of London knowing they’ve gone off for their first threesome and others I’ve dragged away from potentially toxic threesomes with couples who aren’t in a healthy, balanced place (or simply aren’t doing it for the right reasons). I love that in 2019 we are candidly questioning the societal expectations of relationships and of women in general, we don’t all have to fit into a set mould and sometimes it’s fun to break those chains.
Beatrice’s story (Vienna)
It took a long time for me to come to terms with being bi because my sister is a lesbian and told all her friends that they should stay away from me and never ever think of doing anything with me because I am her little sister and straight. So I was super unsure how she would react, insecure if I was really bi and just recently (1.5 years ago) came out at dinner, by telling her I was seeing a woman and having an open relationship with my boyfriend. Of course, she was super accepting and all those years of doubt and worry were for nothing!
Z’s story (London)
I was raised in east London with parents from Afghanistan, and enrolled in an über conservative mosque at eleven years old. I ended up leaving school early, and my most influential years were spent being indoctrinated with cultish ideas of who I was supposed to be how I was supposed to behave. I was segregated from the world outside my religion and I adopted fear-based beliefs about almost everything. Coming out of this entrenched and highly conservative religious community was not easy. And this new life came with its own set of challenges; feelings of guilt and shame that attached themselves to sex were just the beginning.Re-learning my world as an adult was a struggle. The relationships I had known before taught me to continue to expect similar patterns of co-dependency, even when I was no longer in the community that demanded it. Skirt Club opened up to a safe space to explore women in a casual way. Being part of this new community that didn’t judge or expect traditional roles to be adhered to, helped me to disassociate sex with relationships while still holding onto a sacredness in the beauty of its experience. I have felt the enormous release of sexual liberation within Skirt Club. The events help me to get in touch with my body, and that, in turn, leads me to be able to share my experience with many other women that may not be as body confident as they should be.
Ellie, London
I ‘came out’ to most of my close friends around the time I joined Skirt Club, about 6 months ago. They were all like ‘oh, cool, what’s for dinner?’ which was both reassuring and infuriating! Obviously I wanted them to be accepting but it was a big deal to me and I couldn’t believe they were so cool with it. We’ve spoken about it more since but now it’s just part of who I am to then. I had told newer friends much before that, because it’s easier to come out to a new person than explain to a close friend that you have been hiding a part of yourself for so many years. Some close friends were hurt by that.The first boyfriend I told did not react well, he sobbed and made me feel like it was something really awful. He was very jealous, he used it as a weapon to make me feel dirty and that I wanted to sleep with everyone including my friends. Luckily although this was traumatic I decided I would start to explore that side of me and went on a date with a woman. Unfortunately we had a bad experience of men shouting at us in a bar, trying to force our heads together and whispering vile things in our ears when we did kiss. Our date was being sexualised for male pleasure. That put me off wanting to come out and I starting dating a man again for another year.
***
Want to get something off your chest? Share your stories, opinion pieces and experiences with us at jem@skirtclub.co.uk.