Owning My Desire: Jen’s Story

Jen is 29, in a long-term relationship, working in marketing. She grew up performing the version of herself other people expected. Owning her desire took longer than figuring it out. This is her story — a composite inspired by conversations with women in our community. Details changed for privacy.

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Jen knew she was bicurious before she had a partner.

She figured it out somewhere in her early twenties — in that mix of college parties and emerging self-knowledge and finally being far enough from her childhood to think for herself. She didn’t have a big revelation moment. She just slowly admitted what had always been true.

What took her longer was the part nobody tells you about: owning it.

Knowing Versus Owning

“There’s a difference,” Jen said, “between knowing something about yourself and actually being okay with it. I knew I was bicurious for years before I stopped feeling weird about it.”

The knowing was almost easy. She paid attention to her own reactions. She noticed who she found attractive. She let herself read about bicuriosity. She admitted, internally, what she was.

The owning was harder. The owning meant not apologizing for it. The owning meant not minimizing it. The owning meant not pretending, even to herself, that her attraction to women was somehow less real than her attraction to men.

For a long time, she’d hedge even in her own head: “I think I’m maybe sort of a little bit bicurious.” Like she was trying to make the truth smaller. Make it less inconvenient. Make it less her.

Where the Shame Came From

Jen didn’t grow up in a particularly conservative environment. Her family wasn’t religious. Her parents would have said they were accepting.

But she’d absorbed a thousand small messages, the way most girls do.

She’d learned that wanting things made you needy. That having strong sexual desire made you weird. That being too explicit about what you wanted was unattractive. That women who openly explored their sexuality were judged — not necessarily out loud, but in the way people talked about them when they weren’t there.

She’d also absorbed that wanting women, specifically, was something you didn’t talk about. Even in her supposedly liberal social circles, the message was clear: bicurious women were either performing for men, going through a phase, or eventually going to come out as fully lesbian.

None of those felt like her. She wasn’t performing. She wasn’t going through a phase. She wasn’t going to leave men. She just… also liked women. Genuinely. In her own way. On her own terms.

But she didn’t have many examples of what that looked like.

The Habit of Shrinking

Jen realized at some point that she’d developed a habit of shrinking around her own desire.

When her partner asked what turned her on, she’d give the safe answer — the one that didn’t reveal too much. When she had fantasies, she’d half-experience them and half-apologize for having them. When she felt drawn to a woman, she’d note it and then quickly move on, like she was checking it off a list and putting it away.

It wasn’t a dramatic kind of shrinking. It was the quiet kind. The kind that doesn’t look like much from the outside. The kind that just slowly erodes your sense of yourself as someone with a right to want things.

“I was treating my own desire like it was an inconvenience. Like it was something I should apologize for. And I didn’t even realize I was doing it.”

What Changed Things

What changed for Jen wasn’t a single moment. It was a series of small ones.

One was reading other women’s stories — specifically, women who weren’t apologetic about their bicuriosity. Women who said “I want this” without flinching. It showed her that confidence was actually possible.

Another was therapy. She’d gone for unrelated reasons — work stress, family stuff — but it kept coming back to the same theme: she didn’t think she was allowed to want things. Sexual things. Emotional things. Any kind of things.

Her therapist asked her one session: “What would change if you let yourself want what you want?”

Jen didn’t have an answer right away. But she went home and sat with the question. And it stayed with her for weeks.

The Experiment

Jen decided to experiment. She gave herself a private rule: for one month, she’d notice every time she felt herself shrink around her own desire. She wouldn’t try to fix it. She just wanted to see how often it happened.

The answer turned out to be: constantly.

She shrank when her partner asked what she wanted. She shrank when she noticed an attractive woman at the gym. She shrank when she had a fantasy. She shrank when she chose what to wear in the morning. She shrank when she thought about what to order at restaurants.

It wasn’t just about sexuality. It was about wanting things, generally. And the bicurious piece was just one place where it showed up clearly.

Once she could see the pattern, she could start to change it.

Practicing Wanting

Jen started small.

When her partner asked what she wanted for dinner, instead of saying “I’m easy,” she said what she actually wanted. When she got a compliment at work, instead of deflecting, she said “thank you” and let it land. When she noticed she was drawn to a particular outfit, she bought it.

These were tiny things. They felt almost silly. But each one was practice. Each one was her getting comfortable with the idea that wanting things was allowed.

And eventually, the practice extended to bigger things. To sexual things. To telling her partner what turned her on, in actual specific words. To letting herself acknowledge attraction to women without immediately filing it away.

What Confidence Actually Looks Like

Jen pushed back on the idea that confidence means being loud about who you are.

“Confidence isn’t a personality,” she said. “It’s not the woman who walks into a room and announces who she is. That’s not me. That’s never going to be me.”

For her, confidence looked quieter. It looked like:

• Not apologizing for what she wanted.
• Not minimizing her own attractions, even in her head.
• Saying yes when she meant yes and no when she meant no.
• Buying the lingerie that made her feel sexy, instead of the lingerie she thought she was supposed to wear.
• Looking at a woman she found attractive and letting herself find her attractive.
• Telling her partner what she actually liked, in actual words.
• Trusting that her desires were valid, even when they didn’t fit a neat narrative.

“Confidence isn’t loud. It’s the quiet knowledge that you’re allowed to want what you want.”

How Her Relationships Changed

The biggest shift was in her relationship with her partner.

When Jen stopped shrinking, the sex got better. Not because she was demanding more — because she was finally communicating. She was telling him what she wanted. She was being honest about what she liked. She was no longer performing pleasure she wasn’t actually feeling.

Her partner, surprisingly, was relieved. He’d been guessing for years. Now he had a partner who actually told him.

Her relationships with female friends got better too. She stopped trying to seem like she wasn’t paying attention. She let herself notice when a friend was attractive without acting weird about it. She let herself enjoy female company without that low-level static of self-monitoring.

The Wardrobe Shift

One unexpected change: Jen’s wardrobe.

She’d been wearing what she thought she was supposed to wear — cute, modest, presentable. Now she started buying things that actually made her feel something. Sexier lingerie. Outfits that felt like her. Pieces that signaled — to herself, mostly — that she was a woman who had a sexuality, not just a wife who happened to have one tucked away.

“What you wear under your clothes when no one sees it tells you who you are,” she said. “I started dressing for myself, not for who I thought I was supposed to be.”

Wicked Boutique was one of the places she found pieces that felt like her — things that said something, even when she was the only one who knew.

What She Wants Other Women to Know

Jen had specific advice for women who knew they were bicurious but couldn’t quite own it yet:

• Stop the language games. “I think I’m maybe a little bit bicurious” is still hiding. Just say it. To yourself first.
• Notice the shrinking. You probably do it more than you realize. You don’t have to fix it yet. Just see it.
• Practice on small things first. Ordering what you actually want at restaurants. Saying thank you instead of deflecting compliments. Wearing what makes you feel something.
• Find the words. Vague feelings are harder to own than named ones. Read. Learn the vocabulary.
• Don’t wait for confidence to act. Confidence comes from acting, not the other way around. Do the thing first — then the confidence follows.
• It’s not about being loud. Confidence is internal. It’s how you treat yourself when no one’s watching.

Mostly, she said, she’d want women to know that they don’t have to earn their desire. They don’t have to justify it. They don’t have to make it convenient for everyone else.

It’s theirs. They get to have it. That’s the whole thing.

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This story is a composite inspired by conversations with women in our community. Names, details, and identifying information have been changed for privacy. The themes and experiences reflect real patterns we’ve heard from many women.