As Rachel approached 40, her life went through a stage of upheaval – and finally opened the door for her to be able to explore her true self and sexuality, giving her the confidence and peace to finally identify as bisexual. As we celebrate Pride Month, Rachel shares her inspiring story…
Welcome to our series, The Love Diaries – a space for you to share your experiences, advice, fairy-tale endings, setbacks and heartbreaks. We’ll be hearing from industry experts giving practical advice alongside Capsule readers (You!) sharing your firsthand experiences with love – from the woman who cheated on her husband with a work colleague, one woman’s temptation now the love of her life is finally single (although she’s not), and the woman who forced her husband to choose between her and his girlfriend.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Send an email to alice@capsulenz.com!
I’m Rachel, and I am bisexual. In the 2023 national census I selected my sexual identity as bisexual. Coincidentally, this was also the first time this question was asked of New Zealanders in the Census. As it turns out, 2.3% of the population identified as bisexual, making up just over half of the people who selected a sexuality other than heterosexual.
It’s not to say that bisexuality is a new revelation for me – it’s not. I had known that I was bicurious, likely bisexual for most of my life. However, it’s only in recent years I have truly accepted this as a part of who I am and claimed this part of me and I know that if that question in the Census had been asked in earlier years, I would have selected heterosexual, rather than bisexual.
In fact – if you’d told me in my twenties that I’d be exploring my bisexuality in my forties, I probably would have laughed. My life was on track, with all the important things sorted. Marriage. Kids. Career. ‘Responsible Adult’ (mostly).
Yes – I’d always been attracted to other women; however, my primary attraction and all previous relationships had always been with men. That fitted my life, and I wasn’t about to rock the boat too much. While I was never shy of kissing another girl during those carefree University days before responsibility came along, I certainly didn’t consider myself as bisexual, or that it would be a sexual orientation that I would eventually identify with.
Then things changed.
Approaching my 40’s, I started doing things for myself, and the status quo went out the window. My relationship status and career path were going through an upheaval. A new me was emerging. Now, without those previous identities holding everything neatly in place, I had space to explore my sexuality. And boy, did I explore.
It started rather unexpectedly, when a friend mentioned a swingers dating site. At that point, my only reference point was Austin Powers and, “Yeah baby, yeah,” so I was hardly expecting a spiritual awakening. I agreed to have a look “for a laugh.”
Five minutes later my mind was blown.
Profiles everywhere. Couples looking for women. Women looking for women. Naked confidence on full display. It was bold, unapologetic, slightly outrageous, and instead of recoiling, I felt my interest spark.
Instead of being drawn to the men, I was captivated by the women. Their bodies and their confidence. Their femininity, softness and strength. And somewhere in that moment I realised that I was ready to embrace this side of myself.
So I did what any slightly wine-fuelled woman with a rekindled libido might do – I made a profile.
I found some lingerie buried at the back of a drawer (the poor thing hadn’t seen daylight in years), took some slightly awkward photos, carefully avoided including my face, and uploaded them before I could chicken out. And for the first time in a very long time, I felt sexy. Not because someone expected me to. Not because I was trying to please anyone. This was purely for me.
The next night I logged in and seriously, I nearly fell off my chair. Messages. Likes. Comments. Attention in abundance. From there, yes, things escalated.
There were dates. Hotel rooms. Swingers clubs. Discovering that a “unicorn” in this context was not, in fact, a billion-dollar start-up but a bisexual woman who joins a couple. Nights that would have absolutely scandalised my 25-year-old self. It sounds cliché, but I felt alive.
It would be easy to frame that part of my life as one big, wild sexual adventure – and sure, it was bold. But coming to terms with being bisexual in midlife wasn’t just about who I was sleeping with. It was about who I was underneath the traditional straight-wife-and-mother narrative I’d been living inside for years. It was about acknowledging that I’d edited parts of myself to fit what felt acceptable – both socially, and to my responsible adult self, without even realising I was doing it.
Exploring that side of me didn’t erase my past or invalidate my marriage. It didn’t mean I’d been pretending. It meant I’d grown. It meant I was honest enough to admit that attraction doesn’t always stay fixed and tidy.
And I want to be very clear about this – bisexuality isn’t a trend, a thrill, or a midlife stunt. For many in the LGBTQIA+ community, claiming identity has required immense courage and resilience from a young age. My journey came later and within a life that looked conventional from the outside, and without too much hardship – just a bit of self-acceptance. That doesn’t make it lesser, louder, or any different at all, really. It simply makes it mine.
Pride Month is a reminder that sexuality isn’t something we outgrow, suppress, or lock in at 22. For some people, clarity comes early. For others, it unfolds slowly, sometimes after years of playing a role that felt safe and expected.
If you’ve ever felt a flicker of curiosity and pushed it down because it didn’t fit your life plan, that’s OK, exploration and acceptance will come when you are ready. If you’ve discovered something new about yourself at forty that you thought you should have known at eighteen, you’re not behind.
Sometimes you think you’ve written your whole story.
And then life says, “Yeah baby, yeah… we’re not done yet.”
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