If you were a vegetarian 10 years ago, but have been eating meat reguarly for 10 years, would you feel an obligation to tell your new boyfriend? If you were a religious person that lost your faith a decade ago, would you feel obligated to tell him?

I think the answers to the questions above is no. I don't see why a change in someone's sexuality should be any different.

In every serious relationship I've had, at some point, we discuss past relationships. Not necessarily every single person we've ever dated, but people who were significant to us and relationships that helped to shape who we are.

Presumably some of your past relationships with women were significant. Not sharing these experiences with a potential significant other means that the potential SO won't know as much about you and what makes you tick. This makes it harder for the two of you to have a significant relationship - not impossible, but harder.

p.s. if he can't handle particular details about your past relationships (you had sex out of wedlock! you dated a guy who did drugs! you dated a person who wasn't a man! or whatever) then he isn't the right person for you. Better to find that out now.

"(Salon letter-posters: Don't bash me for dating women (womyn?) and now dating men. I dated women, now I date men, so what, no big deal.)"

Ha ha ha! I was just about to rush to judgement but now I can't. As a Salon poster, I value my right to derail a thread based on my self-important objection to one inconsequential detail in the original letter. Damn you for denying me that right! ;)

I'm not sure I agree with Cary here. There are some relationships where you tell about your past loves and some where you don't. Which category a given relationship falls into depends on the people involved. It's not a question of being "honest" versus "dishonest." We never tell our lovers or our spouses everything that has ever happened to us — if nothing else, there simply isn't enough time in our romantic lives to spend it all rehashing every moment of where we've been.

My feeling is that if this is the kind of guy to whom Confused would relate her history with men, and who would expect it of her in a spirit of discovery and understanding — then yes, that includes her history with women, too. But if their love affair is one of those that's about here and now, if their romantic pasts are water under the bridge and their excavation has no place in the present, then how is it somehow more honest to treat the girlfriends any differently from the boyfriends?

I think the letter writer should tell her new man about her previous relationships with women because if she doesn't her entire relationship will be defined, NOT by whether she had sex with women but by the fact that she didn't trust this man enough to tell him. That may not be true for all women and all relationships, but it is true for this one. And I know that because she asked the question. If it wasn't a problem for her that she hasn't told him, she wouldn't have asked the question.

Letter writer, if this man is someone you plan to spend the entire rest of your life with, don't you need to know you don't have to withold anything about who you are or have been from him? Do you want to have to look over your shoulder your whole life for that person you will run into on the street from your past and worry that they might let something slip? And if this liberal Republican is a man who, if faced with that information, would let you go...don't you want to know that now, before you've invested all that time, effort, love?

But Cary's right. You can't just dump it in his lap. You have to condition how he listens to what you're saying. Even tell him why you feel you must tell him. And the most important reason is that you need to know what kind of man he is if you are to continue on in the relationship.

If my partner told me that there were certain questions I wasn't allowed to ask, I would be looking for a new partner. If my friend told me that they were dating someone, and wanted to tell that person not to ask a particular question, I'd tell them to find someone else to date.

The only downside is that you stop hanging onto a relationship that is based on a willfully blinded view of the other person.

If the guy says, "Let's do a threesome" and that grosses you out, dump him. You clearly have different values.

If he says, "Would you dump me for a woman (or a man!) who was better than me?" he's insecure. You could decide not to be with him because his insecurity drives you nuts, or you could reasonably respond, "Would you dump me for someone who was better in bed?"

Having this conversation is a fantastic opportunity to learn about the person you are dating. Maybe the knowledge deepens and enriches your relationship, or maybe it hastens its end. Either way, you know more about each other and have a more authentic relationship. Seems like a good thing.

... is the obvious maxim to apply here.

If you do tell him, there are approximately two possible scenarios.

1) He is highly amused and turned on by the revelation of your sexual past, wants to know all the details, uses your experience as as useful sexual consultancy resource etc.

2) If he is a sexually insecure person, he may be very anxious as to whether he satisfies you in the sack, and throw your lezzie past back at you any time you have a difference of opinion about whose turn it is to put out the garbage.

I suspect that many Salonistas will think that all men fall into the second scenario, but this is not actually true.

Anyhow, if you are not 100% sure that he is a scenario #1 guy, then stick to "don't ask, don't tell". Just say that you have no interest in his past relationships, and that yours are none of his business.

Obviously there are some things about past relationships that one has to reveal, especially if there are children, in-laws, family fortunes etc. involved, (or you had a relationship with your prison cellmate for several years, you might want to touch on that,)but it does not sound like this is the question here.

But all this stuff that people write here about having to know all about your past to really know you is baloney. You can have a perfectly good relationship without knowing all about your partner's past friendships, unless these relationships impinge on the present.