There’s an incredible amount of buzz around Bridget and Christian Ziegler’s scandalous three-way affair with an unnamed woman. Bridget Ziegler is one of the main architects behind the Parental Rights in Education Bill (otherwise known as the Don’t Say Gay Bill) and is a original founder of the conservative group, Moms For Liberty. Christian Ziegler is the current chairman for the GOP party in Florida. Together, they’ve both loudly condemned the LGBT community and described queer folks as “groomers”. So when it came out that Bridget and Christian Ziegler were engaged in a three-way with a woman who was mainly interested in having sex with Bridget, many people could not help but see the hypocrisy in them privately pursuing gay sex while condemning those who are out and proud. If you’ve been following the story online, you’ve most likely only heard that Bridget Ziegler was “in a relationship” with another woman. However, major news outlets tend to downplay that her husband is currently battling charges of sexual battery after he appeared at the unnamed woman’s home and sexually assaulted her. A search warrant revealed that Christian Ziegler had been trying to schedule a time for what would have been their second threesome; however, Christian would claim that his wife couldn’t make it anymore, and that’s when the unnamed woman revealed that she was mostly in it for Bridget, not Christian. The added context seems to suggest that the two women were in some way sexually involved. Of course, people are running with the narrative that Bridget Ziegler is a classic example of a conservative closet case who devotes an incredible amount of time to tearing down the LGBT community in her own life. While that’s still very much a possibility, I wanted to present what I believe is a far more likely scenario: that, like so many women, Bridget Ziegler is married to a man who fetishizes lesbian sex. That as an extension of the very conservative patriarchal structure of their relationship, she was likely participating in this threesome with a woman at the behest of her husband, not her actual desire to be with another woman.

Christian Ziegler has shown, through his assault, that he feels entitled to women’s bodies and does not honestly care about respecting, or even recognizing their boundaries. While I understand the allure of going along with the narrative that Bridget Ziegler is a self-loathing bisexual who can’t embrace herself, having observed many of these relationships, there’s a part of me that can’t help but point out how common it is for a very patriarchal man to pressure his straight partners to emulate lesbian sex for their pleasure. I find so many aspects of the Ziegler’s unicorn-hunting shenanigans to be terribly predictable. I wanted to unpack that in this post.

If you’re unfamiliar with “unicorns”, let me define them for you. Unicorns are famously elusive in mythology. So elusive that there were several methods rumored to lure and capture them. In this context, a “unicorn” is a person who enters into a relationship with a couple. They’re called unicorns because they are attracted to both partners. The idea is that a person like that is rare, just like the mythological creatures. Typically, you’ll hear the term “unicorn” being used to describe a woman who enters into a sexual relationship with a heterosexual couple where the woman in the couple is either bisexual or bi-curious. If you’re a sapphic woman who’s used any dating apps over the past few years, your matches were most likely full of these types of couples. You may have even started talking to a beautiful woman who would slowly reveal that she was married and had a husband interested in joining you and her in the bedroom (and most of the time, you were always talking to that husband, not the woman). We call these people “unicorn hunters,” and they tend to be frustrating because their interest in queer sex begins and ends with the man’s fetishism of lesbian sex. Quite frequently, the woman in the relationship is only “allowed” to sleep with women, and that woman must be attractive to the husband. The unicorn is a sex toy, assisting a couple in their fantasy fulfillment. And once sex toys break or no longer work the way they’re intended, they’re disposed of. Like the mythological creatures, those who capture unicorns often have to set elaborate traps. Sometimes, this trap looks like them pretending that they want to be in a full-fledged relationship with the unicorn, only to ghost them the moment they no longer have a use for them. Quite commonly, the trap is, as I described, a woman independently pursuing a woman only to later introduce a man. Unicorn hunters are often a “package deal” and if the wife is exploring her sexuality with women, she’s only allowed to do it if it sexually satisfies her husband. Many women who’ve played unicorns for a couple will attest that, so often, unicorn hunters are painfully callous and often quite abusive. Not every couple seeking a third are necessarily “unicorn hunters”. My disdain for unicorn hunters is their approach, not the desire to enjoy a threesome where a bisexual woman is able to explore her sexuality or even enjoy two partners at once. It’s that they so often do not remotely care who they’re harming as long as the threesome satiates the husband’s desire. And while it’s not impossible for these sorts of dynamics to “work”, they often crash and burn because of a an inevitable misalignment of attraction, desires and schedules. But if you’ve ever tried to have a threesome, you know they’re already a bit more complicated than you’d assume.

Christian Ziegler knew this unnamed woman for 20 years before they engaged in their first threesome a year before this incident. However, it seems as if the unnamed woman was only engaging in a sexual dynamic with Christian Ziegler as a way of getting to his wife, whom she was attracted to. That is pretty bog-standard in these dynamics. It’s common for a unicorn to agree to a threesome purely because she’s attracted to the other woman and may be more or less willing to tolerate the man if she gains access to the woman. If I’m being frank, the couples I see that can easily find unicorns equally attracted to both are the kind of couples who essentially look like siblings. They have similar body types, similar features, and similar vibes. You don’t commonly see this with most couples seeking this dynamic. It’s become a bit of a meme, but bisexual women are often attracted to an extensive range of women and a very narrow range of men. The man is typically more of an obstacle for most women who entertain unicorn hunters. That’s because, as the name implies, it’s fairly uncommon for a person to be attracted to both parties in a relationship, but this is what so many unicorn hunters want. So many women who entertain these couples grin and bear it because these relationships are often short-lived and as I said, they’re often presented as a package deal. This isn’t always the case, but unicorn hunters often approach women who are more openly and visibly queer. Still, the way they typically handle their relationship with these women is often steeped in homophobia. I know that for a lot of people, it’s hard for them to wrap their minds around someone being homophobic yet seemingly involved in relationships that are of a homosexual nature. However, homophobia is actually an incredibly present force in many of these dynamics.

I’ve been tangental to the swing community since 2008. We don’t know that the Zieglers are swingers, but the swing community is a great place to observe how homophobia presents itself in this specific dynamic. I’ve primarily participated in the heterosexual swing scene, and these events predominately cater to heterosexual couples seeking women interested in joining them sexually. Typically, swinging is when a couple swaps partners. However, these events often encourage single women to attend. As a single woman who gets hounded at these events, I know that the single woman is the ideal unicorn for many of these couples. These events often explicitly forbid men from engaging in sexual acts with each other, and I’m only generally allowed into these events because I “pass” and am legally female.

Swinger parties often have an intense air of homophobia because they cater overwhelmingly to cis-hetero men’s fantasies and desires. While I’m more than aware of the fact that some of those men may indeed be some shade of bisexual, there’s this clear awareness that this is not the place to express that. Men who want to engage with each other will be told this is not their kind of event and in some circumstances, are asked to leave the event entirely. You’d almost believe that they were afraid of catching the gay by the way these spaces often sharply and aggressively exclude queer men. Swinger events often have gendered pricing where couples get into the event at a reduced rate, and if single men are allowed (they often aren’t), they the most expensive ticket. I’ve been to some parties that will charge single men upwards of $600. The high rate is to encourage these men to come with partners and to discourage single, pushy, unaccompanied men. At most of these events, two men aren’t allowed to come as a “couple.” The men who come absolutely must arrive with a woman. Women typically get in for free, which means they’re also on the menu.

The attendance of women is essential to the economics of these events. You’d imagine that a space where women are encouraged to explore their sexuality would be full of queer women eagerly seeking sapphic relationships. However, in my years attending these events, I have never observed two women entering these events as a couple. And to be fair, why would they? These are spaces where men are largely fetishizing lesbian sex, and that’s going to be unappealing to most sapphic women in relationships with women that sharply exclude cis men. In these spaces, women are indeed commodities, and two women arriving together and playing with each other will be hounded by men trying to involve themselves. The events are often plastered with notions of “exploring bisexuality”. They are billed as spaces for women to freely and safely explore “their” sexuality. And yes, indeed, many of these women are doing that. However, most of it is done to appease the heterosexual male gaze. I’ve run into far too many heterosexual women who are only there to emulate lesbian sex for the pleasure of their husbands. Their desire matters very little, and they’d likely desire a different type of relationship if they were “allowed” to freely explore beyond the desires of their husbands.

When I first heard about the Ziegler’s relationship with this woman, it was presented as a fully-fledged three-way “relationship” akin to polyamory. A lot of what I read and heard was about Bridget’s supposed long-term relationship with the unnamed woman. However, it seems as though the two barely knew each other and only had a sexual interaction once a full year before her husband would assault the unnamed woman. A few things stood out to me as I was reviewing their messages.

As I said, threesomes are incredibly hard to organize because of a joint misalignment between desires and schedules. But if you want to make it happen, you’ll make it happen. Christian Ziegler messaged this woman early on the day they were supposed to meet, and the unnamed woman wasn’t near her phone because she had a day off and was enjoying some day drinking. Once she got to her phone, she confirmed a time around 2:12PM. Christian would then claim that Bridget was fully ready to go at 1:30PM, but wouldn’t be available 40 minutes later. That doesn’t at all sound like a person who was actually interested in having this threesome. Not much could have changed between 1:30PM and 2:12PM that would suddenly make this threesome unappealing to a person who wanted it. If schedules align, you jump at it. Sure, it may have been hard to get a solid schedule to plan around with her being unresponsive; however, if she was ready at 1:30PM and wanted to have this threesome, there’s no doubt in my mind that she’d be ready 40 minutes later. Frankly, I think there are two possibilities. Either Bridget was interested but pulled out at the last minute, or… she was never involved in the planning of this threesome, and Christian had always planned to have a one-on-one with her. Tragically, this is also incredibly common. Quite often, these men pursue threesomes with their wives as a way to justify sleeping with other women.

Again, this is a woman that Christian has known for 20 years. It wouldn’t surprise me if he saw the unnamed woman’s desire for his wife as a way for him to pursue someone he’s always been interested in pursuing. If he presents this woman he’s already interested in as a perfect person to add to their bedroom, he gets to have sex with her in a way that doesn’t technically violate the bounds of their monogamous relationship. Plenty of unicorn hunters consider themselves to be monogamous despite having sexual relations with others because they are pursuing people as a unit. Some men will get a whiff of their partner’s bisexuality and see that as an excuse to begin pursuing women independently. If they can present this woman as someone for both of them, it’s easier for them to get their partner to agree with them sleeping with another woman. The problem with this, however, is that many women are socialized to be agreeable and quite often feel as though if they want to hold onto their relationship, they need to tolerate this behavior and engage in these acts, not because they want to, but because they want to remain in their marriages or relationships.

This won’t surprise readers, but I am a weirdo. I go to swinger events primarily for their social aspect, and it’s some of the most top-tier people-watching. Often, this means I end up talking to these women about why they’re there and what they’re looking for. At these events, if you’re a woman, you are assumed to be bisexual. In fact, one of the strangest things about me being in these spaces is the fact that I am not attracted to women at all. But in these spaces, I often have to argue and debate with people about my sexuality, and sometimes in those conversations where I’m reiterating that I’m heterosexual, I’ll hear from some of those women, “So am I.” And some of these women I’ve quite literally seen participating in sexual activity with other women. Sure, maybe some of these women are self-loathing bisexuals who have yet to embrace themselves. I think that’s a high probability, but I also know that many of these women do not see what they’re doing as “really gay” because they are doing it with their husbands to please their husbands. Quite often, I will have conversations with these women where they can essentially justify their heterosexuality by implying that the interactions they have with women are almost objective and somewhat detached. There’s this distinct idea that they fool around with women casually on the side but would never actually be in a relationship with one, even if they were single. In some of those conversations, it’s clear that they find the idea of two women being in a relationship with each other almost laughable. And that’s why I remain so unsurprised by someone like Bridget Ziegler participating in these threesomes yet also being incredibly homophobic. For some people, gay relationships are inherently sexual because the only context in which queer relationships enter their purview is via their fetishism of them.

I started engaging in the swing scene in San Diego, which is much more conservative than where I grew up in the San Gabriel Valley, which is still quite conservative. I’ve lived in predominately conservative suburban areas for most of my life, and swingers were always very present, no matter where I lived. Swinger events tend to be quite expensive, so you’ll more commonly run into politically conservative people who occasionally dip their toes into less-than-conservative things. Much of this relates to the secrecy that tends to go hand in hand with swinger spaces. There is this decided idea that what happens in these spaces stays in these spaces. So these are the spaces where you will indeed find homophobic people engaging in acts that would be considered homosexual to most people. The Zieglers did not intend for any of this to actually get out, and I have no doubt that Christian Ziegler, not Bridget, was likely the driving force for this dynamic. That’s fairly easy to parse because the unnamed woman said she was mostly in it for Bridget, and he would appear on security cameras at her home by himself a mere 5 minutes after the victim sent that text. He would meet her in front of her apartment, where he would find her intoxicated after a full day of drinking. He’d let himself into her home and would rape her without a condom, leaving a mere 20 minutes after he arrived. He didn’t care that she wasn’t interested. He didn’t care about her sexual health. He didn’t care about her boundaries at all. Again, this is fairly typical of unicorn hunters, who often see the unicorns as sex toys that exist to please them.

In this post, I don’t mean to imply that only men push for these types of relationships. I objectively know that isn’t true and that sometimes women are capable of doing the same exact thing as men. However, in all my years of coming to these events, I have not met many incredibly enthusiastic women partnered with men just going along for the ride, engaging in things they don’t want to do to satisfy her. When we have this discussion, we cannot ignore the immense pressure of patriarchy. While this wasn’t the case for Bridget, many women I’ve known from these scenarios are in situations where leaving their husbands would come at a significant cost. Sometimes, they’re stay-at-home moms who’ve given up their careers to be homemakers. Often, the women in these scenarios have been pressured by society to put their needs last. So many women are raised to follow their husbands, be agreeable, and think lastly about themselves and what they want. Some women have low self-esteem, and some men bank on that to justify their actions. Being in the scene for as long as I have, I’ve watched these women build themselves up, eventually leave their husbands, and ultimately have no interest in returning to the scene. I’ve also seen women who, similar to my own experience, once had a somewhat unhealthy relationship with these spaces and then returned with a new sense of autonomy. Eventually, they enjoy themselves immensely because they’re finally doing it to please themselves, not their husband. There are far too many people participating in these dynamics for reasons other than their own sexual happiness.

The unfortunate reality is these dynamics are often ruined by homophobia and neglecting the desires of the wives in these scenarios. A husband and wife can enjoy a threesome with a woman where the two women are involved, not because it pleases him but because it pleases the women involved. But part of that happening is generally the husband respecting that she can have desires and attractions independent of him. That much like he has the ability to look at other people and find them sexually desirable, so does she. These relationships often crash and burn because, so often, a woman’s desire comes second to a man’s fetishism.

So commonly, the woman introduced into the relationship is not a woman she’s actually attracted to. Quite frequently, the bisexual wife is attracted to a woman the husband isn’t attracted to. However, she’s not “allowed” to pursue that relationship because it doesn’t satisfy him. If she ever, like him, had a desire to pursue new partners along more heteronormative lines, that would be a problem. As I said, often, the woman is only “allowed” to sleep with women. Specifically, women the man is attracted to. There’s this prevalent idea that any third party introduced into the relationship must be someone who sexually satisfies the man in the relationship. So baked into this dynamic is the idea that the wife’s sexual desire must always come second to the husband’s. So many of these couples are only in the swinger club as a last-ditch effort to save their dead bedroom, which, of course, is almost always presented as her fault. Once you dig a bit deeper, though, you discover that one of the fundamental reasons they’re no longer having sex is because he is utterly disinterested in activities that would sexually satisfy her. When adding to their bedroom, these women are rarely “allowed” to pursue relationships with men or women they’re actually attracted to because that doesn’t satisfy their husbands. I find that couples who can thrive while pursuing additional sexual partners will eventually reach the point where they realize that their love for each other is so deep and so fundamental that they actually become incredibly excited by the idea of their partner reaching sexual happiness. They disconnect from ego and territorial patterns and revel in the idea that someone they love is having a good time. Unfortunately, because of our monogamous programming, many people really struggle to reach that point. You may ask yourself why I go to these events if things like this happen. I keep going back because those people who’ve reached that point have a beautiful, emotionally deep air about them. I’ve gained a lot from being around those people and processing my reservations about sharing my partners. Those people have become part of my “tribe,” so to speak, and they’re great company. That’s why I attend these events and tend to mainly socialize. It’s a massive concentration of people who’ve developed emotional depth around non-monogamy. But there are still plenty of Zieglers in the room.

As I said, Bridget Ziegler may indeed be a closet case who smears the LGBT community in her daily life as a way to cope with her own homosexual feelings. Still, knowing what I know, the idea that she was in a whole relationship with a woman does seem a bit far-fetched. Homophobic men have always fetishized lesbian sex, and there’s no doubt in my mind that if the Zieglers get what they want, and LGBT folks are entirely removed from public life, they will still fetishize lesbian sex. This isn’t the gotcha that some think it is.

I don’t have an ounce of sympathy for Bridget Ziegler because of the environment she and her husband have created for queer folks in Florida. Still, it’s imperative to point out that many women in these dynamics are indeed triangulated into them and that homophobia is a large and present force in many of these dynamics. There’s a massive difference between a couple sexually exploring in an honest, ethical, and mutual way and what I so commonly see. The way these couples use, abuse, groom, and manipulate unicorns reeks of homophobia, and I’d almost argue that for some of these people, homophobia is what gets them off. For some of these men, it’s exciting to pressure their otherwise heterosexual partners into things that are less than heterosexual for their own pleasure. If that’s the scenario, we shouldn’t use this dynamic as a gotcha. It’s just a continuation of the homophobia they express in their daily lives.

If you’d like to hear more about some of the lived experiences of unicorns and understand their positive and negative experiences, please check out the episode of my podcast where I interviewed several people who’ve been unicorns for couples.