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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/38365
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/38365
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

### People Say in Jest What They Mean in Earnest.

I am adding a separate answer because I thought of something unrelated to my first. The above is a saying with much truth in it: People often joke about things, when they are probing, or unsure of the company they keep, so that if anybody takes offense they can say _"Sorry, really, I was just joking."_.

You can use that for your hints. You say (in commentary) "The character in question is in her early twenties". Certainly in America, most women have lost their virginity by then (for women, the average age of first intercourse is about 16.3; only about 25% are still virgins at 21). A bisexual woman would likely have had at least ONE boyfriend by then.

If you make that known for your character, that she did have a heterosexual "serious" or "long term" relationship in the past, people (in the book and readers) will assume that involved hetero intercourse. Since it would be true for your character, she can even make that clear, without lying (to other characters or the reader).

Then you can combine the assumption that she is straight with a sense of humor that she often jokes as if she is attracted to women. All these hints at the truth are concealed as jests (she says in jest what she means in earnest).

Until your reveal comes. Then, reading back, a reader could see that every joke wasn't exactly a joke, there was some truth in it; but because she is not promiscuous, she does not follow through with any actual action, or if somebody seems alarmed or some girl seems to take her up on the joke, she responds that she was just telling a lame joke, she didn't mean anything by it.

Original score: 2