The former Bachelorette also shared how she and Robby Hoffman feel about marriage and kids.
Gabby Windey is opening up about her new relationship. The same month that the former Bachelorette revealed she was dating a woman named Robby Hoffman, she appeared on the Just B With Bethenny Frankel podcast where she discussed many aspects of her romance, sex included.
"I feel safer with a woman. I feel less judged. I feel like there's nothing off limits. If I have a question, I'm going to ask, before, after, during," she said. "We will debrief on our sex life. It feels very safe."
"I feel like that part has been really freeing for me. With us, yeah it's a little awkward, but it's worth it, because we want to talk about everything and we want to make sure the other person is pleased and happy," Windey added. "Sex is fun! It's freeing, it's liberating, especially when you do it with someone that you feel safe with... I need an emotional connection [with sex], and with Robby I feel very emotionally connected."
In contrast, Gabby, who was previously engaged to Erich Schwer, said that, in the past, she felt that there were both "unrealistic" and "unsaid" expectations during sex with men.
"We weren't as open about it," she said. "We weren't speaking the same language. I didn't feel as connected."
Another difference between Windey's past relationships with men and her current relationship with Hoffman is how she now feels the ability to "be a little more romantic and cheesy."
"You just get to be a lot softer and loving. She asked me to be her girlfriend with a ring pop. So cute. [It happened] two weeks in. She wrote me a little card," she said. "We are always giving each other cards. She got me these earrings for our three-month anniversary. We celebrate every month."
Windey noted on the podcast that she began questioning her sexuality while on the Dancing With the Stars tour, after considering herself to be "as straight as they came" for most of her life.
"We were watching Perfect Match, the dating show on Netflix, and they had a queer storyline with two girls. It seemed very genuine, as genuine as it could be. It was the first time I saw girls who I kind of identified with," she said. "... We stereotype people. When people talked about lesbians, it was only girls who carried themselves a little more masculine... I was like, 'OK, this is clearly sparking something in me.'"
Amid that experience, Windey reached out to one of her best friends, a queer woman who is dating a woman, to ask her questions.
"She was kind of like my sherpa in a way. When I moved back to L.A. she took me to all these queer events," Windey said. "... She's not really one way. She's just herself... I feel like that kind of opened up my mind too. She wasn't a stereotype."
Eventually, Windey decided to start "trying to date girls."
"I'm like, 'I want to explore my sexuality.' I had been on a date with a woman. I was on Raya," she said. "I was like, 'I want to give it a shot.'"
Then, while outside a bar one night, Windey was introduced to Hoffman.
"Robby came right over. She's like, 'What's this? The Bachelorette's gay? What's going on?'" Windey recalled. "[She] had us all eating out of the palm of her hand, just winning us over with her charisma and humor."
"My friends were speaking for me because I was just kind of stunned. We were all kind of drunk, whatever. My friends were like, 'She's exploring.' Robby was like, 'How old are you?' I was like, 'I'm 32.' And she was like, 'OK, you're gay. Nobody explores this late in life,'" she added. "... She was winning me over... She was like, 'I'm not going to lie, Gabby, I want your number.'"
Not long after, the women went out on their first date "and the rest is history."
"I think love is the great intangible. It's hard to really explain. It's hard accurately convey. But when I'm talking about my relationship it's literally not so much that I'm in a relationship with a woman, it's, like, I'm in a relationship, in love, for one of the first times," Windey said. "It feels just the same. It's like I'm not even seeing her gender. I honestly do think real love transcends gender to a point, and I truly feel like that."
"This is happiest I've ever been. I feel like I'm a prophet. I have to spread the good word about what it means to be in a good relationship," she added. "I've finally been taught about what love is for the first time. I feel like I've just been told wrong my whole life, not even just gender, but what it means to be in a relationship."
Windey, who noted that she hasn't heard "a peep" from Schwer since publicly announcing her new relationship, noted that it took work to get her into this positive headspace.
"I was in therapy because I think I still had a lot of shame surrounding it, so I had to work through that before I could really go in this relationship guns blazing," she said. "And then we were spending a lot of time together like lesbians do and new love. I'm like, 'I don't know if this is just convenient or I'm really into it.' And then things kind of started to slow down and we're really open about it... We both have our s**t together. We're both very driven and career-minded."
While Windey hopes to one day legally tie the knot with Hoffman because "it's just another way that we get to commit to each other," neither she nor her girlfriend want children.
"We don't want kids. Both of us didn't want them separately... We both had tumultuous childhoods. We've both been through so much as kids. We want to be kids now. We are kids. We play so much," Windey said. "We want to be able to have room for ourselves, and really treat our relationship like our child. That is our priority. We want to throw all of our resources into protecting it and growing it."
Windey also appeared on the Bachelor Happy Hour podcast and shared that she's "never been happier" than she is right now.
"It feels like a huge weight has been lifted," she said. "Life is easy for once in a relationship. I feel like I've never had that before."
Rachel Recchia, Windey's co-Bachelorette, agreed, saying on the podcast, "Gabby, in the relationship with Robby, I've never seen her so happy. It makes me want to cry, because I just want to see her, at the end of the day, with the person she's supposed to be with."
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