Is it common to shut down and avoid any sexual urges while in denial/repression?

It's common enough. We read a lot about it here, so just think of all the people out there who aren't even talking about this same situation.

We shouldn't jump to internalized homophobia. There could be a lot of reasons men don't act on advances and still be honest with themselves that they like guys.

It could be that you're in school and you don't want someone talking about a one time roll in the hay. It could also be like that in the workplace, which can get super messy. Everyone has different levels of privacy and one party might think the event comes with bragging rights.

You also might not yet know what is safe, low risk, and high risk sexual involvement. A really big one is that once a person has gone ahead and had sex, they might be realists and know that it will be hard to stuff the genie back in the bottle!

Once people move some of these factors out of the way, they may act on their same sex sexual desires. I can't tell anyone when to do that or not to do that.

 

It's a common reaction, especially amongst people who are aware of their sexuality, but are still in denial or in the closet. I've heard many gay guys talk about the need to resolve the inner conflict and tell those who need to know first. Until that happens they make themselves "off limits" and just satisfy themselves.

 

Yep. What Patrick said describes what I suspect was the reality of many if not most of us experienced while trying to cope with the closet.

 

Yes, when I was in denial I did this, and I would even get 'mad' that some 'gay guy' hit on me. I also reacted very uneasily when two girlfriends asked if I was gay. I wasn't ready to accept it or hear it.

The damn started to crack when I realized I was panicking because my gut reaction to myself was "they know I am gay", I didn't say to myself "they think I am gay", I said "they know [my secret]"

It sounds like you were more accepting of yourself than I was. I would treat my homosexual feelings as some sort of malady that needed to be cured. It could be because I never accepted 'bi' as a label or possibility, the house of cards about my sexuality would fall apart.

and once we start to resolve it's often been described here like a damn bursting or a tsunami, denial and false attraction to women fades rapidly

 

Before i accepted myself I had one drunk hookup and a couple other attempts and I felt guilty about them for years and agonized over them. I think it actually made me go back into the closet and repress myself even more because I convinced myself that it was not appealing to me.

Acceptance can be tough but it is a mind numbing judo flip -the thing you are fighting the most and burning up all of you energy is actually the thing that will stop the inner conflict.

My experiences having sex after acceptance were much more satisfying and affirming, and after having sex I felt fulfilled, not guilty or empty.

Before I accepted myself, I always felt empty after having sex with women and gulity after self satisfying gay fantasies. Even after acceptance, I feared that if I orgasmed I would suddenly go back into guilt and denial so my first hook ups were giving blow jobs and not orgasming in any way. The first time I orgasmed during gay sex (bottoming) I surprised, I felt tired, satisfied, fulfilled, but no guilty, I felt almost as if it was a ritual that finally got rid of the denial.

 

Good post but this stood out to me.

I think I've said dam bursting, or breaking, a few times on here. It's that fixing something like that would be almost impossible! To me, it means that if a person has acted on their impulses, desires, or whatever they might be called, it is likely to happen again. Some people are beside themselves that this has happened. I wasn't and the story that went with it was very out there, so I have always thought it was funny. The therapist I really liked had this interesting "whatever" look on his face when I told him I thought these events were funny. Maybe that's how I took or take off the edge after sex under these circumstances. I don't know why I've always had a lighthearted way of looking at sex, but there are other things that don't shock or offend most people that instead sometimes upset me.