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Am I bi? Pan? Demi?

Discussion in 'Sexual Orientation' started by Taavi, May 28, 2024.

  1. Taavi

    Regular Member

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    Questioning
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    People keep telling me it doesn't matter but I don't like not understanding something and I think I really would feel better if I had a word for what I'm experiencing.

    I'm a cis guy who up until very recently thought he was straight. I was never attracted sexually or romantically to a guy. The girls I was into were all conventionally feminine. I have at a point wondered if I might be somewhere on the very edge of the ace spectrum (like demi or grey or something) because I have noticed one several occasions that my sex drive isn't that high and that I often like the idea of having sex more than the actual act. Don't get me wrong, I like sex, but I rarely think it's better than masturbation.
    And now I'm into a guy. Emphasise on "a". One. Singular. I'm not into men in general, I still don't find them sexually appealing. But I'm very into this one specific guy.
    I did not fall in love with him and then developed a sexual attraction to him. I think that would make more sense to me. Instead we joked around and it turned sexual and I let it happen out of curiosity. And then over the course of the following weeks I became massively sexually attracted to this guy and I'm by now not sure if I'm not also developing romantic feelings for him.
    What I've also noticed is that in this "relationship" I play a more passive part which is different to my past relationships with women. I have no interest in being the active part and am glad he's mostly a top, so me bottoming works out.
    I'm mostly confused about the fact that I suddenly developed this intense sexual attraction to a guy without having ever been attracted to one before and also still not finding men generally sexually attractive.
    Could it be that I'm demi or something like that? Maybe I'm technically open to anything but never noticed because I'm only attracted to people under very specific circumstances and it just so happened that none of them was a guy before?
     
    Bifrost and Right Field 6 like this.
  2. JT1999

    Regular Member

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    I have no answers for you but I went through similar when I was 16. Had no interest in women sexually, but drunkenly shared a bed with a friend, things got sexual, I enjoyed it and it happened more times. I didn't really understand it either, I would have said I was straight at that point, and even now nearly 10 years later although I would classify myself as bisexual, I still consider myself to have been straight until something changed.

    My theory, and I'm not trying to say this is scientific fact, but it is how I have come to understand what happened to me, is that for whatever reason, whether its curiousity, drunk, guards down or something else, we go through with something that a straight person usually wouldn't do. We enjoy it. That in itself is a reason to do it again, and so we do it more times. The act of engaging in and enjoying same-sex sex alters what we find attractive?
     
    Right Field 6 and Ipswichfan like this.
  3. tallslenderguy

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    Speculating here.

    So many of our notions about human sexuality are speculative. Even science is an ongoing pursuit of knowledge, evidence, it rarely produces evidence that is static because we live in an infinite universe. i think we can find a framework to work within, words, identifiers that help us communicate and connect. To the OP, i think you do a great job communicating. Even though you do not have one or two words like "Bi" or "pan" or ___________, that sum you up, you are able to give a picture of who and how you are now.

    If human sexuality is physically wired into our brain, neuroplasticity can factor into the equation. We know that when we practice a thing, the neurons in the brain responsible for that activity strengthen, multiply. Again, i am only speculating, but i can imagine that exercising the initial connection you felt to this guy, it became stronger, more enhanced? By more enhanced, i am thinking it pulled in other areas of the brain as well. Your experience as bottom is new. There seem parts of your brain that connected with, and exercising what was there is strengthening that and pulling in other areas around it. While some of this is speculation on my part, some of it is based on the science of neuroplasticity.

    Another thought is, there has been (a hetero) study that demonstrates absorbed semen has a bonding effect on the brain, here's and excerpt and link to an article re the study:

    "If that effect is real, depression in some people might be treatable with artificial-semen suppositories. Gordon Gallup of the State University of New York at Albany, who carried out the study, says a PhD student of his has replicated the finding in a survey of 1000 women, but the results were never published."
    https://www.newscientist.com/articl...e been claims that,on a measure of depression.
     
  4. Bifrost

    Regular Member

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    My male and female attractions differ, and I spent quite awhile looking for labels that would describe what was happening. I used Demi for awhile to try to describe how my male attractions seemed to be much stronger than my female ones, even though I was happily married to a woman for many years. These days I've settled instead on the bi-cycle concept, since things have evened up a bit, and bi is all anyone needs to know about my sexuality (except on this forum of course!)
     
    JT1999 likes this.