Hello, everybody. After a few months of this weirdly sudden and unexpected sexual identity crisis, I have finally gotten past the bargaining phase of attempting to talk myself out of my attraction to women. Phew! honestly, I was so stressed and uncomfortable I'm just so glad to get out of that vicious cycle of denial and guilt. The thing that still bugs me is, I can't tell if I'm gay and struggling with some lingering comp-het, or if I'm bi with a preference for women. (Or just at a phase in my "bi-cycle" where I'm almost exclusively focused on women.) I think that at the moment, "gay" is what suits my everyday experience the best (I don't like "Lesbian" because I think it negates my attraction to nb people). When I'm out and about, I am attracted to women and don't notice men. However, I have had two male crushes. Initially, I was trying to rationalize these crushes as some sort of delusion or misunderstanding brought on by compulsory heterosexuality. Now, it occurs to me that it's not a contradiction to say that I strongly prefer women and still had genuine feeling for these two men. On top of that, I had several hard-core crushes on male characters throughout my childhood. My sexual fantasies now are pretty much exclusively about women, but every once in a blue moon a dude sneaks in there. Reading through other people's coming out stories, it seems a common experience for gay people, once they come out to themselves, to experience a "fading away" of what they thought was het attraction. I have experienced that to some degree; in the past year I went from consciously pursuing straight fantasies and fighting off thoughts of women, to fantasizing about women almost exclusively. Also, I know porn habits aren't a great indicator of sexuality, but one of the things that threw me into the, "holy shit I'm not straight", is that I become aroused by images/videos of women, while dicks turn me off. I know that sounds like I'm pretty clear-cut gay, but I can't get past the thought that I can think of a "type" of dude I'd theoretically fuck, as well as some het fantasies that I think are pretty hot (although these fantasies are more vague and situational than my fantasies about women.) I know the only real solution to this is just more time and experience. The reason why I'd like some advice is that I've decided to write a coming-out letter to my parents. They are very conservative and pretty uneducated about sexuality. Having a specific term that I feel confident in would help me express myself. I know that I like girls. I've felt there was something shameful and "off" about my sexuality since I was 11-12. I'm tired of constantly censoring and hiding myself (in general, not just sexuality) in order to please my parents. I want to start being more honest and authentic or I feel like I'll go insane. So, what do you think? Am I Bi or Gay? Thank you!! This blog has really helped me through this crisis where I otherwise felt very alone. I look forward to being able to change my status out of "questioning".
