Hello, I’m a 24 year old male and I have been questioning my sexuality since the fifth grade. I’m hoping to gain some else’s perspective on my experiences (hope you don’t mind a little reading because I’m gonna start from the beginning). When I was in fifth grade I had my first sexual dreams and they all involved men. I remember having a crush on one of my male friends as well, and my gay hairdresser lol. I tried desperately to feel attractions to women at that time and spent almost all of my teenage years repressing my homosexual feelings and trying to force myself to be attracted to women. My sexual feelings were basically exclusively for men at this time. In middle school and high school I had some experiences with women, mostly driven by social status, and had mixed results. After I was disappointed with my first time having sex (with a girl when I was 17), I decided to come out as gay to my family. They were supportive if a little ignorant at times. However, right after this happened (I had stoppedrepressing my homosexual feelings for the most part), I found myself being attracted to women in a sports unlimited swim suit magazine my friends were oogling over. I was extremely confused after that, and actually very happy because in my mind I thought there was “hope” for me after all. I revised my coming out with my family and now told them I was bisexual. Anyway, after all this I read online late in high school that if you weren’t sure you should experiment with both men and women. So In college I had some (not a ton) sexual experience with men and women. I liked the experiences with women for the most part, but never orgasmed. My experiences with men though, I did almost every time, and I enjoyed the experiences with men more. These experiences have led me to contemplate coming out as gay multiple times since, but there are still things that hold me back, because I do find myself being attracted to women and men at different times (think sports illustrated incident). Even though I think the sexual experiences in college seem telling, I am afraid of coming out to everyone, only to repeat the same scenario that happened with my family when I was 17. the truth is I really don’t know why I can find women attractive then find sex with women disappointing. Was it because of lack of experience? Should I just give up on women? Should I experiment more? Should I come out as bisexual? What is my actual sexuality? Any and all thoughts are greatly appreciated, thanks.
Hey! What you describe is pretty common to a lot of folks trying to figure themselves out. A couple thoughts: FIrst: Sexual orientation isn't binary or trinary, it's a spectrum. The reference most commonly used is the Kinsey scale, where 0 is totally straight, 6 is totally gay, and the numbers in between reflect various levels in one direction or the other. Interestingly, Kinsey found that only about 10% of the population is entirely at 0 or 6, everyone else is on the spectrum. Second: The messages we get from society, organized religion, media, etc really mess with us. We all have internalized homophobia, and yours is evident in "I thought there was 'hope' for me after all", because it implies that it isn't 'hopeful' to be gay. Which, by the way, pretty much every gay person in the world experienced when they were contemplating coming out. Now... from what you are describing, it's really hard to make a credible case that you're straight, and not easy to make a good case you're bisexual. There are plenty of gay men who can appreciate the female form, can feel some sense of "wow, she's beautiful"... but who have no interest in actually having sex. So one question you can ask yourself: When you were attracted to the women in the swimsuit issue... did you masturbate thinking about them? Or did your fantasies remain focused on men? My guess is they probably were mostly focused on guys, and if that's the case, well... you sort of have your answer. The answer being, you're probably gay, but you aren't ready to let go of the idea you could have a "normal" family and life. When we process any loss (in this case, loss of being straight), we go through stages: denial-anger-bargaining-depression-acceptance. They aren't necessarily sequential, and can take minutes... or years. "bargaining" looks a lot like "OK, I like guys, but I could still end up with a girl." The thing is... if you were never able to orgasm with a woman, don't feel any particular attraction, always feel attraction to guys, and have much more intense experiences fantasizing about or being with guys, it's really hard to make any credible case you're bisexual. It doesn't sound like there's any real attraction to women. And before somebody comes along and suggests it... no, there's no credible data anywhere that suggests there's discordant sexual and romantic orientations that are separate. What people often describe as "romantic orientation" is otherwise known as "emotionally intimate friendship." So I suggest ignoring that, as it's really just noise that gets in the way of finding your truth. This is probably not what you want to hear. But remember... it's one person's opinion. Only you can know. The question to ask yourself is, does the above resonate for you?
Hi Chip, thanks for replying, I know there was a lot to unpack. Im going to think about your points because a lot of what you said does resonate. Anyway just wanted to say thanks for replying.
I chime in here not because I can offer better advice than Chip's (which is perfect), but because I resonate with part of what you say. I only figured out my sexuality when I was one year older than your current age. And I also had a long struggle. One thing that helped me was trying to read my own posts as if they were someone else's... If you read your post trying to be analytical and objective (forget that it was you who wrote it), what does it sound like? There were three main ways in which I was trying to lie to myself about liking women and I could only find some peace when I learnt to accept them as what they were. (1) I feel some strange aesthetical fascination for some women (very few, actually). It's infrequent, but it's always happened and will always happen. My conclusion is that I don't need to put a name to it nor to understand it completely, as I'm 100 % sure that I don't want to have sex with those women -- I just have to start thinking about it and after a few seconds I know it doesn't work. It wasn't so clear in the past, and I found it quite difficult to interpret before I reached this point. One thing I did notice, though, was that to me a woman without lingerie on was always less interesting than a woman with it on (I wonder what happens if you start thinking about the girls of the magazine without the swimming suits and that way showing what they have underneath...). (2) I've always seen being intimate with a woman as something I *could* do, more than something that I would *want* to do. If live a long life and never try it, I'll have zero regrets. With men on the other hand, it's a completely different story. (3) Deep inside, I wanted so so much to not be gay (I wanted some "hope") that I was desperate to be just a bit bi, and to be able to hide all the gay part from the world and marry a woman. I tried to convince myself that I "liked" a few girls over the years (mainly two), but in the end when I look back I realise that I only saw that they objectively ticked some boxes of desirability, but the wild and crazy drive was totally missing. To me, your swimming suit episode sounds like a mixture of really wanting to not be gay like in (3) and of the strange feelings of (1). I know other gay men that feel that kind of appreciation with subtle differences. And, by the way, is that episode really the best you have to convince the gay jury that you like women? Really really? Think for a minute on how solid it sounds as a piece of evidence. Maybe you can find reading my good ole thread useful in some way. The main takeaway is that doing some reasonable amount of introspection and of looking into your past is a good thing, so joining EC was a great thing to do! Posting is good, but so is reading (e.g., this thread was immensely helpful for me). I used to think gay men had a "ew" attitude towards women, but it's actually "meh." It's the difference between being able to do it and having strong urges to do it. I come out to other people because they are important to me and I want to be more true to myself, or because hiding who I am would give me less freedom. You can only do it for the first reason once you've come out to yourself. And the second one doesn't require you to revise your bi status to gay -- you can still do whatever with men and then have your "eureka" moment at some point. Relax, enjoy the journey, remember that progress isn't always linear, and keep in mind that in the end only you can tell.
This is a really good point that often gets overlooked. *Most* gay men are simply "meh" when they think about women sexually. It doesn't excite them, it doesn't revulse them. It's just "There's nothing particularly interesting about that." This is also at least part of why some gay men are able to be married, have sex, produce kids. They aren't really sexually attracted to the women, and many will (eventually) admit to actually fantasizing about guys while having sex with their wives. ANd there are also some that are genuinely grossed out, but I suspect in many of those cases, there's probably some sort of trauma that happened that created the "ewww." Related to the "meh" / "ewww" thing: For some guys who masturbate thinking about guys, everything is just great until they orgasm. And then, immediately after ejaculating, they feel completely disgusted and gross and nasty. This doesn't mean they aren't gay; what's happening there is the normal, biological change in neurotransmitters associated with orgasm pleasure immediately after orgasm. (It's the same thing that, for some kids, makes them feel really guilty after masturbating, regardless of what they were fantasizing.) That's evolutionary... back when we lived in cages, if there weren't something to make us lose interest after sex, we would never have left our caves to go forage for food and such. Today, the shame after masturbating when thinking about guys is simply our conscious mind rejecting (thanks to the negative messages from society) what we genuinely feel attraction from. I've found that understanding what's going on for us, can help bring better understanding of what we are really feeling.
Love the meh /ew analogy ! I can relate to the post orgasm thingy ...been working on it Lamphead I gota say, as long as you keep that “chill” that I sense through your writing you’ll be fine !
