Questioning for years - advice and opinions

Hello all,

First of all respect to all of you how open and helpful you are here!

I come here from time to time to see if some problems here also apply to my situation, but ultimately we are all individually different so I would like to share my story and my "problems" with you, maybe you have something to say. (Hopefully!) Warning, it will be very long and detailed!

About me: I am in my early 30s and sexually very inexperienced and unsure about my sexual orientation. I have been plagued by these thoughts for several years now, sometimes more, sometimes less intensely (and I don't want to offend anyone with the word "plague"), I just feel this way.

I got my first girlfriend at 19, we met at a party and quickly became very close. From the beginning I was worried about the first time, because I had no idea about what to do and she was already quite experienced. Should I tell her or not? She finally took this decision from me when it came to it a few weeks after we got together, however, nothing worked with me as soon as I wanted to penetrate her. When kissing and everything else I had and have no problems. This lasted a total of 3 months, after a few failed attempts and an attempt with rapid ejaculation after I made it into her, it was over. However, there were no negative thoughts about the erection issue, I just thought it was because I was absolutely nervous and totally inexperienced.

About half a year later I met someone new, with whom I got together after several meetings and half a year. At the beginning I was of course nervous and estimated her that we wanted to take it a little slower, but after only 1 week it came to our first attempt to have sex. I remember thinking "What? Already? Let's just enjoy the fact that we found each other first. I have no idea what I'm doing here." But it didnt work also. And then the failed attempts with my first girlfriend came back to my mind and I thought that maybe something was not quite right. That was the beginning of a downward spiral. During kissing and foreplay everything was fine, it excited me, but as soon as it came to penetrating her, nothing worked for me. We were together a little longer than 1 year and she showed enormous patience with me, however I made little effort to change anything, as it was of course extremely uncomfortable for me. The pills that my doctor had prescribed me did not help either, so my trust in this way was also kind of disturbed. Perhaps 3 moments should be emphasized in this relationship. 1) After a failed attempt, my girlfriend asked me if I was gay. I was of course shocked. It never came to my mind before. Weren't the feelings for my girlfriend real? After all, I wanted to sleep with her. But that might explain why I couldn't stay hard. As much as this confused and hit me at that moment, it didn't matter to me afterwards, because I didnt believed that I was gay. 2) One evening I should massage her back, that became then more and more intense and I finally had the opportunity to explore her body without any expectations. She was also not very satisfied with her appearance and told me on other occasions that I should not look at her too closely in certain places, because she does not like that. Since I was partly like that myself and very insecure and not satisfied with my outward appearance , I understood that and really stuck to it. But at that moment she was just lying there and I could enjoy her and touch her everywhere. I got an erection that was hard as steel and didn't disappear either. I remember thinking "wow, this woman is just insanely attractive and I would love to have sex with her and touch her everywhere“. Shortly after that she satisfied me with her hand and not a minute later I came. 3) One evening she was standing in the bathroom and I kissed her from behind and my penis was pressed against her butt. I got an erection and it resulted that I „penetrated her butt cheeks“ (without penetrating her). However, when she then said "now put it in me" and leaned forward, my erection went away almost instantly.

In retrospect, I would describe the last two situations as the most erotic things I have experienced, even when I think about it today, years later, it does not leave me cold. Despite her really remarkable patience, our relationship ended after a little more than a year, the main reason was probably my problem.

Even after that I met someone again and again, it never came to sex either because I blocked out of fear or because it was not enough emotionally.

In general, it should be said that I always got a strong erection when kissing and also produced a lot of precum (maybe a little too much).

A few years later I then found online a page where anonymous people chatted and also showed pictures, out of sheer desperation, because no woman was online that day, I looked in the channel for homosexuals to see if there was by chance a woman. I read some of the posts and looked at the pictures and noticed that not the pictures themselves somehow turned me on but much more the permissiveness and openness that prevailed there. I didn't get an erection but somehow my penis swelled slightly, as if it were a precursor to an erection. And that was the moment when my ex's question came back into my head ("Are you perhaps gay?"), and I doubted myself. I kept checking the channel from then on, seeing if I found gay porn arousing and questioning everything. (The result is actually always the same, no erection but a certain preliminary stage). When I saw a man in public who e.g only had a cool style, the thought came directly to my mind if maybe I noticed him much more because of him than his style. From then on, I questioned everything. The thoughts come up in phases, as soon as someone says something in a video or I read something even remotely along those lines, it all starts all over again, no matter how convinced I was the second before that I wasn't gay. Then I watch porn to convince myself that I am not, think excessively about any reactions of my body. Then in those moments there is not much room for anything else.

At some point, of course, I read about HOCD, which may apply to me in some aspects, I have already shown some behaviors that could be described as compulsive (probably comparatively rather weak) in childhood and partly now (checking several times in the evening if the front door is locked, washing my hands more than enough several times in a row [due to a serious illness in the past this crept in], as a child I always had to say goodnight to my parents in a certain way and a certain amount of times otherwise I was afraid that something would happen to them,...). But on the other hand, I think maybe there really is something in me that I am subconsciously suppressing? Maybe for this reason I can't enjoy homosexual porn and pictures and that's why I don't show any (proper) reaction? I have masturbated exclusively to straight porn (watched and still watch a lot) for a lot of years, maybe any reactions I have to women are pure habit?

Additionally, I have to mention that in my early teens there was an incident with my best friend. I had just figured out how to satisfy myself and was beginning to discover myself. We watched some explicit videos and then he briefly pleasured me without me cumming. And I liked it then, for the reason that someone was touching me and I didn't have to do it myself, not because I found him or his body attractive. After that, there was nothing.

I usually only had crushes on women, but was far too shy to initiate anything, as said above i was and am still not very satisfied with my outward appearance and am still not.

In general, perhaps it should be noted that I also do not get directly stiff when I see a naked woman, it takes some moments.

Meanwhile, I can not enjoy masturbation in most cases, because negative thoughts always come up. But as soon as I'm relatively relaxed and I notice how any questions arise, I literally notice how the desire and the excitement decreases.

As soon as I see a good-looking woman, i think that I find her very attractive, but directly also the thought comes up that I could not have sex with her anyway. In addition, this has nothing to say, since also homosexual people can feel the opposite sex at least outwardly beautiful, perhaps that is with me the case.

Besides, I also noticed that as soon as one of my girlfriends touched me in the genital area, be it with hand or mouth, or if I was inside her after all, I don't really feel it, as if I was almost numb or deadened in that area.

However, as soon as I have overcome these homo/bisexual thoughts, I can really feel how I am totally relieved and at that moment I also look positively into the future.

Of course, on the one hand, this could be a sign that I feel much more comfortable with it, but maybe here again only the habit has crept in or the fear. On the other hand, it could also be an expression of suppressed homosexuality, with which I can not make friends with.


Some open questions which keep me questioning/which are in my head:

• Do i only get errected while kissing, massaging, etc. becausethese are only things that don’t necessarily are linked to intimacy between a woman & a man. Technically i could do this to a man too. And the errection goes away when it comes to the vagina-related things that are directly linked to a woman?
• Is the only way to get a certain answer to all of this to try make out/sleep with a man?
• Maybe i am really gay/bi, because obviously the thoughts about it keep coming back which maybe means that i dont believe myself being heterosexual.

I would like to mention again that I really don't want to offend anyone, this is just how I feel about everything.

Thanks for reading till now and sorry that this has become very detailed, I just don't want to leave out anything important. My head is a mess when it comes to this issue so this text could be a bit messy as well.

I would be very grateful for your opinions and advices.


Greetings