I've heard of the kinsey scale, and looking online I've read a lot about bisexual people who feel they are mostly straight but have some same sex attraction, but I've never heard someone say the inverse of this. Does anyone on this forum have this kind of orientation? Sometimes I feel like I'm losing my attraction to women and replacing it with attraction to men, so any pointers in this area would be helpful.
Hey Karax, I'm a Bi guy who currently has a stronger attraction to men than women, but that has fluctuated over time. I don't think it is accurate for bisexual people to describe themselves as 'more straight' or 'more gay' or even '50-50.' To begin with, from a technical point of view, if you are Bi, you are bi. You are not 'almost' or 'more' or 'mostly' either gay or straight. It is a pet-peeve of mine because I feel that it minimizes the bisexual community and clouds the fact that sexual is truly a spectrum. Second, while I don't know of any scientific studies on the subject, I have heard ample evidence, including many anecdotal stories here on EC from bisexual people, who talk about how their attractions fluctuate over time. For some people, it can happen quickly (over as short a period as days) and for others (myself, included) it can happen over much longer periods of time. For myself, I can say that I have experienced a fluctuation/fluidity in my attractions from mostly males to mostly females and back to mostly males over a period of decades. Does that help?
Thanks for the response Quantam . It definitely does. I've heard and even read the same things actually. That people "switch" between men and women over periods of time. I wonder if other aspects of their personality, like their mannerisms, change as well? For me, girls have always been the predominant gender i'm attracted to. To give you an idea, think about it this way: For two years, I wrestled in High School. If you were to tell a 15 year old straight kid, that he got to be in close physical contact with girls 2 hours each day, he would be estatic, to say the least. Imagine that kid seeing girls in the locker room every day, he'd be pretty excited right? Well that's just the thing, I wasn't excited. I can't remember feeling any kind of arousal in wrestling, which is kind of odd for someone who supposedly would have same-sex attractions. Growing up, I feel like, if anything, I was more into girls than the average kid. Anyways yeah, somewhat recently, I slowly lose attraction to pussies I guess you can say. While I can some of it for dicks, and I get this really, really bizzare feeling that I know I find women more attractive but I can't bring myself to feel attraction like I used to. I still really notice when I see an attractive girl but I don't know, it's just not as easy to get stimulated looking at a vagina like I used to, only (warning, kind of graphic) lesbian anal porn really turns me on and even then it's harder to get off than normal. I often feel very contradictory feelings, wherein I might be attracted to scenes in bisexual porn but then I also am grossed out by them at the same time. I read about a study where bisexual men supposedly had a "genital preference" (don't know if it were repeated + definitely can't generalize to such a diverse population) in that bisexual men tended to prefer one set of genitals over another. I wonder if that has anything to do with it? All in all, just very confusing and frustrating that something like this is so firmly outside of my control, and is also inconsistent. .
Prior to the shift that brought me to the realization I am pansexual.... yes. Prior to getting together with Gideon, as a single man not looking for a relationship and just wanting to get laid... I preferred men over women. In my experience they do NSA better, but that was not the only reason. I enjoy sex with a partner that has guy parts better than I do with someone that has chick parts. (Yes, I had a much simpler and more vulgar phrasing in my brain but I tried to clean it up... and now it looks weird.) That said? If they "click" with me, they click, and I really am (was, as I'm now in a monogamous relationship) pretty equal opportunity as long as the connection and chemistry was there.
I think predominant is the key word. Most straight and gay people are predominantly attracted to the opposite/same sex, but there may be occasions when they feel something different. Some will feel the need to explore it, many will decide not to and for the most part they will never mention it or worry about it. Are these people the Kinsey 1's and 5's? Maybe... maybe not. The Kinsey scale has a place in helping us to understand sexuality, but it's not a precision tool. I think it's unfair to bisexual people to describe them as more gay or more straight. It might be true that they have a stronger leaning towards men/women at a given moment or period in time, but for many bisexual people it's quite fluid and changeable. In the end, we must choose a reasonable label that feels right for us. Nobody can tell another person who they are or what they are.
Yeah I sometimes get this compulsion to explain it to other people, like I feel like other people need to feel it checks out. It would be much better for me to get over that hunch. I get a feeling I will lean towards women in the long term. Funnily enough, when I "indulge" and watch male-male porn, i actually get tired of it pretty quickly and then lean back to women. It makes me wonder if perhaps I'm more of a 2 or even a 1 on the scale. 2 seems more reasonable.
I think I am the reverse of this! I'm still figuring this out for myself because I feel like neither bisexual, nor lesbian feel completely right for the moment. I currently identify as a Kinsey 4,5 or 5. I've only accepted about half a year ago I'm into girls (I'm 20) and at first I though I was bi but I realised I haden't actually that much attraction to guys even before. Even though the attraction towards men was never much, it was definitely there. But ever since I admitted I'd love to be with a girl, I'm having a hard time seeing myself with a guy Sometimes I feel like what you said, like I replaced my attaraction to men with women. I've started to come out to people by just explaining to them what I feel instead of using labels. I really want to be with a girl right now but I feel like I can't exclude I'll ever fall for a man. I'll just try to go with the flow. As for you, no one can tell you who you are accept for you. I've never felt arousal or excitement in locker rooms, I always felt really uncomfortable and like I didn't really know where to look. I still don't like locker rooms that much. You might be a kinsey 1,2,3... or have a fluid sexuality but that's up to you to discover. I know it's difficult but the moments I decided to try and think less about it, were the moments that made things clearer. Try to just live your life and see who attracts you without foccussing to much on it. Could you actually imagine yourself in a realationship with a man? having sex with a man? is it the same or different for women? If there was not one judging you (including yourself) who would you want to be with? men, women, both? However you decide to indentify is up to you and it's ok if it changes over time
Can someone tell me more about their experiences regarding the "switching" phenomena? Where you start off attracted to one sex but slowly replace that attraction for another sex. Sort of what QuantamReality talked about when he said that sometimes he's mainly into men vs being mainly into women.
Karax: There is an earlier thread in "Sexual Orientation" w the title "How does bisexual switching work" that u may find interesting. Reading your posts, much of the content is about who you're attracted to, genitals, & porn. That's only a portion of the enchilada. Other portions are: - who (if anyone) have u had sex with (m & f, only f or only m)? - do u have any kind of close relationship w someone you've had sex with? - in your circle of friends, are u closer to guys or girls? - if u have a best friend, are they m or f? For me, this is the heart of the enchilada. Porn is a head/genital visual thing, that doesn't always indicate who we're drawn to. I'm asking more heart questions, to indicate your sexual orientation.
I think the idea of "switching" is sort of deceptive and relatively uncommon. What is actually relatively common is for someone to grow up assuming they're straight, behaving and acting that way... and at some point, coming to a realization that they are attracted to people of the same sex. Because this tends to challenge a very solid and complex schema of who we believe we are, there's a lot of denial about that initially, but as acceptance and acknowledgement of the same-sex attraction develops, the schema changes, and with that, it's very common that the conscious awareness of same-sex attraction grows... and often, the attraction to the opposite sex fades away. This doesn't mean that bisexuals don't exist, but it's more common, statistically, for people to cluster at one end of the spectrum or the other. Additionally, as people process the loss of identity as straight, the stages of loss (denial-anger-bargaining-grief-acceptance) come into play, and in the bargaining phase, it's very common for the process to look like "Well, I like same-sex partners, but I can still end up with an opposite sex partner". It's a bit of embracing the new while still holding onto the old. And for those who are at the same-sex end of the spectrum, letting go of the idea that the opposite sex attraction still exists can be hard. This isn't to say you aren't bi... just that the experience you have is also quite consistent with someone just coming to terms with being gay as well. So it could be either. It seems somewhat unlikely you're completely straight, based on what you've said, but that's possible as well. Hopefully the above gives you some things to think about. Often, simply giving yourself time is the best way to come to terms with what you're experiencing.
I'm more attracted to women over men. I would say it's about 60/40, maybe 75/25. I never deny an attraction to men, but for the most part I like women. I have seen guys that made me swoon, but not too often.
Hey Tomas, sorry for getting back so late: 1. I'm a total virgin as I can be pretty shy around women and am slightly overweight, so i'd feel really insecure. 2. I haven't ever had an actual relationship, but instead I've always tended to have intense, long-term crushes on women. 3. I tend to mainly have male friends, I'm friends with people of both genders from High School but I mainly talk to my male friends. 4. My best friend is male.
