Did you ever feel sexual attraction/arousal with the opposite sex before realising you were gay?

Try having a read through the late in life section, many men and women there who thought they were straight and then realised they were gay or bi later on.

 

Not in a legitimate way. The only guys I remember 'crushing' on were the super girly anime boys (as a preteen), but never any in real life. And now, I don't even like fictional guys like that.

 

Yes - but in a weirdly disconnected, dissociative way. I do feel an odd attraction to masculinity in men (though strangely not at all in women) but I think this is ingrained rather than innate, and the physical arousal I've felt has always been just that. I don't have much experience sexually with any gender but I know that any sexual (and romantic) feelings I'm capable of having towards women will always be more powerful, more stable and all-encompassing than the feelings I'm capable of feeling for men, as they would be coming from a more deeply rooted place that connects the mind, body and soul.

 

I always had crushes on both genders and had my first experience with a girl first so I dont know how to answer your question And I think I was too young or too naive to think about sexual attraction before my first experience. I guess it just happened lol

 

Hi! I didn’t realise my sexuality (I’m lesbian) until I was about 26/27, and before that I only had 2 relationships with guys. I wasn’t into them that much although I convinced myself I was because I thought that was what was expected of me (grow up, get job, get house, get husband, etc etc). Mostly, there were no gay role models growing up and gay as used as something ‘bad’ and it seemed like only men did it, so I didn’t know you could be a gay female.

As for the men thing, I was almost always drunk when it came to being intimate, and felt a weird uneasiness the next morning which I put down to the hangover. The first boyfriend I had we always went out, and I thought I was really attracted to him, but about 3 years after we split I met him again and we tried it again, but I couldn’t, I made excuses to avoid him, sex wasn’t the same (or rather, I wasn’t as drunk). The 2nd guy I dated was a mentally abusive a**hole who over the duration of our 2 year relationship really broke me down without me realising until I started avoiding him and during the times away from him I saw the situation more clearly and ended it, so I wouldn’t want to be with him even if I was straight.

But anyway, I’m going on a tangent, but it’s kinda connected to my answer. I don’t consider myself bi because I realised I could only fancy men when very drunk. My childhood crushes were girls. I had started coming to the conclusion that I was perhaps asexual because I couldn’t feel myself sexually attracted to a man without first being too drunk to really think about it.

A few things along the years helped me realised I was gay, and that there’s a difference between finding someone attractive and being sexually attracted to someone. It wasn’t until I watched Buffy with Willow and Tara (I was about 17/18) and something began nagging me at the back of my head, that I saw something of myself but ignored it.

It’s hard when it feels like society has a script laid out for you to follow but you don’t fit it’s narrative. I spent my late teens and early 20s feeling out of sorts and drinking too much to feel like I fitted in.

Anyway, hope that kinda answers your question. Also, apologies, I don’t know how to write a short answer

 

I just didn't feel entirely myself... it sort of felt like I had slipped into third person somehow. Honestly I wouldn't say I 'know' it's ingrained but it's a deduction I have made to help explain feelings that don't really make sense or feel at home within my identity.

 

I have been attracted to men in the past but it has always in a sort of abstract way. I could imagine myself in relationships with men and on more than one occasion I came close to dating one. I could have genuine affection and feel attraction to a man, but the reality was that when it came to it I just couldn't bring myself to have sex with one. When it started to change from being just an abstract prospect to being a real possibility I would freak the hell out, often to the point where I would literally run away.

 

It's actually really simple. If you went through a phase in your life where you enjoyed being with the opposite sex, and then you discovered you preferred being with the same sex, it still makes you a bisexual, not gay. I know lots of bisexuals who are in 100% gay phases, however, it still makes them bi and they identify as such. That's the beauty of the bisexual identity, you don't have to go through an identity crisis every time you go through a phase because you know and understand that bisexuality is very fluid. Gay people know they are gay, even when trying to conform to society's norm staying in the closet in hetero marriages, it's definitely different from bisexuality.

I can only speak as a bisexual. When I accepted my bisexuality, I realized I somehow knew even as a very young kid. All of my early teenage year crushes were girls, except for an infatuation with an older boy when i was maybe 10 or 11. Then in my later teenager years I went through a year or two when I had only guy crushes and also had sex with a guy and I was pretty sure I was gay. Took me a while to sort it all out, but I eventually realized I was bisexual, more specifically hetero-romantic straight bisexual. As a teenager the signs were classic, chasing girls because I was romantically attracted to them but masturbating on pictures of perfect muscle hunks when I was 16. In college I pretty much was physically attracted to both men and women, but romantically mostly exclusively women. I kinda understand lesbians, a lot of guys are kinda turds, it's slim pickings to find good men. But I know there are men out there that are both good looking and and kind at the same time.

I settled for long term heteresexual relationships because I could never imagine a life without women. I need them in my life like I need water. And with guys my sexual attraction seemed driven largely by smooth skinned young guys in their 20's with muscles, and the more manly they became, the less cut they are, the less interested I became. It wouldn't be fair to a guy in a long term relationship. I don't have that issue with women, where a pretty face and a lovely person would drive me wild no matter what their bodies looked like. I can totally objectify men, which is a sort of dissociation and then have sex with them. I can't do that with women, for a woman it's the whole package, how she moves, her face that drives me wild. A nice body is a bonus. On a man, it's only the body that drives me. But since I can get totally turned on by the sight of a beautiful muscular fitness hunk, and I could totally have sex with them, I am happy to call myself a bisexual.

For social reasons, a lot of bisexuals take on the gay identity because the gay community has a tendency towards bi-erasure. Bisexuals tend to blend into either community and will label as gay or straight to fit in. But they're still bisexuals and they know it. it's definitely harder to carry the bisexual label due to the lack of acceptance and little support there is to truly understand the fluidity associated with being bi. A classic example if all the guys that call themselves straight and actually engage in regular casual gay sex. it's way more common than you think.

 

In retrospect I also knew I was bi at a very young age, like about 10 or 11. The first person I felt attracted to was a man though, my hairdresser, at the ago of six (I've always had a thing for feminine men, can't help it lol). Then I remember another boy and then a girl (I used to fantasize about the boy in front of the mirror and then one day I realized I had similar feelings for the girl, it totally freaked me out). But I'm still bisexual, not gay, and also still not a fan of masculinity, lots of muscles always were and are still a turn off to me (also in women).