Please help -- Can someone turn gay?

Hi everyone. I am absolutely tormented with anxiety about my sexuality and I am hoping that someone here can help me find some answers. It has begun to take over my life and the pain is unbearable.

I'm a 36 year old male. I have never had a sexual fantasy about a man. But I think that I'm gay. I don't want to be but I think that I am. The problem is I don't know how or why. My history has no significant signs or thoughts or attractions. I think about it constantly and the anxiety is getting to the point that I'm considering suicide. What follows is a history of how I got here.

All of my crushes and attractions growing up were for women. I mean as far back as kindergarten I remember falling in love with a classmate in that innocent childlike way. I drew her a picture of us with a heart between it and wanted to be with her. In my neighborhood there was a girl I used to dream about when I was around 8-10 or so. I always had crushes on girls but was generally a shy guy so I was always very awkward about acting on it. Sometimes very intense crushes. What I'm trying to say is that my feelings for women were natural and unforced even at an early age. I never had any such urges or crushes on boys.

In my early / mid teenage years there was a situation I found myself in where I was over a friends house and we were looking at some of his porno mags. We ended up masturbating in the same room but not together. This happened one other time with a different friend. But it was never about the guy. At the time I was learning how masturbation worked.

Fast forward to high school. My shyness persisted but I was feeling pretty girl crazy. I found myself a girlfriend when I was 17 and lost my virginity to her. Sex with her was great and we would do it whenever we could find the time alone. We were together for 3+ years until she cheated on me. I was 20 going on 21. I was absolutely crushed and heartbroken. It scarred me for many years.

I was about 21/22 when I found my next partner. We slept together a couple of times. On the third time I remember that night she was being nasty towards me before we hopped into bed together, and this greatly affected my attitude and attraction towards her. And that night was the first time I'd ever experienced erectile dysfunction. I was of course embarrassed and humiliated. I avoided her like the plague after that.

My very next sexual encounter came within a year after that. Right off the bat I had ED with this woman, but I remember going into it thinking about the ED I had previously. I think I had set myself up for failure. We tried on a few occasions but I always remember thinking so hard about seeing if my erection was there that I couldn't really be in the moment with her. Again, humiliated and now confused. Why couldn't I get it up with this girl I found so attractive?

(Looking back now I feel like it was additionally because the emotional component was missing for me. I don't think I've ever been good with the idea of one night stands. I think things like "the reason you can't have one night stands is because you're gay. Straight guys always want sex and can do it on command with whoever presents themselves". But I digress)

Immediately following one of these failures, one night before I fell asleep I was thinking hard about the issue. One of the possible solutions that came up was the question "what if you can't get it up because you're gay?". My mind completely lit on fire with anxiety. It overtook my entire body. I was paralyzed with anxiety. I got up and started checking my reaction to watching porn just to prove to myself I was straight. I did not sleep that night. I remember being terrified that I could not answer the question of whether or not I was straight or gay. I lived with that anxiety for over 9 months. Every waking moment. From the millisecond I opened my eyes until I finally fell asleep every day. Towards the end I was contemplating suicide as an end to the anxiety.

The question never made any sense to me as I had never had any same sex attraction, and I wasn't having any as a result of the question. I spent all of those 9 months checking my self. Checking my behavior. Did I act effeminate? Is there any evidence from my childhood I'm missing? Checking my reaction to looking at men and women. Masturbating to porn to prove I was straight. Reading coming out stories to see if that fit me. Nothing seemed to fit. I was still attracted to women. I was still looking to date women. But the anxiety and obsession about trying to find an answer couldn't let me function normally.

After 9 months I stumbled across a description of OCD centered around obsessing over your sexual orientation. It felt like a light bulb went off. It was the first time that something truly fit the hell I was going through. My experience was exactly as they described it. Once I realized the key to dealing with the thoughts was to accept them as a possibility, my crippling anxiety finally began to diminish. However, I would occasionally be blindsided by these intrusive thoughts if I let my guard down. They lasted in a much milder form for many years and would constantly have me checking my levels of attraction at the worst possible moments.

This is getting long, so I'm going to try to summarize the next 15 years of my life.

I've been in 4-5 long term relationships with women since then. In some the ED was a theme at the beginning, but as time went on I was able to have a normal sex life. The OCD would return occasionally and cause issues, but I found with time the issues would disappear. My last girlfriend was for 5 years, and I rarely had any issues that I couldn't chalk up to being tired or stressed. During that relationship I even fell for a women who came up to me after a presentation. It was electric, but I didn't pursue it due to my commitment to my girlfriend.

Throughout this period of my life I never had any sexual attraction or fantasies about men. The only time I would have such thoughts is when I would be testing myself to try to ascertain my sexuality. They never came spontaneously, or in any dreams, and I was never repressing them or avoiding anything.

That brings me to today.

My girlfriend of 5 years and I broke up in November (4 months ago). I immediately met a woman mere weeks after our breakup. I was simply dating to try to numb some of the pain of the breakup. After our first date I got that feeling in my chest that told me I was feeling something akin to love for her. Something I never felt on any of my other dates with women that I went on afterwards. It was truly a connection.

I find her very attractive, even surprisingly so since at first I didn't consider her my type. But I think that all the other ways in which I found her attractive made her sexier to me. As I mentioned, I've always been shy with women and so it took me 4 dates to kiss her. Also my mental state after my recent breakup didn't have me in the best place.

However, again with the ED. Once again it plagued the start of the relationship. On top of the recent breakup, I've been as stressed out as I've ever been at work. Additionally, I've been dealing with some heavy issues in therapy. My mind has been a quagmire. I've been able to have sex with her on many occasions but it has been a struggle feeling comfortable with her. She gives me anxiety in other ways. But on the times we have, I've looked back on the images of it very fondly. In fact I've found myself waking up and just fantasizing about her for 30 minutes straight as I daydream in the morning.

Even more strangely, on a night when things didn't fully work for me, I will lay in bed the next morning / night and have a raging hard on while thinking about her.

All of these problems with her have caused me to question my sexuality again. All of these reasons I've laid out just feel like I'm coming up with excuses as to why I can't always perform with a woman. My brain tells me I'm lying to myself and that the only reason my dick doesn't work is because I'm gay and denying it.

My question after all of this is that is it possible to suddenly turn gay? Is it possible to have never had any thoughts or feelings for men and then one day wake up and decide you're gay? I'm convinced that all of my struggles with sexual performance have just been because I'm gay and I've been hiding it. I'm convinced that I've somehow managed to push down all of these feelings about being gay so deeply that I was never able to explore them when I was younger. If this is the case I don't understand how I've been falling in love with women and having sex with them and desiring relationships with them. All the while never thinking about men.

Recently I've been trying to check myself by looking at gay porn. So far it hasn't done anything for me at all but I worry that if I keep watching it eventually I will begin to like it and that will be the sign. I will have to transition to a gay lifestyle.

I am at the end of my rope and I have no idea what to do anymore. The anxiety is truly killing me. I can't keep living like this. I need to know so I can move on.

Can anyone please help?

 

Hi Nickw. Thanks for taking the time to respond. To be clear I don't think the thought of being gay makes me suicidal. It's the perpetual anxiety. when I lived with that anxiety for 9 months it was unbearable. The thought of feeling that way again is terrifying.

 

Hi Chrioptera. Thanks a lot for reading and providing such a length response. I appreciate it.

The problem is it feels a bit like a light switch. It feels like I suddenly just "know", if that makes any sense. There is a voice track in my head that keeps repeating things like "You're gay. Let go. Accept it." I'm trying to ignore it, but my biggest problem is I don't know if these voices are true and ignoring it is just a form of denial. The first time around when what I believe was OCD struck, it was posed as more of a question -- as something I desperately needed to figure out. This time around it just sounds like a voice making a definitive statement. I still need to make a decision and study the evidence, but I guess the voice has changed. It sounds more urgent and meaningful. I still need to solve the puzzle though.

I agree, and thanks for putting that out there. I know I put a lot of pressure on myself to be perfect in my daily life and I know my sex life is no different. I think I ask myself to live up to a standard that isn't me. However, this leads to a series of judgments, such as:

- Truly straight men are much hornier than you are
- Since you aren't horny enough, that means you are gay and repressing it

In my head "manlier" men behave much differently than I do with women. And since I am not one of these manly men I must be gay.

I often wonder how much of my idea of how other men have sex / perform with women is warped by watching porn.

This is where the recent bout of this questioning gets hairy for me. Sick of not being able to know if I'm gay or straight I finally decided to get up the courage to watch gay porn a few days ago. I watched a video and it didn't do much for me. It felt awkward watching it. I was asking myself questions like, "Would I want to do that to a guy? Would I want that done to me?". The answers were no, but I felt not emphatically enough for me. (This is where the doubt creeps in). I felt that the answer should be much clearer. That it should repulse me, or my answer should be a capital NO, if that makes any sense. To me, the fact that it wasn't NO means that I probably like it and I'm hiding something. I then fired up some favorite straight porn of mine and was able to get off fairly quickly. This provided so much relief to my brain that I felt great for the rest of the day.

The anxiety returned the following day and so I loaded up the page of porn again. I sat there looking at all the titles and still images and was trying to gauge my reaction. Suddenly I felt something shift and I thought, "Am I enjoying this?". I think that I was, but I was also in the throes of anxiety so it was hard to gauge. Saying that I was in the throes of anxiety feels like I'm just giving myself an out. That I enjoyed something about it but "don't worry, you were so anxious you couldn't really tell. It doesn't count."

Sorry, this post is getting lengthy. To answer the rest of your question I haven't tried fantasizing about men without porn. It feels incredibly weird to me. I feel like I'm afraid to do it and discover I will like it and then I'll be gay. I'm also afraid that somehow trying it will leave me somewhere in the middle and just more confused and obsessed.

 

Hi Chip. Thanks a lot for your response. Appreciated!

I agree with everything you've said. I do believe a lot of what I'm doing right now is seeking reassurance, but part of it feels like I'm also just finally trying to face this question head on and answer it once and for all. I can't bear this anxiety anymore. It is once again taking over my life on a daily basis. I sit with it all day long. It is a nearly constant 8/10. I feel it in my mind and in my body.

And as I mentioned above in my reply to Chiroptera, the character of the anxiety feels different this go around. It feels more like a strongly repeating voice that sounds like "You're gay and you know it. Accept it. Stop denying it. You like men." I feel like I'm honestly trying to understand if the voice is right. I did so twice so far by trying to watch gay porn. The first time I had no reaction, the second time I was convinced I wanted to be involved in everything I saw.

I also find myself noticing men now. They say this is a classic symptom of this form of OCD but I don't buy it. I feel like I can actually tell how attractive they are. And of course since I think they're attractive that means I'm gay.

And yet yesterday, my fantastic girlfriend, who I've told I have crippling anxiety, managed to calm me down just by laying next to me for hours and making me laugh. The anxiety was overwhelming yesterday. At one point I was sitting on the floor staring like a zombie into space. I figured there was no hope of having sex, and I didn't think I wanted to. As we were falling asleep, all I had to do was rest my hand on her hip and kiss her goodnight. And wouldn't you know it the equipment was ready to go and off we went. I was incredibly surprised I had the urge to do that given the state of my mind. The act of having sex with her was the ultimate form of reassurance. The anxiety subsided to absolutely nothing. I even felt normal and slept well until the next morning (today) when it slowly returned.

It returns because I read posts here about guys who were able to marry and have children, which means their equipment worked with women too. So I don't take it as a sign that I'm straight. I then try to gauge how much I enjoyed it, and if I enjoyed it "enough" to be straight.

And here I am, back on this forum spewing my thoughts. I sincerely appreciate everyone's time listening to me ramble and taking the time to respond.

 

Hi Chip. Thanks again for responding. I wanted to quote something else you posted in another thread:

Right now I am completely overwhelmed with anxiety and fear again of being gay. I am repeating in my head "I don't want to be gay." Over and over. The reason I think I'm repeating this is because I believe that I am and I don't want to accept it. It feels like some part of me hammering on the door trying to get out. Before you write it off as anxiety/obsessions let me explain.

I'd like to go into more detail about my current thoughts and feelings about men. The short of it before I go into great detail is it just feels like I want them sometimes, if that makes any sense. I didn't mention it earlier because it does feel like it's emerging as I go somehow. In fact what you said there in the other thread has terrified me more than anything else. It sounds like the answer to "can you turn gay?" is definitely yes, by your description.

Examples:

- Seeing a picture of a man on some billboard. Staring at it to try to ascertain how I feel. Come to the conclusion that I want to be hugged/held by that guy. It feels genuinely true in that moment.
- Seeing men. Wondering if I could be in a relationship with them. Imagining how it might feel in contrast to my relationships with women.
- Noticing men walking by. Attempting to gauge attraction levels. I find myself saying "he's cute." or "he's hot." Once when I noticed I thought a guy at my office was hot I felt like I enjoyed the thought.
- Having aggressive thoughts of sexual acts with men. They don't bring me pleasure, but I fear that it's just a matter of time.

The other thing is that feel like sex with women should be more exciting. For some reason I just feel like something is missing sometimes. Like the animal lust I used to feel has been replaced with some kind of indifference, and that maybe it has been for longer than I think.

I also truly believe that if things with my current GF don't work out I will simply quit dating altogether. This feels like a red flag to me. It feels instead like I must mean if it doesn't work out I will be quitting women.

Over the past 4 days or so my sex drive has been reduced to absolute zero. I have no desire for any sexual activity whatsoever. Only stress and anxiety seem to exist. This is what I feel must be the desire for women fading and being replaced by men once I have the balls to admit to myself that I'm gay. On top of that, I believe then the reason the sexual attraction for men hasn't fully surfaced is simply because I can't have any genuine sexual feelings due to the stress and anxiety I'm experiencing.

The thing is, if this were OCD again, I feel like it would respond to the same treatment (CBT/ERP) that worked in the past. This time, it feels like if I engage with the thoughts that I will simply just begin down the path of being gay. You said it yourself: people come up with all kinds of rationalizations to stay in denial. That's what it feels like I'm doing.

I've had a long history of what feels like depression or a general malaise that permeated my life. I've been significantly better in the past 2 years -- I chalk that up 100% to therapy and physical activity. But I feel like the explanation for this general feeling of being down in the dumps was a manifestation of me denying I was gay the whole time. It seems like it would fit.

The reason I'm posting here and not some OCD forum is that on those forums all you get is everything reassuring you that it's just OCD. I came here to get some honest opinions about some people who have been through it or know of what the common patterns to it are.

 

Hey Damien, thanks for checking in.

The thing is I've read some of the accounts here and I can't help but notice that there are plenty of similarities -- especially the part about still being able to have sex / be attracted to women before it all just disappeared. I feel like I am constantly using that as reassurance that I'm not gay, but from reading around here I now feel like it isn't a useful piece of information. In fact, along with these anxieties and worries my attraction for women has dropped to near zero. So in some twisted sense I am now exactly as attracted to both genders: not much at all.

My anxiety is truly crippling as I feel like something is trying to burst out of me. I feel like I'm just hanging onto my straight identity because it's comfortable and it's what I've known my entire life. Today/tonight in general I feel like some barriers are coming down inside of me. I feel like I'm finally beginning to accept who I am -- that I'm gay and that I've been gay my whole life. Sure, I haven't had any fantasies. I've never spontaneously felt anything for a man in 36 years, but I feel like using my history to make this decision is a useless exercise. All I can do is gauge how I feel right now, and the only way to describe it is gay. I feel like it's possible for me to be in a relationship with a man. I don't know why I know that but I do.

I look at my history and upbringing and I had the classic overbearing mother and absentee father scenario. I feel like being gay would be a way to provide me with male love that I've never felt and was never able to feel from my father. I feel like somehow I've been living my whole life desperately trying to please him. For him to notice me.

I want to talk to my girlfriend about this but I don't know how to bring it up. It pains me to say it but I don't think I'm attracted to her anymore. At least not the way I was. And yet I have this crippling fear of losing her. I have felt something like love for her and now in it's place is nothing but fear and anxiety and a fucking whirlwind of hell inside my head. When we met I had so many hopes for us. I had a few breakthroughs with her in our relationship -- things I haven't been able to feel for another person since I was betrayed and cheated on by my first girlfriend of 3+ years when I was 20 (16 years ago). I ask myself some final questions: could that sort of love develop for a woman if I was gay? I don't think the answer to that matters anymore because I think that I'm gay. I think that without a doubt I am gay.

I still feel like I'm resisting this classification of myself but somehow it feels like I've made progress. When I read what I just wrote I somehow feel disconnected from it. I read the line "I think that without a doubt I am gay" and it gives me pause.

My girlfriend is coming over tonight. It somehow doesn't even feel right to call her my girlfriend anymore. I feel like I should just call her my friend. I don't know how to bring this subject up. I feel like I need to tell her I'm gay and that she needs to move on. I have never felt such a horrible feeling before in my entire life.

And still none of this makes sense to me. If I go back and I look at all of my past relationships I feel like all of the problems I had with them could simply be summarized as "Well duh, you were gay. Of course that didn't work out. Of course you had a low sex drive with a couple of them. Of course you were never the alpha male sex-crazed guy."

The only thing that still gives me pause is looking back on all of the true feelings of falling in love with women that I know I had without a doubt. Right now my mind seems to be doing a little bit of revisionist history and telling me none of those feelings were "real" or strong enough. I don't believe it, but it honestly feels like the shoe fits. I feel like trying to blame it on OCD or an anxiety disorder is just too convenient. Too contrived.

I feel like I just need to accept that I'm gay so I can move forward. All of this feels like progress but I still feel like I haven't fully accepted it.

I have been reading things I've written about my mental state in my journal over the past 4-5 years. If I read it from the viewpoint of a deeply closeted gay guy who doesn't even understand that he's gay, all of the writing suddenly makes sense. Part of this feels like a convenient way to interpret it all, but it also just feels like I'm probably right. The writings were always concerned with me trying to be more like myself. Concerns that I was subconsciously making decisions to please my parents -- to be someone they wanted me to be.

All of this still begs the question: can someone TRULY be so fucking clueless about their sexuality after 36 years? It seems like the answer is yes. Does anyone else know of something like this happening to someone?

I KNOW that all those years I wasn't lying to myself about being attracted to women. About always being drawn to them. I also KNOW that I wasn't consciously suppressing any feelings for men. But once again, as I said earlier, neither of those things seem to matter. I feel like I know in my heart that I'm gay. It doesn't make any sense, and yet it makes perfect sense.

I don't feel any less anxious saying that. This whole thing feels so unimaginably complex and I can't unravel it and figure out what my true feelings are. All I know is that I feel like I've turned gay. Or had a realization that I'm gay.

I don't want to blame it on axiety or OCD anymore. I think I'm gay.

Can someone please help? I'm at the end of my rope.

 

Hey Chip, I saw my therapist this morning but I couldn't bring myself to go into detail about what my anxiety was stemming from. I felt like if I told him, he would confirm that I'm gay and then I would have to accept it. I feel like that's too much for me to handle right now. I feel like by having a therapist tell me that my world would come crashing down. I feel like he will confirm my worst fear. I don't even understand why I fear it! I think I fear most losing my sense of self. I've had this straight identity for 36 years and I don't want to let go.

I just posted a long reply to Damien I think that better explains where my current mental state is. I'm trying to leave out the checking that I've been doing because somehow I feel that it's unimportant to me. I hesitate to even call it checking. I loaded up some straight porn today to masturbate to it. It was pretty easy to feel aroused and to get off, but I didn't get any reassurance from it. All I could think was that it doesn't matter -- what I should be doing is watching gay porn. As I sit here right now I am 95% certain I could load up a gay porn and get off to it. The thought might even excite me a little bit.

I feel like the voice inside of me telling me I'm gay is right. I feel like the anxiety I'm having right now is stopping me from feeling true attraction to men.

I can't state it strongly enough: I don't feel like this is OCD / anxiety disorder related. I feel like these realizations are CAUSING the anxiety, and it's causing my brain to go into overdrive to sort it all out. I would imagine someone going through the coming out process has similar feelings, denials, resistances, rationalizations, and so on. Somehow deep down they know they're gay but it takes a momentous effort to assimilate the feelings into their identity. I feel like that is what is happening to me. My brain is resisting it as hard as it can. I feel like if I can remove the resistance than I can move on to being gay.

I feel strange arguing that I'm gay. And yet here I am.

How can I go about accepting that I'm gay?

 

Hey Chiroptera, I appreciate it. I don't think it's harsh at all. I really appreciate the direct approach

I feel so strange arguing that I don't think this is anxiety / OCD anymore. I do feel like I would be attracted to men if I could only let myself. Does that make any sense at all?

I absolutely agree with you about the therapist thing. I almost came out and admitted my anxieties to him this morning, but I held back. I will make a follow-up appointment with him for this week and I swear I will mention these thoughts. I have to. I have to keep pressing forward.

Truly thanks for all of your help.

 

Hey everyone, I am back here again and I don't know what to do. After the discussions here I found myself feeling significantly better and was able to get along with reduced anxiety. However, I'm getting to the point where I just have no other explanation for two things:

1. My lack of sex drive
2. The recurring thoughts that I might be gay if only I would let myself

Everyone here has said I am likely not gay because I have no fantasies/attraction to men. I feel like I have. I feel like I've had the beginnings of these thoughts, but they get cut short by anxiety or testing. Or the "did I just find that guy attractive?" questions.

On the flip side I can't find myself being aroused by women. I notice them on the street but I don't feel the animal lust anymore. I get off to straight porn, but lately I feel like I just don't care to. I feel completely detached from my sexuality.

I'm able to have sex with my girlfriend but sometimes it feels like I'm forcing it. Or beforehand I get anxiety about what if I can't perform? I'm also convinced that during sex I'm not hard enough, and that I should be harder / more aroused / more engaged. This seems like a classic sign that I'm becoming gay or accepting that I might be.

I see a guy at work occasionally when I'm deep inside my head and I constantly ask myself if I'm attracted to something about him. I think the answer is yes, he's attractive. Then I ask if I would like to have sex with him or do something sexual, and the answer comes back "I don't know." Or "How can I tell. Maybe?"

Does any of this change anyones opinion?