Serious question - could I just be a straight guy that has gay fantasies?

Fantasize gay, attracted to women, got it. Let's invert that, make it a question: Do you ever fantasize about women? Do you ever find yourself attracted to males?

I had to come out to myself on this one question. I haven't really fantasized about the opposite sex since seventh grade. Owning that opened my eyes. I'm still attracted to beauty in women, but I've had to acknowledge that I find some men attractive -- now that I've allowed myself look at men.

 

Hi there - lot's of long posts here. And btw - I just new to forum - see my post.
I think the theme of a spectrum is the truth. I'm going the other way to yourself - whilst I have (and still) only mainly find women attractive in real life, after many years of only finding men attractive in porn (plus a couple of fumbles in real life) , I'm actually really beginning to enjoy looking at guys and fantasing. Today on the train, I saw a guy and almost forced myself to think "hmmm - I wonder what it would be like....?' - And I liked my physical reaction. it's almost like I'm training myself to enjoy and be honest with a latent sexuality.

 

And if you're married and 54 & feel things changing? Your gender seguing from m to f say, as you age?! Ain't that easy!!

 

Amiready I really appreciate your post. You have basically hit on so many areas I have been dealing with since I was like 8. I definitely agree with attraction to females. I think in my situation my self esteem or dysphoria has essentially sabotaged every straight relationship I have been involved in.

If I am being honest with myself I think there were hints that I am probably a latent bisexual who is afraid to step forward. To compound the situation my first experience was when I was 10 and it was with my best friend which only caused more confusion and guilt.

Lately the fantasies have intensified and I am trying to make sense of it...I can say I am scared for what the answers might be or is it simply a lack of self confidence that has haunted. E all these years.

 

I could not agree more...they seem to multiply and be more intense when my stress level is high as well as lack of female intimacy

 

I’ll just throw in my situation to muddy the waters further

I have intense fantasies about bottoming with a man. But most of my sexual experience is with women, where I play the dominant role. I have compartmentalized that bottomy part because it’s very threatening to the rest of me. But it’s down there for sure.

For awhile I treated it like OCD because it manifested as intrusive thoughts. But after a few years of CBT I accepted that these were real sexual fantasies and not just thoughts.

I’m still trying to work out what they mean and how to integrate them into my life in a healthy way. I don’t even worry about labels like gay/bi anymore.

Part of what’s been helpful is destigmatizing all things gay. I have some gay friends now, go to gay AA meetings, ride with an LGBT bike club. So a lot of the obsessive thoughts about my sexual identity have disappeared. But the fantasies remain and I’m trying to work with them in therapy to understand what they mean and reduce some of the shame and cognitive dissonance.

 

I live in NYC too and can wholeheartedly agree that when the weather is fine, the streets are crawling with beautiful women.

I guess the point of my story is that there may not be an easy answer and you may want to look into therapy to try to understand the origin/meaning of those fantasies. For me, the true goal is inner peace. I’ve actually become pretty agnostic about whether I’m gay, bi or whatever.

 

That’s exactly my point. These fantasies may have another origin or meaning in your unconscious, and you might consider exploring it in therapy.

 

Hmmmm. This is something that confused me a lot way back when. I would see ripped muscular men or pictures of them, and think "I SO wish I looked like that." I never thought of them in a "sexual" way, not wanting to interact with them sexually, kiss them, or do any kind of dating thing. "Real men" like me don't do that sort of thing (back in the 1960s).

What I didn't realize for so many years, wanting to be like them meant that I was attracted to them. Wanting to be like someone = attraction to them. Once this light bulb clicks on in your head, you begin to understand that "I am attracted to men" is just another way to say, at least to some extent, "I am gay", because that is part of the definition of "gay", at least on the emotional side. A different behavioral definition of gay is "Men who have sex with men". You can have the emotion, but abstain from following it into an actual physical contact or sexual interaction for 100 different reasons. But, when the emotion is there, to some Kinsey scale extent, you are feeling like gay men feel. Admitting to yourself what your attraction to "idealized" fantasy men implies about you is a next step, a sort of bargaining with yourself about whether you are willing to let yourself accept this gay description of the "hidden you within you", or try to rationalize it away as just some meaningless fantasy game in your head. Your choice.

PS Most of the guys you "see on the street" are everyday Joes; not very many of them would be that attractive to any gay man. LOL

 

I may be jumping to conclusions, but it's possible to not be attracted to the same gender if you don't allow it (repress it), maybe because you repressed it and now it's showing up in your thoughts and fantasies when you're alone, i'm not a psychologist or anything, i'm saying this because i'm going through exactly what you're going through, and i highly believe (know) that porn is damaging and messes up the reward system in the brain and makes you lose self awareness and will power, i'm doing Nofap, on day 16 now btw, i still don't know whether i'm gay or bi or possibly straight, so i'm trying this Nofap movement thing to find the truth, it's crazy but i know what i'm doing, i'm not denying or repressing anymore, just observing and trying to understand myself better, i hope this helps

 

I have a somewhat similar story and I'm 45 and it's been going on for decades, but while I still don't know what I am, I don't think I'd be worrying nearly as much if I wasn't attracted to any man at all. Granted, I'm probably only attracted to 10-15% of the men I see so the majority of them I'm not attracted to, but if I were you I'd be looking into other issues like the self esteem issue (which I also have).

 

This really rings true for me. I also feel that porn has been quite helpful for me. I am attracted to more muscular bear-type men and in the past I had confounded this phenotype with being straight. It seemed that such a relationship was unattainable as those types of men would never want me in a sexual and emotional way. Watching gay porn I absolutely love seeing men like this kiss and be sensual with one another. It has been a big eye opener for me. I know I like that and want that in my life.

 

I'm really new to this site and have been reading all sorts of threads since I found Empty Closets. I can't begin to express how relieved I am to find a kind community of people who are struggling the same way I am. I truly thought I was alone