Wondering if I'm gay

I have had a similar experience to you. I have always been bicurious, well had lots of fantasies and no had a crushes on a guys.

So, now you know your solid answer. Are you at peace with yourself? Any ideas to explore further?

 

I might be looking at it all rather simplistically, but doesn't the desire to have sex with men and women, even if only on rare occasions, make one bisexual pretty much by definition?

 

I like your message of simplicity. That actually has really helped me realise it isn't my bisexuality that was confusing me but how I relate to that bisexuality and the components. I am bisexual but my attractions to men are rare. I feel that defines me.
Thanks, Dreamsexul.

 

No worries @BaconBacon

I think that bisexuality can actually be quite varied in practice. It's not always a 50/50 split or something.

A lot of bisexual folk I've spoken to seem to either go in phases as to which gender they are attracted to, or fancy one more than the other, or are much more picky about a certain type for one rather than the other, or something like that. But they're all bisexual, just as a straight dude who is really picky about hair colour or something is just as straight as another dude who fancies every woman.

At least, that's the way it seems to me.

 

@Chip
Wouldn't the real issue in the above, then, be whether or not they were ever attracted to women, rather than were they ever attracted to men?

If they were always attracted to men, then sure, they've always at least been gay. But if they developed a genuine attraction and affection for a woman at some point, then they were, at least for a while, bisexual (or at least biromantic).

Also, why did you put 'changed' in asterisks?

 

I’m going to contradict some of the above, but not take away what was said. Maybe what I’m trying to do is say “both / and” about the gay vs bisexual orientation.

Kinsey is really great for the situation Chip talks about, where a person has led a suppressed existence, and then realizes over time they are really gay. Maybe they don’t have to be a Kinsey 6 at the end of the scale, but still close to the end at a 5, not the middle. 30 and 40 years after Kinseys 1940’s research was published there were contributions by other researchers to try to get a better handle on bisexuality. Because Kinsey was a start, not an end, to the research. Klein and Storms are two from that period who still get quoted in current textbooks. There are other scholars since the 20th century too. I’m pretty sure I’m better tested with Michael D. Storm’s graph than with Kinsey, in large part because Kinsey assumes you pull away from heterosexuality as you move into homosexuality, and Storms doesn’t — both those things can be plotted at the same time on Storms’ graph, and you can be 100% both! I’m not pulling away from my wife as I realize my bisexuality, therefor Kinsey doesn’t work for me.

Kinsey is great to help convince you you are moving to gay and away from straight. Kinsey was great back in 1948 by saying there can be something in between too... yet had the weakness in his model that the old end of the scale just feels more and more distant if you move anywhere away from that end.
Kinsey is only moderately useful for bisexuals if they don’t feel less attracted than they did before.

Personally, I just took my own assessment, and talked about this with a LGBTQ-friendly therapist. I know my physical reactions to girls were real in the past. I know my love for my wife is not fake. I know I am now fantasizing about guys, and at the same time I still like being intimate with my wife.

Maybe think about if straight is fading away, maybe 1948 Kinsey is good enough for you. If straight isn’t feeling it was fake, maybe you need a different, newer model. Mostly just accept yourself and the fact that you can love people who were not on the radar before, or society and convention told you to ignore. Be you, regardless of labels.

 

@Chip
But surely the issue is genuine attraction (sexual desire) not behaviour? I wouldn't say having sex with a man and a woman makes one bi, rather the attraction/desire - else we have a real problem with virgins and those who have sex unwillingly!

So sure, I can understand that someone who had sex with a woman but didn't really ever desire them sexually is gay rather than bi, but I thought we were talking about cases where someone did genuinely have desire and attraction towards a woman, but then later started to also desire sex with men. In that case they either always were, or have become, bi, surely?

@DecentOne
Very interesting, thank you. It seems human sexuality is highly complex and even now not wonderfully well understood.

 

In that case we totally agree!

But there are cases of people who are simply bi, but don't figure it out until later, or bi and go through phases fancying one gender or another, or people who actually change, yes?

It also seems that 'attraction' is a complex concept and one that can easily be mistaken. That's worth exploring!

 

@Chip

I agree change is uncommon, but to say it doesn't happen just seems to massively invalidate the lived experiences of a number of folk I've spoken to (and myself). To claim on behalf of these people that they were 'cut off from their feelings' seems like some sort of post-hoc rationalisation to make their experience fit into a predetermined system.

I mean, what's the difference between a) someone being so cut off from their feelings that at one point they truly believed and felt that they fancied men and not women and later became emotionally attuned enough that they stopped fancying men and started fancying women; and b) someone who changed from being straight to lesbian?

And who gets to decide that? And how?
Isn't the only viable way to accept people's sincere self-reporting with an attitude of charity and credulity?

Regarding attraction, sure I understand the role of vulnerability in romantic relationships, but it seems largely irrelevant to sexual attraction - which at base is 'I think I want to sex that dude/lady' or 'I am aroused by that dude's appearance, I'd like to sex him' etc.

That kind of sexual attraction seems very intuitive and wide spread (excepting asexual circles), whether straight or gay or whatever. I don't think it requires anything more than a libido, imagination and are certain orientation.

And that kind of attraction is all that is required, I think, to decide if one is gay, straight, bi or whatever. And it doesn't really seem to matter if something else is desired more - simply that the desire is there at all. Someone who prefers sex with men over women is still bi rather than gay so long as the desire to have sex with women is there at all, at least some times.

If I want to have sexual activities with men but not women, regardless of emotional aspects, I'm gay/bi etc. It might be that I'm never going to be emotionally vulnerable enough to ever actually do anything about such a desire, but if I have the desire such that in a perfect world of my creation I would have sex with a guy then I'm gay - the rest is just the messiness of life circumstances getting in the way of the expression of that desire, not the desire itself.

Thus, it seems to me, that if a man has genuine, even if muted or non-intense, sexual attraction to a female for the first half of their life, then later finds those feelings receding and experiences an even more intense attraction to males, it's not that they were always 'secretly' gay and just needed to discover that, but rather they either were always bisexual (and the phases shifted, or they needed to discover that), or they were straight and now gay.

 

My experiences mirrors Chip’s comment where what I thought was real attraction to females was not really the case. As I became aware and more comfortable in exploring my same sex attraction it began to dawn on me my attraction to men was much more intense. At the very beginning I called myself bi however my attraction to women faded to zero as I became intimate with the man who became my BF. Within a very short period I acknowledged I was totally gay. My attraction to men both physically and emotionally is so much more than anything I felt towards any woman. I think I fooled myself for whatever reasons that I liked women for so many years. Don’t know about the actual physiology or labels involved and frankly it doesn’t matter anymore as I identify as gay.

 

I’m the typical later life gay male Chip mentions in an earlier post.
I have always been attracted to males and I thought I was attracted to women as well, and I followed societies norms and I married a woman who I dearly love, and still married to her.
I have never been able to shake my sexual attraction to men and I think as I age this attraction to males is intensifying, and my urges to have sex with my wife is non existent, all my desires are to be held and to kiss another man. I can’t explain this but looking back over my life, I don’t think I was Bi I am definitely a latent homosexual.

 

@Chip
I'm a bit confused. I trust your comments reflect the current understanding, since you obviously are educated in the field and know the research. But to someone like me, all I have is Google, forums and wiki etc. And I note that the wiki entry for sexual fluidity says stuff about research into sexuality change that doesn't align with your comments. Help?