TL;DR In love with a man, history of arousal at same sex media, scared I'm in denial. I'm going to start off saying I am a massively anxious person who gets very fixated on questions like sexuality and will ruminate on them over and over and over. I suppose my post comes down to am I gay and in deep denial, or do I have a more nuanced sexuality. This question has been tormenting me for years. between the ages of 14-25. I was a early bloomer when it came to sexuality I would make Barbie and Ken have sex from the age of about 8 and would become aroused, I was also aroused from an early age from any sort of sexual content on tv and film, whether this was hetro love scenes on a film, making the sims woohoo or bra and pantie matches on WWE( My parents didn't really censor us much). From the age of about 8-14 I would sexually fantasies about myself and men and become aroused. At the age of 14 I watched the Duchess with my mother and there was a sexually charged scene between two women. I felt aroused and was confused. I couldn't fantasies about being with a woman. I remember trying to imagine me being a man and having sex with a woman and it didn't get me aroused. From around that age I then developed a deep fear that people would think I was gay , and that would in term make me gay. I would go to great lengths to avoid people thinking I was gay. I would change pronouns in songs , I would explain in great detail why I was watching America's next top Model , because I was worried that would make me seem gay(IDK why). I didn't fear being gay at this point but the idea of seeming gay made me massively anxious. But I'm also a super lefty so I was very vocal about being an ally. I still continued to day dream about sexual situations with men and had crushes on boys. I never really looked at men and found them sexually arousing or attractive. But remember feeling anxious because Susan from the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe was so pretty. At the age of about 16 I saw a lesbian kiss during a film and felt aroused. It scared me so much because I couldn't imagine being with a woman , I couldn't fantasize about it and as far as I knew I didn't want to kiss women so why did my body react so. I was racked with anxiety and the fixated on the kiss for hours after watching it trying to figure out if it would ilcit the same response and if I wanted to kiss women. I then went to sleep and had an intense sex dream that I was being kissed by Rhianna the singer. I woke up really confused because I still didn't want to kiss women. I tried to fantasize about it , but nothing . No arousal not even a tingle. The followed months of doing things like staring at women to figure out if I was a attracted to them, looking at the dirty pages in the sun to see if I was aroused by them, checking my pants for signs of arousal if something sexual was on tv. This went on for months and months. I stopped being able to get aroused by fantasisng about men as I was always fixating on whether it was enough arousal. I even convinced myself I was attracted to children during this period due to the content of a sex dream Around this time I may have developed a crush on a girlfriend . I became massively anxious around her and thought she was pretty , I felt so sick and anxious all the time. The idea of kissing her or touching her never really appealed though. I used to make myself sit next to her to see if I wanted to touch her or felt any attraction for her. This kind of anxiety happened periodically between the ages 16 and 21. Usually triggered by a sex scene and arousal on tv. I was never able to settle on my sexuality.I would get fed up of being so anxious and decide I was gay, and try to fantasise about women , but I never felt anything. I never thought it was wrong to be gay and I didn't fear my parents reactions or anything like that. I just had this massive fear I was gay, and I cannot tell you for the life of me why it scares me so much. I would get sex dreams when I was stressed , these would at times be same sex , but I also had sex dreams surrounding my step dad and once the devil. I went to uni and hooked up with a few guys, It was fun and I would get really aroused thinking about it afterwards, but not so in the moment. Sometimes I would think about hooking up with girls when I was in a anxious period but it never felt attractive or comfortable. And then I met my now boyfriend. When he asked me out my stomach flipped and I got butterflies I was so excited. the first thing I thought was " but what if your gay" but I couldn't stop myself saying yes. He was wonderful, intelligent and I really liked him. I enjoyed hooking up with him. Sex was difficult for a long time as I'm disabled but I loved fooling around with him. I always worried that I never felt as aroused when we had sex as I would after a sex dream or when reading a saucy book or watching a sex scene on tv (Homo or hetero) but I loved him so much I just decided it didn't matter. during the first 1.5 year of our relationship I would have anxiety spikes about being gay , which were just made so much worse by the fact I was falling in love with a guy. I went to CBT and managed to break the anxiety cycles. We've now been together 4.5 years. I love the man. so freaking much. I still worry that I don't get aroused enough during sex ( comparing it to the scary intense arousal of my teen years) but I'm the one with the higher sex drive and love having sex with him. I find both men and women physically attractive in the media but notice women more due to how women always seem to be portrayed in a more sexual way. I fantasize about men, but tbh I just don't get as aroused as I did as a teenager.I try to think about sex with women and it doesn't do anything. When I'm looking for porn I sometimes think about watching same sex porn but am worried about how anxious it will make me . Sometimes my brain tells me to watch it to test my sexuality. But I never really want to. a few days my partner and I had sex and I thought about how I didn't feel genital arousal and it triggered off a wave of anxiety. And now I've spent hours trawling the internet to figure out if I'm gay and in denial , or Bisexual, or just a straight gal who gets turned on easily. My brain keeps telling me to "admit I'm gay" so I can stop worrying. But as soon as I do I think about having a relationship with a woman and feel a bit depressed and that I don't want one. Equally straight doesn't make sense with all the same sex arousal , even if I cant reconcile myself to the idea of a same sex relationship, and my brain perceives bisexual as ambiguous and refuses to settle on that either. Some advice is Much much needed. Sorry this is so long. But it has been cathartic to type.
It seems that a lot of your worry comes from anxiety. You mentioned you went to CBT before, so checking back in would probably help. Anyways, for me personally, I don't think labels are something that accurately describe human sexuality. With something so complex, it just seems that the more we try to attach a label to it, the more people are confused. You don't have to use a label. You're a human being who has desires and that's all you need to describe yourself.
