I’ve lurked here for a while but never posted. Sorry in advance for the length… I came out and had my first gf at 16. That same year I had sex for the first time, and it was the last time I was scared of sex until recently. For the next 12 years, I had sex fairly regularly either while in a relationship, with women I was dating, or with women whom I had friends with benefits type situations without fear or reservation. I’ve had 3 serious relationships. The first 2 were standard fare; nothing crazy but I was pretty walled up in them both yet they ended amicably. My last relationship was very toxic because we trauma bonded. I’d always had a knowing relationship with my traumas but the emotional sides of it were always inaccessible to me. With her, all the emotions came screeching out and her trauma fed my trauma and vice versa. That relationship turned me into someone I didn’t recognize. I was never violent or anything like that, but I was so scared, and emotionally volatile and wrung and depressed, and withdrawn that my moods and behaviors tore through many of my relationships (family and friends). When I finally ended it, I swore I wouldn’t get into another relationship or be involved with anyone until I worked through my issues. Within a few weeks of the breakup, I was in therapy but it took seeing several different ones before I found one I liked. With her it was easy-ish and I felt like I was moving toward figuring things out but then she had to move. She referred me to another therapist, but I never followed up because I didn’t want to have to start all over. Staving off my sexual desires for the first few years wasn’t as hard as I thought it’d be. Honestly, the thought of being with a woman was a turn-off because I was so singularly focused on getting my sh*t together and never inflicting that part of myself onto anyone again. I avoided going to places or doing anything where I could/would meet women which basically meant I had to became somewhat of a hermit. My circle got incredibly small and that made it easier. That doesn’t mean I didn’t have urges because I did but they were infrequent, and it didn’t take much to satiate them. Being in therapy also helped. The last few years have been the polar opposite. I think about sex all the time and my urges are at the point where they are overwhelming me. I feel like I’m going through puberty all over again and the lack of intimacy is affecting my moods. Women on television/film never used to do anything for me, now I find myself fantasizing about certain characters which really grosses me out. The fears I have surrounding sex and intimacy of any kind are varied and all very real: 1. I’m almost 12 years removed from the last time I had sex. I’d gotten pretty good at sex (not bragging just basing it off feedback) but now I’m beyond rusty. I fear I wouldn’t know what to do or even if I remember how to please a woman. 2. My body doesn’t feel necessarily like mine. I’m in good shape but my boobs don’t sit up like they used to and I’m older and I don't know how to describe it...it's strange. 3. So much has changed in the culture that I feel out of touch with the scene on the whole. I have kept up from afar, but I don’t know how I fit in the LGBTQIA+ world anymore. 4. Dating apps seem to be the only avenue for meeting women, especially with COVID but the thought of using them gives me anxiety and a headache. 5. Most important of all…my issues are more at the forefront now than ever because I unearthed them but never came to terms with them and never developed appropriate coping mechanisms. I fear how that will manifest if I were to get involved even on a casual basis. Still, my sexual urges are raging on like a freight train and nothing I do satiates them but those feelings are in direct conflict with the fears listed above (those are the top 5, there are many more) which is making me feel like I’m losing it. Any advice on how to navigate sex after such a long time and with so many issues and fears swirling about? I know I need to get back into therapy but therapy is a process and I need some path forward now. Maybe there’s a way to get back to that space where I had the ability to have FWB? Or...honestly, I’ll listen to anything at this point.
WelpTheresThat.....Hello and a great big LGBTQIA+ welcome to Empty Closets! Honestly I think your best bet is to find a good therapist and get back to working through the conflicts and issues that are pulling you down. You say; "Most important of all…my issues are more at the forefront now than ever because I unearthed them but never came to terms with them and never developed appropriate coping mechanisms." I don't think you're going to be successful in relationships as long as you're being pulled down by all these things from the past. I know that finding a therapist was one of the best decisions that I ever made. With the help of my therapist I was able to make progress and work through things that I thought I would never be able to get over. It was only when I had "conquered" those ghosts from my past that I really started to make progress past coming out. Please give this some serious consideration! There are a number of sub-forums here on EC...why don't you check them out and then feel free to join in the conversations! This is a community of loving, caring and very supportive people and we will do our best to help you blend into the community. You can ask questions in any of the Sub-forums by creating a new thread or by joining in a conversation-thread that is already going. You can also post a message on anyone's Profile Page after you have made at least ten posts yourself. If you have a question that is somewhat private you can always send a Private Message to any Staff Member. Normally Private Messages can only be exchanged between two Full Members, but a PM to a Staff Member is an exception. We are so glad that you have found us here on Empty Closets! .....David
Wow if I had to describe my life experiences up to the present day it would be pretty similar to what you wrote. Maybe a few minor differences, but overall, I'm going through the same thing. Let me give you my perspective. For as long as I can remember, I've been gay, but I never told a soul during my formative years. I remember being very young, around 2 or 3 years old, and my father said something to me about growing up and having a boyfriend. I replied "I don't want a boyfriend when I grow up, I want a girlfriend." Without warning he snatched me up and gave me a whooping like nothing I had ever experienced, all the while shouting obscenities that that are referred to as hate speech today. When he had a chance to cool down he told me that boys can't date boys, and girls can't date girls. He said "people get beaten to death for that sort of stuff." I never mentioned it again to a single soul. But I couldn't change who I was or who I was becoming, I was born this way. I remember when the "mystery illness" hit in the 1980's. The HIV/AIDS pandemic and how there was mass pandemonium when large numbers of people just started dropping dead. The hysteria was related to the fact that it was a mystery virus, we knew nothing about it, not unlike when covid first appeared. I remember my mom telling me every day before I went to school, "wash your hands. Whatever you do, don't drink out of a cup that somebody else had their mouth on." At the time they were unsure whether or not it could be passed from person to person through saliva. It took a while but I remember when them labeling it a "gay disease" and said it was blood borne. In order to get the disease you need to either get the blood of an infected person inside of your vein (IV drug use) or have unprotected sex with an infected person. But just like with covid, the not so educated folks in our lovely country took the term "gay disease" and spread all kinds of misinformation. They told their children that all gay people have AIDS, and that only gay people can get AIDS. Everybody else is immune. It shouldn't have affected me right? After my the lashing I received from my father, I never said a word about being gay or wanting to be gay, not a peep. Not to my siblings or anything. I should have been fine. But I'm not feminine and I never have been feminine. I was mistaken for a boy a lot as a child, I'm still mistaken for a guy every now and again even though I have long hair and boobs. But the parents of my classmates told them to stay as far away from me as possible because I was gay and had AIDS. I was tormented. But the AIDS scare fizzled out over time like pandemics do and time marched on. In 1993 I was watching the news and saw a story about a woman who got beaten to death for portraying herself to be man. Brandon Teena. It wasn't highly publicized like it probably should have been, but I do remember seeing the story on the news and thinking "my dad was right, they do beat you to death if they find out you're gay." Time kept marching on, now the year is 1996-1997, and I'm a hormonal teenager. I'd be lying if I told you that I wasn't experimenting with other females at this time. I was. I didn't see another gay person get killed since the Brandon Teena incident and you could tell attitudes towards homosexuals were starting to change. I chalked it up to society growing more tolerant of people who were different than them, which is a good sign. I was wrong. It wasn't until I went to college to become a nurse that I learned the real reason, I'll share the real reason later. In 1998 Matthew Shepard was beaten, tortured, set on fire, tied to a fence, and left to freeze to death because he was gay. A kid on a bicycle found him, they brought him to the hospital, and he died the next day. This scared the gay out of me. For real. Because just like the Brandon Teena case, I thought they were going to mention it a couple of times on the news, and let the killers go simply because he was gay. That time it was different. There was public outrage, there were rallies, protests, celebrities were stepping forward and coming out as gay. Really the gay community pulled together and convinced politicians to pass legislation to make it a hate crime to kill somebody simply for being homosexual. It was a huge step in the right direction, but it wasn't enough of a step to get me out of the closet. I told myself I would do it one day, but with all of that childhood trauma, you can't just go from hot to cold overnight. I was terrified about coming out as gay. In 2001 I met my now ex-husband, we had a child in 2003, but each year that went by I noticed the younger generation did not try to hide the fact that they were gay at all. They would walk hand in hand in the grocery store and not give a damn. Then Vermont passed a law permitting gay marriage. I left my husband and remained single for 3 years after we split. Then I started dating a woman. For the first year of our relationship I hid the fact that we were romantically involved, I told everybody she was a friend, and being 2 years older than me, she lived through the same era, had a lot of the same scars, and she did the same. I finally came out to my family, they were shocked. Everybody except my mother disowned me. Four years into our relationship she started talking about getting married, but she never told anybody in her family we were dating. Four years and they thought we were just friends. She told me she will never tell her family, it caused an enormous fight and we broke up. I've been single for 10 years now. It's almost impossible to get somebody from our generation to admit to having homosexual thoughts let alone engage in the behavior, likely because of childhood trauma. Those who were brave enough to come out of the closet before I did found love quickly and got married. People 10 years older than we are, are 10 times as hesitant to admit to any sort of homosexual tendencies because they were taught "you will go to hell." We had it good compared to them. It doesn't exactly leave us with a whole lot of options except to date somebody 10-20 years younger. Thanks but no thanks, I'll stay single. As for the change in sentiment that seemed to occur without any prompting in the mid-1990's right before Matthew Shepard was murdered, it wasn't a fluke. Married, middle-aged women started dropping dead from AIDS. They were not IV drug users, it had already been determined that it was next to impossible for a woman to transmit the virus to another woman during a sexual encounter. It was the husbands. They were cheating on their wives with infected men. They were bisexual. A lot of women caught the virus through a cheating bisexual husband, and that's when they stopped treating homosexuality like it was some monstrous, untreatable mental illnesses. Anyways, I just wanted to share my story because I read yours and it hit close to home.
No disrespect to the younger generation or anything but every time I have mentioned Matthew Shepard to a member of the LGBT community that was born after 1995 the response is always the same, "Who is Matthew Shepard?" Look it up. His death changed everything.
I think the younger generation do have it easier, which is great. Society has changed so much in the last 20 years. I grew up at the time of the section 28 law (in the UK), and I remember it being as you describe. I do think as a result of it being easier they are not aware of some of the struggles older generations faced. I think if anyone is in the closet, it’s always for a good reason. They have been made to feel scared, threatened, ashamed, unsafe. And as we know it can take a long time to unpick all of that.
I will admit that as someone younger that I do have it easier in some ways and it's because of people like Matthew Shepard, Brandon Teena, and people at Stonewall. Even as a young bi/trans man I can relate to your story. I was raised with the "you'll go to Hell" message. I'm recloseted because I'll have to leave my family due to nonacceptance and I'm just not ready for it (and I still live with them and their hurtful behavior). The community I live in is very homophobic and transphobic too. The level of self hatred, fear, and depression I've had because of it all is intense. It would be far worse if I were much older. At least you and OP have had the courage to accept the fact you are gay. OP I would have to agree with David (Quebec) and add that if you do want a relationship with someone you need to be honest about your trauma with your potential partner. I decided against my original better judgement to be with my girlfriend. I didn't want her to get hurt because of what I'd been through, and so I was honest about where I was at- all my baggage was out there on the table. She understood, and still stands by me so far. We communicate better and are way closer because we are completely honest. You should be honest about being rusty with them too, and then try to just have fun and relax. I'm sure you'll start to remember what to do after a little while (because of muscle memory and stuff). I hope this helped!
Welcome to the Forum and thank you for the history lesson. Younger ones appreciate that. I wish you the best, but I must make an statement about a section of your post, for the sake of clarity and fairness. The magazine Cosmopolitan actively spread this rubbish at the end of the 1990s. Cosmopolitan used to be targeted mainly at women. Those sentences are perpetuating toxic myths, like 'Bisexuals in general cheat (bad enough, don't you think?) but of course it is men, since men can't control their sexuality. Bit ironic a magazine targeted for 'edgy' women publishes clearly retrograde statements. Another myth - Straight women don't have anal sex with men. Ever. None of them. Can't ever be that AIDS came from a cheating hetero woman having a one night with this straight biker boy she met at a bar, a boy who is using needles. Can't be they were both drunk. Again, she was the married wife and mother drunk out of her skull engaging on anal sex with a stranger. How unthinkable. If she is straight and hetero, she can't catch AIDS, never from another hetero. Never happens, right. I'd like those sentences to be forgotten. Even if you mean well, for the sake of reflecting on the times, I mean also well - Right now we know for sure Bisexuals were not responsible for AIDS crossing from Homo to Hetero. It was the needles and unprotected sex. Mostly the unprotected sex. And not all Bisexuals cheat. Bisexual men are not irresponsible cheaters spreading disseases. This misinformation is responsible for a high number of women rejecting Bisexual men. I don't think it is fair to perpetuate a myth. Again, I wish you the best on your journey.
