8 Years Later and Still Questioning

Hello @Tai

There’s no need to apologise for your long post. It’s ok. I’ve read through it twice and I hope I don’t miss anything out. I was going to answer by inserting each of your points and then answering but I somehow lost the method of being able to do that so instead I’ve answered each part of your post in order as I’ve gone along. I hope it all makes sense for you.

I can only compare your experiences to my own in the hope that it gives you an insight into how it can be when attempting to figure out your sexuality.

First of all, I’ll point out that I’m middle aged and it took until I was well into my 30s before I finally figured out and accepted that I loved women and at that time identified as bisexual. I’d been with a man for over twenty years. I was married to him.

Your crushes, feeling the rushes, fast heartbeats etc suggests to me that you are definitely physically/sexually attracted to women but when you speak of not having a romantic attraction to any of them, this just means to me that you haven’t met a woman yet who you felt emotionally bonded to as well as being sexually attracted to.

For years I used to look at women and feel those racing heart beats and crazy attractions for them, but I hadn’t got close enough to any of them to feel a romantic bonding. The women I was emotionally close to, I never felt a sexual attraction for. So I always questioned just like you are doing, as to whether I was truly bisexual. This is why it got left so late in my life and why I never bothered to do anything about it. Until wham, well in my 30s I fell in love with a woman who was lesbian. The whole package. I had my question answered finally! That’s when I came out.

Then over time I realised that the more I was freely able to express my attraction (romantic and sexually) to women, my attraction to men faded completely. I changed my label many years down the line to lesbian.

I think that you haven’t met the right woman yet who you feel a romantic bond with along with those physical attraction feelings at the same time. This is what is throwing you into confusion as it did with me at first.

I think you allowed yourself to feel for the gay girl because you knew you could do. She was gay so you didn’t feel anything bad about yourself for allowing yourself to let go with your feelings for her. This possibly opened up that side of you because you could allow yourself to do it. This then allowed you to feel those attractions for other girls even though you didn’t know their sexualities. There are lots of older women (I have friends who this happened to) who never felt attracted to women all their life but they suddenly got feelings for a woman who was lesbian. Then after that they realise they felt attraction towards women.

When you say about feeling like a disgusting pervert when you think of lust for a woman, I feel this is your inner battle telling you that it’s not possible to feel this way for a woman who might be straight because you feel it’s wrong to do so. You felt ok about it with the one who was gay because you knew she has attraction to women so that makes it ok to feel that way for her. I think It makes you feel bad when you are attracted to a woman who isn’t gay. Like you shouldn’t even go there.

I agree when you say you’re attracted to everything on a woman aside from the genitals, that perhaps it’s because of your inexperience. I had the same thoughts until I was actually able to physically be with a woman and those thoughts then changed.

I doubt you’re thinking you are bi just for attention. Your physical attraction to women has been real.

I don’t think you’ve had attraction to women because you don’t want to miss out. Attraction is either there or it’s not. It can’t be forced.

I also have ADHD and I’m the most indecisive person regarding everything in my life. I ponder, I swap and change, I take years to make decisions on some things. Just look at how long it took me to finally decide I loved women. Those feelings were always there though. I just pondered over them for so many years until I got the romantic attraction for that woman along with the physical attraction. That was the deciding factor for me.

What you’ve written makes total sense to me since I have been through it myself. My own mind has been a jumbled mess in the past. I, too was dealing with gender issues that took over the sexuality part. I couldn’t find a label for my gender. I didn’t know if I was FTM because I felt so masculine. I eventually settled on non binary. I’m happy to be in my female body but the non binary label seemed to fit.

Remember too that whatever labels you decide to keep for yourself, they can always be changed as you go through your journey.

To sum all this up, I think you’re bisexual but you just haven’t met a woman yet who you feel those romantic feelings for alongside the physical attraction.

I hope I didn’t miss any main points out. Let me know if I have. I hope my reply has helped somewhat.

I’m certain that others will input their own thoughts as well.

 

What you describe sounds like bisexuality: experiencing attraction (romantic or sexual) to both sexes makes you bisexual. Not all bi people are attracted to both sexes in the same way, and some lean more to one than the other. Even if you were only ever attracted to one person of the same sex in your life, you’d still be bi.

I relate to not being attracted to women’s genitals specifically. I’m exactly the same, even though I lean heavily towards women. There could be an underlying reason for it? For example, I realised my own aversion to them likely stems from several personal issues: such as the way I see my own body, and certain “odd” fears that I have. But even so, not being attracted to a person’s genitals doesn’t mean you don’t experience genuine attraction to them! Attraction is more than sex or certain body parts. Heck, I’ve even known of straight women who are repulsed by penis.

It is also a common stereotype that bisexuals all just want attention, especially bi women (as they are often fetishised). It can be easy to internalise this kind of thing and begin to believe it about yourself. But nobody is forcing you to experience these feelings for women, not even yourself. A straight person wouldn’t be having the same thoughts as you. I second what Sunchimes said here:

Another thing is, feeling “perverted” when fantasising about women is common amongst lesbians and bisexuals. Again, it often comes from being exposed to harmful rhetoric (such as lesbians/bi women being “predatory” or “unnatural”). Again, these things are totally untrue: there is nothing wrong with being a woman who desires other women. It may be less common but that doesn’t make it less natural.

I’m also very indecisive and am constantly over-thinking things. I have anxiety as well — it’s always a fun mix. With knowing what I know, I still sometimes have doubts about my own bisexuality. Even though I’ve only ever had serious crushes on women and have only been attracted to the bodies of fictional men as opposed to real men, I think “what if I’m just forcing myself and I’m straight in denial?” or “I haven’t had feelings for a woman in a while… what if I was just imagining it the whole time?”

I think maybe due to the nature (and sometimes fluidity) of bisexuality, we may always go through periods of questioning ourselves. But in all, pretty much everything you’ve described is something another bi person would have experienced! So you’re not alone. And from what it sounds, not straight, no matter how your brain may try to twist things haha

 

Not at all!

This was me for a while, except reversed. Part of the challenge is it's not always 50/50, in fact it probably almost never is. I've only known I was bi for about 4-5 years and am only now getting fully and completely comfortable with it.

For me part of it is I feel stronger attractions towards women than I do to men and one of the ways I was able to hide it from myself was along the lines of "Well I'm definitely attracted to women so this occasional feeling I have about a guy isn't really anything."

This will come back into play a bit later in the post.

This sounds a bit what I was talking about, though maybe your thoughts on it were much more direct than mine were.

All good questions. It's worth pointing out that wanting to have sex with someone is not the same as wanting to have a relationship with them. For most people the two are tied together but (generally) it's absolutely possible to have one without the other.

That's hard to say. There can be all sorts of things going on in our minds that color how we perceive something. It's possible her being gay colored your views on how you felt about her. It's also possible that (like me, but reversed) being attracted to men made you discount the possibility that you were attracted to women (and factoring in the societal pressure that you should like men on top of that). This stuff can be tricky to unpack, I know it took me a while.

That can happen. I think most people would still consider that 'bi' but I could see why someone in that position would still see themselves as strictly gay or straight.

More good questions. Does it feel icky because you just don't like it or because it makes you a 'pervert'?

It also sounds like you're having issues if you think the people you're fantasizing about wouldn't reciprocate and don't have those concerns with the one that you did. That may be a factor.

Either way it took me a while to get used to the idea that yes, I want to have sex with a man... because it just felt wrong going against the standard that society set. It's hard enough for people who are strictly interested in the same sex, many of whom wind up in relationships or marriages to the opposite gender and take a while to figure that out, and adding in legitimate attraction to the opposite gender on top of that can make it harder to put the pieces together.

It could also just be your preferences and it's all valid. We're all different.

Those are questions that are hard to address from the outside. I think that's something you'd want to have some self-reflection on and/or maybe talk with a therapist, if appropriate.

But if I may suggest, they sound to me like they could very easily just be rationalizations rather than true concerns.

Well, whatever reason you're thinking about it, it's worth exploring. Again it sounds like this might just be an attempt at a rationalization.

Thinking things through is completely fine. I don't think that's a reason to doubt by itself. It's a reason to be true to yourself and think things through.

Well, I don't think any of us can answer that question for you. If I had to guess based just on this, while our situations are quite different I see some of myself in this (though from the opposite viewpoint of course) and you may be similar to me, bisexual with a stronger attraction towards the opposite gender that clouds your feelings a bit from your feelings towards the same gender.

That said, again, only you can answer that question and it may take a lot of self-reflection and/or experimentation.

Either way, best of luck with that, I hope you do figure it out one way or another. This site is a great resource with a lot of great people in it. One other thing I can say about my experience is once I fully accepted this part of me, I felt a lot more whole and complete.

 

Hello, @Tai! Others have already been helpful, but hopefully I can help you work through these points, as well.

Firstly, it's worth noting that there's no evidence that the split model of attraction (romantic/sexual) exists. Usually if someone is dealing with an absence of one or the other, it comes down to some sort of blockage. I think it's normal to experience one before the other, but once you know someone, you typically experience both. So if you aren't, something bigger is likely at play here. It could come down to past non-romantic relationships: friendships, familial relationships, etc. Any number of things can contribute to the blockage, but once you figure out what it is, you can work through it.

I completely get where you're coming from. This is something I grappled with, too: wanting to have better female friendships, wondering if I was only attracted to someone because I knew they weren't straight, etc. But conversely, the question of whether her being gay was a deciding factor could be turned on its head to say, "What if she's the reason I realized this truth about myself?" I understand that people can condition themselves into thinking they're any orientation but what they actually are--we see this with gay/lesbian individuals who enter into opposite-sex partnerships and on occasion, we see it with straight people. The difference being, of course, that LGBT people aren't the status quo and thus, seek to be part of it out of shame, fear, or disgust.

The orientation of the girls you've had crushes on following this one are irrelevant; we can't help being attracted to people, even if we know they aren't in our dating pool. What we're experiencing comes from something deeper, more fundamental.

This is possible. Cases like this, while not common, do crop up from time to time. That being said? You yourself have admitted to having crushes on others, so I think it's safe to say that's not the case.

This could be one of two things, or even a combination of both. 1) You might be dealing with some internalized homophobia/biphobia, hence the feeling of being "icky", or 2) It boils down to not wanting to make advances on unwilling parties, which is admirable and understandable--but when it comes to fantasies, you have nothing to feel guilty for/ashamed of. Fantasies are harmless, so long as you remember that that's all they are.

This is something I can understand, as well. Early on, a short while before coming out to myself, I held onto the idea that I was disgusted by female genitals. I don't think lack of experience is the only issue in your case, because I myself have not had any, yet I've overcome the shame/disgust. I think, however, the disparity between how you feel about the male body versus the female one comes down to how long you've been able to embrace your attraction to one over the other. When we're attracted to the opposite sex, there's a lot less to process because as I said before, we're meeting the status quo. Straight people/couples have challenges like anyone of any other orientation, but the one thing they don't have to grapple with is the shame, ridicule, or hostility we're met with in certain societies. It sounds to me like you're still trying to come to terms with being anything other than straight, and that's okay. You have nothing to feel ashamed of. It takes time.

This definitely sounds like internalized biphobia. I think it's fair to say if not all of us, most of us of the bisexual persuasion have dealt with this at one point or another.

In the end, we can't make ourselves be attracted to anyone. We can convince ourselves, sure--but I think it's fair to say your experiences and attractions are genuine.

I could argue that, if these conditions are at the root of your questioning (they may very well be), that they are responsible for you having a harder time coming to terms with/realizing that you aren't straight.

Yet another thing I can empathize with. Those of us who live in our heads agonize about a lot. One positive aspect of this, though? Once you make a decision/realize something, you can do so knowing you've put a lot of thought into it and have no regrets.

I can't tell you that you are bisexual; that's something only you can do. But I can say that, based on everything you've said in your post, on your feelings for this girl and how it's created this chain reaction, that I believe you are. I hope I've helped in some way, maybe even allayed some of your doubts and fears. If you ever need someone to talk to, my inbox is always open.

 

You’re welcome! You’ll be surprised at how many others have gone through/are going through this too. Over the years when I’ve needed support I’ve met so many with such similar stories. You’re definitely not alone.

There is absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t meet a woman who you will bond with emotionally and physically. It will happen, usually when you least expect it to. Your mindset seems to be in the right place and you’re heading in the right direction

I found it to be an amazing part of my journey that once I came out about my attraction towards women, there was eventually a shift in my sexuality. I identified as bisexual at first because I’d been attracted to men. But for me I had extremely strong emotional attraction to women as well as physical attraction. Women also saw (and still see) the “boy” side of me which kind of sealed the deal. Over time I began to see handsome guys but instead of wanting to be with them I wanted to “be” them lol. However, I’m quite happy not to transition and just remain non binary.

Alas, that relationship didn’t last due to circumstances. We were both married people at the time and our situations made it impossible to continue in a relationship with each other because of that. She and I had a lot of sorting out to do in our own lives. It took many years for me to process this huge change and to get to a place where I was free, so that I could have relationships with women and be my own person.

I am so glad that my own experience has helped you. I’m in a happy place now. For many years my labels switched and I couldn’t settle but I’m very happy with how I identify now and my life is sorted. It’s not been an easy road to get here but I’m here and I’m ok! You will be too The advantage you have as well is that you’re much younger so you have even more time than I did to figure things out

 

That is a nice thing about this forum. I had someone respond to my first post saying that he was in a really similar place to me, and I've since found a few others. Helps to not feel alone!

It's pretty common. I have moments of feeling like a fraud with my attraction to both women and men! More often the latter, because I haven't ever had a male partner so I sometimes worry how I really know. I do really know, and accept that most of the time but doubts still sneak in sometimes.

I know where my mind goes can vary quite a lot. Sometimes I'll have guys on the brain all the time, sometimes I'll only think about women. Sometimes I go back and forth in the moment.

You just add additional quote tags for each section and put your replies in between. Sort of like this (using parens instead of brackets so it displays as text):

(quote)message.(/quote)

Reply.

(quote)message.(/quote)

Reply.

It's a lot easier to do this on a PC, though, than a phone or tablet so don't sweat it too much if it's a bother.

Good. I've still got lots to figure out, but I'm getting there.

 

One thing I meant to add here...

Something I've realized that helps me to get past these feelings is when I see a woman I find attractive I never have second thoughts or doubts about that, even though I know it's very unlikely I will ever act on that attraction...

So why should I hold my attraction to a man to a different standard?

 

It’s s great when we finally sus out how to do the quotes isn’t it? Lol

Forums like this are invaluable because there usually are people present who have been or who are going through the same things. Just getting that acknowledgment is reassurance in itself.

As for my first, yes she will always have a special place in my heart. I spoke to her recently after many years of not being in touch. Our dynamics were totally different. There were no romantic feelings, just a quick catch up and we parted ways in the knowledge that we’re both doing ok.

 

That's essentially it, yeah. Of course there are exceptions to every rule, but for most people, there's usually a reasonable explanation for why these two things don't always align. For example, I think many people have experienced physical attraction to someone without knowing them, but that once they do get to know that person, the attraction either diminishes based on new information (i.e. unreconcilable differences in character) or strengthens into something romantic based on mutual interest. The reason I mention physical and sexual as separate is because from personal experience, physical is the surface-level attraction that helps us zero in on a potential partner, kind of like an incomplete cousin to sexual attraction; so the difference between an acorn and an oak, so to speak. In your case, I can't say what might be creating the disparity between your attractions, aside from to think shame or issues with self-esteem might be the culprits.

I meant more that their orientations don't impact yours, but I do get what you mean about an initial attraction to someone, realizing they're not in your dating pool, and thereby not building the level of emotional investment you might have, had they been in said dating pool. I think it's how we stay sane, to be honest; finding someone to share your life with, short-term or long-term, is hard enough without agonizing over everyone we can't have, right? Though if you do detect a pattern in the types of people you're attracted to--say, women who are unavailable--then it could indicate something else entirely. Maybe there's a sense of security or comfort in allowing yourself to be attracted to certain types. But I can only speculate.

Oh my gods, this. As someone who's often struggled with the same, you have my sympathies. It certainly does make things a lot more confusing than they need to be. But with time, you will begin to differentiate between the two.

It doesn't sound bad at all. It sounds very human, in fact, and I think it speaks a great deal to your character and your self-awareness that you've given it so much thought. If it's any consolation, I don't think you're doing it for attention or to make yourself more available to a wider range of people. I think those feelings just make you more aware of what you need/want.

I have every confidence you'll figure things out when you're ready, and I'm happy to help whenever I can.

 

Hi @Tai,

I've read your story and have been following this thread and can relate a lot to your experiences with women, to an extent. So I probably won't be much of help, but I just wanted to let you know you are not alone in having these feelings and experiences. I too struggle with finding a woman I am both emotionally and physically attracted to. It's usually I find them physically attractive, and similar to your experience, as I get to know them better, I am completely turned off by their personality and lifestyle and I just feel so awkward around them. Girls don't seem to like being around me either. Then the self-doubt kicks in and I don't feel part of the community because I don't have enough romantic attraction to pursue a relationship.

Or I am emotionally attracted to a girl (like in a platonic way) but I could never be physically attracted to them, and this seems to be a pattern. When it's become a pattern - that you are not meeting a woman who you can be emotionally invested in - you wonder if this is your true orientation. I just want to say that your feelings are valid. It doesn't help when you haven't met anybody who shares the same experiences. I am surprised and uncomfortable when queer girls want to pursue a relationship with one another as quickly as ordering from McDonald's. I digress.

I hope you are able to talk to a therapist, counselor, or a trustworthy friend about these issues. It helps so much to have a support system handy for when these issues come up.