A Brief (not so brief) History of me...

Hello all,

I'm 29, ostensibly male (but with more than a couple of question marks over my gender identity), and more than a tad confused. At times, I'm capable of laughing at my own confusion, but often it's the source of intense sadness. I don't currently have a label for my sexuality, and as it may shift, I'm wary of fixing it in stone, but I don't mind if by the end of my post you have come to your own conclusions. In fact, I would encourage you to share them. I intellectually have no problem with being gay, although I wonder whether at a deep subconscious level there may be some internalised homophobia. I have been in therapy for a long time (mainly depression, which is largely manageable, and is in part caused by my questioning of my own gender) and the subject of my sexuality is of great interest to me and something we are exploring there, but I wanted to get some insight from a friendly, supportive audience, which is why I'm here.

At this point in time, I find myself emotionally very drawn to men. It's been known to fluctuate, but that's where the compass point seems to be pointing for now. I know that history isn't necessarily a predictor of the future, but I thought that a summary might perhaps help you to help me get a little closer to my own truth. Be warned: it does contain SEXUAL CONTENT.

I grew up in a household that was deeply homophobic, because of my father and I did learn relatively early on - before I really knew what the word 'gay' meant - that whatever being homosexual was, it was something that wasn't a good thing as far as he was concerned. Largely, when I first started having sexual fantasies, it was mainly of my female peers, so it didn't cause me any anxieties. However, I did also eventually start having dreams and fantasies about my male peers and on multiple occasions found myself getting aroused around male friends - something which I was very afraid of at the time and tried to control/repress. With the benefit of where I am now, I deeply wish I hadn't done that and would love to have been able to talk to my younger self then with the knowledge and compassion I have now. At the time, I tried to project to the world that I was only interested in women and to myself largely thought this to be true, as I had no problem masturbating to women; I'm aware now that masturbation and even sex with the opposite sex does not necessarily indicate heterosexuality.

I was however deeply uncomfortable about getting intimate with women (or men for that matter). With women, I was very scared at the thought of sleeping with them and the need to 'perform'; penetration (sorry to use such a potentially vulgar word) felt very foreign to me and strange. I had one failed attempt at age 18 with a woman and came to the conclusion that I must be gay. While I was initially depressed about this for quite a while, I did find myself falling in love with one of my best male (primarily heterosexual) friends at university. While there was no opportunity to explore this - well, that's not entirely true, but I didn't take him up on it - I definitely was interested in him sexually and emotionally. Once I realised that I had an interest in guys, I came out as gay to most of my friends and made significant headway in opening up to my family - I basically told my dad that if he had a problem with it, it was his, not mine. I decided to open myself up to watching gay porn and checking out men, which I hadn't done before, to try and determine whether I had a type and whether I liked it. This was ultimately unsatisfying, because to my surprise, I found gay porn really difficult to masturbate to (but I wasn't disgusted by it) and other than my male friend, I didn't see any men that made me think or feel: 'wow'!

For several years I was single, with not much to report on during this period. I was in therapy, principally for gender identity issues, and since then, I've been trying to make things work as is. If I felt an overwhelming desire to transition in future, I would, but for now, I'm ok-ish.

At the age of 26, I met a wonderful woman at an acquaintance's birthday party. I didn't think anything would come of it, because of all my issues, but on the third date I decided to be completely honest about my gender and sexual orientation confusion, and that I was trying to figure it out. I was amazed that she didn't reject me, instead she was overwhelmingly impressed by my honesty and said that as long as I continued to be honest, she would be happy to see how things go. For the first couple of months, we didn't have sex, much to her gentle frustration; she was never pushy and never said anything that made me feel bad, but her frustration was evident, mainly because in bed with her I was essentially always visibly aroused, which she found surprising given my reluctance to actually have sex. Two months in, during a particularly tender moment, I realised that I really cared about her and that I should give it a go. That was when I lost my virginity and in a really silly way, I was very pleased with myself at the time. For the rest of our relationship, we had regular sex. It might be worth mentioning that I rarely managed to climax, but that otherwise the 'plumbing' seemed to work very well. Whether you believe me or not, I enjoyed making her feel good, which was itself a big turn-on for me, and I chalked down the infrequent climaxing to my taking of antidepressants and the use of condoms, which for me reduce sensation. Towards the end of the relationship, I began having doubts again about my gender and sexuality again; I felt a need to express myself a bit more femininely and started fantasising about guys. I was open about this with my girlfriend and as I was no more sure of who I was at this point than I was at the start of the relationship, she voiced that she found my confusion difficult to deal with and suggested we part ways. This period was one of the most painful of my life. I missed her terribly and found myself utterly miserable for a long time afterwards. I wasn't ready to see anyone else until well over a year later, and when I did, it was mainly one-night stands with women, which were fun at the time, but after my relationship with my ex, I was reluctant to explore anything more serious with a woman. I went on a few dates with men, but they didn't feel romantic or sexual; they felt like I was basically hanging out with a male friend and I found the kissing awkward.

At the start of last year, I had a golden opportunity to explore my sexuality, in that I had a threesome with a male and female friend. It was an incredibly mature experience, with each of us stating what we were and weren't comfortable with - we're all still good friends (fortunately). For me it was an interesting experience as it was the first time I was able to experiment with a naked man. The thing that struck me most about it was that it was a pleasant, but not mind-blowing experience; he's not an unattractive man, but he is a close friend, so that may have been a reason why I didn't find it that sexual. That being said, I felt no repulsion. We limited it to kissing and mutual masturbation, which was nice. I must admit that I had felt a stronger sexual attraction towards the female friend for a while before that night, so both I and my male friend (who identifies as straight) were far more interested in her than each other, but we did satisfy our curiosity in exploring each other's bodies. That being said, I had different expectations of myself for my first intimate encounter with a man. I had always wondered whether I was so deeply repressed or had internalised homophobia to such an extent that I would literally explode in a sexual mess of release at the chance to do something with a man - it was a lovely experience and I wasn't nervous at all, but I was disappointed that I didn't have a eureka moment. Further confusion...

I had further one night stands with a few women and started seeing a lovely woman. It was going very well until she asked me where the relationship was going. At this point I had a massive panic and was terrified of the thought of being in a relationship, so I broke things off in as kind a manner as I could.

I am currently seeing a bisexual woman on a very casual basis, which is fine, as we aren't seeking anything serious with each other, although it is wonderfully affectionate when we're together. The first time she and I went out, it was a 24-hour long date and I was blown away by her, she was all I could think about for several days after, but then the thoughts changed and I started to think that this wasn't me at all. I've come to realise that while I do seem to enjoy sex with women, anything more long-term/emotionally involved doesn't seem to resonate with me. When I'm physically with women, it's good, but when I'm not around them, serious doubts start to creep in. Whereas, when I think of guys, I feel a lot more romantically inclined, but from my limited experience, sexually it doesn't seem as good, although I'm willing to concede that I may have mental blockers I might not be aware of and need to work on.

I currently feel I should give men another go on the dating front, but am nervous. Not just of attempting to further explore this aspect of myself, but also because I'm terrified that I won't feel anything more meaningful with men than I do with women or that I won't be able to function sexually with guys, because I seem to find it more difficult to be aroused. Some might call me bisexual, but that doesn't feel quite right, not when I compare myself to the lady I occasionally see, who I feel is truly bisexual. None of the labels seem quite right. Sometimes I'm ok with that, often I'm not. There's a small part of me that fears I'll end up alone, but I try to stay optimistic.

Thank you for reading if you've made it this far. I would love to get your thoughts x