Unsure to "gay" to now... straight? (33M)

I'm a 33 year-old male who's never had (satisfying, orgasm-inducing) sex in my life. I've also suffered from some degree of chronic depression and anxiety since I was 13 years old (so 20 years at this point).

I've had a lifelong desire for vaginal sex, but only crushed on and lusted after guys (but imagined no specific sex act). I was totally unsure of my sexuality growing up. When my first gay feelings arose, they felt temporary, immature... a "phase" I was certain would likely pass in due time. My gay attractions felt totally emotional, affectionate, but without any real sexual component (sucking dick and anal weren't interesting to me in and of themselves). They didn't pass however. At the same time, I could never tell if my desire was to be with the boys I was attracted to, or to be like them. I fell madly in love with a boy at 17, and could never imagine myself finding someone who made me feel so much love and joy again... and so I figured that I must be 100% gay, even though the thought of him having sex with women was both hot and heartbreaking.

When I was very young, I showered and bathed with a female cousin. We played doctor several times, all initiated by me. I explored her body with my mouth and found it incredibly arousing. The most intense sexual fantasy of my life is have vaginal sex with her.

I only notice (certain, very specific) guys in public, and never women. I've only pleasured myself to straight porn (some male/female but mostly solo female) for the past FOUR years. The orgasms are better and more complete than any I got looking at gay stuff, and my cock gets way harder. I have flushes of lust and desire throughout my entire body, something I've never experienced with gay stuff. The thought of straight sex alone makes me get strong erections.

The biggest issue for me is that all of this under a heavy, thick blanket of depression. I'm unable to access these feelings with much consistency outside of masturbating because I feel so badly.

 

It’s very much a chicken or the egg situation. Imagining myself straight makes me feel happy for the first time since I was a kid, but my mind doesn’t believe it’s possible for me to date women. There’s a real conflict going on between my intellect, heart and body, with some overlap. I had an arrested development from stress and trauma growing up. I never looked or desired to look at porn until I was 18, and even then I barely liked any of it. The appeal of gay porn was always emotional, heterosexual sexual and some emotional component.

The fact is, imagining myself having sex with a woman makes me way more aroused and happy than any gay fantasy, but I have this deep conviction that I’m really just a self-hating homosexual because literally no one seems to share my experience, which sounds like something straight out of old psychoanalytic theories about gay men.

 

Both, yes. I fantasize about it and it’s the only thing that gives me an erection. Gay stuff does nothing for me sexually beyond an erotic, emotional appeal.

It’s very much a chicken or the egg situation. Imagining myself straight makes me feel happy for the first time since I was a kid, but my mind doesn’t believe it’s possible for me to date women. I feel “gay.” My initial feelings for boys immediately convinced me I was probably homosexual, and found myself averse to heterosexuality because it was a sort of gender role I couldn’t see myself in. But I also feel like there’s a straight guy inside me dying to get out, obfuscated by the fog of depression.

There’s a real conflict going on between my intellect, heart and body, with some overlap. I had an arrested development from stress and trauma growing up. I never looked or desired to look at porn until I was 18, and even then I barely liked any of it. The appeal of gay porn was always emotional, heterosexual sexual and some emotional component. My main fantasies all my life were a men’s briefs fetish and vaginal sex, usually combining the two. The fetish doesn’t even feel necessarily gay, but just a sexual fixation and enjoyment, like any fetish.

The fact is, imagining myself having sex with a woman makes me way more aroused and happy than any gay fantasy, but I have this deep conviction that I’m really just a self-hating homosexual because I’ve identified as gay since 17. Very few people see, to share my experience, which sounds like something straight out of old psychoanalytic theories about how gay men were emasculated by smothering mothers or denied healthy fatherly love. The whole ordeal is really torturing my mind and my soul…

 

I apologize for all the posts. There seems to be no way to delete posts (bad design!). The final one is the complete responses to both comments.

 

@Searching2022 @bsg75apollo

I should add that I've tried to have sex with a dozen different men, usually just blowjobs and handjobs, and one time I topped. None of it felt good and I could barely stay hard. I always chalked it up to being chronically depressed. But now I'm getting erections and having sexual fantasies for the first time in many, many years. And all of it is straight. I try jacking off to gay porn and I just can't get into anymore, which I used to be able to more-so, but never to the extent I get hard to straight stuff these days.

I guess I'm just looking for validation that I might be mostly straight, if not basically straight. I'm feeling it strongly in my heart and my loins, but my mind is an anxious, overanalyzing mess. I'm trying to just listen and go with my feelings without trying to analyze. Maybe things will become clearer that way.

 

I think so too... I'm just afraid that straight relationships and sex will never work out for me because I'm broken somehow. Thank you for the recommendation. I shall look into the OCD-related threads.

 

Thank you for the long, thoughtful reply. I had an older gay male therapist (been seeing him for almost a decade off and on) who deals with a lot of very confused men, and we've spent the last two sessions talking about my sexual confusion (tomorrow will be the third session about it). I'm hopeful I will reach some clarity and acceptance with him eventually.

When I don't look at porn, my fantasies are all straight, and they make me unbelievably aroused considering I've been impotent since I was a teenager. It feels ridiculous to reject heterosexuality in myself since it's the norm, but I grew up thinking of myself as different, sensitive, artistic, and a lover of other boys. I had a lot of deep-seated shame and fear about my feelings for other boys and liking things that weren't masculine. I like cute things, am organized and fastidious and a great interior designer. My gay feelings are still there, but at this stage in my life, they feel eclipsed by these new (or rather renewed or rediscovered) feelings. Maybe it's a phase or some sort of illusion, but it feels like a potential way out of the trap I've been stuck in for so long, which is to say it feels like a coming home, a return to my authentic being. There are all these strange, wonderful and warm feelings I get when imagining myself integrating my straight feelings into myself.

If I ever develop feelings for another guy, I will not reject or diminish them. But I now deeply doubt whether those crushes, romantic as they may be to me, are capable of blossoming into functioning, fulfilling relationships (especially sexually). And the more I allow myself to think of women as potential partners, it stirs something in me emotionally. Butterflies and flutters in the heart. That must mean something.

Also, I’m curious in what ways you think that internalized homophobia sounds like it’s playing a part in my confusion. And thank you again for the helpful reply.

What do you make of my past homosexual experiences? I keep hearing online (and I’ve seen you post before) that it’s exceedingly rare for someone to think they’re gay if they’re straight, since there are no barriers, besides one’s own self-esteem, I suppose. But low self-esteem (specially in relation to the strength of one’s masculinity) has been used by ex-gay apologists to explain homosexuality as a state of sexual confusion that can be resolved by making the man own his own masculinity.

It makes me deeply uncomfortable knowing that I might just be playing head-games with myself, doing mental gymnastics to convert myself. I’m very insecure about all of this, and am desperate for validation, but I suppose a therapist and lots of self-exploration and detaching from labels is the best way forward. I suppose I just need to follow my heart and get out of my head, once and for all.

 

I see.

Prior to puberty, I had warm feelings in my heart and affection for certain other boys, but my main sexual fantasy was with my female cousin. Post-puberty, all of my crushes, infatuations, and lusts were for other boys, but entailed no specific sex act. I merely was aroused by the idea of them, and wanted badly for something sexual to happen between us. That was the majority of what I jacked off to from puberty to 15-17 or so (so 2-4 years). Aside from one miraculous incident of jacking each other off with a friend I was obsessed with (we were 15, and he finished, and I didn't think I could), those years were spent in painful unrequited longing for certain other boys, sexually and romantically. There was zero interest in the opposite sex.

Around the time of my first love (I was 17) and the subsequent heartbreak, I began to entertain a lot more straight fantasies. These might’ve been present to some extent prior, but I do not recall them. The first inklings that straight sex touched something deep inside me was when I imagined the boy I loved with a girl (he claimed he was straight). The idea of them having sex was both the hottest thing I could imagine, but also the most painful (because I loved him).

Vaginal sex became a very central part of my fantasies after this point. I was reminded of my experimentation with my cousin and the feelings that had aroused, which were so different than the ones I had for boys. These fantasies also felt more natural, in the sense that it was pure sexual appeal with no need for prior romantic feelings. I realized that I yearned for vaginal sex. All of a sudden, I had this strong, unexplainable itch to scratch. Vaginal sex just seemed much more satisfying physically to me (and now emotionally as well).

I should add that when I masturbate to straight fantasies, I get WAY more into it than I can with gay fantasies. Something takes over and I feel totally different in my body. I feel confident, strong, playful, comfortable, and virile, whereas I usually feel weak and vulnerable. My erections just happen and it’s wonderful. I don’t think this can chalked up to getting off on being or feeling “straight” alone, or can it? Is that a thing? Can self-hating fantasies make you consistently energized and aroused?

Additionally, if it was somehow a sick self-hating thrill that was consistently exciting and gratifying, how does that relate to the happy feelings I get when imagining myself as mostly straight? Could it merely be the feeling of normalcy that is making me happy?

As backward as it sounds, I feel like some sort of latent heterosexual, in a sense. Yes, the heterosexual desires were there early and surfaced periodically and with increasingly frequency and primacy, but they were eclipsed by my preoccupation with other boys. It’s gotten to the point where I actively WANT to be straight, which is something I’ve never really felt before because it would’ve felt delusional, but it no longer does. I’m unsure if this is merely the final act of self-hatred before accepting myself as homosexual for good. I certainly feels like a self-testing, as I’m deeply unhappy with my sex life up to this point and want to plumb the depths so-to-speak and dig up these misinterpreted feelings I’ve so far managed to largely ignore.

Either I’m playing games with everyone online when I make these posts (I’m not claiming you think this), or there’s something concrete going on beyond mere denial.

True.

By this, I just mean “feeling gay“ as opposed to “feeling straight.” The best way to explain it is that I am emotionally attached to that identity. It feels like an ideal, a world of possibility that never materialized for me. My gay identity has become very precious to me and a badge of honor after a lifetime of heart ache and sexual frustration. I don’t want to give it up, because it feels safe and familiar. And leaving it opens me to all the expectations of heteronormative society. I just simply do not feel like a “man,” but a very sensitive boy. I kind of feel like I have a sort of Peter Pan syndrome in this regard.

I can say I had no such early sexual experiences with older men, but there was always lingering doubt in the back of my mind about whether or not I was gay (for years I preferred “queer” because of how attracted to my cousin I was).

I guess I’m just really insecure right now and am trying to rule everything out, including forbidden, politically incorrect ideas.

(Thank you for reading this far if you did. It means a lot to have your input. I respect your opinion.)

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Very interesting. I have noticed as well that it’s a very rare observation. I think it often gets mixed up with feelings of “hero worship,” which complicates things a bit.

That very much makes sense. For me, it was merely that I didn’t feel compelled to imagine any specific sex act. But I certainly wanted something sexual to happen, very, very badly actually. And very early on, I felt that gay relationships were pure and good and natural, which I understand is not too common at that age.

Thank you. I am going to try my best. I could easily shove all this stuff back down and go on with my life pretending I’m 100% gay, but that just doesn’t appeal to me anymore.

Thank you for this.

 

@Chip I should add to all of this that I have been being treated for low testosterone. I have a feeling that puberty didn’t quite full blossom for me, psychologically and sexually. When I was initially treated (using Clomid, a fertility drug that stimulates the pituitary), I had a week-long “high” where I was brimming with positive energy. I couldn’t stop smiling. My libido went through the roof as well, and masturbating was heavenly. I had constant sexual fantasies that came upon me, which never happens, ever. And they were all straight! I wanted it so bad.

That high was followed by a depression, and now my levels have evened out and I’m back to regular depressed and anxious me, but maybe with better erections and assertiveness.

 

@Chip @BiGemini87 @Searching2022 @bsg75apollo

The more I reflect on this post and the comments, the more I feel like Chip is right. I don’t know why I’ve been so profoundly confused for so long besides depression, anxiety and lots of maladaptive ego-defense mechanisms. I've never had a satisfying sexual experience in my life, and I don't think I can chalk it up to mood disorders and internalized homophobia.

I had abusive parents and step parents growing up, and a lot of drama. Anxiety set in early, and depression came at puberty, and I never got out of it. I had highs and lows, but I was still dysthymic, angsty, and confused, which all kind tied up with my sexual development.

As I’ve stated, I’ve never enjoyed gay sex even though I’ve had crushes on other boys/guys. It doesn’t seem like it’s my real sexuality at all. I think I just envied and basically romanticized other boys who I saw as confident and comfortable in their own body. There was a sexual element, and maybe I did love them in some way, perhaps just (or mostly) platonically, but that's just flat out no longer my predominant interest.

It would seem that I’m mostly straight, if not practically straight.

I’m finding more and more that I find the female body erotic beyond anything I’ve felt toward men. When I get out of my head and just embrace my subjective, emergent experience, it’s women that do it for me. The way it excites me is unreal. The idea of male and female, the dynamic in that, is incredibly hot to me. I just get aroused, psychologically and physically, almost immediately. I cannot replicate this with any gay fantasy, even though I have zero shame about said fantasies.

Being straight and having sex with the opposite sex has always been a fantasy since I was a boy, but I just couldn’t see myself being that vulnerable with a girl. Coupled with my feelings for boys, I concluded very early that I was probably gay. However, I’ve always had strange euphoric feelings, happy feelings, when seeing breasts, for example, or a certain woman here and there, but I rejected them. I felt like it was wrong! I don’t even know how to explain to someone else

I was very attached to my gay identity, which seemed to be based on anxiety and fear. I was afraid of the world thinking of myself as gay, but I was also afraid of heterosexual feelings in me (and they very much were always there). I always wanted a bigger, stronger, more competent male to take care of me and protect me. But the more confidence I gain, the less I feel like I want that anymore. I realize that it wouldn’t be fulfilling anyway, especially not sexually.

Does this explanation make sense, or is it full of red flags? Maybe it isn't entirely accurate, but perhaps that is inconsequential. It seems self-evident what I'm attracted to sexually.

I’m curious if others agree with me after having read the thread as it has progressed.