How did you know you were a lesbian?

Maybe you aren't attracted to girls at all....especially if sex and relationships are a turn-off. Or maybe you're still taking in society's messages that only heterosexual relationships are proper.

Lots of straight women think women are pleasing to look at too, but there's no sexual interest.

 

It's difficult to describe for me. When I was younger, I wanted to be in a relationship with a woman, but I thought sex would be weird/gross. I had issues with my sexuality in general when I was younger (not in terms of what gender I liked, but in terms of thinking having sex at all was a bad thing). It mainly came from being brainwashed by religion and taught a lot of shame. But I got more open to the idea of sex with women as I got older.

I still haven't had sex yet though, mostly because It's hard to find gay women and that I'm not interested in something casual. But I know deep down, It's what I'm attracted to. Maybe It'll take a while for you to get to that point?

Also, to answer your question further, I always knew I was attracted to girls, but I didn't know if I was lesbian or bi. It took me until I was 19 years old to figure out that I didn't like guys at all.

 

I grew up in a very conservative, christian area so for me being gay wasn't an option both in society and in my head. Like...when i started noticing myself checking out girls in PE in like 6th or 7th grade, 11-12 ish, it never occured to me that i might like girls - i simply thought i was being very rude and inappropriate and assumed i was just 'comparing sizes' is how i explained it away.

I noticed around that same time 2 things - i did not find shirtless guys appealing like other girls, and that my guy crushes were all of a very specific type - somewhat feminine, pretty guys. But even though i would look at a guy and be like he's cute and obsess a bit, the idea of anything more was repulsive. Seeing a guy shirtless was like 'oh okay' - it didn't do anything for me and i didn't understand the appeal at all. But instead of connect the dots, because it was never an option in my family and among family friends, i simply assumed that i was just being a good daughter, that i was just prioritizing school over boys, and that i was just very modest and not very sexual which in the christian conservative circle i was raised in was touted as a good thing. This is how i explained away the fact that i never dated anyone in school.

It wasn't until i was like 22 or 23 that i began to question my sexuality. It was all over one person too - a new girl at work. I couldn't figure out if she was a guy or a girl for the longest time though, and this puzzled me. I think looking back she was probably genderfluid or trans maybe? Idk. She wasn't employed with us for long at all and her name was one of those boy or girl names, so that didn't help cause she looked very young and her voice wasn't helping either. But when i finally realized she was a girl, i was completely thrown for a loop. Then i began to connect the dots. Checking out girls in PE in middle school. Routinely thinking what i thought was inappropriate thoughts - wondering what a girl would look like shirtless, wondering what it would be like to touch a particular person shirtless or half naked, etc. Stuff like that, that i had just explained away or mislabelled my whole life, i was suddenly re-evaluating, and thats how i came to the conclusion by thinking a lot about it and posting on here...that i'm gay. I like girls.

 

If you feel arousal for the female body, you're probably bi/gay.
Do you also feel arousal for the male body?

I remember thinking sex with girls and relationships with girls were weird/gross too, so that alone does not tell you what your sexuality is.

 

I don't like lesbian porn either, but in my case it has more to do with how fake and unrelatable it is. Lesbian sex doesn't turn me off if It's portrayed properly, but unfortunately, porn is mostly aimed toward straight men.

I honesty feel like every lesbian is different with how they express attraction. Personally, the idea of sleeping with a man is completely repulsive to me. I've had people talk about me being with men (when I was closeted and they didn't know) and it gave me an uncomfortable feeling. Other lesbians have been ok with it but just felt the real attraction is missing.

Also, even though I'm a lesbian, I don't have any arousal toward (random) women's bodies. I've never been attracted to a stranger, I've never checked out random women, I never feel anything. My sexual attraction is a bit more secondary- I get emotionally attached and become sexually aroused by that specific person's body, but not by random women's bodies in particular.

I'm actually not a fan of breasts. They don't turn me off by any means, but they just give me a "neutral" response. I don't think women's breasts are that attractive on their own, but a pair belonging to the one woman I love- can be. I just don't understand the big deal I guess. I have a huge rack and I've never liked it much, so I guess that's why I've been conditioned to not care. But I don't know if It's a sexuality thing? A lot of straight women don't get randomly aroused by penises but they like the penis of the man they're dating.

 

Idk Creativemind, but I think that most people that are attracted to women feel some arousal for breasts? Unless you're asexual or demisexual or something.

I can get aroused by random breasts, but not by just seeing a random vagina (I think, I haven't really spent much time testing this out lol) because that's just weird to me lol. Maybe this only applies to only seeing random genitalia?

 

Why do lesbians have to be attracted by random breasts if straight women aren't attracted to random penises? I actually do find random vaginas way more attractive than breasts in general, btw. Breasts are like feet to me, they don't gross me out but they're just a body part. There's way more to a woman's anatomy than breasts, and many women don't even have prominent ones (like A cups).

Lesbians in general are way over sexualized by the public. We come in many different flavors. Some are constantly horny and sexualize every part of a woman, some are a bit more conservative in regards to attraction and dating. And some are in between. I guess I am "technically demisexual" but I feel those labels are just useless, especially since MOST straight women I know have "demisexual" attractions but aren't questioned or forced into those labels. That's because straight women don't have their sexual orientation as sexualized. Lesbians are treated as sex objects, so we're the ones who get questioned and harassed more frequently if we aren't sexualizing people enough.

 

Well, because you can't really compare penises with breasts?
You can compare them with vaginas, however, and I do believe that most people are not attracted to only seeing a random vagina just like most people are not attracted to only seeing a random penis.

 

I read a playboy and I was done for.

 

I am attracted to random vaginas sometimes, just not breasts. Vagina is my favorite body part, It's where most of the fun takes place. I fantasize about touching them from time to time, but breasts never cross my mind at all.

Breasts don't interest me that much. I actually prefer small ones, like A cups at most. Other than that, I'm not a breast person.

And I have met lesbians who don't care about breasts...I don't see why that's weird, especially since women aren't defined as a pair of breasts. They all still love sex with women and everything else about women, it's just that that part is neutral.

 

Our experiences differ then. My lesbian friends love them lol, I don't think I've ever met a lesbian that said she doesn't. But hey, to each their own.

 

Well, It's not that I hate breasts, it's just that I feel neutral about them. I only enjoy them on a significant other, but random breasts are.....meh.

Like I mentioned before, I think It's because my own breasts are so large (D cups) and I've always had self-esteem issues with them. They hurt my back, they look disgusting to me, and they just in general are inconvenient. I'm so conditioned by my own, especially since I have negative feelings about them, to the point it removes a response in other people's I guess. I only get turned on by A cups or B's at most, but I think that comes from a grass is greener perspective.

 

'I feel like I just can't think of myself that way and feel happy. I can't even get myself to fantasize about girls, it feels wrong but yet I feel these feelings towards them if I see a girl randomly. I just feel like I'm repressed maybe, but it also feels like this isn't what I want. If I'm a lesbian I just want to be happy and be this way, but I feel so much anxiety and suffocated by it I feel sick all the time. I can hardly do anything because I'm so worried.' -> I remember thinking and feeling this way as well. So it's definitely a possibility that you are very repressed.

For me, it took about 1 and a half year to get over this. I was lucky though to have such a great LGBT community near my place of residence. Hanging out there a lot and seeing so many happy, pretty, smart, successful, amazing gay people helped me a lot, so if there's a LGBT scene near you I'd go there. I think that it's also important for you to realize that gay people come in all shapes and sizes (if you don't already). Even though I knew that, I still did not fully believe this deep down. I had internalized a lot of the negative messages you hear about lesbians in society. By meeting lots of actual lesbians, Googling which celebs are lesbian, and watching lesbian Youtubers, I eventually embraced that literally any type of person can be a lesbian and this helped me accept myself, too. Going to lesbian only spaces/parties and gay parties in general also helped me. I also watched a lot of lesbian movies, tv shows, etcetera to normalize being a lesbian for me. I made lesbian friends, having lesbian friends around that accept themselves, who celebrate loving women and with whom you can do 'lesbian things' like having lesbian movie nights helped a great deal. I allowed myself to be attracted to women - this can be a hard thing to do, especially if it makes you feel sick in the stomach, but by doing it, you will gradually become more accepting of your feelings for women over time. Just allow yourself to check women out, watch lesbian porn, talk about women, fantasize about women, fight against your feelings of shame and guilt, etc.

Talk about your struggle to accept your sexuality. I did this a lot with a friend of mine of whom I knew that he'd be understanding and supportive. Preferably, you should do this with someone who isn't straight either and who has already accepted themselves, because they probably will understand your feelings better and will give you better advice because of that. Talking a lot about my feelings with my friend made me realize that my feelings were normal, that I wasn't alone in feeling them, and that there was light at the end of the tunnel. You could also write your feelings down in detail and then share what you've written with someone. Most importantly, allow yourself to feel all the emotions that you feel during the self acceptance process. Especially the negative ones. By allowing yourself to be angry, sad, etcetera, I believe you'll eventually process these negative feelings and start to accept yourself. Being a lesbian (or bisexual) isn't ideal, but it is not the end of the world either.
What also helped me is that I stopped caring about what other people think about me being a lesbian (this was a hard thing to do though, but I would definitely work towards this). Surround yourself with people who accept you, respect you and who are willing to listen to what you have to say. Having them around makes it way easier to deal with ignorant, bigoted, disrespectful and rude people.

That's about all the tips I can think of right now.

I have no idea if you're a lesbian or bisexual, by the way, since you could be bi because you say that men arouse you sometimes. I think that you should just go for it when you think that you're attracted to a man and see how that feels. It could also be that you're so heavily repressed that you think that you feel something for men because you don't want to be gay. I think that you'll figure out what your sexuality is through time and experience though, so I wouldn't stress yourself out too much about what your sexuality is right now.

 

No problem! Oh, a few more things: I also think that it's important to realize that you're not alone. I struggled a lot with being a lesbian because I thought that it would be way harder for me to find love because so few women are into women and I feared that I'd never find a woman that I loved who loved me back. Being straight is definitely easier but I know realize that I have plenty of options still. If I'm correct, you Americans think that about 2 percent of the population is attracted to the same sex, but recent studies in my country have shown that about 6 to 7 percent of the population is estimated to be into the same sex. That might not sound like a lot, but it is in numbers. And in the end, you only need to find one person among the 6 to 7 percent (or 2 percent or whatever percentage it truly is, you're still talking about a lot of people anyway).

Oh, and go to pride if you can! Even better, try to be in a pride parade. It helped me a lot to be in one standing next to out and proud people and to see how many people are accepting and supportive of gay people!

Being on EC (reading the stories of others, posting stories myself, helping others) helped me as well. And I also like L chat because it is a lesbian space and no one talks about struggling with their sexuality there (it's nice to see women being positive about being into women). Queer women are mainly worshiping women and ships of two women there and they also talk about other lesbian topics. There's also a lot of hate on there though in some of the threads that is usually directed at anyone who is not a gold star lesbian, so be mentally prepared for that.

Good luck!