Am I Bi/straight/in denial? CD/TG? Trying to understand

Okay so here goes.

Okay, so I am kind of shy/shameful when it comes to talking about my sexuality, so my sense of what is acceptable to talk about in public is probably a bit more conservative than most on this forum.

That being said I just want to give everyone a little warning before they get too deep into this post that I might get descriptive on some of the details, just because I feel like it's important to actually convey what my sexuality is like. I spent some time in therapy and I don't feel like I properly conveyed my situation because I didn't explain it in enough detail, and thus I didn't get the kind of support that I needed.

So this time around I am going to be specific. I hope that I don't offend anybody, I'm really not trying to.

Thank you so much for letting me share with you and taking the time to try and help me understand myself better. It means a lot to me.

Okay so... I'm 27, Male, and I've been dealing with a complicated sexuality from the very beginning. It's been the single most difficult aspect of my life and I'm tired of struggling with it. Thus I am here seeking answers.

I've been confused about my sexuality because I feel like ultimately I am straight, but I also feel like I may be bi, and even transgendered. It's hard for me to know... I feel like I can't really call myself straight any more, and yet I don't know that I can accept any of the other titles. This is difficult for me... because I feel like my sexuality alienates me from all the sexes and genders. I feel like I don't have a place in our culture.

I think I should start from the beginning.

What I have come to believe is my earliest sexual memory, I was about 5 years old and I had a dream that I was watching a little girl. I became the little girl in the dream, and when I woke from that dream I had an erection. This memory has stuck with me since then... and I feel like it is significant.

My very first sexual experience involved a neighbor boy down the street. I think I may have been somewhere around 10 years old. I had just discovered masturbation, although I wasn't sure what I was doing yet because I didn't understand it. I still hadn't had an orgasm, but I was aware that touching myself felt good.

My neighbor friend was about a year older than me, and I think he had already figured out what masturbation was, and had watched pornography. I was talking with my friend about it, and somehow we were talking about wearing women's clothing. He had told me that he had worn one of his sisters bras, and I told him that I had been curious about wearing women's underwear.

Now I've never told anyone this next part... and I'm kind of ashamed about it... but this is why I'm here so I'm going to bring it up.

We ended up going into his older sister's room (who was in her late teens) and putting on some of her underwear. I put on one of her bikinis, and found the feeling thrilling. I snuck off to the bathroom, and touched myself... but this time I had an orgasm. The very first time in my life... and I was wearing a bikini while it happened. I didn't mess up her swimsuit luckily and I put it back after I was done.

I feel really bad for his sister when I think back on that whole experience and how awful it was that we violated her things. It makes me cringe when I think about it. I can't fix the past though... so I just try to remind myself that I was just a boy.

For the next couple of months after I got home from school I would raid my mom's lingerie drawer. I usually had a couple of hours after school where nobody was home. I was addicted to the feeling of satin against my skin. At this time I was still short and thin, and when I wore women's clothing I actually looked feminine. I tried out all of my mom's makeup and I would admire myself in the mirror.

I think this was right about the time I started seventh grade, and I was starting to realize that I was not behaving normally. It didn't really bother me though, and although I knew what I was doing wasn't normal, I kept it up because it felt good. Sometimes I would wear women's underwear to school.

I started riding my bike into town and going to local thrift stores. I would steal women's clothing and lingerie and take them home with me. I had accumulated a fairly large collection of women's clothes after a while. I would lock the door to my room and dress up almost every night. I think it was about this time that I discovered transgendered fiction. I used to visit a website called crystals story site which had thousands of transgendered erotica stories on it.

I would fall asleep at night, wearing my clothes, hoping that I would wake up with breasts and that my penis would be gone in the morning.

This behavior went on till part of the way through my freshman year of high school.

Now let me be clear that I was one of the geekiest kids ever at this point. I was in marching band, and I was socially akward enough that I was the bottom of the pecking order in marching band. I would come home every night feeling lonely, and weird, and climb into my feminine escape world where I felt comfortable.

At some point I decided that enough was enough, and that I was sick of being a social outcast. So I did what I could about it. I joined a rock band at my high school and started playing drumset. I started trying to buy 'cool' clothes and look my part. Now I really didn't do a very good job of it for the first year or so, and was still remarkably akward. I got better at being social as time went on though.

I started hanging out with the stoner crowd, because they were one of the few groups of people who seemed to accept me for who I was. I of course got into drugs... I mean... I was going to be a rockstar now afterall... what did you expect? Hanging out with the stoner kids helped me to learn how to identify with a sub-culture, how to be macho. I learned how to walk the 'I don't give a fuck' walk, and talk the talk. I started to embrace the Punk Rock manifesto

My friends would always talk about the girls that they were into, and I would always join in on the conversations. Somehow I always felt like it was forced though. I wasn't really all that interested in girls, but it wasn't like I was interested in guys either. I just was into transgendered fiction and cross dressing.

I particularly loved fiction where guys would be forced to become women. There are all sorts of silly scenarios in these kinds of stories in which this happens. When I was first getting into it all I wasn't really into the fiction that involved extreme sex, I just liked the really tame stuff about boys being turned into pretty girls against their will. However, after a while I started getting into the more hardcore stuff. It got more and more vulgar and degrading, and it started to make me uneasy with myself.

I tried to stop. I tried to throw away all of my clothes, and put an end to it all. I wanted to be straight, I didn't want to be gay and I was scared that I was making myself gay. I wanted to be a guy, and I wanted to be liked by pretty girls. I wanted to be a huge drummer rock star and play the fastest hardest drums ever. I was playing aggressive death metal at this point and I was living a bizarre hypocritical existence of trying to be tough and secretly wanting to be a girl.

I never really got into straight pornography, and I would still visit the transgendered fiction sites even though I wasn't dressing up anymore. Sometimes I would look at images of girls, but I mostly fantasized about the erotic fiction.

Sometimes I would get these overwhelming urges, and I would go to a department store and steal some lingerie, but I would usually throw it away after about a week.

I remember when I met my first girlfriend. It was like a scene out of the movies... where time slowed down for me, and it was as though she was shimmering with beauty. I wanted to be with her more than anything. Every time I would see her I would lose track of whatever I was doing and try to talk to her. She wasn't super into me at the time but I wasn't about to give up. She was eventually my prom date and the girl that I lost my virginity to at 18.

We had a long relationship, almost two years. At one point in our relationship I started having sexual problems. It was then that I opened up to her about my cross dressing. I never really told her the specifics because I was too embarrassed, but I painted the general picture for her. She was really perplexed at first, but after she did some reading about cross dressing she decided that it was okay. We actually tried having sex while I was dressed up once, but I'll be honest that I really didn't like it. I was way way way too embarrassed to get into it.

The strange part is that even though I was enjoying having sex with a girl, I would still go to these transgendered fiction sites when she wasn't around. It was just the only kind of pornography that got me off.

I never really resolved my sexual issues, and we started having communication problems related to stress and diverging lives. The relationship eventually ended, and sex was part of it, but it wasn't the main part. I was about 20 years old at the time and I was living in my first apartment and failing miserably at music school. I started cross dressing again, and started accumulating a small collection of clothes. I would throw them all away after about a month though. I still visited the transgendered fiction sites.

At some point I got into Satanism. Now I really don't want to explain Satanism or defend it or really associate myself in any way with it, but I feel like for the sake of avoiding any misunderstandings it's important that you understand that Satanists do not worship the devil. They do not believe in god, or the devil, and the philosophy is ultimately that when we die that is the end of the game, so you might as well make the best out of what you have now whatever that may mean to you. It seemed like the perfect place to find people that would be open minded.

I bring this up because it was through the satanist forums that I met the first guy that I had a sexual experience with. He was an openly gay guy, who was incredibly well spoken, and I wanted to get to know him because I was trying to connect with other satanists in the area. Lets just call him Jay. He introduced me to two of his friends, one of whom became one of my closest friends I've ever had and the first guy that I ever shared my secret with, lets call him Tom.

But anyways, I came out to Jay, who I found out had all along being secretly wishing that I was gay. I explained to him that I wasn't sure if I was gay or not, but I felt like I needed to know. This lead to a very very strange situation which makes me shiver in horror every time I remember it.

Jay was in a committed relationship, but apparently he and his partner (who by the way is one of the nicest people I have ever met) had worked out some sort of arrangement where they were allowed to sleep with a certain number other people in some determined period of time. I don't remember the details. As I started to get to know Jay and his partner I realized that this arrangement wasn't really for his partner at all, who very clearly loved Jay and wasn't into other people, but was instead for Jay, who turned out to be kind of self-absorbed.

Jay was in his thirties, and I was 20, and he kept calling what we were doing a 'Greek thing' as though it was in the tradition of the Greeks and the culture of boy love that existed in that time period. I don't even know why I went through with it, I guess my desire to understand myself better was strong enough to overcome my better judgement. I ended up giving him oral once, and I was so disgusted with it all that I never talked to him again. It was such a bad experience... that I was almost certain at this point that I was definitely not gay.

I eventually grew out of the whole Satanist thing, but I was still really close friends with Tom who had grown out of Satanism with me. He and I would spend a lot of time together, we both had similar ideas about things and similar social ideas. Tom was gay, and he was about 4 years older than me. Tom was the first guy that I ever shared any of my secrets with and he helped me to try and understand who I am. Tom had a bit of a crush on me though, but he was a really good friend and saw himself as being more of an older brother. He would just listen, and never made a pass at me. He would offer advice when he thought it was appropriate.

Tom thought I believed that I wasn't gay just because I had such a disgusting experience with Jay (whom he knew was a sleaze ball long before he met me) and figured that I needed to give it a second chance. I eventually agreed with him, and I tried to meet some other gay guys, but I found the gay culture in my city to be a real turn off. At some point a few years down the road I did try having sex with Tom. I didn't like it, although I do like Tom. I still like Tom as a person, but I really didn't find sex with him erotic.

Over the next few years I did have a couple more relationships with girls that were nice, but ultimately unfulfilling and didn't last.

I actually had one more homosexual experience with a guy whom I met in Brazil, It's kind of a hard story to tell though because it involves so many complicated reasons for why it happened. I didn't enjoying touching him or being touched by him though, although I thought he was an alright person. He was the last guy that I ever tried anything with, and at this point I'm fairly confident that I am not into guys.

So fast forward a little bit to now. I still look at transgendered erotica. I still really don't get that into regular guy on girl pornography. My interests have gotten more and more extreme over the years though, and I'm really uncomfortable with the kinds of things that I have been getting off to lately.

I want to explain what it's like. I get horny, so I go through my list of sites and look at some crazy forced feminization erotica. Lately it's been these forced feminization hypnosis audio and visuals that have been doing it for me the most. So I go to these sites and I look at this stuff, and I get off, and when I'm done I feel sick to my stomach. I feel empty. I am ashamed that I keep doing this, but it's what I do... it's what I've been into for years. Every time I tell myself I am going to look at something else... something straight... it's just what I end up coming back to.

So this term a new student comes to our school who is openly transgendered MtoF. I've been talking to this student lately... and I feel a profound sense of admiration for her. She is so much younger than I am, but so confident to just be herself. This is a strange small redneck kind of town that we are living in right now too... so it makes it all the more brave that she is so open and willing to put herself out there. Sometimes I want to join her, and be openly feminine, let this side of my personality that I have been marginalizing almost every day have it's chance to be public. The other day I felt slightly attracted to her.

This is really confusing to me. I don't want to make another mistake with another guy, only to find out that I am REALLY NOT GAY... AGAIN. I don't know why I can't just accept this reality and move on. The thing is... I am not really all that crazy about any of the girls that I know right now. I'm starting to wonder if I am gay again.

I also feel like maybe I'm just starting to lose my grips on everything and the extra stress from school is pushing me over the edge. I don't want to be a transgendered person... it's way too difficult of a life to be worth it. I still like girls... I want to just be a straight guy with normal interests. I want to stop looking at weird pornography. I want to live a life without secrets.

I wanted to share my story with this transgendered student really badly... but I decided not to. I've got too much to lose. Scholarships, the respect of my peers, internship offers... life is going really well for me professionally and I don't want to screw it up. I can't trust her to be discrete... she is too close to me and everyone I know and I just don't know her well enough.

So I decided to find a support group finally and share my story with you all. And here it is. I know it was a bit long winded, but I basically just poured my soul out to you all... I told you things that I have never shared with anyone before. I feel like it's a load off my mind just to share my story with you all.

So I'm trying to figure out what to do next.

I feel like I have fooled around with too many guys at this point for me really just to be straight. I'm starting to believe that I am actually bisexual, and that bisexuality really does exist. I'm starting to wonder if I will ever be able to find a lover with whom I can connect... or if I am just too far out there at this point to ever find someone who can appreciate me. Although I've only really had good sexual experiences with girls, I feel like I've gone so deep into the queer world that I'm never going to be manly enough in the average girl's eyes. I feel like all of my weird sexual habits are keeping me from finding someone special.

I just want to feel complete you know? Everything else in my life is great... but I can't ignore all of the sexual stuff any longer. It's too stressful and I just can't deal with my daily level of stress any longer.

So I mean... that's all of my dirty laundry. It makes it sound like I've lived a sad strange life, and maybe parts of it were, but there is so much more to me that I just didn't share because there is only so much time in a day. Yeah, I've got my quirks, but I'm a really positive person, I've just got a deep seeded issue that I really need to work on.

I would love to hear your thoughts. I would love to just discuss it with someone who has heard the whole story. I know it's long, I know it's complicated, I know it's abstract... but maybe you see it in a way that I never have, and I would love to hear what you think. Can anyone relate with my story? Does any of it remind you of yourself? If you feel like saying anything please don't hesitate to write.

Thanks so much for reading.

 

I'll be honest, that had never even occurred to me. Asexuality exists? I mean... I enjoy having sex... but it's not really all that important to me. It's just so necessary to have a successful relationship... there is so much built on top of a healthy sexual relationship.

 

Yeah, after I wrote this... I realized that this was too much to ask another person to try and understand. I really do need to take this stuff to therapy and try again. I've just found that therapists want to jump to the conclusion that I am just a heterosexual crossdresser without really hearing the whole story. They want to assure me that none of this is an issue and that my real issues stem from my fear of rejection. I feel like they get the idea that all of this sexual stuff is just like a hobby for me, and not something that has significantly defined my life for years.

It's tough for me to find the kind of therapist right now who would be able to help me with this stuff. First of all I'm a student and the only health care that I have is through my school's clinic. I get the feeling that the counsellors in the health department wouldn't know what to make of me. I actually did try to visit them and start talking about this stuff with our resident female counsellor, but I had a really bad experience where the resident physical doctor of the clinic read through my patient notes from my counselling session and used that information to lecture me about drug use. It's the kind of violation of privacy that you don't get over easily. The therapist did apologize to me profusely and assure me that she would do everything in her power to keep this from happening again, and I believe her... but it's just like... wow... that was very very uncool. Imagine if the post that I had just written had been read by my physical doctor... I would have been humiliated.

Second I'm living in a small conservative town of about 30,000 while I'm attending university. People like guns and Jesus out here... and there aren't a whole lot of 'gender therapists' in this area. I'm originally from a much bigger city where it would be no problem for me to find a therapist, but out here in podunk village it's going to be tough. The best therapy I have found so far has been the weekly blues jams... nothing quite like the clinic of jamming to alleviate some stress and feel a part of something.

In anycase... thanks for the support guys. It means alot. My heart feels light today.

 

To just b urself:

Thanks for your insight. You know... after thinking about it the answers to your questions are as follows:

no... I wouldn't mind being seen as a male for the rest of my life.

no... I can't realistically see myself ever passing as a girl. Although I think it would be fun if I could... but I imagine that I would get tired of it eventually.

I don't think of my gender as female, but at the same time I don't strongly identify as a traditional male. I feel like a real human being... who doesn't fit the roles.