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Pretty Confused

Discussion in 'Coming Out Advice' started by akutagawa, May 27, 2012.

  1. akutagawa

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    Hi everybody, sorry for the long post.
    About a month or so I began to feel odd around men, sort of strange and not sure how to interact, and I began to wonder if I was gay. To be honest this was a scary thought, but I didn't want to be in denial so I kept thinking about it and weighing things back and forth in my head, testing myself with imaginings of sexual scenarios etc. I'm 22 and I've been attracted to women in the past, made out with a few girls and found it great (i've never been in a sexual relationship), never been attracted to a guy. With the feeling of foreign-ness I had begun to feel towards men, however, I began to doubt my past experience and question whether it was indeed real (and for all I can tell my past attractions to girls were indeed real). I moved from being freaked out at the possibility of being gay to being sure that I was, to being sure that I was straight to being in doubt and back and forth etc. I eventually decided because the thought of intimacy with a man felt hot and arousing, and was arousing, that I must be gay. I was at this point feeling pretty hyper sensitive to the men around me, and at one point I felt sort of tingly around a guy, and I guessed that I liked him. The matter felt somewhat closed at this point, so I decided to try gay porn, sort of trying to dive into the idea of being gay. To my surprise, the gay porn (both soft and hardcore) made me want to throw up. I thought, confusedly, maybe I was just prejudiced or something, but no matter how hard I tried to like it I actually became physically nauseous looking at it.
    So needless to say I was confused, and I thought "well, maybe I'm straight after all or something," so I tried looking at videos of girls making out and such, and was immediatly aroused. I also looked at hetero porn and though I found the presence of the man off-putting I was somewhat aroused by this as well, specifically and only by the woman, however. I decided that I was straight after all.
    I still had some confusion and anxiety lingering, however, and I just wasn't confident about the whole thing. this past week I have begun to feel again that maybe I am gay after imagining the idea of being with a man and finding it kind of hot and exciting. As far as actual men, however, I have not felt attracted to anyone, and I am still (to my own continued surprise, since I expected to get used to it) pretty nauseated by videos of men kissing or having sex with men, and aroused by videos of women with women (even when I don't find the women all that attractive), as well as being (somewhat less) aroused by pictures of hot women etc.
    So I'm pretty totally confused. I have only, so far as I can tell, ever felt romantically attracted to women, one as recently as 2 or 3 months ago, and as far as pornography only women turn me on, whereas viewing guys being intimate makes me go totally limp and feel sick. That being said, the idea of sex with a guy somehow seems sort of hot and crazy and sort of wrong in a hot way, and occasionally arouses me when I think about it.
    I'm thinking I'm either bi-but-leaning-straight or that I'm straight and there's something else going on psychologically, but I'd really like to hear people's thoughts. I've heard of straight guys having an occasional erotic thought about men etc., and thought that might be my situation, but the whole thing seems more complicated and confusing than just that.
    Thoughts?
     
  2. Ianthe

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    All of your feelings are "real," and you are allowed to have them.

    The strong disgust reaction is something learned--if you haven't lived in a culture that says gay is gross, you wouldn't feel like that, at least not that strongly. A straight person would be just not interested, or maybe have the same kind of mild nose-wrinkling squeamishness that you'd feel watching unattractive straight people having sex--not overwhelming physical nausea.

    That extreme nausea probably indicates that you found it at least mildly arousing on some level, but that your cultural training is causing you to react with aversion.

    That said, reactions to porn are not necessarily particularly good indicators of what your reactions will be to real people.

    When you have the fantasies about guys that arouse you, are they about specific guys, or just a general idea of a guy? Like, have you fantasized about specific sex acts with men you actually know? (The guy that made you feel tingly would probably be the one to try...)
     
  3. super confused

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    First off, the confusion is normal. I mean, my user-name is "super confused" (technically I'm not anymore, but you get it). I'd say that over 99% of the LGBT community has experienced that kind of confusion at one point or another (except for a seven year old I read about on FaceBook).

    Next issue. This is something that I cannot stress enough:

    PORNOGRAPHY IS NOT NECESSARILY AN INDICATOR OF SEXUAL ORIENTATION.​


    That includes any kind of voyeurism or visual stimulus in which you are not involved. Take me, for example. I'm a gay woman, and I don't watch porn (I'm with you; it's nauseating), but I kind of like watching two men kiss; I also kind of like watching two women kiss; I also like watching two men fight (and, yes, when I say "I kind of like" I mean "I find this kind of arousing"). But I have virtually no inclination toward violence in a sexual experience. And I have NO idea why I like seeing two guys kiss or two women kiss. It's not even like I imagine being one of them...I just like to watch. :?

    Also, who you are romantically attracted to does not depend on who you are sexually attracted to, nor vice versa. Again, I will use myself as an example: I'm sexually attracted to women, but I could fall in love with anyone (panromantic). Sexual attraction/orientation is, I feel, all about what you prefer to do, not what you like to see other people do.
     
  4. ttmab

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    I feel like I wrote this...
    I've been going through so much of the same thing. Honestly I 'm ecstatic to find someone else who thinks they're gay, but is intimidated by gay porn. I totally get that! The only gay porn I'm comfortable with is drawings depicting it. I guess that's because it's still in the realm of fantasy that way. I dunno. I find myself wondering if that's not because it's gay, but because it's porn, and since I've started dealing with similar things porn in general has started to seem just exploitative to me. What I've become aroused by is the emotional connection more than the physical. Part of what threatens me (I'm not saying this is logical or right in any sense, but it's still there) is a part of my brain that says (again I apologize for the crudeness) "So wait... you're gonna give up women to spend the rest of your life staring at hairy assholes?"
    But that's not what it is. What made me realize I was gay was that it wasn't the sexual aspect of gay sex, but the emotional connection. I still don't have this all figured out, but that was a big turning point for me. I realize now that because I've spent my whole life denying this side of me, now that I'm actually exploring it, I feel like a virgin again. I don't understand how sex or dating or attraction work anymore, and it's utterly terrifying. Gay or not, I understand women. I understand how to date them, have sex with them, what it's like to be naked with them, and not be ashamed. But that is all cancelled out now. This might sound weird, but look up animated gay porn, yaoi and whatnot. I don't know if you're like me, but when I see something like that, I'm comfortable with it. When I see it in real life I feel... threatened by it, I guess. I don't know if any of this helps, but take comfort that you're not alone in your confusion. Just be glad you're not married. :lol: Seriously though, whatever it is you're feeling, whether you're gay, straight, bi, queer... come to terms with it now. The sooner the better. Don't deny it. If you do, it'll come back, and with a vengeance. Unfortunately for me I have a wife involved with all this now. Don't let it come to that.

    And hey, feel free to message me if you want. Lol, I wouldn't mind being able to talk to someone whose going through the same things.
     
  5. rx79g

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    I'll pose the other side of this and say you seem pretty straight to me. Only you can know of course, and sense I don't really know you my thoughts are next to irrelevant, but that's how it read to me. The feelings you got that started your questioning, could you describe them? A lot of guys feel strange "attractions" to some guys that aren't really sexual. About the porn, a better indicator would be what do you think about if you closed your eyes and don't look at porn? Food for thought.
     
  6. Naren

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    You're probably bi. And I hope it works out for you.