I have accepted myself, but why am I still so terrified?

Hey, I posted earlier today about coming out as Bi to a Queer female friend, and that went great. She was super excited and supportive; I couldn't have asked for a better reaction.

But... as the day progressed, I think shock started to set in and I started to get depressed. The shock wasn't reaction based, it was more about having started the coming out process and not being able to turn back.

So, I was on FB earlier and a gay male friend of mine popped up on chat. On a whim I decided to come out to him. He took it well and was supportive. I served with him in Africa for the past two years and he was really my first gay male friend, after my sheltered upbringing. I was never attracted to him, no crush for sure. Maybe this is a Bi-guy thing, but he is very flamboyant and that is a major turn-off for me. So, entirely platonic. This is important for later.

So he tells me that he kind of had his suspicions that, as he put it "my saloon doors swung both ways". But he said he never thought I was fully gay, but had me pegged a few notches higher on the Kinsey Scale than I seemed to be socially. Now, mentally, I was just impressed with the sensitivity of his gaydar. But suddenly my heart started racing and I broke into a cold sweat. My vision swam and breathing got shallow. I think it may have been a panic attack, at least a little one. I have never had one before and I wonder what brought it on.

He said nobody else suspected, and that the only reason he did was because I treated guys and girls with the same level of sensitivity and deference, not because I showed any physical sign. He also asked if I had been attracted to him, and I politely told him no, but just because he wasn't my type (he really wasn't, what can you do?). He was fine with this, thankfully. I didn't want to hurt his feelings.

But this is aside the point. The question is, why in the hell did the fact that he suspected my leanings freak me out so thoroughly? I thought I was past this! That I had accepted my attraction to men as well as women and was okay with it. Why then was this so terrifying to me?

Like I have said on previous threads, I have been physically intimate with women, not all the way to actual sex, but I have had fun at all the bases leading up to home plate. I know that being Bi means that I should be excited to have a sexual experience with a man as well, but I have never shared an intimate moment with anyone from my gender and I feel like I am still scared by it.

There are still some aspects that repulse me, to be frank, mainly the fact that while I may fantasize about men and am at least comfortable with the idea of anal sex, I still have a strong revulsion with anything that has to do with my mouth. I am still not turned on by the sight of a penis... Yeah, it's a penis, I have one too and rather like it, but I can't recall ever being enthralled with anyone else's; and the idea of having one in my mouth... well I still can't wrap my brain around it. However, cunnilingus still sounds supremely exciting (vaginas are cool) so, I don't know what to think.

So maybe my question is if it is normal for Bi guys to not be as thoroughly excited by some aspects of gay physicality as a Kinsey 6? I know several fully Gay men that think that penises are the best thing in the world, but try as I might I can't get there. Second question is, if the answer to the first is "no", then is this kind of revulsion normal at first? If so, what should I be doing to get over it?

I am so confused, still shaky, and exhausted. But I will check this thread in the morning, so help me out!!

 

Sweeet... This thread just became 60% Cooler (RD's coolness increases exponentially when multiple copies of her are present)!

And yes, she is best pony.

It made sense to read about your experiences, especially the aborted ones. The sense of shame is still strong, even if I can't figure out where it is coming from. My theory on my shame/intimidation/terror is that I am somehow betraying my former self. The guy that was so deep in the closet that the worst possible thing he could imagine was being gay.

You said you came out at 16, so remember how you felt at that age when you read this next bit:

Ok, starting at 13 or so, like I said in my story (it's on another thread, but you can also find it on my blog entry. It's a little tl;dr but illuminating) I began to be attracted to the same sex. At the same time, the parents in my Homeschool Group were expounding on the evils of dating and how they would only allow their daughters to "court". It sucked. I did have a crush at the time, but I trained myself to barely even acknowledge girls just because I felt it was taboo. At the same time, my homosexual side was getting stronger, probably because it scared me so bad when it surfaced. Since masturbation was also a sin, I wasn't doing that either. So I couldn't even explore my feelings on my own time. It was an exercise in frustration.

Now a caveat I would like to add is that, none of this was coming from my parents. They are both smart, liberal, PhDs that just happened to be Christian. They only got involved in this homeschool group because it was the largest in the county, but it is safe to say that we were the sanest family there. So I became much more religulous and repressed than they ever were or wanted me to be. Any actions they took farther down the line were what they thought I wanted.

Ok, when I was 15-16, I finally reached the point where I couldn't take it any more and I sat my parents down and told that I thought I might be gay and that I didn't want to be! I sobbed all the way through this and have never felt so miserable in my life. I was so ashamed that I was sick, wrong; an affront to nature. They were very supportive, and said it killed them to see me upset like this. I didn't come out for them to accept me, I wanted them to tell me I was mistaken; I wanted some thread of normalcy to cling to, even if it was a false one.

They made me an appointment with a therapist, and this royally pisses me off in hindsight. He was a christian therapist, recommended by "Focus on the Family" (everybody's favorite hate group). In our one and only face to face session in Colorado Springs, he told me enough lies to convince me that I could be entirely straight someday. The biggest whopper that he told was that there was no way homosexuality could be biologically feasible, since homosexuals don't reproduce they can't contribute to natural selection. He figured it was a mental disorder that could be corrected and I believed him!

He was right about one thing though, my fear of my own sexuality was stopping my attraction to the opposite sex. Because as soon as I began to accept myself years later, my interest in women skyrocketed. I know now that I can never be gay, but that I am very Bi. What I suppose is interesting about this situation, is that when I come out to my parents, they won't be entirely blindsided since they know that it was something I struggled with nearly a decade ago.

It frustrates me that I was at the point that I could have come out back then, but that my own surroundings and general stubbornness prevented it. But I guess it is just water under the bridge now. I am comfortable with the truth about myself, but it will be awhile before I am truly proud of it.

I like this idea, I guess a gay stereotype in my mind was the idea that we move straight into sex really fast. I know this is true sometimes, but I suppose taking it slow still exists in our community. I have definitely had the urge to cuddle with a few guys, and I think it would be great.

While I am apprehensive of being part of a marginalized community. I give very few f*cks of what other people think of me. As you read in the story above, most of my issues came from myself and "god" (that jerk). Externally though, it isn't a huge fear. As for hostility, I am a very straight-acting formidable guy, also very "type-A", people can mess with me at their own peril.

Sorry for the REALLY TL;DR. But I appreciate your input, thanks buddy!

 

Colours, thanks for your story. It puts things nicely in perspective. I am envious of you though, coming to terms with your sexuality in your teens; it was something I could never do. I don't know if you read the my reply to Pret Allez, but that details what was holding me back there. Handjobs seem reasonable to me; one thing I have always contended is that girls just can't do them right. In fact my last handie from a girl ended not in my finishing, but rather me walking with a limp for the rest of the week. Yeah, I will spare you the gory details there, but OW. She still doesn't know what she did, because I focused my attention on her and she had a good time... twice! One funny thing came out of that though, which was after relating this tale of woe to my little brother, he started referring to this girl as "True Grit"... Funny man.

From what you described, your bisexuality sounds a lot like mine in the way that it alternates, although my cycles tend to be a couple months in duration. The main reason I decided to start coming out now is that I just dipped back into a male oscillation and I want to get it over with before I start feeling "straight" again. It is much easier to tell the truth when it is staring you in the face.

Like I said in the above post, the anal sex idea doesn't bother me much. I think this is mainly because I have heard so much about the intensity of the prostate orgasm and I want to have one myself. But I am a ways off from that, no dating prospects on the horizon from either gender and I am going to move soon... So I guess experimenting will have to wait awhile.

What about you? Have you started at Uni yet? Also, have you come out to your parents?