Really confused - am I making myself a lesbian?

Hi, welcome to EC!(*hug*)
It sounds like you might be bi. I really don't think you can make yourself a lesbian, you are who you are IMO. Do you feel more attraction to girls than guys, or is it about the same?
EDIT: I reread your post, it seems you are at least bi. Do you feel like you force yourself to have an attraction to guys?

 

Um in most ppl's veiw on it is that u can not turn gay/lesbian/trans its born this way but u could be lesbian but u did not know it or ur just trying something

 

When I was first coming to terms with not being straight, I thought that I was turning myself gay too. I thought that I was thinking too much about "gay stuff". So, I got involved in as much stuff as I could throughout my high school career so I could keep my mind off of my sexuality.

Well, the thoughts didn't go away.

It sounds to me like you are still coming to terms with your sexuality. It takes time to come to terms. It sounds like you have some attraction to women. It's your decision how you want to label yourself though, so I'm not going to tell you if you are gay/bi/other label.

 

I used to think that I was "turning myself gay" too. I thought maybe if I just stopped reading things with lesbian sex scenes or stopped thinking about relationships with girls that it would go away. For me at least it hasn't gone away and I'm almost ready to tell the world that I'm bisexual. I'd say that you are probably also bisexual, but only you can decide how you identify.

 

I'd encourage you to explore your feelings and desires, and figure out what you want and don't want without worrying about labels, stereotypes, or what you have heard about homosexuality. Labels have baggage, and while you are figuring out what works for you and makes you happy, I think it'll be simpler and less confusing if you leave labels and other people's opinions out of it.
What do you want? What holds you back from it? What are the consequences of pursuing it, and are you willing to try?

 

Well, another option if you think gay porn and books on feminism is affecting your beliefs in a negative way, test yourself by refraining from looking at any of it for a set period of time and see if your thought life changes back or not.

It could be that you had never allowed yourself to contemplate your sexuality until now and so yes it is new for you.

I am a Christian and did not allow myself to question until January, and in April I got on the computer at home (I didn't have safe access to internet until then) and found out my issue I have had all my life is called transgenderism. I did not know gender and sexuality were separate, thus when peeps asked me if I was a lesbian or gay I just told the truth, I am not! Because I knew I was not thinking of girls on girls, I was thinking straight...only in my mind I saw me as a man!

And I must add, I did not watch ANY porn at all, nor had I seen a man naked, nor read any books of any kind related to any of this until AFTER COMING OUT! Yeah, at school I am now accepted by even many Christians as a guy or a transitioning guy. While I feel overwhelmed by the need for trying sex, I still have tried to hold back. I want to respect the person I am with. I do now have a drive to find a girlfriend, but I want to respect her, not just use her for an experiment in my sexuality...to find out if I am gay...that is, I found I liked a few guys because they were gay acting, and I think I maybe bi.

So I am going to try to figure this out for myself too, but if you see anything I post that helps you awesome!

 

Merino, I can't tell you how similar my situation has been - only a year advanced and only just now getting to the roots of it. The hardest part has been the failing of a nearly 3 year relationship with a boy I do love, but lost all romantic feelings for somewhere soon after sex became a part of our relationship.

For me the worry of whether I was forcing this is still before me day. I don't believe you can make yourself gay or willfully change your orientation - but it doesn't stop this stressful situation of questioning from making me a little neurotic. So I like girls, always have, and yet have been in love with only boys so far. The bottom line, I think, is that I've never tried or had much of the chance to respond and and follow up on the lesbian attractions I've experienced.

Where does that leave us? Experimentation seems too scientific a way to look as romantic confusion and exploration. I don't feel welcomed (or rather invited) into a gay community to try this - it would be overwhelming for me, anyway. At the same time, these feelings get pretty tangled up in my straight-identifying life as the shell fits less and less. I feel like a hermit crab between houses - afraid of being exposed and unwilling to take a new shell. But I need community and I know I need to navigate the sea of sexuality at some point soon.

 

And you know, the end of a relationship and feeling unprepared for any new love does not help with the questioning. If I think of desire, it seems somewhat clear that I'm at least bisexual - but I've never even really given it a chance as a thought. Now that I am it is such an intense revelation that I have trouble believing it, even though I can't deny it.

And if I think of love - falling in love - I just want to burrow right into the ground and stay there with my books for a year. After the slow, choking numbness of falling out of love with not only my best friend but the idea of hetero-relationships over all.... I can't help but feel very put out about love. I don't want love again for a while. I want to grow up and change, and love usually means an unspoken commit to grow with someone. I need to grow my way - without commitment. More than anything else, I need that.

I've had some good advice from here and there on EC about experimentation and am feeling less guilty about the idea of casual dating once I've had time to recalibrate after this crazy year. The overall consensus has been "go for it" for the sake of understanding myself. I guess, that if I really think about it, there must be others our there who don't want to commit but might want to date - and groups in the LGBT community who wouldn't disagree with that.

It's not even that I want to "join" that community - as if it's some club. I just want to have real, in person friends who can talk about this without it being sensational or horrifying, ha.

Part of me doesn't want to taint my current friendships with this new side of me bubbling up. That seems wrong when I write it, but I really feel that way. I feel guilty about all of this even as I feel liberated for talking about it. I guess the notion of an LGBT community seems inviting because it is outside of my current community. We can't lead double-lives forever, though, can we?

It's going to take me a long time to understand whether this is something I can bring into the open. Thank God I'm going to grad school in another city, on my own, with absolutely no commitments. As much as it hurts to break things off with my boyfriend (which is not going well at all...) I am already feeling the relief of not having to fake "us" anymore. I was dreading the next time we might have been intimate so much that I couldn't breathe.

Wow. The more I write the more I surprise myself. I really do feel relieved. Still torn up and confused, but some measure of relieved as well.

-R

PS - What is it that you think I'm studying? 3 guesses.

 

The break-up/relationship woes most certainly do not make things easier. Agreed.


Yeah, losing this guy, Call him "Sam," is going to really hurt. I think it will hurt him more, though... I know I haven't been in this completely for a very long time. I haven't even been trying so much as coasting along, waiting for something to change. Well, here's the change. Not only do I need to be independent and on my own, I'm definitely questioning my orientation. Not what I had imagined, exactly, but the push to fly apart is finally happening. It's a sad sort of relief.

There's a lot wrapped up with Sam that has made this so much harder - both the breaking up and the getting in touch with myself. As a long distance couple, I've always wondered and worried what might be different if we saw each other more. If I didn't spend thousands in travel for us. If I wasn't dependent on him when I visited as my shelter and my right to visit. If there wasn't always a ticket, already paid for months in advance, that we can't take back. In some ways I think our distance prevented me from knowing myself in the relationship. When you don't see someone for 4 months and he is dying to dash you away to his flat as soon as you're off the plane - it's hard not to get caught up. But never fail, give it half a day, and I'm absolutely off. No desire to even think about doing things which could potentially lead anywhere, sexually. I've missed him and I love him in some way so I want to sit together and be close - but I always hurt him. I always pull away from the embrace that starts to get romantic. I can't stand tenderness from him because it makes me wretched for not returning it and having to accept or fake it. And these days this wretchedness starts well before I board the plane. It stretched beyond him to every guy I've dated or who notices me.

I also worry that this break-up situation is making me question but... well it's not. It might be a chicken and egg argument, but I really think that the questioning was well before the break-up, and the break-up just let me question openly.

I went to a little hole in the wall pita place today and found myself clearly attracted to a (lesbian) girl who worked there. Clearly as in... "oh. yeah. that just happened. shit." As I walked around downtown, I started to have little epiphanies as I ate - remembering girls I admired here and there I who always felt nervous around like I had to act some way or hide something. I just don't know how to interpolate all of this into my life so far and my life coming up.


In times of great stress and worry I feel an annoying little clairvoyance about myself in the future, or just a little later. You know? Your brain forces you to fix on a point somewhere distant from now and acknowledge what will be and what just won't be. Not any real vision, just a kind of knowing. It happens when I procrastinate, when I have relationship troubles, when I am struggling with money and want to just live in a tree... And it happens now. I know I'll bring this part of myself with me and I will never be the person I was before I recognized it. When?... I don't know that.

You seem very calm about your boyfriend situation. Do you know what will happen already? I think I honestly did as much as a year ago, but didn't think about it. It's much worse now than it might have been then, for me. I think I crushed our friendship and now I can't tell him this part of why I need to break up. There has been too much lying and faking on my side, too much patience and desperation on his. And, sadly, I think he would have been the most open and understanding friend to have right now - if this had happened to him.

 

To answer the thread question, no I don't think you can make yourself a lesbian. Personally, I think taking an interest in lgbt 'things', for want of a better word, is a way of testing feelings and opening your mind to it more. When we are preparing for something new or scary we usually look for more information on it first. That's my rationale for it anyway. Although, I totally understand why you may wonder about that as I was thinking the same thing about myself at the beginning of this year. I was with my bf for 5 years. The relationship became very rocky and, whilst I'd always suspected I was into women a little, I found myself thinking about potentially being with a woman more and more. I wondered if I was encouraging it, adding fuel to the fire. The thing is, it didn't matter because the feelings were there already. I just didn't realise how strong they were until the prospect of ending my current relationship became more of a reality. I eventually ended the relationship, mainly wanting to just find myself and not being able to cope with the guilt of knowing that I wasn't into him the way he was me, especially sexually. I was single for a few months which definitely helps. I'm with a girl now and although I was worried about it things just felt right.

Despite all the heart break and confusion I'm confident that this all needed to happen. If your experience is anything like mine then you may feel a lot of conflict in the near future. I had a man who was my best friend and wanted the whole shebang marriage, kids etc. Then I had this urge to leave that comfort for potentially a lesbian relationship which would be a shock to everyone in my social circle\family; and change ideas I'd had since a child with regards to relationships and how my life would pan out. I settled for doing neither and instead just being on my own and finding myself for a bit! It worked, I think I've eventually realised that in times of confusion you have to take things one step at a time. Stop trying to picture the next 10 years of life, forget the labels and instead try to follow your feelings and deal with each situation as it arises.

eta: good luck!!

 

Thanks, wudz. That was really helpful and encouraging for someone in so similar a situation - on the surface anyway.

 

Imagine your least favorite food that makes you gag. Now make yourself like it.

 

Just came on here and was going to post a question, but this situation was so similar it almost made me cry. Super glad I found this, thanks guys. =)

 

Robin Vote: I'm glad you found it helpful. We all seem to have had/are going through similar things and it can be pretty hard. You're welcome to PM me if you ever want a chat.

 

Correlation does not mean causation.

You reading a bunch about being gay and watching lesbian porn
is correlated with
you thinking you may be a lesbian.

In this case you could say A caused B: Reading queer stuff caused you to think you are queer
Or
You could say B caused A: Being queer caused you to read queer stuff
or
C caused A and B: The devil (C) is causing you to read queer stuff and make you think you are queer.
or
The correlation is accidental

I think you are prolly just queer and should learn to love it, I love it, it's awesome! Love yourself, and love girls <3