Knowing you're gay without experience

Your sexuality doesn't define on the people who you sleep with. I think what matters though is when you have physical and sexual attraction towards the same sex.

 

Knowing full well what "gay" means, can you literally look yourself in the mirror once a day for a few days running and smile and be excited to say aloud "I'm gay and I love it"...and feel sooo good saying it? I'm sure you can. Then I believe that you'll truly feel gay. The consummation of that identity and those feelings will flow naturally.

 

I'm kind of in the same boat. Have never had sex with women, but the sexual attraction was always there, wasn't sure about the romantic one until recently when I got a pretty intense crush on a friend. Interestingly until I allowed myself to at least take into consideration the fact that I might be gay I don't remember falling in love with women. I remember being jelous of their boyfriends, wanting to be with them all the time, feeling so good and relaxed around them, feeling attracted to them physically/sexually. But not being in love. And this was one reason fueling my doubts up until now.

Though still have a huge amount of internal resistance and shame I have to process around this, but I'm pretty sure now even without the physical experience.

In this moment I feel an outsider from both among the straight people and also from the LGBT community. Which is messing with my head when it comes about the self-identification.

 

For some, they may need to do that. That's fine, that's their journey. But it doesn't necessarily make it a universal rule, just an option.

I don't need to have sex with, say, a horse to know that it isn't for me. It's just something I'm pretty damn sure about.

You do whatever you feel you need to do, because it's you that, ultimately, is going to have to accept and embrace who you are.

 

I think it's different for everyone, especially people in more of the ambiguous sexuality zones (like me). You have to know yourself and trust yourself.

One important thing to remember as you explore your sexuality is that being attracted to someone initially doesn't guarantee you'll like having sex with them. I've been intensely attracted to a person before and then kissed them...and nope. Nada.

The opposite hasn't happened to me yet but I'm sure it could.

That being said, your word is always enough. No one can claim you aren't a sexuality because of lack of experience or enjoyment.

 

So this is getting a bit frustrating for me. As more and more people are saying you should have some experience to be sure.

Well in my case, I have had more than plenty of experience with men, though haven't been sexually attracted to them initially. And none of that was satisfying, a very few were okay, but not once I felt some kind of connection during sex with men. There was always something missing.
Lately I still find some men attractive and there is this weird reaction of "I should get more physical with him", but then I imagine it and it stops there, because I realize I won't like it.

I have never had any physical experience with women though, but I feel and basically always felt (when I wasn't hiding it from myself) very attracted in every way to them, which I have not felt like this with men.

So based on this theory, it's possible for me to find out that I am actually only attracted to women but that's it, I won't enjoy actually being with women.

Which sounds like a very dark and sad perspective and would leave me with, well, what? With finding out that I'm too screwed up to actually be able to connect to people of any gender?

I'm sorry this sounds a bit angry but I'm in a place where I feel kind of stuck and cannot see the endlight of the tunnel. And just exhausted to constantly try to define myself to find out who I really am...:icon_sad:

I just sometimes feel like I screwed up everything with my life choices earlier in life and now there is no way to go back and there is no chance to find myself because I got so used to playing the roles I'm playing that I just disappeared from under them...

*I know it will get better but I have moments of intense highs and lows, and this now is the latter one apparently...

 

I think that to some extent, you have to go with your gut instincts and trust your emotional and physical reactions to be in sync with one another. Sexuality is certainly a fluid thing, and sexual fluidity seems to be on the cusp of becoming a fad, but Miley Cyrus notwithstanding, I suspect that most peoples' bodies are fairly well in tuned with their brains and emotions. When I heard the "facts of life" as a high school freshman, I had a rather visceral reaction of embarrassment and a little disgust, because the whole process sounded very unappealing to me--whereas I got a major thrill seeing other guys naked in the locker room, and sometimes surreptitiously ready books like The Happy Hooker and instinctively imagined myself pleasing a guy like she did, rather than being pleased BY her. The whole process of landing in the closet and getting married had a lot more to do with mistakenly seeing the lifestyle lived by stereotypical gay men as being what made them gay, as opposed to the attraction I felt for other men, because although I couldn't imagine myself living the lifestyle that the gay men I knew lived, I certainly felt something far more intense toward men than anything I felt for women.

Coming out, finally, in my early 50's, with just one drunken unfinished sexual experience with a guy some 30 years prior, you could have said that it was possible that I wasn't really sure I was gay because I'd never had sex with a guy, and couldn't say for certain I would like it. (My ex-wife asked me that many times, actually). But it seemed utterly logical to me that my body would respond the way that my emotions did, and boy, did it ever.

My opinion, for what it's worth: I think you really only need an experience to be sure if you're really, truly torn to begin with. If you really consider your gut reactions and emotions and thoughts, and be true to them, it's likely not as confusing as you might think.

 

I feel the same way. Also one of the things that convinced me to face myself was exactly this, what you said, the regrets of the dying. I remember seeing that shared on facebook so many times, about "the five regrets of the dying", or something like that. And then I was thinking exactly the same thing. I will definitely regret it. So there is that other saying, "better to regret something you did than something you didn't do".

So, thanks for this, reminding me (*hug*)

 

Thank you your words of wisdom were wonderful. The horse thing makes sense. I just KNOW too. Have had some physical experiences with women but not sex but I know in my gut. Feels so freeing. Thanks for your topic. (*hug*)

 

@Choirboy I just want to say I really appreciate your straight talk (no pun intended). I buy it. As hard as it is to do, stripping all judgement from my reactions and emotions toward men and women has helped me to see recently that I'm less confused than I thought I was.

If I were to be stranded on a desert island for the rest of my life, with no chance of rescue or contact with outside world, and I could have either a guy or a girl as a companion to cuddle and be with, I know which I would choose.

I don't want a stereotypically gay lifestyle, and the prospect of being pigeonholed that way by others makes me uncomfortable. But that discomfort, I realize, has nothing to do with my basic sexuality.

 

This. I'm struggling with building a bridge between my attraction to women and my identity. I used to equate my attraction to women (that's when it was too much to just deny it away) with something unwanted, something wrong with me... Now I've accepted it as a part of me and realized that by denying it away I could never be happy and fully myself. So I'm now in the place where I am happy that I could finally face myself, and life could actually be good, and this is amazing. But jumping from here to seeing being gay as part of my identity is just so difficult right now.