Hello. My name is b. I am 27 year old man and I am having trouble figuring out who I am sexual orientation wise. I wondering if anybody here could help me out. See the thing is that I have two older brothers, one of whom is gay. I love him very dearly and I have no problem with his sexual orientation. My problem is that ever since he came out to my family and the rest of the world, I have been having doubts about my own sexuality. I wonder constantly about whether I am or could be gay, given that my older brother is. To explain further, me and him both share the same parents, and ultimately probably share a lot of the same genetic makeup. In my head I think that because we came from the same source and exist on a similar genetic level, its quite possible I could be gay, but not even know it/could be in denial. Moreover, I've read that younger brothers, as well as brothers of gay men, are statistically much more likely than other men to be gay themselves. It worry's me a lot because I would hate to think that I'm living my life not knowing who I am... The thing is though, that a number of things make me doubt the idea that I could be gay. The first is that up until my brother came out I had never even been attracted to a man. The second is that before he came out I was quite happily attracted to women, and enjoyed being both romantically and sexually active with them. Thirdly, even though I worry I might be gay, I don't think that I'm attracted to men in the same way I was attracted to women. Fourthly, when I masturbate, fantasize about sex, and have sex it is always with a woman, and never a man. Before I post I would also like to say that I have tried both masturbating, and kissing other men, and neither of them felt particularly good/arousing. When I was kissing the man it did feel 'loving' in the same way hugging would, but not particularly hot sexually. Anyway so that's my story. If anyone could read this and give me some help/advice I would really appreciate it. All this worrying is making me doubt myself, and I feel like I'm no longer able to enjoy simple things like hanging out with friends and even chasing after girls because I'm so confused all of the time. I'm going crazy here. B
All I got to say is, the answer is in the question. You got gay scared, man. Just because your brother is gay, doesn’t mean you are. You can spout all the statistics you like. Until you show me one that says 100% that someone with a gay brother is gay, you’re not convincing me. It’s good you had these doubts and you’ve even managed to go and try these things out. THat’s pretty open minded of you. But, unless you’re thinking of men, you fantasize about men, you have an emotional and physical attraction to men, which you don’t seem to have, I don’t believe your gay. It’s just the fact that your brother came out and made you question your sexuality. Before he came out, you were very happy with women. You didn’t have any doubts. If you were gay, you would’ve been having these thoughts long before your brother came out. You could be bisexual, with a strong preference for women. It’s worth exploring further.
Hi mate. This is just my personal opinion but it seems to me like you are questioning your sexuality over a very minor "curiosity". From the sounds of it you don't and have never had any strong physical attraction or romantic feelings towards males before (at least from what I take your post) so I don't see much in the questioning. I think it's something that will be naturally obvious to you if it is meant to be. Additionally as you "have tried both masturbating, and kissing other men, and neither of them felt particularly good/arousing" I don't feel there would be any latent affection hidden away, if there was it likely would have arisen when you done that. Maybe try think back to that and see if it does anything for now? My personal opinion, don't worry to much about questioning yourself. Instead just keep your mind open to the possibilities of finding happiness wherever they may be. Maybe one day you find a guy who gives you a reason to question, maybe not, but try not focus on just one or the other.
I'm not hearing anything indicating you're gay. And while there does appear to be a heritable characteristic to being gay, it most certainly isn't dominant, so no reason to believe you're gay based on your brothers. The bottom line is what arouses you when you masturbate, who you look at when you're out and about. I don't hear you saying anything about being particularly attracted to guys, so unless you haven't stated things accurately, I'm guessing you're straight, based on what you've said.
when your conditioned though this could be far from the truth right? atleast regarding the, who you look at when your out and about...
First of all Thankyou for all the very quick and helpful responses. Its so nice to finally be able to tell someone this. I guess by the sounds of it I'm most likely straight. If I could ask one more question about what some said about denial/conditioning... One of the things that has stopped me putting my fears to rest is the idea of denial. You hear about denial as a straight man but I'm not really sure what it is. Sometimes I think that I might be gay, and in denial over it, or otherwise unaware of it. What does it mean to be a gay man in denial? Do they know they are gay (I.e: know and have experienced their own attraction to men) but choose to cover it up? Or is it more akin to my situation where you wonder whether you might be gay, and even though you haven't experienced any sexual arousal to the same sex at all, choose to ignore it. Or to put it more simply, if I decide on the basis (that I'm not attracted to men) to ignore the worry that I might be gay because my brother is, is that just the same as being in denial, or is being in denial something completely different? Again Thankyou all for the help and support. b
