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Feel like my sexuality has changed

Discussion in 'Sexual Orientation' started by jahow95, Jun 15, 2014.

  1. jahow95

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    I don't feel like I was gay earlier in my life. I am sort of sliding towards thinking that I may be now, perhaps with some attraction to women, but not as strong as to men.
    Earlier in my life I had no attraction whatsoever to men, and was completely to women.

    Some may say I was just repressing feelings of same sex attraction, but that's really not the case. I used to shower in communals regularly and play rugby, and if there was anything to repress I would have felt it at those times, but I didn't. My sexual feelings started for women at age 10 - 11, and up until age 17 I had absolutely no notion of same sex attraction, and now my desire for women seems to have faded. When I was young I used to day dream about being the Prince Charming type guy and the typical man of a straight relationship, so even before it was sexualised I desired that femininity in a partner, and wanted to be masculine. I was masculine, I fit in with the lads and was one of the more popular kids. I had two serious crushes on girls from ages 7 - 11.

    From age 14 ish i began to have personal problems - low self esteem and later becoming depressed - and I started to feel emasculated a lot of the time, like a little kid compared to other boys who i viewed as men.
    I am pretty sure I was in love with a girl from age 15 until recently, I stopped seeing her around age 15/16 but it's still taken until age 18 to stop feeling strongly for her. I've enjoyed doing sexual stuff with several women, and lusted after loads of them. I've had probably 6 or 7 crushes since primary school, and they were all sexual.
    Recently, in the past 2 years or so my personal problems have come to a head, and I've been depressed and feeling extremely emasculated a lot of the time, again like a little kid around men.
    Now, I think I desire the masculinity. And it's killing me, it's extremely painful to feel like I've changed.

    I feel like my sexuality has changed from my early teens. Thoughts?
     
    #1 jahow95, Jun 15, 2014
    Last edited: Jun 15, 2014
  2. Ghs

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    I can relate to some of what you say. I think maybe you're saying feelings of inferiority may have caused gay desires in you? I don't know but I would guess the opposite.

    I did have very similar feelings at your age. But I was physical and emotionally attracted to women only but my sexual attraction to women was weak and barely there. I didn't feel physically or sexually attracted to men, although in hindsight I can recognize there was some signs of repressed same sex attraction.

    I played lots of physical sports and never had an inkling of sexual arousal from being close to other males, at all. I got a little nervous at shower time but always wrote that off to discomfort with my own body which I think was at least partially honest.

    Still I felt conflicted about my sexuality. I felt inferior to other males and sensed something was wrong with me sexually. I thought I may be asexual since I didn't feel attracted to anyone sexually. I had a burning desire for a girlfriend, had fallen in love with girls, but felt like I would never be able to perform sexually due to inability to gain arousal at the sight of naked woman.

    I'm in my early 30s and my sexuality has changed dramatically. At this point I've had sexual attraction to both genders. I am just now beginning to except that gay and straight feelings are part of my sexuality and that my sexuality seems to bounce around between gay straight and bisexual feelings. I am much more sexual now than I was as a teenager.

    The way I felt about my sexuality when I was young mirrored the way you seem to feel. I think the problem is not that feelings of inferiority is making you gay. I think a negative view of gay people is making you feel uncomfortable with your sexuality. I am the same way but trying to work on it. If you can just think of you sexuality as something to be enjoyed no matter whether it's focused on males or females, it will help dramatically. I'm trying to cultivate that mindset and it's helping. I'm accepting myself as bisexual finally and feeling a lot better. I'm not inferior because of my gay desires and neither is anyone else who is GBLT. It's beautiful to be gay or to be straight. If I had realized this at your age I think my life would have been much better, and I don't mean I would have had more satisfying sex, I mean I wouldn't have carried the psychological burden of anxiety and panic over my own sexuality.
     
  3. jahow95

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    I don't know to be honest. I'm saying I don't think I was born gay, and I think something has changed. People say about how sexuality can be fluid, and I think in my it has been.

    I think you were suggesting that my thinking I'm gay is making me feel like a lesser man. I mean that I felt that way a few years prior to feeling gay

    I don't mean to suggest that my feeling emasculated is a cause, but it's certainly related.
     
    #3 jahow95, Jun 15, 2014
    Last edited: Jun 15, 2014
  4. Ghs

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    I understand what you mean. For me maybe the difference was that although I felt physically attracted to women, the sexual arousal was weak or absent at that age. My paranoia over homosexuality wasn't based on being attracted to men but feeling that my attraction to women wasn't strong enough. When my friends would show me pornos I wasn't turned on by it. I wanted to be. I saw some of the women as being pretty but felt I would rather see them with clothes on. To be honest that has changed for me as I've gotten older, I do have a genuine attraction to naked women now but that was absent in my teens and 20s. It's still I think weaker than most straight men but I'm trying to be ok with that, trying to fight against the feeling that it makes me less if a man or less valuable as a person. It doesn't.
     
  5. Unkempt Harold

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    Id say have fun XD

    If you enjoy it, do it! (unless its illegal)
     
  6. Matttt

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    I see how you're frustrated. Understanding your attraction, or anyone's for that matter is quite challenging. You should be informed that early childhood years are never a perfect reflection on your sexual preference, this is because sexual attraction starts to develop in puberty years (12-15) for males.
    It appears that you obviously are attracted to women in one way or another. It also is obvious that you like women to be feminine-like, which is great cause that's normally how straight women are.
    However, your insecurities might cause you to feel 'small' when compared to other men. If you find yourself wanting to have sex or a relationship with a guy, then that might lean towards a bi/gay identity.
    Ask yourself if you truly like men in a sexual/romantic manner, and ask the same question for women.
    Remember that you don't need to like both sexes equally to identify as bi.
     
  7. jahow95

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    I had a weird kind of epiphany, almost, last night. I'd just downloaded ###### and had it on girls at first. After a couple of hours i added guys as well (which was a huge step for me)... but whenever I saw a guy on there I just didn't want to swipe right (which means like), it just didn't feel right. I spent a while like that and started to realise I didn't actually wanna do anything like that, and since then my gay feelings are not as strong at all, in fact, unnoticeable. I don't want to say that i was just confused because I was feeling genuinely sexually attracted to men and I don't thknk that's something that can just stop, surely, but I realised I didn't want to talk to these guys or anything. Weird
    Anyway, it's just been 24 hours or so since then, so I'm going to just let myself mull everything over before I make any judgements.