I'm confused about my orientation

Hi, Kordeli.

You're in the right place

I think the single most important thing to get your hands around is the idea that what you hope you are and what you want have really no bearing on what you actually are.

In other words, your sexual orientation is the way it is, the way God made you, and is unchangeable, whether that means you're straight or you're gay, or somewhere in between.

As far as your Christian beliefs and being gay... well, that whole area is undergoing some pretty radical transformation right now. I suggest you take about 45 minutes and watch Matthew Vines' video on Youtube. Vines is a 23 year old Harvard-educated Biblical scholar, and gay man. He spent several years in very deep and detailed study of Scripture, and has emerged with very different (and extremely well grounded) interpretations of Scripture that pretty much eliminate all of the negative views on homosexuality in the Bible. His new book, "God and the Gay Christian" has already created huge waves and many higher-ups in various churches have already changed their views. Well before Vines' work, there were also many Christian churches that are also very accepting of LGBT people. So in spite of what you may have been taught, being gay and being Christian aren't even remotely incompatible. In fact, I have two good friends who are pretty devout Christians who also happen to be gay, out, and proud.

Now... as far as figuring things out, with people who have a strong aversion to the idea that they might be gay, this can create an additional layer of complication in figuring out their real sexual orientation. Here's why: Since you have a strong religious objection (and fear of parental rejection) to the idea of being gay, your unconscious and conscious are going to play all sorts of tricks to try and get the "desired" answer, and that tends to cloud things. So the tricky part is trying to figure out what the root attractions and arousal patterns are.

You've done some of this already. The problem is, porn isn't a very reliable indicator of sexual orientation for a variety of reasons. The best bet -- and this may be a challenge at first -- is to stop using porn entirely for a couple of weeks, and masturbate using only fantasies you create in your own mind. One of the best things you can do is simply start masturbating and let your mind wander and see what sort of fantasies it naturally goes toward without consciously trying to think of one thing or another.

For most people, the fantasies will naturally go in one direction or the other... toward thinking about guys, or thinking about girls. So give that a try for a few days and see where it leads. And -- this is the hard part -- try to avoid having any particular "agenda" about what you want as an outcome, and just let it develop on its own. For most people, it becomes fairly clear after a couple of days.

Now... if it does point you in the direction of being attracted to guys, then it's probably going to take you a bit to come to terms with this, and there are always stages we go through when we process a loss (in this case, loss of perception we're straight), and the stages are denial-anger-bargaining-grief-acceptance. You've already done some work on this so you're probably at least somewhat into or perhaps past the denial stage (if, in fact, you're not totally straight, which seems fairly likely.) So give yourself time. This isn't something you need to answer in a day or a week or even a month.

The last piece I'd offer up is this: Our experience at EC is that even among the most religious, conservative parents, it is rare for a parent to outright reject a child who is lesbian, gay, or transgender. Yes, there's often some angry words, some initial threats, rejection, hurling of hurtful scriptures, and the like... remember that they go through the same "stages of loss" you experience... but then, eventually, nearly all of them come around to accepting and loving their gay children. So if it turns out that you are, in fact, gay, then the odds are pretty overwhelmingly in your favor that they'll eventually be OK with it.

So take some time, try the above suggestions if you're so inclined, and keep talking about what's going on for you, and share your experiences with us... and we can do our best to help you figure out what's going on for you.

And most importantly... keep engaged here. Talking about this, whatever the outcome, is the best way to overcome the shame associated with it.