Hi, I have been reading the forum for a while and am impressed at the thoughtfulness of the responses. This is going to be a long post but have tried hard to keep it relevant. However it is 45 years worth of relevant points, so...... I seem to have gone in waves my whole life and have probably over-thought things. :bang: I don't even know why a label matters but I want some sort of clarity. I am 45 yrs old, my children have grown up, I am not married, and I feel like it is time to find out and be true to myself. A potted history. Adopted - neglected by birth mother, emotionally rejected by adoptive mother (though we are good now). Wonder if this has influenced things. As a child I played mummy and daddy with other girls. As a teen I had crushes on female friends, never dared tell them. Went out with boys, usually at their instigation, not through real erotic desire. Had a huge crush on 2 boys but neither of them liked me and the rejection just fuelled my crushes (guess I'm a bit messed in the head!) Had lots of boyfriends, never really enjoyed it or got very attached. If see an attractive naked woman in a changing room I feel a big shock and try hard not to look, but I will remember in erotic detail years later. I am guessing that straight women would barely even notice another naked woman? I have slept with 3 women, two when I was around 22 yrs old and one at 29. It felt easy and natural and just good but then afterward I went back to men, had 2 children. I dated the 3rd woman for a month, but I felt like there was something missing, I felt unfulfilled without the sense of penetration, and broke it off. I felt at that point like I was satisfied in my mind that I wasn't gay and maybe I had just needed to get it out of my system. But, now I am second guessing that - maybe I just didn't connect with that particular woman emotionally? Maybe a toy would have done the trick (back then I thought that if you were a lesbian it meant you didn't want penetration)? Virtually all of my erotic dreams and fantasies are about women, in bed with a man I do enjoy it but am more turned on by what he is doing to my body, or by his enjoyment than by his actual body per se, and its much more about emotion, less about lust. I have been testing myself lately, and instead of keeping my thoughts under control and avoiding eye contact, I have been observing where my thoughts go. If I walk down a busy street, the men are almost invisible to me, but I notice women - if they are attractive I notice their figures, eyes, lips. When I am single I do notice men, but it isn't for their bodies, it is to see if they look as if they would be relationship potential. When I keep my thoughts under control like I have for most of my life, I keep my guard up around women, I have a lot of trouble opening up to female friends (maybe because I have to 'hide' my thoughts, or maybe because I had a lot of rejection by my mother). Ultimately my male relationships all failed and yet I want to be with a man and I find it easier to trust men and know where I am with them. Now the other thing is that although it felt natural and easy to sleep with women, I felt like a bloke with them - I felt protective and old fashioned and more masculine, and I am really not comfortable feeling like that. I like feeling that a man is in charge and I like feeling feminine and protected, maybe because I am tall and strong and have always been a bit tomboyish, but I don't like feeling that way, I feel like I need a man to make me feel womanly. If anyone has reached this point you deserve a medal, thank you! (!) Any ideas?
Sorry should have defined my question. Am I gay, bisexual, or what? I assumed I was 'maybe bi' for years but the more I think about it, the more I think that my attraction to men isn't really sexual. Also, I always assumed loads of women had these thoughts about women, but maybe they don't, maybe they see other women on the street the way I see men - invisible unless I have some sort of connection to them. But, if I was gay, wouldn't I have been drawn more to relationships with women?
