My life story

Warning: this is absurdly long. But I will forever love anyone willing to read the whole thing and give me their opinions.

So first some background information is that I’m a 24 year old female and I’m in a long-term serious relationship with another woman, but I am having major doubts about my sexuality and the relationship in general. My doubts and confusion have driven me to the point where I don’t even know my own feelings anymore, and I would love any outside advice. Unfortunately though for this story to make sense I have to basically write out my whole life story…

So… until I was about 14 I always just assumed that I was only interested in men and that I would grow up to marry a man and have children. I come from a very conservative and traditional family, so I really didn’t think there were any options other than that. I also had many typical “schoolgirl” crushes and infatuations on boys I knew, and in middle school I loved talking with my friends about how “hot” certain boys were.

Then when I went to high school everything began to change. I met the first open lesbian I’d ever known and I immediately felt drawn to her. I also just somehow immediately accepted the fact that I was attracted to her like it wasn’t a big deal. I continued to have a crush on her for quite some time, but it was still very much the kind of infatuation from afar that I had felt for many boys. But something about that initial crush opened some kind of floodgate in my mind, and suddenly there were many girls all around me that I was realizing that I had some sort of feelings for that felt stronger than just being friends. There were still guys that I felt this way about too, but with girls it always felt stronger. The more crushes I began to have on girls, the more I began to consider the fact that I might be gay and the more I researched and learned about the gay community. I felt very drawn to gay people, both men and women, and I ended up becoming very good friends with the only two open gay guys at my school. I also confided in a few good friends about my feelings, and their reactions were all positive and accepting.

During this time I also did have a few relationships and hook ups with guys, although I didn’t loose my virginity until college. I never really felt anything emotionally or physically from these experiences, other than that I felt cool for having boyfriends and guys interested in me, and in sexual situations I would often stop things from progressing beyond making out because I didn’t feel comfortable.

I went to college feeling excited to be in a more open environment where I could hopefully meet other women who were interested in women and continue to explore my feelings. Then on winter break of my freshman year my life completely fell apart when my parents overheard me talking to a friend on the phone about being attracted to women and they confronted me about it. It was by far the most horrible and emotionally scarring thing that has ever happened to me. I went back to college telling both my parents and myself that this had all been a phase and that I had been a bad person for letting it go so far. That next semester most of the time I couldn’t get out of bed, my grades plummeted, and I contemplated suicide more than once.

I also had a string of drunk, meaningless college hookups with men, and ended up losing my virginity in a one night stand, although none of these were particularly enjoyable.

But then, much to my confusion, I began to develop a sexual attraction to a gay man I knew. Suddenly for the first time in my life, I felt true SEXUAL attraction, not romantic attraction. We were always very touchy and cuddly with each other, and my body responded to that in a way that it never had with anyone else. I also learned what it felt like to need sex with someone, almost as if it was painful for me to not get it. Sadly he was very much gay, and never interested in me in that way.

Over time my experience with my parents just turned into a sort of numbness that I learned to deal with. I lied to them and said I was totally straight and was only interested in men, and I told my friends I was bisexual. Then at the end of my junior year, I met the woman who I am now in a relationship with. We were introduced through a mutual friend who knew I was interested in meeting women, and from the beginning there was a connection. She was the most beautiful person I had ever met and immediately ourchemistry was amazing. She was very comfortable with being a lesbian and had been with many women. I felt like this would finally be the moment I had been waiting for, in which I was with a woman and everything would click, both romantically and sexually.

We began dating soon after we first met, and romantically things did click. But sexually they didn’t. I didn’t NOT like it by any means, but it was just kind of… meh. There was no revelation that this had been what I was missing all along, and if anything I knew from my past experiences with my gay guy friend that I really wasn’t even all that aroused. In many ways though I was very nervous and inexperienced, so I told myself that was the problem.

As our relationship progressed, sex did become more enjoyable, but there were still problems. Kissing her and being close was arousing and enjoyable, and I loved doing things to her, but when it came to her actually doing things to me I just felt like I could never relax enough and never really get into it. The difference between the way my body and her body physically responded was also very evident to both of us, and made her feel hurt and me feel insecure and anxious. But at the same time I felt as though I was falling more and more in love with her and I didn’t want to leave her.

At the end of my senior year of college I had another falling out with my parents, and in which I flat out lied about being in a relationship with a woman, and I have continued to lie about that for the past 2 years.

Which now brings me to the present situation. I’ve been dating this woman for two years. I love her and I cannot imagine my life with out her. And yet I lie to my parents everyday about a huge part of my life, and it is eating me up inside. I try to find reasons why we should break up and why she isn’t the one for me, but somehow I can’t ever bring myself to actually do that. And yet at the same time, I am afraid to commit any further or to stand up to my parents because even after two years there is a part of me that doesn’t feel sexually satisfied.

Is it possible for outside forces to effect sexual arousal? Like I know if I was honest with myself I would say that I deeply do not want to be gay. I don’t want to deal with this with my parents, and the thought of their reaction makes me feel sick. I want children of my own and I want a life of acceptance. But I feel like even with those feelings most gay people don’t need to question their actual arousal? Also I know that whole thing with the sexual vs romantic attraction but that doesn’t actually help anything with my situation.

So I guess the point of that whole long tangent would be to ask… From an outside perspective does it sound like I am in denial about being gay, and it is somehow effecting my sex life, or did I somehow just take infatuations with women way, way too far??

Also for what its worth... I mostly fantasize about women, and only occasionally men... but it somehow in my mind always feels different and unimportant to my real life feelings. I have also only ever been able to orgasm through masturbation.

 

As crazy as this sounds, the idea that it might just be my girlfriend that I'm not sexually attracted to has never once crossed my mind. But it actually makes a lot of sense. Thanks for reading that novel!