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Doubts about sexual orientation (asexual, gay, or ??)

Discussion in 'Sexual Orientation' started by Alwyn, Oct 16, 2015.

  1. Alwyn

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    I feel a bit stupid, but yes, here is another person who is confused..

    Since I was 12 years old I've known I don't like heterosexual things and this forced tension there is supposed to be between girls and boys. I wondered whether I was gay but I didn't feel anything for girls either. Later - when I was around 15 years old - I discovered the term bisexual which felt more right than gay or straight. But I couldn't really call myself bi as I did not have any of the feelings all my peers seems to be having (excited about dating and curious about sex and everything).

    I'm not sure if I ever had actual crushes or sexual feelings for a particular person. When I was 16 I met a guy I liked talking to and felt an emotional connection with. Then I discovered that he had romantic feelings for me and I thought "oh well, he is a boy and I'm a girl and we are supposed to be feeling this around this age so I'm probably in love" (heteronormative society :eusa_doh:slight_smile: but I didn't want to kiss him. Same goes for a guy I met later when I was already in college. I really liked him as a person and after some wine we decided to do "some stuff" but it felt like there was something fundamentally wrong with the situation like you've to kiss your brother and I felt repulsed.

    And my feelings for girls.. there is not much, but perhaps there is something? When I was around 15 I was friends with a girl I had an erotically tinted dream about (my first and only one ever) so I woke up with the thought "wow am I in love with my friend? am I gay after all?" I felt a certain affection for her that went deeper than with other friends but I don't think I was really in love. She had a boyfriend and I wasn't jealous and I've been in locker rooms with her many times and I neither felt uncomfortable nor did seeing her body do much to me. So it was really confusing. One time I developed the same affection for an online female friend (funny thing is physically she looked a lot like my former female friend) but it remained vague as well.

    When I was already around 22 years old I liked looking at a particular girl in my class. I couldn't really imagine dating her though and she already had a boyfriend. One time at home I had some sexual thoughts about her, it felt a bit off but not as off as it had been with the guys I dated.

    However, it doesn't feel enough for saying I'm gay? I don't like girls that much. I feel far more comfortable around guys and I have quicker an emotional connection with them (but perhaps this is because I'm not attracted to them at all?) I never secretly checked out girls or surpressed fantasies about them. I'm not a prude and raised in a liberal and queer-friendly environment (my country is supposed to be some kind of gay paradise - which is not really the case I think but OK it's better than many other countries I guess). My parents always made clear that it was okay if I came home with a girl. I wondered about being gay so many times in my life but it never really clicked.

    So in the end I settled for being asexual, also because I don't see myself having sex and the private parts are a bit gross I think. I even helped organising an offline asexual meeting group (the first in my country yeah). I recognise a lot in their stories and for the first time I felt I belonged somewhere.

    However, I'm still wondering: what if I'm wrong and I'm a fake? Perhaps my feelings for girls did mean something after all? And then I find myself lying awake at night wondering "what if I'm gay and my whole life is a lie". I can't really see myself dating or having sex with a girl but perhaps that's because I have not yet experienced it? So I tried online dating but so far I've only managed to get one date with a girl, who was nice and friendly but I didn't feel anything more, but this is just one person of course..

    I think all my supposed feelings for guys were fake (well anything beyond deep friendship) and forced upon me by heteronormative society. But that also means my feelings for girls were more genuine and authentic? Nobody forced myself to have these feelings. But at the same time they were not enough for being gay.

    My libido functions normally I guess. I've had sexual feelings since my early teenage years. I have - rather abstract not about individuals - fantasies as well. All these things came naturally to me and is not really the problem. I fantasize mostly about guys (though the fantasies do not include myself or another woman and I know for sure I'm not attracted to them in real life), I think around 80% of the time. The remaining 20% I fantasize about women.

    It feels like everyone knows for sure since early teenage years or didn't even have to think about it and now everyone around me is becoming a real adult with serious relationships and I'm still in doubt and cry myself to sleep. :icon_sad:

    Does anyone recognise this? Could I still be gay and just not had the right experience/trigger/whatever? Or am I just in denial about being asexual? Or something in between? I don't know. I hope to date and experiment with more girls in the future in order to find out but I'd like some advice or support here as well.

    I'm 23 btw.
     
  2. Paradoxic

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    You could be Greysexual towards girls, which falls under the Asexual banner. It's where you get the occasional sexual interest for the occasional person. You could also be Greyromantic.
     
  3. Alwyn

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    Thanks for your reply! Yes, it's certainly possible I'm confused because I'm somewhere on a spectrum. It's just that I don't like gray areas, I want a clear identity. Besides, I've no idea anymore how I should organise my social life and if and how I can date (actually, I don't really understand the difference between friendship and dating but ok). I just don't want to be alone and I'm afraid my friends will forget me when they have found their life partner and are starting families and I'm the only one who is left behind.. I think a part of me wants to be gay (I know for certain I'm not attracted to guys and gay seems then the only option left where there is still some hope for my future).

    Does anybody else have any ideas?
     
  4. Alwyn

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    I've thought and thought and thought about it and I think it's still possible to be gay. I called myself internally bisexual before I discovered asexuality and biromantic before I discovered aromanticism. I always thought my (lack of) attraction toward all genders were the same. However, I really realised only a month ago I really don't feel any attraction to men. I've always rationalised my lack of attraction for guys and convinced myself I was more attracted to them than I really was.

    So there is really nothing in me that is bi. But perhaps it means that I should investigate the women-side of my imaginary bi-identity some more? The point is, I've had one erotically tinted dream in my whole life and it was about a girl. I've had one sexual fantasy about a specific person I know and it was a girl. I think women are esthetically more beautiful than men. I always rationalised these things that they are "not enough" to be gay but perhaps I never really let my feelings grow and have rationalised them too quickly? The same that I tried to rationalise myself into having feelings for guys I don't have.

    Do you guys think this is possible? To be 23 and never been in love or really strongly attracted to a specific female but still be gay? I was depressed in my teenage years so perhaps that had an impact as well.. What kind of advice would you give me for finding out what I'm really feeling? I'm already trying to find nice girls to go on dates with, but I'm afraid I'll be so nervous I still won't know what I'm feeling. A part of me feels like I could indeed be a lesbian, but another part don't because I've never been in love.
     
    #4 Alwyn, Nov 1, 2015
    Last edited: Nov 1, 2015
  5. bubbles123

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    I think if you are in fact gay, then it's possible that your feelings/attractions haven't fully developed yet, or there's a lot of anxiety involved in it right now that's making you over-think it, or maybe you're more demisexual or graysexual and maybe you'll meet someone in the future who may make you feel differently. So it could be any number of things, and I think what's best is to be open to your feelings. And that includes being open to the fact that you aren't into a lot of people because you can't force yourself to feel a certain way. It's not fair to expect that of yourself.
    I have seen some people on EC who've never liked anyone until they were in their twenties. I even saw a girl on here once who was thirty and always thought she was straight until she had this totally out-of-the blue strong crush on another girl. So you never know.
    I used to be worried actually that I'd never be able to like anyone. I flirted with guys and I think I forced myself to be into them, but as soon as they liked me back I felt really uneasy about it and turned them down. I was sure I was incapable of even being attracted to another person. But then I felt attraction toward a my friend who's a girl. And I'm often still worried I'll never be able to fully love someone in the future. But who knows? Maybe someday I'll be proven wrong again just like I was with being attracted to people.

    So you really never know, but you can't make yourself feel things and you can't make yourself come to a conclusion if it's just not there yet, so you shouldn't put so much pressure on yourself. It is possible you're gay (likely not bi at this point but still, you never know) and of course it's also still possible you are asexual and I think you need to work on accepting that right now, just accepting how you feel right now, not how you may feel or could feel or want to feel, but how you actually do feel.
     
  6. Chip

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    It is possible you are asexual, according to the widely-used definition. (There's another definition that has no basis in anything, perpetuated by a tiny group of people, and isn't really terribly useful.)

    However, it is a lot more likely that you simply have very, very low sex drive and/or attraction, and in mist cases that has its origin in some other issue and is solvable. Most commonly, low sex drive (or so-called asexuality or "grey'asexuality) is associated with a co-occurring depression, anxiety, or other psychological issue. Almost as common are family-of-origin issues that make it difficult to feel and express emotions in general.

    So before you simply accept this as something hardwired that you can't change (which is what sexual orientations generally are), it might be worth exploring whether one of these other issues is co-occurring. If so, then when you work through the co-occurring issue, I think you'll find your sex drive returning to normal.
     
  7. Alwyn

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    @ Bubbles123: Thanks for your kind reply! You're right that it is about accepting how you feel now. It's just hard, but I'll try.

    @ Chip: Hmm, the point is, I don't have a low sex drive. I guess it's quite moderate. I've masturbated since I was 12 and I think I do it once a week or something like that. It just doesn't seem to be directed at other persons, if this makes sense. It also didn't change much over the years and has been pretty consistent since the start of puberty. I know depression (at the moment I'm not depressed btw) can cause a low libido but can it also turn your attractions to zero while leaving your sex drive normal? I'm not sure if I can believe in a "returning to normal" while I've always been this way.

    Only time and experience will probably tell if I can be attracted to women. It just sucks because I feel like I'm really late and some people my age are already getting married and stuff.
     
  8. Chip

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    So if sex drive is relatively normal, then, at least from the widely accepted perspective, you probably don't meet the criteria for asexuality. (The non-recognized definition people will strenuously disagree.)

    That being the case, I'd be inclined to agree that it isn't depression. It might, however, be some other socialization-related issue. It's shocking to me how many people today are growing up with very limited access to their emotional selves... they express very little emotion of any kind; they don't truly express anger (except maybe as a quiet seething), they don't feel joy in the same way that emotionally healthy people do, and... since sexual arousal and attraction is deeply wired into our emotional expression, they don't feel much in the way of sexual excitement either.

    I don't know if any of that resonates with you, but that would be the first place I'd look. If that doesn't resonate... then, if it were me, it's something I'd explore with a therapist or sexologist.
     
  9. Alwyn

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    Thanks for sharing your ideas, Chip.

    A researcher who recently featured in a documentary on the Belgium television, Ellen van Houdenhove, explained the difference between libido (the bodily aspect) and the subjective aspect of sexuality. Asexuals can have a libido but for them there is often no association with sex but more like going to the toilet (when they masturbate). However, I feel for me it's more than that so I don't think I'm fully asexual.

    It could be a bit detached from emotions though. I wouldn't say I don't feel emotions (I'm not a robot or sociopath) but I'm quick to rationalise things in order to get a grasp upon the world. When I was 20 I was diagnosed with asperger's syndrome (this is often missed in girls because they display more subtle symptoms), especially before that I always tried to be normal by acting like others. But I don't like to see myself as someone who is less human or someone with a disorder.

    It's possible I'm a late-bloomer because I was busy with overcoming other problems first. I think I might feel some low-key same-sex attractions but I'm not sure if it is enough. The first time I thought I felt this was when I was 15 but by then I had already convinced myself I was attracted to men. Everyone around me became interested in these things when they were 11 or 12 years old and I wasn't so I asked myself if I could be gay but I didn't feel anything for girls so I had to be straight (although I also didn't feel anything for boys).
    But this theory only works if I'll fall in love one day and feel full-blown attractions. Otherwise, I can call myself a lesbian, but without feeling these things I'll feel like a fake.
     
    #9 Alwyn, Nov 4, 2015
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  10. novaastra

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    I'm asking myself a-lot of the same questions & it's all so confusing. You sound asexual if you're not starting to fantasize about girls especially now you've grown up abit. I've started to hate kissing boys too, it felt really stupid & like I was kissing my brother; Even though I really liked the guy! Having Asperger's could have something to do with your emotions being slightly detached. I think you should maybe go with the flow and if you find a girl you like, see how it goes and the same with a guy. There doesn't have to be a label on it though I understand it'd be much easier if we all knew exactly who we were.
    Also 'Lestat' is that taken from Interview with a Vampire?? :slight_smile:
    Great film!
     
    #10 novaastra, Nov 4, 2015
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  11. Elliiexriley

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    Hello neighbour (im from Belgium :wink: ),

    It's really weird to read your story because mine is almost exactly the same.
    I have no idea if im into guys, girls, or anything at all. I've been confused about my sexuality since I had my first crush on a girl. I was about 8 or 9 then. I also never really liked heterosexual things. I never understood those heterosexual romantic movies. Whilst everyone around me watching the same movie cheered when the main characters kissed, I just couldn't care less haha. I had my first 'boyfriend' when I was 10. He asked me to be his girlfriend through a letter and I said yes. Not because i liked him, but by peer pressure He's a boy, and im a girl . That's how it's supposed to be right?
    I've had crushes on both boys and girls, but the crushes on girls lasted longer, way longer, and those crushes just felt more genuine. Now the problem is, I never felt sexually attracted to my crushes. Not to boys, nor to the girls.
    Ive been having a crush on a girl in my class for more than 2 years now. I really really like her, but again, not sexually. Ive tried to see her like that. I tried fantasizing about her. I want to see her like that because then Id finally know who I am, but it just doesn't work for me.
    I have autism aswell and I dont show emotions easily. Also in my early teens i delt with a low self-esteem and depression, so, yeah. Like I said, I have eerily the same problem as you do haha

    I guess my advice for both of us is to wait it out, and try different things. We shouldn't worry to much about it. And we defenitely shouldn't try to push ourselfs into a label. :slight_smile:
    Thank you for posting your story because it's good to know that im not the only one in this situation.
     
    #11 Elliiexriley, Nov 5, 2015
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