Hi everyone! First, thanks for taking the time to read this note. I have been questioning my sexuality for about two years, and while I have made progress, I haven't quite pinned it down yet. I am writing this entry to see if anyone else has had a similar experience and to solicit thoughts and advice. I am going to write as honestly as possible. I know that sometimes people project hidden biases and expectations into these narratives, so to the best of my ability I am going to keep everything explicit. I am currently 21 years old, male, living on the east coast and in my senior year of college. I am handsome (from what I've been told haha) and masculine and don't fit gay or bisexual stereotypes. Sexual attraction kicked in for me in 5th grade. There was a girl in my class who I liked and kissed at the end of the year. Middle school (6th-8th grade) had more exploration. My eyes followed the attractive girls, and I asked a few girls out on middle school dates, but my eyes also followed guys. I didn't worry too much about the "male noticing" because I figured I was just appreciating their popularity or good looks or the fact that they attracted hot girls. Around 7th or 8th grade, I navigated my way to Jackinworld and searched average penis size and all that stuff. Eventually I found my way to homo erotica. I started to watch homo erotica exclusively and enjoyed it. The question "Am I gay?", perhaps surprisingly, didn't even occur to me at this point. One day my parents found my web searches on the computer and asked me about them. I knew that watching homo erotica was not "appropriate", so I said I was not gay and just curious. That was the end of it. My folks never asked again. I remember after my parents discovered my computer searches, I began praying to God every night to remove those feelings from me (side note: neither my family nor me is very religious, then or now). I felt tempted to watch homo erotica and I prayed for those temptations to go away. They did. Whenever I felt aroused after that, I would watch straight erotica and I quickly became 100% comfortable with it. High school was very happy and carefree and asexual. During high school, I noticed attractive guys but, to the best of my knowledge, did not have sexual fantasies about them. I was attracted to some of the girls in my class but have always been a bit shy around girls, so while I went on some dates here and there, I never dated a girl in high school. I had a crew of "broey" male friends and had fun hanging out with them. I never had crushes on any of my friends or the other guys in high school. College started as a continuation of high school: happy and carefree. In college, though, my confidence built up with women so I was no longer asexual. I hooked up with a few girls (always short of vaginal sex because, while I could have had sex, I am kind of conservative and didn't want to sleep around). I went on dates with girls and even quasi-dated one girl, though that fell apart after a month because we weren't good matches. In the second half of my sophomore year, I viewed homo erotica again after about a 5-year break and started to experience sexual anxiety. What if I was gay? The anxiety continued into the summer. I watched some more homo erotica and was ashamed. To compensate, I would look at pictures of models from the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. During the first half of junior year, I began dating a girl at my school. I could really make her laugh so it was fun to be with her. We also had a lot of sex, which I 100% enjoyed. However, she was not the smartest girl (we never had intellectual conversations) so I never developed a strong emotional attraction to her. After 5 months, I broke up with her because our emotional relationship was not improving and I wanted to meet new people. When I broke up with her, I started to have sexual anxiety that turned into an obsession. I questioned my sexuality all the time. Every time I had a "gay" thought, I would look at pictures of hot girls. That didn't help and the obsession continued. Then I came across HOCD on the Internet and said, yes that explains what I have. That didn't help either. I thought my obsession could be the result of my absentee father (short story: my folks divorced when I was in elementary school and I have no relationship with my dad). Hasn't helped. The obsession continued into the summer. Some days were "good days" when none of those questioning thoughts entered my mind. Some were "bad days" when I thought about my sexuality constantly. First half of senior year, more of the same. The thoughts consumed my life. I made a fake account on one of the dating chat apps to talk with gay and bisexual guys. It was helpful to talk with them (and way easier to strike up conversations than with girls on those apps haha), but hard to know my feelings because I never met any of them in person. Finally I said enough -- life is too short to be unhappy. Up until this point, all of my efforts had been directed toward denying my homo erotic feelings. In November of 2015, I finally accepted them and it felt great. Every time I saw an attractive guy at school I would embrace my feelings, whereas in the past I would block them out. I also started talking with the LGBTQ support group at my school. At present, I am way happier than I have been in a long time but I have yet to fully determine my sexuality. Am I bisexual? Am I gay? Am I straight but curious? I am no longer denying my feelings, but I am trying to make sense of them. I realize when a guy is attractive and I enjoy some forms of homo erotica. I also enjoy some forms of straight erotica and can find women attractive. I would be open to having a gay experience to explore my sexuality further, but in college to have a gay experience one needs to be gay and I am not sure I am ready to come out of the closet. I would hate to come out, have a gay hookup, and then realize that I don't enjoy it and am not gay. It would just confuse my family and friends. If I need to come out, I'd rather do it once. The other relevant note is that I have never felt romantically attracted to a guy. Physically attracted, yes. Romantically, no. I know I need to relax and stop trying to pinpoint my feelings. I meditate and it helps. But it would still be nice to know, if only so I know how to set my chat app discovery settings! Final comment: Part of me still hopes that I am not gay but rather am straight and curious, or bisexual leaning toward women. It's not that I don't support the LGBTQ community. I just really want to have kids. My father wasn't there for me, so one of my goals in life has always been to be a great dad. For the audience: What are your thoughts? Has anyone had a similar experience? Is prolonged questioning typical? Thanks for reading and your time. Happy 2016
To me, it sounds like you're bisexual. About not having romantic feelings towards males -it could just be that you haven't met the right one, or you're aromantic when it comes to men? I don't really know. Prolonged questioning is typical, especially when you haven't had much experience with the same sex. Just blurting my thoughts out x)
I am in a similar boat, I am a college junior who has had my share of girls. And while those relationships have been fun, I've always wondered what it would be like to be with a guy. For sometime I have been trying to figure out if I am straight, bisexual, gay, or something in between. And the best answer I have been able to figure out is do labels really matter? I don't think so, do whatever makes you happy rather that be gay, straight, bisexual, or whatever. Oh and PS experimentation never hurt anybody!
I think the most important thing, especially at your age, is not to panic that you don't know who you really are. Not sure that makes any sense - but so many people have this fear, this panic, this anxiety about their feelings. That what they feel is not who they "really" are. Or worse, that what they feel is wrong, perverse or abnormal. That's the guilt trip that hopefully my generation was the last to experience. One thing you mentioned stands out. About the girl who was great in bed but not too much more than that to you. I think you will discover that sexual attraction doesn't always mean romantic or spiritual attraction either. Find a relationship that offers two out of three and that's a winner. All three and well, tell the rest of us your secret. Most important, don't be afraid of your feelings. Suppress them now and youll wake up one day with a lot of regret and/or resentment. I think being hi gives you the freedom not to be afraid.
Congratulations for having the courage to take a hard look at your sexuality. Even though you are not religious, you mentioned that you are conservative. As such, I’m suspecting that you may have picked up some messages along the way that being gay is bad. These messages seem to have influenced you to not want to have gay feelings to the point where you try to convince yourself straight. Given this backdrop, whether you bisexual or gay is hard to tell from your post. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say that you are gay or bisexual with a preference for guys. Whether your feelings for women are genuine or part of a complex denial mechanism is unclear. The fact that you are not romantically attracted to guys is not evidence that you are not gay. Rather, it means that you aren’t comfortable enough with your sexuality to develop such feelings. Have you taken Chip's masturbation challenge? This may help to bring clarity about your sexual orientation. I'm not sure why you need to come out to everyone to experiment; this seems like a false constraint. I think it would be fine to come out as bisexual, not straight, or even questioning initially within the LGBTQ group if you are unsure. If you discover later that you have a stronger preference for guys, you can finesse this by saying that you are a Kinsey 4 or 5. Given that it's 2016 and the SCOTUS has made gay marriage legal, you are able to get married and raise children with a partner of either gender. HTH
Hi there, welcome to the site. Firstly, as some others said, you should not be stressed about pinpointing your sexuality and you should not feel like you have to explain it to everyone. You sound like you're in a similar situation as I was years ago, except you are actually physically attracted to females while I am not. When I was younger I felt an emotional connection to girls and did everything I could to suppress the feelings for guys. It's very easy to want to forget about the feelings for guys because it doesn't fit the "norm," but if there is an attraction there, it is going to come back - which you are seeing. In my personal opinion, you sound bisexual, but you know much better than I do. You definitely like girls because you are physically and emotionally attracted to them. Your lack of "romantic" interest in guys may still be your denial talking. Also, you have never been in a relationship with a guy before, so you may not know if romantic feelings could start until you actually dated a guy. You have time to figure everything out and I have faith you will. There is nothing wrong with going out on dates with guys and seeing where it goes. Also, just so you know, there are plenty of masculine men in the LGBT+ community. I find myself saying "I'm masculine, I don't fit the stereotypes" as if I'm trying to defend myself as being more of a man. Just know, if you turn out to be bisexual, it does not make you any less of a man. It's your sexuality, it doesn't define you. Good luck.
