Hey everyone. How much did experience play into you figuring out your sexual orientation? I'm curious because I'm still questioning and I don't have a lot of experience with either sex. I've confided in a couple of straight friends about my questioning and they were both thinking that experience would be the only way for me to truly tell. I've also confided in a couple of LGBT friends and they don't think experience is necessarily the deciding factor, that there is a lot more to it. I know everyone's story is different, but I just wanted to hear what other people think about this.
It varies. 'Straight' is like a default option...in anti-gay societies, most are assumed to be straight, and they assume themselves to be straight. They look for a straight relationship. Perhaps it is because of that, that some gay people in mostly straight societies discover they aren't straight through experience. For other people, they just know who they're attracted to...perhaps they realise they get attracted to ____, and that's completely possible to happen without experience. (Let's say you see some food...you've never tasted it, but you have a feeling that you're not going to like it. Or you have a feeling you'd like it.) As for me, I am asexual, so does my lack of experience mean I have experience?
Honestly experience for me didn't change anything. I knew that at 3 to 4 boy and girls were equally cute and still do today. My attractions have always been the person not anything else. My firsts was with male friends. My first love and lover was same sex. Later with female and just as wonderful. I get pissed as bisexual for some of the claims but don't care. Looking back at 33 I wouldn't change anything.
None, actually, for me, but it varies between individuals. Some people find out through experimentation, dating, having sex, other people do so through introspection alone, or just knowing and seeing who they’re attracted to and want to date/have sex with over time. Course there is a high pressure to be straight in society, so sometimes it does take experimentation to realise if something just doesn’t click, but that’s not a pre-requisite. I’m a mainly straight trans dude but when I thought I was/lived as a cis girl, I figured out I mostly liked girls only through sorting through/thinking about/figuring out who I was attracted to in real life and on TV and all else, who I had crushes on, who I would ideally want to sleep with and be with in the long term. I didn't have and didn't need any experience with any gender to figure out most of it.
I was heavily questioning. I knew I liked guys, but wasn't sure to what extent or how much I would like "taking things to the next level" with a guy. From my first kiss with a guy, everything just felt so right. It confirmed what I had already been feeling.
You don't need any experience whatsoever Experience doesn't determine your sexuality. I've had no physical experience neither have I been in a relationship but I've known for years that I'm asexual and panromantic. Do straight people need experience to know their straight or do they just know?
It's different for everyone. I think it's easier and may require no true experience for a person who is 100% gay or a 100% straight. In my experience it took a lot of exploration and living as a 100% gay at one point and a 100% straight at another and bisexual at other times. Without going through through all of those experiences I don't think I would've ever come close to understanding myself. So explore and experience as much as you feel is necessary. And don't feel as though you need to label yourself so others can understand. If you need a label to understand yourself or to accept what you are then by all means try your best to define what you are. But do it for you. And only you. Live your life the way you want to live your life. And have fun getting to know yourself. It can be a pretty tiring ride... but if you let it you can enjoy lots of fun and excitement during the journey!
Experience didn't really play a part in me figuring it out. I'm asexual, but I don't have any experience with sex, and I know. I'm 13, yeah, but still, I know. I'm gray-romantic, and the most experience I've had is my two crushes I've ever had in my life, one of which is now, and the other went away when we became friends in 3rd grade. So really, pretty much no experience went into figuring it all out, for me.
