I'm really stressed and confused right now. I'm not sure how to put it down in words exactly and I'll try not to make it to long. So I'm 21 and it suddenly stroke me that until now I've never been or shown any real interest to be in a relationship, actually the ideas of "this is a nice/pretty person, I'd like to ask her out/be more than friends" never crossed my mind, maybe it was me just not been mature enough? I've always been kind of innocent and slow in those areas. Anyway the first time I learned about gay people my reaction was kind of "there's people like that?!" It was a mixture of curiosity and surprise, but since then my opinion has always been pretty much "so what? If they love each other and that doesn't affect me in any way why should I care, just let them be" but being shy and with low self esteem I ended up keeping those thoughts for myself, especially considering I wasn't the manliest guy in school, I kind of felt the need to force myself not to give the wrong impression and fit in. Now to the awkward part I really feel uncomfortable even acknowledging "masturbation". At first I used only straight material but after some years I started watching what to me was "unconventional stuff"which filled me with guilt, always avoiding the word gay in my searches kind of telling myself "it's ok, looks like a female, I'm definitely straight, this are just weird fetishes that appear in the heat of the moment" and for a long time that actually worked, at some point actually started watching gay porn always with the excuse of "it's just a fetish"and always feeling kind of guilty afterward . Well the thing is, recently, out of the blue I've started watching/reading LGBT related stuff that's not porn, which I soon realized kind of invalidates the fetish excuse leading to the actual series of questions that brought me here: How sure am i of being straight? Sure I don't check out guys in real life, but I don't really check girls either. Do I really care what gender my partner will be? I mean, for a long time now I kind of considered myself sort of gender blind, I have always been against the wole gender role models and as far as fantasy goes I can easily picture myself in pretty much any kind of relationship. But would i feel the same in real life? I mean, would I really feel comfortable being with a partner other than a female? Social pressure scares the hell out of me and has made me do things against my will before.(spent 4 years studying a career I hated because everyone expected me to do so. Just pulled the courage to leave it last year) I have the feeling that the only way to be sure is to be with someone and experiment, but being me means that could actually never happen. It's been like 5 years after i finished school and since then I haven't made any kind of new relationship, I get kind of introverted and absorbed in my studies so I usually don't really let new people know the real me and get close. In conclusion, I'm really troubled about my sexuality, it's like this thing I've been avoiding since always and now it suddenly exploded. I don't really want to be in a relationship right now but I can't let this question unanswered any more. Sorry it ended up being so long, I swear it's the shortest i could write. i just needed to take this out, haven't talked about it ever and still debating myself if I could tell my psychologist about it, i have only been going there for a few months because of the whole changing career thing so I don't know if I'm ready to open up to that level yet. And sorry if i couldn't express myself right, English is not my native language.
Hmmm.. You need to explore your sexuality a bit. You said you watched straight porn for sometime initially. Then you switched to unconventional stuff (trans porn, I'm assuming) and then to gay porn. Do you know what part of them excites you ? Why is gay porn appealing to you ? What is it that you really like when masturbating to it and trans porn? Having an idea about this will help you to understand your sexuality better. And regarding relationships, certain aspects of your personality are not making you look forward to them. I think you should stop stressing yourself in general and hang out with friends, loosen yourself, enjoy life. See a therapist if you think you need to. Do share your thoughts. It's best not to bottle up your sexuality.
thanks for answering.Sorry for been elusive about the words but the subject always felt so awkward to me:icon_redf. Seriously can't believe I'm actually letting anyone know i even have this kind of thoughts. Regarding porn it's not that I switched from straight to gay, it's more like I accepted that I also like allowed me to like non-straight material, meaning that I still watch straight material but also gay and in-between. I have been tending more towards the non-straight material for the last years, tho. what is it that I find appealing...hmm... don't know, at first I thought it was the taboo aspect of it, i saw it as an outsider I guess, not really thinking about doing any of it myself, I used to focus more on what was going on, the situation, rather than the participants (I may have kinda restrained myself from looking because you know "why would i want to watch the dude, I'm not gay"). but then I started to actually picture myself been in those situations, in either role and started to think what it would be like to have actual sex not only with women but with a man or a trans, how it would feel both to give and receive, to be the more manly, dominant, part o to be treated more feminine like, more submissive, depending on my mood all scenarios felt right. Again, I thought that was only some sort of fetish, fantasies confined only to my private heated moments, I though "maybe I'm bi when it comes to fantasies but that doesn't mean I would actually want to be with a man in real life". But then for literally no reason a few weeks ago I started to watch/read non-pornographic LGBT material, stuff like people discovering/accepting themselves, slice-of-life, romance and the like, and that kinda threw me out of balance "why do I feel so fond of this characters?", "I never really cared about love stories so why is this making me so happy?", "why do I feel so comfortable with this?" and weird thoughts appeared that never crossed my mind before, like picturing myself been in an actual relationship with a guy or trans, and the scary part is that except for the "what would others think?" I honestly couldn't see why I wouldn't be in such relationship if i liked the person (for who he/she is, I mean). in the end, I spent so much time convincing me it's all just sort of a fetish that I don't know if I honestly wouldn't care who my partner is or if it's just a phase or a crazy random idea in my mind. I have the feeling the only way for me to understand myself would be to actually have some real experiences but between my personality, my lifestyle and the fact that I'm not really interested in being in a relationship right now (I'd love to, but I'm afraid I couldn't handle one), it seem impossible for me to get an answer. I tried to talk about it with my psychologist the other day but got afraid of what she may think... :icon_redf I know, stupid, but that's me! people opinions may not change my thoughts but they do affect what i dare to show the world about myself. I'll try again next week sorry it ended being a long text again, seems like I really needed to take this out. thanks again for listening, that's really helpful.
You feel comfortable with the LGBT material because your mind has created this identification with LGBTs from you stressing yourself while watching LGBT porn. If you weren't trying to tell/force yourself that "it's just a fetish, it doesn't mean I'm gay", then I don't think you would have felt comfortable/happy/fond of those LGBT material. So you see, it's the anxiety that made you feel ths way. Ask your therapist, I think she will say the same thing. Look, sex is sex. Whatever kind of sex it is, it has stimulatory potential. So it shouldn't be surprising that a person can react sexually to a given sexual situation, even though he is not really into it. I think you've allowed yourself to enjoy any kind of sex and that's normal, but it has created a saturating effect, like it doesn't really matter to you what porn you're watching. Any type of sex will get you off. Am I right in this ? Maybe what you should do is just go with what significantly turns you on and maintains your interest. For example, if women's bodies and sexual engagement with them turns you on very much, keep yourself to them. But if you are also distracted by guys and gay porn & being with them (their essence?) also significantly turns you on, then go for it, you would be bisexual then. Just go with what sparks your interest in its essence and maintains that interest. I'm not sure if you understood me. When I say essence, I mean that gender has become your enduring and pleasing interest, not just sexually, but perhaps even romantically. Like, if you find that the essence of a man(his feel, his features, his sexual engagement) is what you DESIRE during sex, then that would mean you like men like that. It would open you up for romantic relations with them. It makes you want to be with men. You may have other stuff that you react to sexually, but men would be the primary interest. So sort yourself out. Be open and find out what you really are into versus what you enjoy just for enjoyment. It may be that you have no such specific interest in a specific gender, which is great, but then you shouldn't become anxious over it. Anxiety is what's brought you here at this point in your life, right ? A psychologist is there to understand you. She knows the different ways a human mind works. She knows the mind can get stuck up on few things. She's not gonna think anything of it. If she says she doesn't like you or tells other people, she would be going against ethics and can be sued and her license can be taken from her. So a psychologist is the one person you can say stuff to and it doesn't affect you. That's the whole job of a psychologist. You should also learn to care less of other people's opinions and strengthen yur confidence & self esteem. That will make people's opinions not affect you much. But of course that doesn't mean you should go around doing whatever seems fit though.
