Hello everyone! I need some advice about a situation I'm in concerning my sexuality. Here is the story. I'm a 17 year old pretty average guy. To start off simple I have always considered myself to be a straight guy and I have always liked girls but something happened some time ago that I can't shake out of my head. There are 2 things in particular that are getting to me and both of them took place when I was between 7 and 10 years old, can't remember exactly. I had a male friend of mine that I used to hang out with a lot at that time in my life and there is really nothing more to it, played games together, played football and that's it. But what happened one time is because we youngsters at that age found out about porn and of course watched it occasionally and one time he got an idea an proposed it to me, because we we're curious I guess, and that idea was that he sucks my penis. Don't remember exactly in detail but we got under the blanked in my room and he put my penis in his mouth and whatever and kinda 'sucked it' for some time and we stopped and that is pretty much it. He did propose the idea one more time some days later that I should do it to him or he should do it again to me but I refused. It is so weird cause sexual attraction or anything like that didn't even come to mind, as stupid as it is we were just two friends that happened to do that. The other thing that happened (after the first one) happened as I said in the same time in my life, perhaps at most a year later when I was 11 but I doubt it. Me and my best friends in the neighbourhood always played around outside and we had this half-retarded friend that would be there with us. It's really hard to explain and I don't want you to get the wrong idea. He was a 20 year old guy that had the mind of an 8 year old, he would go around with us and play with us as if he was our age. So once, and I don't know how it got to this, we went to a place in the neighbourhood that really wasn't anyone there ever. So the idea was that he would show us stupid little kids what masturbating and ejaculating looked like. So yeah we watched as he did it, me and my friends and at sometime I came to the idea and told my friends that we all try it on him to like stroke his penis. So one of my friends did it kinda first and then again properly when I said that it wasn't the idea, and then I went and grabbed his penis and stroked it like 3 or 4 times and nothing else really. Later he ejaculated and we went home. Weird stuff I know but bare with me. As I said I have always been into girls, can't take my eyes off of them most of the times, whenever I see anything about two dudes it naturally creeps me out, and I mean even the smallest things like even two guys being nice to each other in an awkward way. I fantasize about girls always, I've done sexual things with a girl and would only do it with a girl, and when my friends see a nice chick and make stupid jokes about us doing her together like in a threesome way or whatever you'd call it I can't imagine it, not when there is another dude involved. I don't have anything against homosexual people and I hope I haven't offended anyone in any way. Perhaps it sounds like I don't want to accept it if I was gay or whatever, while there is truth to that it's not what you might think at first. I'm not afraid of getting bullied or problems with family if I was gay or whatever, I haven't been taught to dislike homosexuals as I said before, but it just isn't my thing and I just don't feel it. With that being said the point is sometimes it just kills me inside and makes me feel really bad and I believe that it was just something I did as a stupid kid... I don't even know. I just needed to share this with somebody and hear some thoughts. It is hard to explain and I probably didn't express 100% of my feelings through a thread but I did my best. In all honesty I think what is killing me is that even though I can only imagine being with women and I love 'em, something like the nature of sexual orientation that I didn't choose could lead me to do something that I don't find appealing at all. Thanks for reading all the way, I'm sure some of you might find this completely stupid but still I just want some opinions.
First off, I'm so sorry that you went through these experiences and that they're still affecting you so strongly. It sounds to me that there was no sexual attraction involved in what happened in your childhood. Homosexuality is the sexual attraction to your own gender. It doesn't sound like that's something you experience? If you're only sexually and romantically attracted to women, then it's probable that you're heterosexual. Try not to place too much importance, or more importantly blame yourself, for what you did as a child before you properly understood what you were doing.
It's pretty common for young kids to "play doctor" and even to experiment to "see how the equipment works." Where the damage comes from is the assertion of power and control. In these situations you describe, it sounds (to me, based on your description) like you were pretty much in control, and at the time, you didn't have any particularly "icky" feelings, other than you didn't want to do that again. If that's the case, there was likely no lasting impact on you. It's also absolutely the case that there's no way the events you describe would "make you gay." Now... what is important here in terms of figuring yourself out is what your masturbation fantasies are like. When you masturbate without porn, do you find yourself fantasizing about guys, or girls, or both? If you want to test this, try masturbating and thinking about guys in one session, and about girls in another session. It might be helpful to try this a few times, and just see what brings about the stronger response. That will usually give you a pretty clear idea of where your sexual attraction lies.
