Hey guys, I'm going to try and be as logical and precise about my situation and feelings as I can. I find that maybe writing things out will help organise my thoughts better and get some imput from the community. I am a 26 year old male who is healthy and active. I've completed university and am a few years into my professional career. As a teenager I always had very strong feelings and sexual fantasies for girls exclusively and this has continued into my early adulthood years. I remember my very first school crush in the 3rd grade was a girl and how I would always want to stare at her in class. Many times I would meet a girl and instantly think of a future together with her or be flooded with sexual desire. I've always... ahem... pleasured myself to the thought of these girls without always needing porn to feel satisfied. All of my porn searches until now involved straight porn with the occasional lesbian video. In high school I couldn't help myself but check out almost every girl that walked by, constantly making up fantasies in my head involving me and them. For almost the last six years I've been in a relationship with a woman and we are still active sexually and romantically. I've also dealt with anxiety for much of my life. I've mostly always been able to manage and cope with it however it can sometimes affect my performance in sports and sometimes during sexual intercourse. The first few times myself and my current partner were to engage in sexual relations I was not able to achieve an adequate erection and this caused me great stress and anxiety. Even though I could look at porn and instantly become erect. In my lifetime I've had sexual relationships with two women and oral sexual relationships with another 10. I could have had more sexual relationships but chose not too because I never grew up thinking I needed to experience all kinds of sex to be happy. I was also involved in faith growing up, which at first did slow down my decisions to persue sexual relationships with girls, but I've grown as a person from that phase of my life. Often times I felt nervous about girls because I knew I wanted to be them but was scared I wouldn't last long enough in bed at first or would just be a disaster sexually. The thoughts sometimes just made me want to avoid persuing girls some nights and just ahem... pleasure by myself instead. I can think of 3 occasions in my life where I did question my sexuality: The first time I was about 13-14 and had been... ahem... pleasuring myself to girls for about two years. This was an everyday occurance, sometimes multiple times a day. I was watching a movie where I noticed the male was good looking. I remember learning in school that sexuality develops during teenage years and puberty and thinking, could this have just started? Am I only hitting puberty now even though I've been thinking about girls for the past few years? The thoughts put me into a panic and I remember thinking well maybe I am bi. After that I was able to calm myself down and soon after, poof! all thoughts went away. Fast forward to 20 years old and I spent a summer home from university thinking about my sexuality again. It started after I had a dream that I was surrounded by gay people and many were coming on to me. It wasn't so much a question of finding another male attractive in the dream rather than the idea that yeah, maybe I am gay and I just never realised it? This made me feel unsettled and anxious. I wondered too what my place in life was and all these questions created a swirl of anxious thoughts. However, I remember going back to my high schools prom and dancing with my date and trying to hold back an erection. That summer I also had feelings for this girl and often fantasized about a long term relationship. Once university started backup these questions disappeared again. And finally lets jump ahead to 6 months ago. A few events has led me back to this questioning. The first I was reading an article about porn searches and the searches I usually go for weren't the same as the ones I did. The second was an article that I was casually scrolling through about the realities of porn and how penises are injected and so forth and I popped an erection. This sprung me into a panic: could that little tidbit of info be my brain saying I'm craving something homosexual? What if all my fantasies about doing girls doggy style was actually masked for men? I never had same-sex sexual fantasies but maybe I somehow never allowed myself to either? Things are different now because I'm in a long term loving relationship and we have talked very much about our future life together. Over the past few months I've read up all kinds about the sexual spectrum, the romantic spectrum, HOCD (if that's even a real thing), anxiety and brain patterns only to never feel like I've come to a conclusive result. I've been visiting a psychologist about my thoughts and went through one short cycle of anti-anxiety pills because the wondering/research was beginning to interfere with my career. This has become somewhat of an obsession. I find I could very well be bisexual, and have even mentioned it to my partner, however, I'm not sure how to really discover things for myself. Sometimes I think maybe I've somehow unknowingly managed to repress my true feelings my entire life and am actually gay but then logic kicks back in and points out to all my unforced sexual fantasies during my lifetime. Sometimes just admitting to myself I'm bisexual makes my anxiety levels go down even though I'm not aroused by anything. I recently experimented with a bit of gay porn to see how I liked it and I did not feel aroused nor repulsed. In the past few weeks I've cut out porn altogether to try and make my head feel a little clearer. I've always appreciated the male face and feel good when I see a nice jawline but sexually I've thought of men in that manner. For women, physically, I always appreciate the body first and the head second. Sorry for the long post, I guess I just want a second opinion from people who have questioned themselves. I've always been an A-type forward thinking but recently I feel like I'm questioning everything. I would honestly just like to feel normal and happy again and be able to move on with my life, whatever the end result may be. Can a bisexual be in monogamous, heterosexual relationships? How do you know if you're bisexual? What does denial feel like? Maybe my thoughts of my sexual are actually masking something else? I know in the end I'm going to have to decide myself, but any insight is good insight, thanks in advance.
Hi, first of all, stop worrying too much. I know that questioning yourself can cause loads of anxiety, but most of that is very unnecessary. Also, "Stop worrying" is always very easy to say and very hard to do, but still, take a deep breath, you are fine. Let's look at what you wrote. You definitely seem to be attracted to your girlfriend, and you tell us you love her. That in and by itself is great, I wish you two all the best ;-). Seeing as you are way past your puberty, and are still consistently attracted to girls and in love with one, I think it is unlikely that you are completely gay. There is not much use in worrying about that. You also do not sound like someone in denial... About being bisexual: You might be... The question for me does not seem to be, whether you are bi or not, but what you want to do with this. You sound happy in your relationship and that means you do not have to change anything. A bisexual man can be very happy in a committed monogamous relationship, there is no requirement to experiment. If you and your partner are into that, you could try a threesome, that's for you to decide. You might discover something you like. About really knowing and being sure... Some people know and are quite adamant about it, but I've met a lot of friends who told me things along the lines of: "I'm not sure, how could I be, but that's not a problem for me... if a guy I really like comes along, yes I might go there." The important thing is to be open to yourself and also your partner. Don't feel forced into anything. You don't have to act out every fantasy, but if you want to (and your partner is OK with that) you can absolutely do it...
A bi person can totally be in a straight monogamous relationship. Bi people can also have preferences- take it from me (technically I'm pan but it's a very similar experience). When I was in denial about my sexuality I told myself "oh I'm just faking it" "it's just a phase" " you're imagining things" and "you would've known sooner" but everyone's experience is different when/if they're in denial. How you know what you're sexuality is is a different experience for everyone- and it can take a long time to finally figure it out and that's perfectly fine! It was slow for me to realize that I was attracted to more than one gender and my preference for girls made me think I was a lesbian for a long time (before the gender-feels hit me and before I noticed that I'm attracted to other genders as well). But I guess I just sort of... realized that "oh I'm feeling attraction to this person and they're not a girl, huh maybe I'm bi or pan" I can't help you much with the porn and other sexual stuff since I'm underage and also asexual so I hoped the bits I could help you with are useful
I certainly agree with the previous comments suggesting that you try to relax about this. Nothing needs to be decided right away. It's totally ok that you're questioning your sexuality. While some people know from an early age their true sexuality, for many others it takes more time to figure out. Some of us even figured it out early (like me) but couldn't accept it and lived in denial. From your description, it doesn't sound like denial to me. Porn can be confusing to figuring out sexuality, however, so be careful not to put too much stock into what watching porn reveals to you about your sexuality. I have been aroused by many different things that I absolutely know I wouldn't really want to do in real life. It's just a fantasy, no more. I include you reading an article that gave you an erection as well (though it's not porn, it still had the same effect of porn to you). Unless there is more that you didn't reveal in your post, having a gay dream or reading articles that aroused you don't seem like enough "evidence" to me that should cause you to question your sexuality. Are there more things going on in your thinking that also leads you to question? You said that you stopped watching porn altogether a few weeks ago. When you are not using porn during masturbation, do you find yourself fantasizing about men? That might be a clue to you. If you only fantasize about women during masturbation sans porn, and the only other evidence of "gay" thinking is a dream and a couple of articles, then it would seem doubtful that you are gay or bisexual. Of course, only you can truly know that and all I have is your post to inform my opinion. If maybe you could respond more fully about your thoughts about men, masturbation fantasies, and any other "gay" thoughts you've experienced, we might have more ideas for you.
Thanks for the quick answers everyone, If I were to elaborate, I guess these would be other factors: I do have a brother who is gay and has been out for a number of years now and a sister who does identify as bisexual (and she really seems like a true bisexual haha). This adds fuel to my questioning. However, when both came out to me I didn't question my own sexuality at the time. When I masturbate, until now, my go to has always been girls. Sometimes I imagine it head on and other times I imagine it like I watching myself doing things to the girl. So I guess I could say in some instances I picture a couple but the male has always been me or at least that's how I've interpreted it. I'm not necessarily always in the mood for sex with my partner. I still find her attractive but I find if I'm shutting her out even if it's only occasionally then I must have something else on my mind. During vacation time this summer we had sex daily but now things have slowed down to twice a week. In the past few months I've wondered after having sex a bunch of what if questions like hmmmm did I really enjoy that? How do I know if I really enjoyed that? And so fourth. I guess you can say career coupled in with working on a part time masters in the evenings has added stress onto my life. I don't look at girls with the same admiration before which leads me to question myself. I've always appreciated a nice male face and jawline but never thought anything sexual of it. Perhaps there is a bi side of me that comes and goes and I've just never acted on it? I know bisexual people can jump on the spectrum but is it possible to jump to an end I haven't felt before and I might not bounce back? How should I stop obsessing so much? Again, any advice is good advice. Thanks in advance.
