I'm fully aware that you guys get a ton of similar questions, but I feel like I might need professional help for this, thus making this my first step. I have been wanting to ask similar questions since my teens, but I've always just waved it off as being a temporary problem, not worth the hassle. It has proven not to be a temporary problem and I'm still stuck, more or less. I'll try and keep this as short as possible, bear with me.. I started watching porn at a very young age (around 13) and got introduced to cam chatting through a friend not long after that. Women turned out to be quite scarce in the chat rooms so I eventually started cam chatting with older men when I was still 15. I didn't see anything wrong with it at that age, not even when they asked to meet in real life and go to their house. I never did that, although I was really curious to try. I did masturbate a lot on cam.. Wish I still had those contacts so I could report them. Anyway. The cam chatting got less and less a few years after that, until it stopped. I still watched a lot of hetero and gay porn, that never ended. With the introduction of the smartphone I started using apps like 'photoswap' and, without it being my initial motivation, trading dick pictures. I then also got on gay dating websites and got quite a lot of guys wanting to meet up immediately. But I just couldn't get myself over the edge. I'm sure you have heard this a gazillion times before, but I get disgusted with myself after I ejaculate to gay porn. The thing that has also always put doubt in me is that I do not like male sweat, at all. The contrary, female sweat, turns me on. Speaking about females. I've never had a relationship and can count my sexual encounters on one hand. This has all to do with anxiety. I've turned down sex more than a dozen times and I've walked away from potential relationships nearly as much. I'm fairly good looking (as much as I can objectively say that) and I don't mean that in an arrogant way. That has hardly ever been the issue with meeting girls. What has is my fear of being inadequate. Most of that has to do with the size of my penis (never heard that one before...). I am (on a good day) 6.2x5.5 inch. I'm fully aware that is not small, but my first sexual encounter called it small (I was already super anxious about it) and I have never been able to get erect in bed. This also gave me extra fear of being gay, but that kinda went away when a girl gave me a blowjob and I had my first and last ejaculation by someone other than myself (about 5.5 years ago). I still have a lot to work on with the anxiety thing and I'm sure that can get solved finding the right woman, with the patience to guide me through it. But I have no clue what to do with my sexual arousel for men. I suspect (or perhaps hope) that I have trained my brain to get aroused by gay porn. Because I have never been turned on by men in real life. In my mind thoigh, I thunk I enjoy gay sex almost as much as heterosexual sex. Can anybody make anything out of this? I hope it is coherent and I apologize for having written much more than I initially planned. Thank you.
Hi, and welcome. First, let's address the porn issue. Porn isn't a reliable indicator of sexual orientation for a whole variety of reasons. The best indicator of what arouses you is to practice masturbating without porn (or without camming with anyone). This may be difficult if you've been used to having external visual stimulation, but if you practice for a few days or a week or so, your brain will reset itself. Try out fantasies with men, and then with women... and then try letting your mind wander and see where it goes. This will give you the most reliable indicator of where your attractions lie. The negative feelings after ejaculation have no correlation with sexual orientation; that's the remnants of our ancestral heritage, where our bodies were hardwired to be uninterested in sex after ejaculation so we'd go do something else, like forage for food. Over time, that patterned response goes away. It is also quite common to have difficulty with erections the first few times you meet a partner, particularly if it's a hookup. This is a combination of nervousness and, perhaps, if you're with a guy, it's because the unconscious and conscious mind fighting because the conscious is hoping you're not gay. But it happens just as much with hetero couples. So the masturbation exercise should give you a pretty clear picture of where your attractions lie. Once you get clarity there, if you find that you feel uncomfortable with the idea of being with men, most likely it's because part of you desperately doesn't want to be gay. As for attraction to women... what I'm not hearing much of is that you actually have any real arousal around or to women. It sounds more like, intellectually, you wish/hope/want to be, but in action, your arousal patterns seem to be centered around men. The last piece to understand is how we process loss... Assuming you are in fact something other than straight, as you let go of the self-perception as straight, there are stages in processing that loss: denial-anger-bargaining-grief-acceptance. If I were to guess, I'd say you're probably somewhere in the bargaining stage ("I know I have some attraction to guys, but I really still want to end up with a girl, and I think I'm not really gay"). Of course... all of this is my interpretation, based solely on your post, and may be entirely inaccurate. This is ultimately something you have to figure out for yourself... and my hope is that the above may be helpful in that regard.
Hi Chip, thanks a lot for your message, really informative! I will try what you have said. It is true, I hardly ever masturbste without and external visual stimulation. But the times that I have done it, if I remember it correctly, my mind immediately goes to women. My mind does sometimes wander to men (or even women with a strap-on) when I feel submissive. I remember once after I had gotten into an emotional confrontation and was feeling really down, I put on gay porn and masturbated. It seems as though it's a different kind of arousal, but I'm not sure. I apologize, after posting my message I wanted to edit it as I realized that I hadn't mentioned my emotional/sexual attraction towards women, but that wasn't possible. I have been in love a few times with girls, but only once have I had that major crush that has never gone away. Even today, after 7/8 years, if I see her I get chills down my body and that icy feeling in my stomach. I become a complete idiot when talking to her. I have never felt this type of attraction towards men, not even close. I also feel - which I can only express as - that hunger for sex when I see women I feel attracted to, especially in the summer. Again not something I experience with men. That last part seems to be very correct. I believe I am straight, but I am certainly in a "I have some type of attraction to guys, even if it's just porn, but I really really want a girlfriend". Your message has certainly given me food for thought, thanks a lot again. This is so much more complicated that I would even wish it to be..
Chip, fantasies that basically look like porn but imagined serve this test? Honestly I have fantasized about both, but I always thought myself as straight bc never felt attracted to women in everyday life. lately confusion has sprung up and I've done this test more than one time, and I didn't think the results were very conclusive. I've been not excited at all by any fantasy, more excited by same sex fantasies but had a better orgasm with the straight fantasy and so on. I have only been with men in my life, and my same sex fantasies are very visual meanwhile my straight fantasies often make me think about sensations.
The truth is, I don't think this specific issues has been studied in depth (to my knowledge.) However, knowing what we do understand about how the male brain processes stimuli that is viewed vs. stimuli created as fantasy in your mind, it is probably reasonably safe to assume that porn-like fantasies you create in your mind are no less accurate as a predictor of arousal pattern than, um, more realistic fantasies you create in your mind. What makes this such a complicated thing is the interwoven nature of our fantasies, our conscious and unconscious desires, and the impact that our conscious mind, and not wanting to be gay, plays in how we experience these fantasies. Someone who is in the early stages of accepting his or her same-sex attraction can do *amazing* amounts of rationalization to explain away anything that might mean they're gay. And because this is basically a battle between conscious and unconscious, it's really difficult to know what's objectively real from what you want to be real, if that makes sense. Further complicating matters... for someone who is gay and just beginning to come to terms, there's the conscious rejection of what the unconscious is feeling. So, for example, we can convince ourselves that there's a reason why the gay fantasies are less relevant than the straight ones, or that it's situational, or any of a million other things. And yet... at the opposite end, you have the folks with severe OCD who obsess over the idea they might be gay when there's -zero- evidence to support it. At the end of the day, the best solution I've found is to learn to be OK with uncertainty, and simply explore, let yourself imagine/experience on both sides, and just see where it leads you. For people who are gay, once they begin to accept the idea that maybe there's some same sex attraction, they often find that the arousal they thought they had for same-sex partners fades into the background. It seems to be that once we finally accept it, our conscious mind gives in and stops putting up barriers. There are often no absolutes or clear answersat this stage, but I hope that helps.
Interesting read Chip, thanks! I think you meant subconscious instead of unconscious though. [/quote] Well... I'm not a Freudian. Freud used 'unconscious' to talk about the things that are unknown and were generally the dark parts of self. Jung, however, used "unconscious" in a more general way. There is a difference, and "subconscious" is, in fact, the more precise term for this application, though I tend to use them interchangeably. I'm not sure what my initial argument is. Looking at my post, I don't really see a singular one that jumps out. If you can clarify, I can give you an answer.
Haha, you edited my post. If I hadn't read it again I would never see you answered me there. They are used interchangeably indeed, some even claim both are synonymous. Guess I am used to using subconscious in my own language as opposed to unconscious. Maybe.not a clear argument, but I was aiming at what you said involving an intellectual attraction towards women. Did my response change that, or do you still stand by your initial message? Thanks.
So sorry I hit edit instead of quote! Looking over your comments. I'm still inclined to lean in the direction that the attraction to women is intellectual rather than physical/sexual. Of course, my opinion and $4 will buy you a cup of Starbucks, so take it for what you will
The power of being an admin! Haha, love that comment! Alright, thanks for you insight. I will work with this and if the uncertainty continues I will consider seeking help for it.
