Where to start :S. I've been reading this forum on and off for about a month now after finding it on a whim, and over time I've started to question more and more about myself. It's come to the point where I'm spending far too much feeling trapped by my own confusion and thoughts that I need to get this all down and out somewhere. This is going to be as much a thought exercise for myself as much as me seeking actual advice, so apologies in advance if this is loooong. May as well start at the beginning. I'm 26, I'm male, and up until 2 months ago I'd have told you I was straight as a nail. However recently I've started questioning that more and more, and after initially reading the site as a form of curiosity of 'how would one know if one was gay' and identifying with the threads I've read more and more I really am starting to question myself quite heavily. I guess this brings us to the embarrassing details, but heck, this is anonymous. I've historically been incredibly introverted and self-conscious. My family moved countries when I was 13 and just starting to take an interest in girls, and things didn't go so great at my new school after the move. I did have a girlfriend for about a month, but that ended when I failed to have an answer for "what part of my body do you like the most". And by ended I really mean it just fizzled out after that and we both walked away without making a huge fuss. That is very likely the longest 'romantic' relationship I've had with a girl. After that time thought school and university I've either been too self conscious or afraid to seek out girls I think I may be attracted to. That said a couple years ago I did go through some CBT based counselling to deal with my anxiety, stress, and self consciousness, brought on by my job and generally sucking at dealing with people while doing it (customer service\account management). the good part is that I'm now quite comfortable with who I am, I dare say I quite like the person I am. The more frightening part is that I've started realising that part of that fear was really just masking that I also just generally don't find myself having a massive attraction to the fairer sex. With that said I do find a lot of women beautiful. I notice the odd lady here and there, and I think they are cute, and I know the personality types I am drawn to. But that's sort of where it ends. I don't find myself having the full on urges most men would have, I don't fantasize about breasts, I don't picture those women naked, and I've never once fantasized about having sex with them. On the subject, I've never watched straight porn and I can count the times I've seen a vagina on one hand and it's always made me uncomfortable. Because of this I've never really had that big urge to pursue a relationship like most men would have. It's been easier to just ignore it and lament the wanting of personal intimacy because of the lack of wanting sexual intimacy. So you might be thinking that I'm somewhat asexual, because I haven't watched a truckload of gay porn either, but that's where things get weird. Up until recently I haven't found myself attracted to real guys, but I do find that in fiction I'm far more attracted to males that females. This is in a lot of things, but mostly it's in the anime\cartoons\video games that I watch. When I was a kid I'd always brush it off and say I'd want to be friends with someone like that, or I like them but not in "that" way. That's gradually evolved in to me actually checking out hentai and yaoi of these characters, and finding that I really do enjoy it. I can appreciate their bodies, find them sexy, and I can get off to a picture of their shlong just fine. So after I started reading the site I noticed an ongoing trend was to experiment a bit, and see where it takes you. So I did. I noticed that I kind of have a thing for guys in motocross gear so I started there - lets say with some early success, both with pictures and videos (god bless the internet). I didn't feel repulsed, or even awkward, in fact I actually found my mind filling in the blanks. I did this for about a week and found myself getting in to it more and more, even starting to just look at and appreciate a couple pictures of guys as attractive\sexy. I now am noticing that the reason I'd only focussed on fictional characters before because is because it was a safe enough abstraction of my actual feelings for me to engage in without having to face facts. This all sort of leaves me with the impression that I am probably gay. I honestly I don't really care about having a label to put on myself. Even as much as that label, whatever it may be, is going to be super important to everyone else in my life. It has been freeing to be someone more honest in my masturbatory expeditions, but all I really want is to be sure and honest with myself and my attractions. My problem comes when I start having to re imagine my entire life and everything I saw in my future being with a women, and think about that being with another man. I'm at the point where I can picture myself intimate with a guy, pleasuring him as such, but everything beyond that is a stretch and it sends me spinning just trying to think about it. All those moments I've imagined, from first kisses and dates... heck, proposals and marriage speeches, they've always been centred around women. And every time I try to picture that being another guy I just sort of back away, get super afraid, and fall back on thinking I'm exaggerating and making the whole thing up. In fact I think I backed out of making this post about 5 times . And don't even get me started on me thinking about actually *telling* anyone - especially my family. They are in no way homophobic, but I really think it's the sort of thing that they don't want to associate with directly. Like "I don't mind what you do if it makes you happy, just so long as I don't have to see it". I'm happy to leave that as a problem for another time, that step comes later. This leads me to now. I sort of have two sticking points. 1. I almost feel obligated to experiment with women in the same way, even though I really have no desire to do so, given how uncomfortable I am just thinking about it. This usually comes of that voice that crops up as soon as I try to thinking about being with another guy. 2. How in the hell do you go about re-imagining your entire world view after making this kind of realisation. I'm at the point where I really want to get past this. I've reached a time in my life where I am finally really happy with who I am, the job I have, and the things I do, and I want more than anything to have a close and intimate relationship someone to share all this with. Anyway, thanks for being a place I can share all this stuff and vent. I know there's not going to be a panacea or one revelatory moment where it all makes sense, but I'm glad to have put that all out there, and maybe someone in these 'ol parts has been in a similar place and can let me know how they got past it.
You are interested in men. It seems that you try to please others. You follow their rules. Why not let them follow your rules, because you an adult now? They have the kind of relationship they want, and you want the same for you. What you do in your private life is up to you. If you follow the female trace it is obviously not because you can't wait to bed a girl. There is a mechanism that blocks your progress with men. With all due respect for your curiosity concerning women we have to set priorities. That means men! :icon_wink I would not call it an 'entire world view'. Don't expect that relationships with men are similar to those with women. Don't expect that men are fans of monogamy. Life is much more complicated in the gay world, it is dog eat dog. The competitiveness is an advantage, because people are free to move, compared to the rigid word of married couples. But there is no automatic continuation. Of course there are also gays with the full female programme. Don't think too much about YOUR plans for a life in a nice house with a nice person, look for the person(s) and then decide together how you want to live. Men are even less household objects than women. :icon_wink Live like an empiricist, not like an idealist who regrets all the time that the world doesn't fit his wishes.
Hey there; I commiserate with your frustration of trying to re-imagine your whole life and change your anticipations to fit a lifestyle that is not straight. I don't know that I have any easy answer for you either, since this is probably the hardest aspect of accepting a non-straight orientation. Like you, I dislike labels, so I supposed I would start by avoiding them. If you decide you want to experiment with and even date men (one day down the road), go ahead and do so and then just brush off people's questions of "are you gay?" That's what I plan to do, anyways, if I ever come out as gay: Somebody to me: "Are you gay?" Me to somebody: "Are you not?" Somebody to me: "What?!" Me to somebody: "Yeah; it's not a comfortable question is it? Who cares what I am or am not. I'm dating [so-and-so]. Period." Of course, that future vision entails a much more confrontational and confident me, but it also reflects an acceptance of something that is also really gaining acceptance overall. In other words, changing your life view only means learning to live with some people's ignorance, bigotry, curiosity, and perhaps insults. It doesn't mean you have to abandon aspirations to be a husband, a dad, etc. If anything, the media is increasingly helpful here showing gay and lesbian couples married, with kids, etc. Finally, you should not feel the need to experiment with somebody of the opposite sex if you do not want to. I was cajoled into doing that myself when I was younger, and I now greatly regret it. In fact, it might have ruined any slim chance I really do/did have at being straight. If you want to experiment outside of masturbation, then make sure you do so only with the people YOU want to, not the people you feel you should or those people that others argue you should. Hope this helps some...
Hi There! Welcome to EC :smilewave This is actually pretty normal and seems to be a common source of confusion. It is perfectly possible to be able to perceive that someone of the opposite sex is good looking and to appreciate their appearance without having any desire to have sex with them. You can probably appreciate the beauty of a flower or a sunset yet have no urge to have sex with them. Same thing, basically. Wanting to interact with other human beings and appreciating someone's personality is a common/normal human response and somewhat separate from sexual attraction (although we commonly combine them, this is not a requirement). I have any number of female and male friends who I can tell are good looking, and who have great personalities (I like them after all), but I have not the slightest interest in them sexually. Also, being gay doesn't mean that you have to find women repulsive or don't understand them. Different gay people seem to have different degrees of reaction when it comes to the genitals of the opposite sex. Some find them disturbing, some repellent, and some just feel indifference. You shouldn't feel any obligation to label yourself unless you want to. Certainly don't label yourself to make other people happy. This will drive some people into fits of hair pulling, but with the right attitude you can just treat that as free entertainment You don't even need to be confrontational about it. If someone asks what you are, just shrug and say you're having too much fun to worry about that sort of thing. Then giggle inside while their eyes cross. If you aren't comfortable experimenting with women than don't. I've never once had sex with a woman and never wanted to. Which was one of the things that kind of led to the whole 'I'm gay' realization. The only obligation you'd be working toward by experimenting is the straight world's feeling that their collective emotional complacency is more important than your personal happiness. The emotional complacency of a bunch of strangers (or even close friends and family) is not worth spending your life (or any portion of your time, actually) being unhappy. As far as re-imagining your life. I would suggest that if you are looking to experiment or explore, perhaps looking to guys would both be more in line with what you are feeling right now and also might make it a lot easier to do the re-imagining you are contemplating. The memory of an attractive guy holding you in his arms, or kissing you, or making you orgasm can do wonders when used as a catalyst for re-imagining your life as a gay man. Always play safe of course and exercise good judgement when looking for someone to experiment with. Also, there's nothing wrong with baby steps. You don't need to re-imagine your entire life from beginning to end before going out and living it. Go with the flow, live your life, and a lot of things will start to fall into place as you do so. You may wake up one day and realize that you've started imagining a new life for yourself without even realizing you've done so. Or even started creating it already. And EC is always here and makes a great resource for talking things out and discussing both a newly imagined life and what sort of steps (baby or otherwise) you might take or be taking to get there. Hope this helps, Todd
I guess i should preface this by saying I wrote this post originally about 3 weeks ago now - I'm guessing it got lost in the approvals system somewhere. That's OK though. Since then I have reached out to an old friend of mine who is gay who I'd not spoken to in some time and he's been helping me with some advice, which to be honest is much along the lines offered here. I should say that over this time I've become a bit more comfortable with things, and have tried to section out all the concerns i have so i can deal with them in a structured way. I also started a bit of a journal to help me be clear in my thoughts. I have accepted the fact that I am gay, and that my sexual attraction definitely lies with men. I decided to put all those societal based concerns on hold, and for now deal with a perfect world scenario and try to work on the idea of having a romantic relationship with another man, both in terms of what that would be like and what I might want it to be. This part is ongoing, and I make small progress every day. I do find the more I accept and define that part the less I even really worry about the other things, though I'm sure I'll have to face up to those issue eventually. Also worth mentioning is that I have come out to two of my closest friends. One of them is my best friend, and she is an amazing supportive person who I knew i could trust with it, and could talk to about anything. The other is actually my manager at work who I have more of a friendship with than anything else, and I trust him completely. In this case I really just got tired of feeling like I was hiding something, and since i see him just about every day I decided to just be out with it. He was also very cool about the whole thing. In both cases even I was clear about a lot of my uncertainty, and they have both understood that for the most part. That all said I'm not going to tell anyone else until I have done a bit more experimenting with the real thing @Cougar: I think you may be right, in that I need to stop trying to plan out my whole life and every detail. I think I need to just decide the type of guy I want to be with, and then let life happen from there. I've had a similar description of the gay world from that friend I originally spoke to, that men are somewhat more shallow in than women, and there is a lot of casual sex going on. I don't think I'll ever necessarily want to get in to that myself, but from the point of view of initially experimenting it's a plus, and it's also good to know the realities of what things are like. @cerulean: I can say that the conversations I've had when coming out while confrontational for me because of the reality of actually having them, were not confrontational themselves. I did pick my battles in terms of people I was 99% sure would react positively though. I guess my whole concern with it is I don't want to be treated any differently, because it's not a bit deal, i'm still the exact same person I was yesterday I just know I want to date men now. Society makes it a big deal though, and that sucks. Also, You're right and I'm not going to experiment with women, that was born of some sort of silly obligation I had. And to be honest the more I am accepting that I am attracted to men sexually, the easier it has been for me to accept that I am *not* attracted to women sexually. Which is good . @AKTodd: I'm probably going to take your approach to labels with the general public, maybe not in those words, but in the politely dismissive nature of it. I'll tell the people I care about in more specific terms, but everyone else it's none of their business, and I don't want to deal with the societal baggage or preconceived notions they may want to attach to me. I also think you're right that experimenting with another guy is going to really help get over mental hump I've reached right now, so that might be the next step - or giant leap of faith as the case may be . Anyway, thank you all for taking the time to respond. I'll definitely keep the EC community updated in one way or another, though maybe not in this thread as i think the sexual orientation part of my life is sorted, now it's just dealing with everything that brings, both good and bad
