Hi str8 curious

Hi, Jon.

First, welcome to EC! It's great that you've joined and I hope you'll stick around.

Can you be a little more specific about what it is you'd like to know? We have several formerly-married gay men here, and quite a few bi people plus a bunch of us regular poofs I'm sure you can get lots of helpful info if you can be a little more clear on what you're after.

 

Hi, Jon.

Your situation isn't uncommon, and we have an awful lot of people here at EC who have found themselves in exactly the same circumstance... married and, years into it (sometimes many years more than you) coming to question their sexuality.

There are several possibilities. But what complicates getting a really accurate answer is the dissonance/resistance you might have, both consciously and subconsciously, to the possibility that you might actually be gay.

What I usually suggest people do in this circumstance is try and look at yourself and your actions and behaviors, and answer the following questions really honestly (without hedging or rationalizing or justifying)

First, what is your level of sexual attraction to your wife? Not emotional, but sexual? Do you enjoy having sex with her? Do you feel yourself incredibly aroused and excited before and during sex with her? Do you ever fantasize about being with a guy while with her?

Second, when you're out on the street, or watching TV, do your eyes gravitate toward guys, or girls, or both? If both, which do you gravitate toward more?

Third, you've said you're turned on by watching gay porn. Do you get the same level of excitement watching straight porn? When watching straight porn, are you paying attention to the girls, or to the guys?

Fourth, when you're masturbating, what are you thinking about? Do you imagine your wife? Other girls? guys? If it's a mix, answer truthfully what % of the time you're thinking about guys vs girls.

All of those things can help you better understand where your attraction lies. If you can honestly answer that men show no attraction to you in any of those situations, then you're clearly straight. But you've already indicated that gay porn excites you, and that you have fantasies about men... which leads me to believe that you are probably gay or somewhere on the bi spectrum. Where you are on the spectrum will depend on how you answer the above questions.

Finally, the "I don't want a relationship with a guy, it's just physical" is something we hear quite often here at EC, and the majority of the time, that's a sort of intellectual defense. I'll explain:

When we start to deal with any loss, we go through stages. In your case (if you are, in fact, not completely straight), the "loss" could be the loss of your identity as being straight. And the stages of loss are denial-anger-bargaining-grief-acceptance (not always exactly in that order.) You've already admitted there's some attraction to guys, so you're somewhat past denial. Anger is like "WTF! Why am I feeling this! I don't want it" or "Bullshit! This can't be true!" or something like that. And so "I don't want a relationship with a guy, it's just physical" is a common way of "bargaining" about the situation... "Well, I like the idea of having sex with guys, but it's only physical, so I'm not really gay" Last two stages are grief and acceptance... and that takes time.

So I'm sure i'm totally not telling you anything you want to hear. And I don't know if I'm right, I only have what you've said to go on. But if you think about, and answer the above questions, then you (perhaps with a little help from the EC community) can start to answer the question for yourself.

So I'd suggest... let's work on figuring out what's going on for you first, and then we can talk about what, if anything, you need to think about with regard to your wife and your marriage.

I hope that helps.

 

Hi, Jon.

You're the only one who can really know what's going on inside your head, but when I read your posts, I see a bit of a conflict between "I've seen gay and bi porn and it turns me on" and "I can say 100% that I find women more attractive."

I'm not saying you're gay, only that, in pretty much all cases, guys who are truly 100% straight are not even remotely turned on by gay porn. So if you are, in fact, turned on by gay porn, then there is some sexual attraction to guys.

My guess is you've already tried to ignore it, and that's why you posted here to ask about what it means.

Here's one more piece of useful information: Whenever one considers the idea that we might be less than completely straight, there's a loss associated with that idea: the loss of one's identity as a straight male. In any major loss, there are stages one goes through: denial-anger-bargaining-grief-acceptance.

Denial would be, for example, having information in front of us that contradicts our belief that we are completely straight, yet absolutely denying that we could be anything but completely straight: "No, I'm not gay, I love my wife!"

Anger is "dammit, I don't want to be gay" or "Why the heck do I have to deal with this?"

Bargaining is "Well, maybe I just want to experiment for the experience, but I don't really like guys, it's just to try once" or "well, maybe I like guys, but I can just ignore it and pretend that I still like girls more"

The last two are pretty self-explanatory.

Again, I'm not saying that any of the above definitely does apply to you, but I am saying that your responses seem a little inconsistent, and that is often an indicator that you aren't ready, consciously, to hear what's being said.

But it's also quite possible that you are totally straight, and I'm misreading your answers.

You're the only one that knows the truth. And it's not something that may be completely clear quite yet, because your mind can play a lot of games in denying truth, or it may be really difficult to even begin to think about making that sort of a change in your understanding of yourself.

Whatever you are... straight, gay, or somewhere in between... there's no rush in figuring it out, and no timetable by which you need to have the answer. So if what I've said gives you any pause, then I'd say just sit with it and think about it, and if it does seems you're other than completely straight, or you want to discuss it further, please feel free to continue to post in this thread, or PM me or any of the other advisors if you'd like to talk individually.

And if you feel so inclined, keep us informed of how you're thinking and feeling.