Dnvrrocker
Apr 15, 2008, 11:45 PM
Hey, first time posting here. I guess I'm just hoping to get some outside viewpoints on some stuff I've been wondering about for awhile, namely, how to define my sexuality and accept myself for who I am. I have wondered over the past several years whether the heterosexual label I had accepted for myself throughout my adolescence is accurate, why a label is so important to me, and how to understand the feelings and confusion I have been experiencing.
Throughout puberty I had always labeled myself as straight and was comfortable with that label, no conflicting feelings, I always was attracted to girls, in that youthful crush type of way, can still remember all of them very well even though I'm now 25, and these attractions were always very natural and pleasing to me, and I did not experience any doubt. However, while in high school, I developed an addiction to acohol, among other things, and ultimately wound up in rehab. Without going off topic, rehab is a difficult time and left me very vulnerable to the low self-esteem that had bothered me from a bullied childhood. While in this state, my roommates in the rehab one night decided to just start fucking with me, I now recognize that they were just dealing with unpleasant internal shit as well. Anyway, one of these roommates, who happened to be gay(and also may have been into me or whatever, he sometimes came onto me even though I made it clear I did not want him to), started telling me that he could "tell I would turn out to be gay" and other things of that nature, and my other roommates started to go along with that, making fun of me and my passivity, and I just took it. Although some of them would be ejected from the rehab as the result of this incident, the damage to my fragile self was done. In the weeks(and ultimately years) following this incident, I developed an anxiety that I would "turn gay", and this anxiety grew and grew until there have been times that I develop near panic attacks(yes, I grew up in the homophobic 90's, but rationally homosexuality doesn't bother me, I have friends who are bi/gay, and I don't think there is anything wrong with it.) over this issue. This anxiety has had far more influence over me than it should have, and some of my actions as a result of it have muddled the issue further in my head. I have never experienced that powerful sense of desire for anyone that was not female in this life, and have felt it for a number of women(even think I'm really in love with this girl I'm around a lot these days), I care deeply for and love my male friends, but don't experience arousal in response to them(I'm still a virgin in part due to a lot of this sexual confusion, and so I'm still inexperienced enough that even very minor things like flirting with this current girl or one's in the past have/do cause me to start getting hard and excited.) However, when I experience this anxiety I have frequently thought about what it would be like to have sex with a man, sometimes while masturbating, I'm going to school to become a scientist and I think that these fantasies are to "test" whether they get me off or not, whether I am "turning gay". A couple of times I have ejaculated with these fantasies, but it felt different than the pleasant natural masturbating to female imagery I remember from the teenage years, it felt really forced/unnatural to me and is not the normal experience, usually the gay fantasies do not excite me very much compared to female imagery(ie jiggling breasts, curvy hips).
I realize this has turned into quite the rant at this point, and I apologize for my wordiness, but here is point I have been heading towards: What is so important about labeling myself, why did the loss of the confidence about the straight label that developed naturally in my adolescence cause such distress? I want to accept myself for who I am, whatever that means, whether straight or bi or whatever. I took one of the orientation quizzes on another thread and it came up "predominantly heterosexual" and this seems pretty accurate given my experiences, but I still experience this anxiety sometimes, and I dont know why I still let someone being an asshole 8 years ago mess with me to this day, and why this matters so much that it creates distress. I also recognize that as a virgin I'm making conclusions on very limited data, and I don't think its appropriate, but I feel like I want answers. I dont really want experiment with guys to test this out, I felt a lot of negative stuff after the gay fantasies/masturbating, but this bothers me too as it feels like I'm making some sort of negative judgement that really doesn't mesh with my rational conscious moral views regarding sexuality, and I have a lot of doubts about all that subconscious stuff for a subject I almost obbsess about. I apologize again for going on and on, but if anyone could offer some experiences, advice, whatever on accepting oneself and knowledge of sexuality, it'd be greatly appreciated. Thanks
Throughout puberty I had always labeled myself as straight and was comfortable with that label, no conflicting feelings, I always was attracted to girls, in that youthful crush type of way, can still remember all of them very well even though I'm now 25, and these attractions were always very natural and pleasing to me, and I did not experience any doubt. However, while in high school, I developed an addiction to acohol, among other things, and ultimately wound up in rehab. Without going off topic, rehab is a difficult time and left me very vulnerable to the low self-esteem that had bothered me from a bullied childhood. While in this state, my roommates in the rehab one night decided to just start fucking with me, I now recognize that they were just dealing with unpleasant internal shit as well. Anyway, one of these roommates, who happened to be gay(and also may have been into me or whatever, he sometimes came onto me even though I made it clear I did not want him to), started telling me that he could "tell I would turn out to be gay" and other things of that nature, and my other roommates started to go along with that, making fun of me and my passivity, and I just took it. Although some of them would be ejected from the rehab as the result of this incident, the damage to my fragile self was done. In the weeks(and ultimately years) following this incident, I developed an anxiety that I would "turn gay", and this anxiety grew and grew until there have been times that I develop near panic attacks(yes, I grew up in the homophobic 90's, but rationally homosexuality doesn't bother me, I have friends who are bi/gay, and I don't think there is anything wrong with it.) over this issue. This anxiety has had far more influence over me than it should have, and some of my actions as a result of it have muddled the issue further in my head. I have never experienced that powerful sense of desire for anyone that was not female in this life, and have felt it for a number of women(even think I'm really in love with this girl I'm around a lot these days), I care deeply for and love my male friends, but don't experience arousal in response to them(I'm still a virgin in part due to a lot of this sexual confusion, and so I'm still inexperienced enough that even very minor things like flirting with this current girl or one's in the past have/do cause me to start getting hard and excited.) However, when I experience this anxiety I have frequently thought about what it would be like to have sex with a man, sometimes while masturbating, I'm going to school to become a scientist and I think that these fantasies are to "test" whether they get me off or not, whether I am "turning gay". A couple of times I have ejaculated with these fantasies, but it felt different than the pleasant natural masturbating to female imagery I remember from the teenage years, it felt really forced/unnatural to me and is not the normal experience, usually the gay fantasies do not excite me very much compared to female imagery(ie jiggling breasts, curvy hips).
I realize this has turned into quite the rant at this point, and I apologize for my wordiness, but here is point I have been heading towards: What is so important about labeling myself, why did the loss of the confidence about the straight label that developed naturally in my adolescence cause such distress? I want to accept myself for who I am, whatever that means, whether straight or bi or whatever. I took one of the orientation quizzes on another thread and it came up "predominantly heterosexual" and this seems pretty accurate given my experiences, but I still experience this anxiety sometimes, and I dont know why I still let someone being an asshole 8 years ago mess with me to this day, and why this matters so much that it creates distress. I also recognize that as a virgin I'm making conclusions on very limited data, and I don't think its appropriate, but I feel like I want answers. I dont really want experiment with guys to test this out, I felt a lot of negative stuff after the gay fantasies/masturbating, but this bothers me too as it feels like I'm making some sort of negative judgement that really doesn't mesh with my rational conscious moral views regarding sexuality, and I have a lot of doubts about all that subconscious stuff for a subject I almost obbsess about. I apologize again for going on and on, but if anyone could offer some experiences, advice, whatever on accepting oneself and knowledge of sexuality, it'd be greatly appreciated. Thanks