I think you just need to calm down. ;-) I guarantee that you won’t be able to figure out if you’re gay or not on fluther or any other site. One day you might get an opportunity to play out any feelings. Until then, I would just work on being okay with gay people generally and not anxious if they touch you.

I had questioned my sexuality since I was a teen, but didn’t have a same-sex relationship until I was 27. During the time in between those years, I researched info by reading about sexuality, watching documentaries on the coming-out process and about the life stories of LGBT people. I was trying to figure out if I was really gay. To be gay meant a complete change from everything I knew, as I grew up in a socially conservative religious community. It was a very terrifying process, something I undertook with many steps, bumps, and falls. For the past three years, I have been in a same-sex relationship, and it’s still a process of understanding myself, my sexuality. There are no absolutes when it comes to sexuality, in my opinion. Sexuality is fluid, and sometimes people are attracted emotionally to one, sexually to another, or both to whomever regardless of gender. Love is love.

Some people know for certain they are strongly attracted to one gender or another. Some people never know for certain, and allow themselves to experience love as it happens. It’s okay to be either way or somewhere in between.

As I read the details of your question, I felt compassion for you and wanted to tell you “shhhhh, relax, everything is going to be okay… Breathe.” Understanding your sexual orientation seems stressful and urgent for you, and this makes sense, especially when you’re a twenties-something who is figuring out how to be yourself without losing the self you’ve known in the context in which you’ve been for all of these years. It is a scary process, and it sounds like you’ve got some good supports. Good for you for examining yourself and for seeking authenticity!

As an aside, when I was 18, I was hospitalized for bipolar. While I was in the mental hospital, I met a young man in his 20’s. He was from a family of “manly men,” but he was somewhat uniquely different. We dated for a short while after getting out of the hospital. He told me that his therapist suggested he might be gay.

Prior to meeting him, when I was hospitalized elsewhere, my psychiatrist asked me if I was a lesbian. This was in the early 1990’s when these separate gay-questioning experiences occured. It made me wonder if it’s part of the psych community making amends after their history of calling homosexuality an illness. It seemed like, to me, that they were going the opposite direction by encouraging people who are “different” to claim their homosexuality. In my case, my psychiatrist was right. I’ve not spoken with my ex-boyfriend in more than 15 years, so I don’t know how his life unfolded.

My point is this: there will be people in your life who will try to convince you of your sexuality, whether gay, straight, or whatever. Ultimately, it’s something you’ll have to understand and decide in your heart. Only your heart (your soul, mind, spirit, etc.) can say who you really are. Trust yourself and allow your life to unfold. It sounds like you’re headed in a good direction already!

I do hang with a somewhat testosterone heavy crowd of friends and I would feel extremely weird and ashamed telling them that I was even questioning it. This is probably contributing to your anxiety, stress and is allowing some of your questioning to go out of control.

Sexuality is not just gay or straight. Just like when you look at heterosexual people, you can’t tell what their sexual proclivities are, gay does not fit a stereotype. Have you considered the idea that you could be bisexual?

I feel like I know way too much about your sex life now…...

Why are you so afraid to be gay? I don’t see how being gay could make you any less of a man….unless you like to crossdress.. (which would make you more than a man). Just go with the flow, if you meet a nice boy or girl, and you like them, just go with it. Fuck what everyone else thinks, it only matters what you think.

Thanks for the answers guys, I’m not sure if they are helping me with clarity, but I suppose that can only come from me anyway. It is stressful and mostly I don’t like it taking up all this space in my head. I have enough to worry about. I think it would be easier if I just were gay, at least I could accept that and then move on and think about something else. I know that is not the case because my attraction for women has never been questioned and is very strong. In my head, I’m like oh god, am I gay? Oh wow, look at that girl’s ass over there. It’s crazy.

Prolificus, you said you had questioned things since you were a teenager. That didn’t really happen more than rarely situationally for me. I began this about a year and a half ago and it’s now become compulsive with checking and what not. You make a very valid point about trying to understand your new self when living with your old self. I feel shame when I think about having these doubts and it does threaten my current self in a lot of ways. It threatens the ideals I’ve had and held about my life.

See here’s the thing and my theory on it. I’m not completely heterosexual, but I’m definitely not gay. My Obsessive thoughts and anxieties have taken this to a completely inflated level. I think until I get rid of the threat that these mild doubts are causing me, I won’t ever be able to get past this. As strange as it sounds I have to truly be ok with feeling attraction for men and being gay to realize I’m not. I’ve known this for a while, but saying it and doing it are so different. It’s so scary because you don’t know how far it’s going to lead you away from the life you know you want. It’s like jumping into a hole and not knowing how far it falls. Think about that, knowing that you are straight and you’ve only ever dreamed of growing old and falling in love with a woman (which I’ve come close to a few times) but being haunted by same sex attractions that aren’t in line with that. I think I had reason to freak out. I’ve never been in love with a man and never been jealous, had a crush or anything like that. In my heart, I know that I want to be with a woman, but the possibility that the same sex attractions could take that away from me is incredibly anxiety provoking.

What I’ve been trying to tell myself lately is to get away from the causal thinking. If I feel attraction for a man, I can’t marry and love a woman. That kind of thinking gets me in trouble. I’ve been trying to say the opposite, if I do feel something, that doesn’t mean that I have to give up who I am. It seems to help, but it’s a baby step for sure.

What do you think of all this?

I’ll ask you what my psychology major niece asked me when I questioned my sexuality. When you have sexual dreams while sleeping, are you with a man or a woman (or both)?

Woman almost exclusively. I have had a few where I was in a situation but it was more like a nightmare and certainly not pleasurable.

@domboski6 They may have been more like nightmares because of how you consciously perceive what it means to be gay, in your waking life. You could very well be bisexual, with heavy attraction to women and only slight and sporadic attraction to men. Or, you could be gay. No matter what – it’s okay. The only person you need to worry about is yourself. Your life would be a little different if it changed and you realized you weren’t straight, but different doesn’t equate to bad.

It’s hard feeling these things when you grow up in a society that pushes “acceptable” and “unacceptable” standards in your face all the time, but you gotta let that stuff go if you want to be a whole, complete, and happy person. More and more, as I age, I’m starting to think that there’s no such thing as “gay”, “straight” and “bi”. They’re convenient labels that people use to categorize things, sure. But they can also be horrible prisons for human beings, overall. My advice to you is to live, and be happy, but also be true to yourself – whoever that person may be. If you don’t think you are completely straight, and you feel that your sexuality is a little fluid – so be it. Those who might judge you negatively for it are trapped in the prison society put them in.

Be happy, love yourself, and others will follow suit. Accept yourself, no matter what. ‘Cause all in all, it ain’t no thang. :)

It sounds like you are bi-sexual. Nothing wrong with that at all. You obviously like women. You’ve been with them and enjoyed it. You haven’t been with any men probably because even in 2010 there’s still a stigma against men liking men. It’s really too bad because I really think that if society didn’t have all of these horrible ideas about homosexuality and bi-sexuality, it’s more likely that most people would probably fall somewhere along the spectrum of liking both men and women, probably with a preference for one more strongly than the other and then people who only gravitated towards one sex (whether they were gay or straight) would be a smaller percentage of the population.

Don’t be so hard on yourself. Give yourself some time and space. Give it more thought. Don’t beat yourself up. You probably aren’t totally gay, because you already know that you like women. But you probably will find, that you like men too. Explore your feelings. But be safe and be kind and honest with your partners. Most people don’t like to be cheated on and most people (but probably more often this is true with women) don’t want to date you if you are also involved with someone else. Date one person at a time, whether it’s a male or a female. Not sure where you live, but there are some places in the U.S. where being gay or bisexual is not a horrible thing, in other places you could be killed. Think about that before you start to experiment. Be safe and be Happy! We’re rooting for you!

Perhaps you need to move right away from trying to categorize your sexuality, as if it was something that is either A or B. This is a false dichotomy. If you end up being sexual with one guy, that in no way prevents you from loving another woman. The sex of your previous partner has no bearing on the sex of the next. That’s a choice for you (and of course the other person) to make.

Sexuality is a continuum, and the way it expresses itself has nothing to do with labels (that’s something society tacks on), but more to do with circumstances and situations and preferences.

So, for what it’s worth. Don’t rigidly define yourself. I think life will be easier for you if you just accept that you might wish to express your feelings for some of the people you meet sexually. If they happen to always be women, or sometimes be men, or never or always be men, it doesn’t matter. See where you’re sexuality takes you, and if you happen to decide after trying something, that it wasn’t for you, then so be it. You’re sexuality will not be defined by that event, unless you chose to do so.

Best of luck.

First of all, I’ve always thought love was blind. Its not what you see, but what you feel. Second, maybe your more accepting that some men look attractive, just like how some women are willing to admit that some girls look attractive too. Maybe your bisexual, we don’t know….But don’t stress yourself about it. Do what makes you happy, whatever your comfortable with. Don’t put yourself in any category. A lot of people deal with the same situation like yours, and I’m sure with time, they figure it out. Go with the flow, enjoy life.