Pondering

Pondering
Y

yesac76

Registrant
I have been thinking alot lately. (Thankfully, squirrels are safe around me) I have had this innate fear of "becoming" gay. I love women, but a part of my brain is always claiming I want guys. I am not sure if this makes sense to anyone but me. I know the world would not stop turning if I were gay, so I am confused. I am not homophobic. I have homosexual friends, and I am not repullsed by their sexuality. THey are just people. I try not to see people as labels. Why then am I so concerned with how someone would label me. Maybe it is just this relatively late hour and my insomnia causing me to babble, but this is wreaking havoc with my psyche. Why would I even question my sexuality? I am confused! Well, my brain is trying to shut down, so, thanks for listening to my blubbering.
Casey :confused:
 
Am I straight - gay - straight - bi - gay - straight - gay - bi -straight? Damn, I struggled with that question for years. I figured it out years ago. It doesn't mean that I don't have these thoughts or fantasies, it just means I know what they are and don't act upon them.

It takes time. I hope that you will find your answer a lot faster than I did. Most likely you will, it took me until I was 37 to even think about working on my SA issues, although I did figure this out a few years prior.

Take care and be true to yourself,
Bill
 
i finally realized there is a difference between acting out and actual atraction. to be truly gay means that you are completely atracted to other men. it means you can love another man, be in a relationship with a man, and totally commit to another guy. it isnt just having sex that makes a person gay, it is in who you are able to have relationships with.

the way i put it is that i am definately straight. i can only love a woman in terms of a relationship, but i can act out with men if i allow myself to. i have no desire to be in a long term thing with a guy. i can't love a man. i can have sex with him, but i cannot love him. that is an important distinction for me, because it makes male relationships a symptom of abuse instead of actual loving relationships. it gives me power over them, because i realize those desires are coming from a very unhealthy place.

then there is the fact that most people have some same-sex fantasies. it could be completely normal. men have a harder time admitting to them than women, but if you get them talking, most men have thought about what it would be like. i think fantasies are normal and healthy. they dont make you gay. they are human.

i dont know why you have such a fear of this. that is something you will have to sort out. perhaps it hits too close to home? perhaps on a deep level you have more issues with gays than you think? perhaps abuse has made you overly sensitive to the idea of it. i guess i would suggest exploring this whole thing with your therapist to uncover the roots.

in the mean time, hang in there. i dont think any of this makes you less of a person in any way. you are just someone questioning life, and lets face it, that's what we're all doing right now.
 
Sexual orientation was a real struggle for me when I started confronting my SA. I started having fantasies I had never had before.

The thing is, I don't have any prejudice against gays, but I felt really sick inside when I saw myself that way.

I tried looking at lingerie web sites to see if they would turn me on. At first they did, so I thought, "At least I'm bi-" again still wondering why I should care.

Then they didn't work. Nothing was erotic for me.

My fantasies with men were almost all abusive, but they did not necessarily act out my own abuse.


I was really hard on myself, thinking I was gay, not liking being gay, not liking myself for not liking being gay, and so on. I thought I should just be cool with it.

Finally I realized I just wasn't. I thought my abuse would be easier to accept if I were gay. (Please, please forgive me for ever thinking that, my gay brothers out there!! It was a totally dumb and evil hope to think that if I were gay the pain/loss would be less. But I was desparate to lessen the pain, so I was trying anything.)

I knew that to suppose that being gay would make things easier would be the same as saying that this stuff must be easier for heterosexual women. I DO NOT THINK THIS WAY!!! But this just shows you how confused I was.

I think I started to get better when I just let myself be confused for a while. I stopped forcing the issue, stopped trying to solve every problem as soon as it was identified.

Eventually, I realized I am straight, always have been. My questioning of myself was the abuser still abusing me.

I have questioned my memory, my sanity, my worth, so to question my orientation was just fair game.

But to learn to trust my gut in all of these areas was worth the struggle.

I am not gay, and yet ironically being straight is not as important to me as it was. And most importantly, I know that no gender or orientation lessens the horror of all this. The only thing I am truly ashamed of in my abuse and recovery is that I ever came up with such a theory.

I'm sorry if what I've written hurt anybody.
 
Casey,
Why then am I so concerned with how someone would label me.
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We all derive some of our self image from how others see us. That's part of the problem with the abuse for a lot of us. They were people important to us who saw us as "things" to use for their own gratification, or worse, as "deserving targets."

Everyone has to find a way to be comfortable with who they are. Questioning and pondering often play a part in that search.


L2R,
I thought my abuse would be easier to accept if I were gay...The only thing I am truly ashamed of in my abuse and recovery is that I ever came up with such a theory.
Click to expand...
This is off the original subject of the thread, but it wasn't something shameful that you did. You tried to make sense of insanity. Is it really any wonder that the results would turn out like they did?

I do have a bit of a stereotype about gay guys and abuse. I think that those survivors who had the courage to discover and express their own orientation despite what society told them about themselves have some kind of head start on the honesty and courage it takes to recover. But that's easy for me to say because I haven't been in their shoes, so I can't know about the head start on suffering.

Thanks,

Joe
 
Reminds me of a line in an episode of the Simpsons, where Troy McLure says "If I were gay, there'd be no problem.."

I too am sick of Gay-straight-bi-gay-bi-straight bi-straight. Like Phoster, I think I could act out with men. As a matter of fact, I kinda want to. Something about a man kissing another man, excites me even though to my knoledge I never made out with my brother. Although, I shouldn't say man more young man (16-26) or something.

Jason
 
Labels are limiting and often innaccurate. They, at the very least, substitute the very general meaning of a word for the very specific reality of a human person.

I haven't seen anyone refer to the Kinsey scale here (I think that's it.) I know it goes way back and has been challenged some but perhaps has some relevance on this thread anyway.

Instead of being stuck with 3 or 4 labels, it describes a continuum of experience where a person's experience is not either/or but rather somewhere between and perhaps moving around on the scale as time passes.

I think survivors questioning s'xual orientation are in a special situation. Labels are especially misleading.

A child's mind is impressionable, a teenager's mind is impressionable. Nothing much or anything to compare experience with.

Confusion between arousal and desire, in healthy s'xual relationships connected, in abuse situations entirely separate.

Threats and promises. Acceptance and rejection. Fear and safety. A lot of confusing stuff was thrown at us. Confusion is a natural outcome.

Patience with self is the thing I think of that is fundamentally important when considering orientation confusion.
 
Labels are limiting and often innaccurate. They, at the very least, substitute the very general meaning of a word for the very specific reality of a human person.

I haven't seen anyone refer to the Kinsey scale here (I think that's it.) I know it goes way back and has been challenged some but perhaps has some relevance on this thread anyway.

Instead of being stuck with 3 or 4 labels, it describes a continuum of experience where a person's experience is not either/or but rather somewhere between and perhaps moving around on the scale as time passes.

I think survivors questioning s'xual orientation are in a special situation. Labels are especially misleading.

A child's mind is impressionable, a teenager's mind is impressionable. Nothing much or anything to compare experience with.

Confusion between arousal and desire, in healthy s'xual relationships connected, in abuse situations entirely separate.

Threats and promises. Acceptance and rejection. Fear and safety. A lot of confusing stuff was thrown at us. Confusion is a natural outcome.

Patience with self is the thing I think of that is fundamentally important when considering orientation confusion.
 
Gay? STraight? Bi?

Huh. The key question of my life.

I am sexually attracted to women and men. I wonder just how much the abuse played into it. COnsidering the abuse, men shouldn't be attractive to me, at least romantically, but they are.

I think that if I hadn't been subjected to the brutal crap and the horrible mindgames my abuser put me through, I'd have known a long time ago. Now, I'm wondering in my late 30s. Kinda like a sexual mid-life crisis.

More and more, though, I'm giving myself to the notion that whatever I am, it's okay. Screw labels. I'm proud of who and what I am. I'm proud of who I love (in the real way). I'm proud of what I turned out to be. If the world doesn't like it, screw 'em. Let them walk a mile in my shoes before they judge.

Casey, truthfully, I can't answer your question, as frustrating as it is and as much as you crave one. No one can but you, and I think therapy can help you sort that out. Whatever you are, you're a fine man. Who the Hell cares about anything else?

If you have HEALTHY fantasies about men, it's okay. I truly don't believe we're 100% straight/gay anyway. I forget who said it earlier (Sorry! :rolleyes: ), but it's who you make your deep romantic relationships with that determines what your sexuality is.

Not very helpful, but I want you to be okay with what you're going through. It's (frustratingly) normal.

Peace and love,

Scot
 
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