Coming out of the closet..... All over again.....

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When I was 19, I came out of the closet as gay. Since then, I have been telling people that I have had no interest or attraction regarding the opposite sex. For a while, I believed that myself.

About a year ago, when I started to work on dealing with my traumatic experiences regarding females in my life, I am recognizing that most females are nothing like the women who abused me when I was a boy. I am losing my phobia of women, which really was a phobia of the sexual abuse I endured at the hands of a couple of females in particular.

I am allowing myself to acknowledge that there are many attractive women out there. Thus, I am acknowledging my bisexual tendencies. This does not necessarily mean that I need to have partners of both genders around me all the time..... I am just recognizing that gender is really not as large of a barrier for me that it used to be.

The awkward part is telling people, "You know what I said about having no attraction to women all these years? Guess what? I didn't know what I was talking about!" Coming out a second time is not the most promising prospect in the world. I plan on waiting a year or two to make sense of all of this before I take that step. I could come out as "Questioning"..... And really, I do enjoy the romantic companionship of men, and I have no idea what a relationship with a woman would look like for me. I am acknowledging that the attractions are there, and that I see little reason to stomp them into oblivion like I used to.

Hmmm..... Anybody else understand where I am coming from here?

I'm confused. Your profile says male. You say here "when I was a boy" meaning you're a female now? You also stated in an earlier post you were pregnant?

I said "when I was a boy," because I am a man now. I think I stopped being a boy when I graduated from high school.

I am now genuinely curious, because I do not recall ever saying that was pregnant here or anywhere else. Could you please enlighten me as to where that came to be?

My primary attraction is to females (I am physically attracted to females and I only have experience with romantic relationships with females.) However, as I have gotten older, gotten away from the church, and gotten acquainted with people who are openly homosexual, the idea of same sex attraction became less threatening to me. I realized that I have been in love with other males before and I am sexually attracted to some men that I meet (some that are feminine and some that are masculine). The attraction is different though. It is an emotional attraction (like the need to dominate or be dominated, not the physical attraction when I see the female form). I don't know how I would have sex with a guy and I can't emotion being in a romantic relationship with a guy. So I understand your changing awareness of your sexual orientation. I also understand struggling to figure out what actions to take based on this new awareness.

I personally don't tell anyone about my sexual orientation. I used to but I have learned not to talk about anything sexual with anyone other than close friends. I think I will come out of the closet unless I get in a committed relationship with another man. I have so many other stigmas already attached to me, I am kind of wary of adding another one unless absolutely necessary. You know what I mean? The public at large doesn't need to know everything about me. Only the people I invite into my personal life. Perhaps I am started to think more like an NT because of getting burned in the past being too open.

@KagamineLen - I got confused about your gender from this thread.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp5788046 ... t=#5788046

In it you state "My mother is essentially afraid of me being successful in my life. She thinks of my pregnancy as being a mistake."

I thought it meant you were pregnant. Obviously I made an error there.

It is no big deal. I really could have used more clarity in my language when I typed that. Thanks for pointing that out to me.

This actually seems a reasonable way to go about telling people, at least to my mind - after all, it has worked in this forum. You started out by explaining why your feelings have changed - that you have been working through past trauma and no longer see all women as people to be feared. That explains why you now find some women attractive as well as finding men attractive. So your past "coming out" wasn't a case of "didn't know what you were talking about" - it actually reflected how you were back then. But working through your past abuse has changed (I would even say "freed up") how you are and in your case that means you now experience some attraction to women as well as to men. You now know you are bi, not exclusively attracted to men, which you couldn't have known back then. It makes sense to me.

OR you could just not tell people, at least for a while anyways, and just live your life and give yourself time to figure yourself out. It's not really anyone's business around you who you are or aren't attracted to anyways. Like you said, give it a year or two and see how you really feel before coming out again. By that time however you feel will likely be a lot more natural and comfortable for you, and coming out as questioning or bi or whatever won't be such a big deal to ya - that's my best guess, anyways.