So confused and messed up...

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Maybe I badly need feedback, but in any case, I'll try to explain my confusion:

-I'm a biological male, late 20's, not in a relationship. Not out as anything.
-I'm confused about sexual orientation and gender.

I come from a fairly homophobic, macho culture. I sometimes, rarely, as a child wondered what it would be like to wear dresses or pee sitting down, but never talked about it to anyone or do anything about it. When I was twelve, I reacted to seeing a boy's hairy legs, and occasionally felt an attraction for males, though also for girls. During my early teens, I once secretly shaved my legs, I sometimes when home alone put on bras, dresses and had fantasies involving me being feminine. Eventually this sort of died down and my desires and so on were fairly straight male. I eventually entered the only serious relationship I've been in, with a girl. It was sexual, I loved her, etc. There were issues in the relationship from the start, but they either didn't have anything to do with sex or had mostly to do with her health issues, and I was the one whom desired sex most often.
However, one day a stranger, a male, fondled me - I'm not sure how family-friendly this subforum is meant to be, so all I'll say publicly is that I reacted not just with arousal, but I was shocked, and seriously shaken, by the things I wanted to do. The relationship with my gf continued for a considerable while, but this was maybe a turning point and my fantasies often involved sex with men and/or myself as a woman. Eventually we broke up, and I was strongly tempted to seek sex with a man (I've never envisioned myself in a relationship with a man, I don't think I'm attracted romantically to men), and came close a couple of times but chickened out. I did buy a set of women's clothes and nailpolish and sometimes secretly crossdressed.
Eventually I did have sex with men (bottom), but usually it was disappointing, with a couple of exceptions. I've never dared crossdress publicly and have never felt any particular desire to do so, either.
It's been a very long time since I had sex with a girl, and it varies but sometimes when I see a beautiful lady I both desire her and desire to be her, although I've never wanted to be a woman for things like socializing. I don't feel like a woman in a man's body, I think my situation is more or less the following:

-I think I always felt even as a boy that I would never measure up as a 'real man,' was ashamed and this, coupled with fear of being gay, etc, kind of led me to fetishize certain things and strongly influenced the nature of my fantasies. I was never good at sports, never good with the girls, never into cars or sports, etc.
-There is also, separately, a feminine side to me - just a corner of my mind and by no means my whole personality, but it's there and it too influences my fantasies, and it sometimes goes beyond just clothes and so on.

I think some of my fantasies and desires are the product of one factor or the other and, a few, the strongest, merge both. But I don't really know if these explanations are accurate or, more importantly, what it means, what I can or should do about it, or how things will evolve in the future, or generally how to deal with it. I wonder if there is a (minor, but still) element of wanting to be contrarian in all this, though it's certainly not the main reason. Sorry to be so vague about so much stuff, I'm not sure what is exactly the limit of what's allowed here nor how much anyone would care to read, I'm perfectly willing to give more details by PM. Anyway, thanks for reading and thanks for any insights and comments.

First of all, congrats on being brave enough to post all of that - I'm sure a lot of people struggling with gender identity and sexual orientation are (understandably) too afraid to acknowledge it so that's definitely the first step.

Regarding sexual orientation, it's entirely possible that you like women emotionally/sexually, and men only sexually. That's exactly how I am. Sometimes I identify as straight (I'm a guy), sometimes bisexual. I'm absolutely not lying to myself about any of it - I would be fine being gay, I'm simply not. Sexual orientation isn't nearly as simple as society makes it out to be, and labels can be so unnecessary - I'd say just follow your feelings (whether physical or emotional or both) towards whatever makes you happy.

Regarding gender identity, it's possible that you could be genderqueer (or transgender). Sexual orientation is easy to be in denial about, but gender identity is even more terrifying to have to face. I'm a transgender guy, and I tried to rationalize every internal feeling to myself for a long time before finally realizing that I was indeed a guy - I've even found old journals of mine where I said, "It's not that I'm mentally a guy - it's just that..." with excuses as to why I felt the things I did. I don't want to scare you because I know it's a huge thing to face, that you can only do when you're ready, if you even are genderqueer and/or transgender; that's your call to make, not mine obviously. I just want to say that there's nothing wrong with being so if you are, and I would be more than happy to talk about any gender identity issues any time if you need to PM someone. No matter what society says, we can only be who we are and there's nothing wrong with it.

Please note: I'm a straight male. I believe in cross-fertilization and talking with each, and just like I sometimes respond to a post by a parent, your post caught my eye on the main board and I hope you don't mind me responding here.

Okay, kind of like where I play poker, confidence I'm going to win vs. bare hope that something might happen. Yes, you probably want to experiment but good experiments where it feels like positive energy.

Now, the one part where you wrote that the male stranger fondled you. It may have felt like it was safe enough and/or you handled it well, and thus all is right in the world, and that is heady stuff. In zen-like fashion, please just take a deep breath and try and accept it for what it is without reading too much into it.

Depending on how macho your family is, that can definitely be an issue and a problem. And generally, a person wants to try and avoid out and out lying, but you can keep realms of your life private, and deflect as needed. There is a difference between being sneaky and just being private.

'Taking theater is gay.' Is that kind of where your family's at?

Or, 'Playing chess is gay.' Or 'being smart' Or 'getting good grades.'

I mean, it shouldn't be so limited that only auto repair, threatening people in bars, and treating women in borderline abusive ways is 'macho' and every thing else is 'gay.'

We need to broaden what being normal is, and what being masculine is. And every human being on the face of the Earth has both feminine and masculine traits, of course they do, plus a whole lot more, it's part of being human, as well as exploring all kinds of fantasies. But, some people don't see it that way.

This seems to be exactly the case for me.



I don't dislike having a male body save sexually, I don't mind being perceived as a male, it's complicated - I actually used to wonder if some of my fantasies, such as those related to being a woman, weren't a kind of denial - if I were a woman, lusting for men would 'be OK.' But after having gay sex it was clear to me it was more than that. It feels as if a corner of my personality is definitely female, but it's just a corner rather than the whole thing.



All are welcome to reply.



In itself it could've been a fluke, but it marked a turning point in my fantasies and desires, and thus my reaction then seems significant. I was shocked at being fondled, more shocked at becoming aroused, and far more shocked at the things I wanted.

If I were in a relationship with a male, I'd come out to my parents, but as it is I just don't see a point. I'm not afraid of them disowning me, I'm afraid of other societal reactions.

Female, demisexual, genderqueer here. I don't have much insight to add but I thought this was interesting:

Earlier today I was watching some music videos from bands I liked in jr high, and I realized what I thought at the time were crushes on the guys was actually a desire to emulate them. I don't remember feeling this way about any female icons (except maybe Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer). I'm kinda glad I didn't bother really questioning my gender or sexual orientation until recently, living with my parents was difficult enough without (in their eyes) "choosing" to be deviant.

It feels like both to me, though sometimes one more than the other.


A few things I should add or clarify:

-I didn't actually dislike male puberty as such, I was happy with it except during sexual fantasies.
-as a teenager, outside my fantasies I never wanted to do anything particularly girly, other than the occasional crosdressing, however my fantasies have branched out into including even fantasies of being a bride.

I think some fantasies are appealing because it is something out of character, it's weird and wonderful and delectable to mentally explore, and perhaps more.

So, it has to be your sense of feel and texture whether it feels like something you want to do, as well as ping ponging communication (which makes for better sex, 'course it does)

And sometimes with sex the medium step is the pretty big step, as I'm sure you know. And that's okay, too.

you sound to me like you are both bisexual and bigender (a rare subset of transgender).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigender

i applaud your self-exploration and self-understanding, and i understand some of it from a female perspective. i sometimes feel like i am neither male nor female, or perhaps both genders somehow. sometimes i feel like i am pretending to be female (almost like an imposter, though i have more fun with it now, like i am fooling everyone). it's hard to explain. i spent a couple of years when i regularly dressed as a man (though i looked like a preteen boy).

i am attracted to both men and women but i have different feelings towards each gender. with women it's a physical attraction and appreciation for the way they look. i haven't acted on it often as it doesn't feel as right. with men it is more of a global/total attraction - physical/mental/emotional - so i prefer to date men overall.

anyways, my response is pretty inspecific as i don't know what answer you want really (maybe you just want to be heard and understood?). by the way i don't think your post crosses any lines as you didn't go into explicit sexual detail or anything.

This is a great thread. One of the things that people don't often consider when speaking about bisexual or bigender individuals is how different you feel when identifying with the different sides of your personality. Society likes to put people into nice little boxes ... straight or gay works very well when it comes to compartmentalization. Throw in bi-anything and it becomes confusing to many even if it's not confusing to us. I can go for months on end where I'm feeling completely straight and then my gay side will come out with a vengence and I'll have to deal with it in the ways I've found work for me. I'm fortunate to have a wife who doesn't pry for details or try to get in my head about it even though I know she's well aware of my issues. The OP mentioned leg-shaving. I love shaving my legs and pretty much any body hair. I also dig skimpy swimsuits (aussieBums are the best) and can even remember trying on a women's swimsuit as a teen. But on the other side, I am a fairly hardy individual and spend lots of time in the mountains or doing strenuous physical activity and have a very masculine job. Quite frankly, I'm not sure how much of what I've done in life has been an effort to balance or even overcompensate for my more feminine side. For the most part, I have managed to fit into the straight world fairly well, but I've never been completely happy with only being able to be 3/4 of who I really am. At home, I'm relaxed though and the walls come down. I often feel more like a second Mom than a Dad in the way I interact with my kids. And like I said, my wife is cool with it all. I certainly am not a bore. Looking forward to reading more replies.

I don't know if I'm bigender - at least, it doesn't feel like two different personas, it's more like a balance of masculine-feminine that varies over time.

Hi. Male, Asexual, Androgynous here.

Sounds like you have come to a really neat point in your life, like you are really finding out who you are. Super cool. I related a lot to your story, esp the sometimes wanting to wear women's clothes as a kid (I did that) and shaving your legs once...I did that! hehe. Hurt like the dickens when the hair came back, so I only did it once. Really I just love fabric, and I wanted to know what those clothes felt like. They felt good.

I wear a skirt and tights these days, the skirt is made of "manly," rugged, oiled canvas. Confuses the dickens out of people. It's totally not a kilt, very obviously a skirt. Manly men try to compliment me by calling it a Kilt, and I correct them. The tights are very feminine (as is my walk), but the material is olive drab and quite manly. Really, I don't care how it looks. I like the qualities of the fabric, and I like the freedom of movement a skirt allows. My wardrobe is androgynous but pragmatic. My voice is usually a tenor, I have a light walk and I'm wearing a skirt and tights, I am open about my feelings, I like to sew and embroider = feminine. I have twin moustaches, my clothes are olive and black oiled canvas, I often have a log-chain bike lock slung over my shoulder and a civil war style Kepi on my head, I am completely pragmatic, I like to do carpentry and metalworking = masculine. So somewhere in between = Androgynous.

Sometime I pee standing up, sometimes sitting down. 50/50. Does that make me a bigender pee-er? ;)

I had a hard time figuring out who I was. Being asexual was very hard to get a handle on. I've never been attracted to looks, not shapes, gender, colors, features, anything. Yet I have shared sex (with people of various shapes, genders, etc.) For me, there is no lust or burning desire or anything like that with sex. It was just like having a conversation through the sense of touch. Just as I do not have a burning desire to have a conversation with someone, but can talk to them and enjoy it anyway, so I was with sex. So no desire = Asexual.

However, I have had more female partners than male. Probably 80% of my friends have been female or trans. Part of this is that I find macho dominance to be very unappealing in a conversational partner. Verbal or otherwise. The people that were nice to be with generally had gentle dispositions. I don't want to have a conversation with someone who's going to be interrupting and yelling all the time, or only talking about themselves. I'm wondering if your lack of emotional attraction to men might be due to the "very macho culture" that you are in.

I feel like Gentleness and Machoness are more trained into Women and Men, respectively, than they are inherent characteristics. Perhaps you just have not found a man who is comfortable enough with himself to show his beautiful side to you? Men also tend to be trained to deny their feelings, guard them when they can't deny them, and never show enough vulnerability for their inner personality to come through at all. I feel like a lot of homophobia comes straight from that. If you admit that other men can have feelings and be open about them, it threatens the macho self image of manly rationality, "unclouded" by petty emotions.

There's a lot more to "being a real man" than being a bully. Like how to be solid, stable and supportive ... being domineering and pushy is just a sad mockery of that ideal. Have you ever completely opened up to another man on a non sexual level? It's hard. I used to be in a Men's Group that would have intentional discussions about these kind of topics. Most societies train men to only open up and expose their vulnerabilities to women. "Women are the caregivers" kind of stereotype. A man expressing honest feelings to another man takes a LOT of courage and strength. You know, courage and strength, those supposedly "male" characteristics.

Oh, you can also totally be a cross dresser with a completely cisgendered male identity and a heterosexual orientation. I know some people like that. Clothes don't make the man. ;)

Great post, Burnbridge. Hopefully, the group of us can show Esteban there is nothing wrong with the way that he is.

At this point in my life, I'm well aware that there is nothing wrong with the way I was made, but like you, I grew up and received messages that were nothing but macho, macho, macho. So being well-aware of my feminine side, a part of me went over the top and created a persona that was far more macho than the people who were giving me the message. The people who gave me the message talked the talk, but in my life, I've walked the walk. But it has come at a price. In a way, I think I'm borderline split-personality except that I don't give different names to my different sides and have total control of who I need to be and when. I really hope you aren't forced to go down the same road in life as I have because, quite frankly, my psychology is a mess. In spite of it all, however, I'm mostly happy now ... far happier now that I've admitted everything to myself in my own mind. I am me. My feminine side is far more beautiful than my masculine side. Cheers.

One thing I've remembered that does kind of suggest it's a fetish rather than a general gender identity issue, is that I've felt more comfortable in some all-male (straight, at least AFAIK) environments than being the only male. In fact I can think of one occasion I actively took steps to avoid being in an immediate environment where I was the sole male.

I'm reviving this thread as I've revisited the issues I discussed here - I think I may be bigender, with my male side being bisexual (bottom in gay sex) and my female side being straight, I'm not really sure but I now think that's the most likely thing, though I don't know what to do about it. Thanks everyone for support and comments.