So, it’s kinda what the title says, but I’ll give some background. I grew up super religious and was never taught anything about sex (except that it was gross/evil etc). I never had any sexual experiences with myself or with anyone else; I was never even aware of any possible arousal.
I had crushes on boys growing up, but I would say I mainly wanted their attention/praise. I also really loved how boys looked and presented themselves (I now can safely present as nb/masc).
In retrospect, I now know I had crushes on girls throughout childhood/adolescences too. But my crushes for girls felt entirely different: energy-based. I wanted to be near them, drawn to them like a smaller planet orbiting the sun. I wanted to be intimate with them, but it was never sexual and never focused on their looks.
Fast-forward to college, I fell in love with a straight girl (canon event, Ik) but I still thought I was straight. I craved being around her and touching her, but I was at a school that is infamously strict so nothing ever happened. There were times I wanted to kiss her etc, but I didn’t fully realize that till later. Because I didn’t think I could be anything other than straight, I never thought about her looks and I don’t remember ever sexualizing her. I had a few crushes on guys in college, but they were always pretty shallow and ended after the first in-depth conversation.
Post-college, I realized I could experience sexual arousal and I realized my fantasies were more from a masculine pov, focused towards the woman. Again, the pattern of shallow-short-lived crushes on men and sudden-intense-deep crushes on women continued. I went out with men for a year but avoided all physicality with them and would usually lose interest quickly. When I started going out with girls, the connections were longer, deeper, and more authentic. I felt more like myself and I felt safer.
But, acknowledging my sexuality also made me start focusing on looks and sexuality. I started thinking “do I find her hot?”, “what body parts of hers am I attracted to?”, “am I more attracted to him or her?” And it kind of ruined the new-found freedom I found in my sexuality. I feel like my attraction to women is specific and relational and energetic etc, but maybe I could have that with men too? When I came-out to my unsupportive parents, they basically said that I was imagining a desire for women because I was “undesirable” to men. That articulated a fear I’d already been feeling.
In summation: I find handsome men to be really appealing. I want to look like that. I crave their aesthetics and the security that would come with a hetero-relationship, but I also don’t feel like I’d fit it and be happy (being v masc, myself). I’ve just never had a real-life experience where I felt sexual/romantic hunger for a man. “In contrast”, when I went out with girls, I responded primarily to their energy—it felt like a cosmic shift. I felt like they were gorgeous to be around, even when I didn’t find them “beautiful” at all times. But that’s my anxiety: why aren’t looks or sex-appeal my primary draw? Does it mean my attraction to women is less real? I wish my attraction made more sense: visually drawn to women, emotionally drawn to women, and sexually drawn to women. But it feels like I somehow visually prefer men.
I think it’s probably a combination of: societal expectations (feeling like I need to immediately/constantly sexualize women to genuinely be gay), gender presentation (preferring masculinity in myself and so possibly being uncomfortable with it in other contexts), and fear from my background that I’m only gay because I haven’t been “loved by a man”.
I’ll answer any questions and I’d appreciate any advice.
TLDR: I love women but I don’t visually prefer them consistently.