[35M] Finally ready to admit it.
Hi everyone,
After 20 years of questioning I think I'm finally ready to it to myself. I am bisexual. I'm not sure I've ever said that to myself before and truly meant it. It was a long journey, and it took a lot of inner work to get there.
At 15, I discovered gay porn. Came harder than I ever had and freaked the fuck out. Spent high school sneaking my porn habits around, cycling between intense shame and pleasure. Didn't have much experience with woman at this point. At the time there was this belief that bisexuality in men was basically impossible. Therefore I had to be gay. But that label didn't feel right. Senior year of high school I actually "came out" sarcastically, to kind of test the waters. I rode that bit a little too hard, and lost some friends as a result. By the time I graduated, I was ready to start fresh, anywhere but there.
At 19, I had sex with a woman for the first time. This was a relief. I finally had a real data point to prove I wasn't gay. From that point, my sex life became a data collecting mission. The more women I slept with, the straighter I was, right? Well, at 19 I also got way too high and arranged to meet a guy off the Internet. I saw him, freaked out, and ran back to my dorm. He called me and said he was going to publicly out me for wasting his time. Scared the shit out of me. Throughout college and my early 20s, it was more the same. I treated women like objects. I watched gay porn in secret, often drug-fueled.
At 25, I had my first gay experience. I had just moved to an new city and I met up with a guy I knew from college who happened to be gay. We did a little coke and got a frisky. I freaked out, we stopped. But later we arranged to hang out again. He ended up blowing me and eating my ass. It felt good, but it felt weird. I left that interaction feeling that I had just confirmed that I DIDN'T crave men sexually. There was something just off about it. The pheromones? The smell? With women, I wanted pull their body close to mine. I wanted that intimacy. I wanted that emotional connection. With men, I didnt feel that. I started dating women more seriously at this point, though I was still watching gay porn sporadically. I believed that I could "cure" myself by abstaining from it (nofap) but the pull never went away.
At 27, I moved again. I was in a new city on the other side of the world where no one knew me. I arranged a date with a man off bumble. I believed that I could unlock my gay side through embracing physical closeness with men. So we held hands in public. We cuddled. But it didn't feel like I was unlocking anything. It felt weird. It felt forced. We never did anything sexual. I dated a few women, but the intensity of the sex almost always seemed to be lacking. I sought more and extreme acts in an effort to unlock it. I've had a lot of good sex with women, but a lot of vanilla as well. The one thing I've not had is an intimate encounter with someone I felt I could be truly open with. As long as I wasn't open with myself, I could never be open with a partner.
At 35, just a few days ago, I had another gay experience. This time I set the terms. I told him what I wanted to do, what I was comfortable with, and what my limits were. We sat in the bed and watched porn together. We masturbated. I told him he could take his dick out. I reached over and grabbed it. Seconds later I came. Hard. We continued laying there. He eventually started sucking my dick. All of his clothes were off. And then came mine. We ended up fully embraced together, naked. I came a second time.
This seemed to be the confirmation I needed. I was bisexual. Sex with men is slightly weird, but undeniably arousing to me. I'm continuing to get comfortable with it. I'm going myself permission to feel uncomfortable, and trying to not see this discomfort as a sign that I'm actually straight ... somehow. I'm navigating the bi-cycle. I'm learning to separate feelings - which are temporary - from identity.
At this point, my plan is to just practice admitting my bisexuality to myself every day. To acknowledge that while I may not feel any attraction to men in that moment, my identify as a bisexual man is not negated. Does a person hate food just because they aren't hungry? I'm going to take some time off porn, because it is the junk food of sex. I am going to talk with my therapist about it.
Unsure but excited about what comes next. Cheers.