I am a frequent lurker on this board who left the church 7 months ago. I had only been married to my husband for a few months and had only been a member for a little over a year (we had not been sealed in the temple yet because we got married only a couple of months after I'd joined the church). When I told him I didn't believe in the church, period, at all (I had only truly thought I did for about the first 5 months I was baptized), he basically gave me an ultimatum, and I chose to leave. I'm only 23 and wasn't ready to live a lie for the rest of my life, and God forbid we'd have had kids.

Before I was baptized, I'd had sex with a couple of boyfriends, all of it extremely unsatisfying. My husband and I did have good sex (not necessarily amazing, but very good), but he was the first man I'd ever been able to have intercourse with and not feel extreme, horrible pain and absolutely no pleasure the whole time. I'd never experimented with women but had thought about it. Now, since my divorce, I've had two lovers...both female. The first was more of a love affair (not a relationship, but also definitely not a one-night stand or anything), and the second? Well, I feel more comfortable with her than I ever have with anybody. She accepts me, doesn't expect me to be anybody other than who I am, and the sex is in. Credible. Better than anything I've ever had.

I am absolutely incredulous. I ALWAYS thought I was straight until about age 20, and I started wondering if I'd like being with women too. But my romantic fantasies still always focus around men. Not sexual ones...just romantic. I could definitely be with a man, I'm attracted to them, I don't want to be persecuted in society and my mind automatically goes to the idea of a woman and a man together as "beautiful" and "natural," but I've never gotten what I needed emotionally or sexually from a man. I just don't like their anatomy in general, even though I find the thought of them attractive...they just don't "get" me. There's never a truly deep connection, not compared to what I have with my lover now (who is only not my girlfriend because I'm terrified). I tried talking to my mom about it and she just said it was a phase and I hadn't found the right man...?? And then there's the constant guilt and worry over it being immoral. I am so confused. Has anybody gone through anything like this?

Sorry for the continuation...but I guess the main confusion I have is why I THINK one thing (man/woman, traditional marriage, etc.) and DO another (be with women), and being with women is really what satisfies me sexually and emotionally, even though it causes me all sorts of anxiety and guilt and worry. Will that ever go away? Am I not gay and just making myself "think" I am?

Forget the labels and putting yourself in a sexuality box. Date, fall in love with, have sex with, whom ever you feel comfortable with male or female.

+1


There is no black or white and there are a thousand shades of gray and thousands of different colors. Be true to who u are and avoid labels! They only tie u down. Dont worry, just do what feels right. U cant make urself have feelings for anyone, it just happens. good luck!

+1 too

Labels are for tins of beans. Whatever makes you feel good and comfortable about yourself is right for you.

*some people* may have a problem with the way you wish to express your sexuality.........*some people* don't have to suffer an unsatisfactory sex life simple to please other people.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/painful-intercourse/DS01044


It's also perfectly normal to wonder. :)

Yep...I've actually gone to the doctor about this before, and thought I was too small, or I had some kind of medical issue. But I don't feel any pain when having sex with women...doesn't matter how intense.

Why can't you just be yourself and love whomever you love? Incidentally, most people are not purely gay or purely straight but somewhere along the continuum. You may be somewhere in the middle. Nothing wrong with that; you are who you are.

What I had to learn--after the leaders told me that it was just about the sex--is that my ex NEEDED a man in every way, not just for sex, but emotionally, mentally, psychologically and the day I had sex with a straight man was the day I realized that just because I was with a man didn't make the relationship with my gay husband work. It is a lot more complex that sex.

As my cousin (who is lesbian) said to me--she got married to a man for a while, too--she said she cried at her "wedding" to her partner--and she is married to a wonderful woman. She said, "There should be no labels. It is only who you love, who you are attracted to, who you connect to. It should not matter what gender they are."



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/02/2011 04:12PM by cl2.

...and she thought she was hetero until about a year after the divorce. Then she was surprised that she started craving women. It was sort of like she'd been about as far as one can go as a straight woman, short of having children, and, bang, it broke down the wall separating her from her other side. The wall had been built by cultural assumptions and expectations and her willingness to go along with it all. "Sure, I have girl parts, so I match up with boys." Now she's happy as can be in her gay life, and I'm happy for her. It's much easier to be friends now.

Considering the constant societal/parental/media brainwashing that occurs from day one, it's no surprise people think they are or should be hetero, whether or not this fits with their personal inclinations.

Anxiety and guilt also come from being brainwashed for many years as to who you should love, be happy with, etc.

Look inside your self and trust your self. Be who you are. You say being with women is what satisfies you emotionally and sexually. Sounds like you might have your answer right there.

I'm 100% straight, and that is despite masturbating frequently as a teenager (H/T SWK), so I have no idea about how it feels to be confused about your sexual orientation. But this is what I do know:

That sexuality and orientation are entirely a matter of individual preference, but that it is completely normal and acceptable to not know or be able to express what that preference is at any time.

Society expects us to always be able to define our sexual orientation, but I ask whose business is it? Why should it matter if we can apply a defined label to ourselves? Liberals have gone out of their way in recent years to provide an increasingly large list of possible sexual orientations to include every option, but as a libertarian I ask why? Whose f**king business is it anyway to even ask!? Why assume that there is even an answer? And why care either way?

So if you like women, date a woman. Screw the brains out of her if you want. And if you later decide you want a man, then just go with it. You don't need to redefine yourself.

how can a woman only experience pain/displeasure with a man, yet enjoy sex (intercourse?) with a woman?

Ummmmmmm I AGREE with the above posters regarding orientation; but isn't the pleasure/pain-displeasure difference you experience psychological?

as far as the mechanics of female/female sex goes, I'm only thinking about the use of dildos; am I wrong?

(Sorry if my post/questions take this too far off-track)

Inserting something in the vajay is not necessary to sexual pleasure. There are many, many ways to enjoy oneself and feel pleasure without ever putting anything in there, ever. I've known some lesbians who do not like the feeling of something being inside of them.

Think about all the ways you can get a woman excited. With most hetero sex, that's just foreplay to men (if they've ever even heard of foreplay). For women, one can just keep going until climax... and then again and again and again.

IMO, the OP could be gay or bi, and it doesn't really matter one way or the other. I can't say for sure, but it could be that sex with men was dissatisfying for her because of lack of foreplay. If a woman isn't properly lubricated and excited, sex can be extremely painful, or simply uncomfortable at best. If sincere attempts at foreplay were made and the OP was still not very aroused by the proceedings, then it's possible she is gay.

"Intercourse" ≠ penis in vagina. There's many ways to skin that cat. So to speak. ;>)

You've gotten a lot of good advice...I agree, don't try to rush and find the right box. Sexuality and attraction are complex, it's not an A or B issue, like switching a lightswitch.

I'm sorry to hear that you had such a negative reaction...one of my first inklings that I didn't fit the regular boxes was about spraining my neck staring at another girl in orchestra when I was an older teenager. I asked my father if it was normal to find other girls beautiful and he sprinted to assure me that everyone wonders if they're gay,blame Satan, and it would go away by the time I got married (now he and my mother cry and blame themselves for not preventing me from being sexually abused...obviously that must have been what happened for me to turn out bi).

Don't worry too much about varying levels of attraction, either, that seems to be common. I find that while I'm married to a man, and am able to be intellectually and emotionally attracted to men, I am physically indifferent to them. I am far more likely to fantasize about women for that reason, but have yet to have a meaningful long-term relationship with one.

Physical, emotional, intellectual...there are all sorts of diffent ways to be attracted to someone. Just because you might not feel all of them for one particular type of person doesn't mean you're broken.

...that was sort of a problem for me. Too many of the women I was attracted to turned out to be gay. No, it wasn't an excuse they gave to get rid of me. Girly girls only appealed to me from a distance. I liked attractive but low maintenance, smart, witty, independent women. A lot of those turned out to be lesbians. It's one of the side effects of living in places like San Francisco. (Though, looking back, I suspect a girl I kept trying to date at USU, who I never saw with any male, might not have been "into guys." No one would have talked about something like that back then.)

So, as I wrote above, I ended up marrying a woman who later realized she was gay. I guess there's something there that attracts me, even when the women thinks she's straight.

I was only half joking, though they usually turned lesbian after I dumped them.

You might be bi-sexual, and the painful intercourse thing might be totally disconnected from that. A specialist doctor might be able to help you.

You can't help who you fall in love with.
Don't beat yourself up over it.
There are too many people in this world who will do that for you.
(Ignore them as best you can.)

I was also trying to figure out why male/female sex is painful, but female/female is not? Same question as guynoirprivateye.

Perhaps because a female does not have a big fat dick that would get pounded into a vagina.

Lesbian sex often is surface stimulation (masturbation) or oral sex, neither of which would be as intrusive as a long, thick dick driving in.

Thanks, MJ. That needed to be said, IMO, and you said it. I appreciate you. Hope it helps OP, too.

No, female sex does not have to use dildos (as a response to an earlier poster), and while it doesn't involve a "long, hard dick," it can be extremely intense, and involve quite a bit of fisting (which I like, and which doesn't hurt me)--and believe me, my partner's hand is bigger than any dick, and she pounds it into me pretty damn hard, which I love. :) Sooo....I'm thinking the pain is psychological, with a man?

I know of at least one woman where my explanation is applicable. That is why I gave the response that I did, because it was the explanation that was given to me by a woman for her pain when having sex with a male, but not a lesbian.

My explanation started with a "perhaps" because it was ONE POSSIBILITY that answered the poster's question. I was answering the person's question with a possibility, not saying that it was, in fact, what happened with you.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/03/2011 08:44AM by MJ.

As long as you're with another consenting adult, no worries. You may be bisexual, you may be gay. You are somewhere on the spectrum of human sexuality, as we all are. In time, you will probably figure it out. Try to be more comfortable with the uncertainty while you are in the process of sorting it out.

My one concern is that sex is painful when you are with a man. That would be more than enough reason to be averse to heterosexual sex. I would consult a gynecologist about that.

Just be who you are. There is nothing wrong with that. You shouldn't feel guilty about who you are attracted to or who you fall in love with.

In time you will find out who you are, and even though some may not accept it, there are plenty of others who will.

There's a lot of good advice in this thread.

regarding the pain thing- if you aren't really turned on by someone sex can be painful because of a lack of lubrication/engorgement. I can totally see why a lesbian woman would have painful sex with men but not women for that reason.

Makes you wanna sign up somewhere, huh.

Ron