#it was the first time id felt heterosexual attraction

[immortalratking]

had a dream I tried to fuck a friend

[auberginesdonthavelimbs]

[ID. Photos of pages of a book. Text transcribed below.

Lesbians Who Sleep with Men

If heterosexual involvements by lesbian-identified women were once taboo, by 19go, the time of my interviews, a greater tolerance for slippages of identity seemed to be in evidence. Many women I spoke  with, including some of the most politically engaged lesbian feminists, acknowledged that lesbians occasionally stray from homosexuality, and they felt this to be acceptable, as long as it didn't happen so often as to threaten their lesbian identities. They had come to believe that behavioral inconsistencies do not necessarily pose a threat to lesbian identity, that a lesbian could sleep with men and still be a lesbian. Many acknowledged that the dividing line between homosexuality and heterosexuality was highly variable and subjective, and that for some women a sexual involvement with a man could actually confirm their lesbian identity.

Several women reported to me that they had had affairs with men long after they had come out as lesbians, sometimes out of curiosity about heterosexuality. This was particularly true if they had come out very young, when they had little or no prior heterosexual experience. Meg Dunn came out in south Florida when she was seventeen, and she quickly became part of the lesbian subculture. Fifteen years later, when she was in her early thirties, she began to wonder, "What is all the fuss about men?" By that time, she felt freer to experiment. "It was interesting," she said of her affair with a man, even if it only served to affirm her sense of lesbian self. "I found that I can't get emotionally close to men. I can sleep with them and have an okay time, but not great, and I can be friends with them, but I can't get any closer."

Sometimes it was precisely this lack of connection, coupled with the fact that men were more sexually available, that made such affairs attractive. It was easier to meet men than women, several interviewees observed. Lesbians were, after all, women first, and thus treated as potential sexual partners by men, particularly by strangers who assumed they were heterosexual. As they aged, life cycle changes drew more and more women, even those who had lived their early adulthood in a largely homosexual world, into mixed settings at work and into heterosexual networks. Taking advantage of these networks, sometimes lesbians had affairs with men because potential lesbian partners were difficult to find.

"Lesbians don't know how to date," forty-year-old Muriel Pepper, an office administrator, complained. "They're either too scared of rejection, or they want to marry you right away." This attitude is captured in an often-repeated lesbian joke: "What does a lesbian bring on her first date?" Answer: "A U-Haul." Gay men commonly had little trouble finding casual sex, but found it difficult to establish intimacy and long-term relationships. Lesbians generally had the opposite problem: they reported having difficulties initiating relationships, particularly casual ones. But once established, such relationships became intimate very rapidly." Indeed, lesbians who had affairs with men often reported that they found them enjoyable simply because they perceived them to be free of the emotional demands of relationships with women.

Meg Dunn told me that she often had short affairs with meneven at her "most extreme lesbian feminist stage," in the mid1970s-simply because "they were quick and easy." Throughout her twenties and thirties, she met men at bars about once or twice a year, particularly if she was between lesbian relationships. It is difficult to know exactly who among my interviewees pursued such affairs; my sense is that only a small minority had. But in view of the stigma attached to such activities-even if now somewhat lessened-it is unclear how many would have admitted to similar affairs, despite my efforts to let them know that I would in no way condemn them for such a revelation. While several women described having affairs with men "for the sex," a few had a rather different experience: they had a connection with men that was emotional and indeed largely devoid of sexual pleasure.

Muriel Pepper recounted how she had recently rekindled a relationship with a fellow she had dated when she was in her twenties. hen he visited from out of town, they ended up in bed together: "We didn't have intercourse, but we were kind of sexual with one another." Muriel was forced to reintegrate that experience into her sense of lesbian self. "I was totally flipped out for about a week after that. I felt that I had to turn my whole life around. I wondered, what does this mean? Does this mean I'm not a lesbian? It seemed to call into question who I was." But after a few days, Muriel said she began to realize that because they had known each other so long, and had gone through "so many changes" together, she and her friend had a "unique" relationship. The affair left her sexually dissatisfied but with deep emotional connections to him. Recognizing this, she "calmed down," because "it doesn't mean that you have to come out or go in or whatever." By thinking of a particular involvement as an aberration and labeling a particular man an "exception," some lesbians were able to integrate occasional involvements with men into their sense of lesbian self.

Though tolerating temporary violations of identity, most women I spoke with perceived a hierarchy of transgression; a high frequency of heterosexual involvements could threaten one's lesbian identity. When asked if women who sleep with men are in fact lesbians, Judy Orr responded, "It depends how many times. The people I knew did it once in ten years. If they're still relating to women, and they still feel very much inside that they're a woman's woman, then they're a lesbian.... In my heart of hearts, I'm a lesbian." For others, it was a matter of subjective experience. Sunny Connelly differentiated between her own experience of having occasional affairs with men and the experience of her ex-lover, who now identifies as a bisexual. Her ex-lover, she said, was "more open to her sexual feelings about men. ... For me, being sexual with men is about having sex. I don't want to cook breakfast for them in the morning. And I don't want to go to the movies with them, and I don't want to know their whole life story. I just want sex. That's not true with [my ex-lover]. She wants the whole package." In this understanding, valuing a man as a "whole person" threatens one's lesbianism, while objectifying men does not. However, few women admitted to telling close lesbian friends about these affairs until after they were over, a reticence that reveals the extent to which, among many lesbians, such behaviors continued to be stigmatized. Heterosexual involvements that happened suddenly and unexpectedly were more tolerated than those that resulted after women "went out looking for it." A particular spontaneous affair could be attributed to an attraction to a particular man or could be written off as situational, as "experimentation." But a prolonged affair with a particular man or discussions about attractions to men were viewed as more serious, as posing a possible threat to identity.

Can a lesbian sleep with men and still be a lesbian? By the late 198os, the answer seemed to be a qualified "yes." Several women managed to embrace a certain degree of inconsistency between sexual identification and behavior, if one or more of the following conditions were met: (i) such affairs were kept private, (2) they were isolated occurrences and not long-term liaisons, and (3) it was understood that individuals were "in it for the sex" only-and not emotionally attached. However, if those whose behavior demonstrated such occasional lapses were often tolerated, women who had a prolonged relationship with a man were generally not.

End ID]

arlene stein, from sex and sensibility: stories of a lesbian generation, university of california, 1997

[cruelsister-moved2]

I love your blog soooo much!!! everything you say is just soo true. The thing about focusing on what we enjoy is so liberating. I focused way to much in trying to understand my undesirability to men, when I can just forget about men and not give them my imaginary time and just enjoy my attraction to women <3<3

aw thats sweet im glad that sentiment is helping u to find comfort and enjoyment!!<33 its so sad to me how many ppl think ur identity designates what u enjoy rather than vice versa...

as a lesbian talking abt it always feels like ur opening urself up to that judgement so i always immediately want to be like 'but i am personally really disgusted by men and the idea of having anything romantically or sexually to do with one is hideous to me!!!' but i always stop myself bc its like well... it wouldnt actually matter how i feel towards men though, because my autonomy is absolute on its own and if i know that i WANT to be involved with women and not with men then like.. the conversation can end there! in the mainstream imagination i feel like so many gay men's stories start w the realisation of their attraction to men, but lesbians' with the realisation of their non-attraction to men. my moment of absolute clarity was the first time a girl asked me out & i had the rapid realisation that like, oh i would ENJOY that, i WANT that, when i had been saying yes to guys who asked before just bc i was like idk...ig i dont have a reason to not. it sounds funny but like until that point i had literally never thought about what i might want, only like.. if id be able to stomach a serious relationship with a guy. so even though i kind of felt by then that the answer might be no, it hadnt really brought me any answers & it wouldnt have mattered if i had decided i could, because it was immediately obvious at that point that a heterosexual relationship with a man wasnt something i wanted for me in my life when i could have a gay relationship w a woman. i felt sooo free in that moment, not bc my feelings abt men had been conclusively revealed to me but actually bc i realised i didnt even gaf.

its kind of a double bind for us between the fact that heterosexual people need to be reassured that gay people are ontologically so in order to respect us (and not feel threatened by us😳), and the various layers of misogyny incl the expectation that we are passive participants in the equation of desire, which alienates us frm our desires & the very experience of desire itself, and also fosters the assumption that any ability to experience male desire will supersede anything else if at all possible so therefore it has to be completely ruled out to be allowed to ignore it. we need to prove that we are not CAPABLE of having a relationship with a man in order not to want one, whether right now or ever. so the fact i personally do feel genuinely unable to experience that without like genuinely wanting to kill myself feels like its basically irrelevant to anyone but me, and only self-determination matters to anyone else. i feel like im more interested in defending the right of other women to want&seek&enjoy sexual&romantic relationships with other women, regardless of why, rather than proving that i personally have done all my homework and can prove that i wouldnt be happy with a man. like wtf, women are hot and dating a woman is the most beautiful experience of my life, who wouldnt want to seek that out !! its irrelevant what the alternatives are bc none of them are preferable. the continued survival of this rhetoric in lgbt spaces only really reinforces that being gay is a bad thing to be and gay relationships are worse than heterosexual ones and no one would ever want that unless they had no other choice and i just soo strongly do not feel that!!

[phoneybeatlemania-bit-the-dust]

Re the John aromantic ask—that reminds me of a pizza and fairytales episode where they talked about whether John’s attraction towards men was more romantic before it became sexual whereas his attraction towards women was romantic/sexual (in the context of John telling Yoko “if I’d met a guy that was attractive enough I could’ve had a gay relationship’ and similar sentiments.) I thought that kind of hit the mark for me given John’s sort of “i COULD if XYZ” sentiments... I def agree he was a romantic person and I wonder if his sexual attraction relied on a strong emotional connection, at least towards one gender. Just speculation though—it fits my impression that John had more criteria/“hesitation” for lack of better words when it came to relationships with men although he knew he wanted relationships with men, although that might be explained by other factors. I’m also not asexual/aro, though I had a gf who was demisexual and used to identify as that myself.

Re: John and aromanticism

“I wonder if his sexual attraction relied on a strong emotional connection” - I think that this is really possible anon! I mean, he talked about being dissatisfied in his relationships with women (see here (x)) and he talked about only being able to be able to date a man if he found him attractive beyond a physical level. Its evident that he still had sex with people who he had little to no emotional connection with, so it obviously wasn’t an exclusive rule or anything - but as evidenced by the Yoko quote, perhaps he just couldn't find a man who he felt that kind of connection to, who would reciprocate his sexual attraction.

And I definitely get that impression too anon, about John having more hesitation or a higher standard or something when it came to relationships with men. I feel like maybe it was just a bigger deal with men, rather then with women, if that makes sense? Id assume thats largely to do with just heterosexuality being far more hegemonic and understood, especially during that era - but I imagine as well that it would also just be related to his own romantic/sexual preferences.

I suspect that this is partially why things didn’t work out between him and Brian. How their relationship appears to me, is as though: John saw this opportunity to experiment with his sexuality for the first time, and he took it, despite perhaps not being genuinely attracted to Brian. Im not saying he didn't care about Brian, but im not sure he was really sexually attracted to him tbh* - and in some ways I feel like they might've been too similar to be sexually compatible. But maybe just being young and naive John thought "oh yeah it doesn't matter if im actually into him, its only sex" - and then when the moment came, he sort of realised it actually does matter.

(*My opinions on John and Brian are very much subject to change, but at the moment this essentially what I feel like their relationship was like)

[crusty]

literally can’t understand what you’re trying to say with the exclusionist post can you reword it

YEAH, I appreciate u asking, here's the gist:

The terms exclusionist and inclusionist are another example of Tumblr/Twitter trying to put people into categories of GOOD and bad, similar to the usage of anti/proshipper.

It's impossible to put people into binary categories, the usage of "Good" vs. "Bad" never works in any given context. This is also why having a gender binary doesn't work. Humans are very complex!

Now, that being said, this statement should not inherently tell people that I am an 'exclusionist'. That leap of logic does not make sense. Nowhere are the words "Asexuals are not LBGT" (which, to my understanding, is the main signifier of an 'exclusionist) anywhere present on my page or my posts.

That's all I said!

(If you want something deeper than my surface-level thoughts, feel free to click the read-more. I appreciate you asking for clarification.)

What do I believe then, if the terms "inclusionist" and "exclusionist" are overused and continuously abused in Tumblr/Twitter discourse spheres?

It's a nuanced situation. That means both sides are fucking stupid. The notion that inclusionists are DA GOOD GUYS and exclusionists are DA BAD GUYS makes the whole discourse pointless and completely antithetical to what the ace community should be focusing on.

Asexuals are people just like the rest of us. The need to consistently belittle them and claim that they do not exist has been tiring ever since the term first became popular/known in leftist circles. Many people do not feel sexual attraction, and there should absolutely be a conversation to teach others that sex is not the end all be all for a lot of people. The topic of "Sex or No Sex" shouldn't be something people actively care about.

//CW BELOW: r slur, CSA mention, heavy subject matter//

Here is a bit of personal information I feel comfortable sharing now.

I distinctly remember feeling very ostracized as a teen. (FOR MANY REASONS, but for this point, I'm specifically on the subject of sex/sexuality.) Everyone around me was falling prey to the horror that is heterosexuality and society's expectations of sex and the exploitation of young girls.

I actively did not feel sexual attraction at an age many of my peers did. I remember arguing back and forth with my dad in 2014 that there was a small community of people online that didn't feel sexual attraction, both boys and girls, and he called me r*tarded, saying that every man wants to have sex, and every girl wants sex with men. I was mortified by what he said to me. It stuck with me long after that conversation. At this time, I already knew my dad was a sexual predator who had no problem ruining my life, so it makes sense why at first the asexual community resonated with me.

//CW end//

From the time I was 15 to about 20, I considered myself asexual to a specific degree. I was a sex-repulsed ace for many years. I remember IDing as demi as a teen, back when I was stuck in MOGAI hell, and later in my life, I focused more on the bigger LGBT labels, searching for the perfect fit.

Eventually, I grew up and realized it was no one's fucking business how I personally felt about sex and what my relationship to it was. Ace is a modifier label to me. When I realized I was a lesbian who had been ashamed of my attraction to women and nonbinary people I was literally euphoric. That was the most important thing to me. Being able to have lesbian sex was literally more healing than anything else in the fuckin world.

Sex is a really fucking personal thing, and when I hit 21 years old I stopped giving a shit about acecourse. I'm on my own now and I got bills to pay and shit to do.

Even though I personally don't think being ace makes me intrinsically LGBT, I'm smart enough to understand that most who ID as ace are also queer in some way. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

----

Now the biggest reason why I stopped associating with the worst fucking discourse-ridden community on Tumblr.

There are a group of asexuals that have been some of the most tone-deaf, obnoxious, bigoted pieces of shit I've ever seen on the internet. The push amongst this very specific portion of aces on the internet to demonize sex completely, lump the LGBT community (a community that is largely filled with people who are, you guessed it, not asexual) with cishets solely on the basis that they are 'Sex Havers' (which is... extremely weird and invasive in general), consistently harassing lesbians and leaving them out of any sort of pride posts/merch, and misusing terms like TERF (a term that should ONLY be used when talking about transmisogynistic radical feminists.... an actual fascist hate group that has caused the real deaths of real women), is not something other aces should be actively supporting, and it should not be up to your fellow LGBTs to teach you shit you should already know. ESPECIALLY if you're fucking white and your main target of harassment is against black and brown people. You got all that time to bitch about shit and somehow no time to reblog a person of colors donation post. Okay.

I'm way past the point of giving a fuck, so please, if you disagree with any of my points, gladly grow up and leave my page. I shouldn't have to hide my thoughts to please a small minority of idiots on the internet. I'm too fucking old for this and so are y'all.

[our-alterous-experience]

Reblogging this because of my personal experience in regards to this. I’m gonna rant a little about my experience that I think is relevant bc I think sometimes what helps the most is hearing an experience that mirrors your own and if my story can help you Id like to share! Im aromantic (aspec, afab trans, etc) and before I was aro I spent seven years thinking I was pansexual! I’ve identified as pan for a longggg time. Now I call myself panalterous, but I mention this because I talk a lot about Amatonormativity and Compulsive Allo-romo-normalization or Compulsive Monogamy because it affected me sooooo heavily as a kid, especially as someone in american christian alligned cultures. There was always a pretense from a young age when I was interacting with a boy that it was a romantic exchange. I believe that’s what drew me to identifying as pan, because i felt attraction towards both genders but it wasn’t romantic, nor platonic, which was striking when I realized I was aplatonic and that’s why I was so confused about wording and labels for so long.

Of course, there’s a difference between being pressured into liking someone (which, again, since i was like 4 pressuring happened with multiple relationships) and being compulsively allo. Especially since at times it’s very different from compulsive heterosexuality. Especially since there’s a dichotomy usually when someone thinks they romantically like women or men but they don’t actually. It gets harder when it’s an open field. We talk about the pressures to have sex and be sexual, but not often about the pressures from society and everyday people about being in a Relationship. Because it happens to us and we see the perpetuation of it so often. Which can get harmful to certain people.

When I was in school I remember being pressured to think my best friend had a crush on me, and I after that over time I thought I had a crush on him. Obviously as I’m aromantic now I know I didn’t romantically like him, that being said it wasn’t romantic attraction but alterous attraction. I liked him a lot but not in the manor which I was trying to emulate. We eventually dated years later and I broke up with him because something didn’t feel right (and while mental illness and figuring out my gender identity played a part in that struggle) I think can identify being young and getting close to another queer person for the first time and how things still didn’t feel right. I was always exaggerating in some way, I was always playing into things. I would look at people and go “Do I have a crush on them?” and decide yes or no. I looked at everyone like that. Any person who I grew close with, and could trust I thought I had romantic feelings for. And this was only halted when I made friends with lesbians and people who were older enough to me that it was obviously not a question with them. I have this poem about this girl who I thought I had a crush on in this very eureka moment, oh I liked her! I had a crush! and while I believed that, I didn’t have a crush. I wanted to be close to her. I liked her a lot but it wasn’t a romantic crush no matter how much I believed that rush in that moment.

How did I identify these things as comp allo? Well…….. I woke up one day after a lot of relationships, after a lot of fails and a lot of happy moments, and I really loved someone again. And I took a good hard honest look at my relationships and the last girlfriend I had had. I looked at how I had been asking people what romantic attraction before I started dating her, I looked at how I had been imagining a sapphic love dream, i noticed how so often i was happy and enjoying myself but we often had trouble connecting. Then after we started dating it was awkward trying to reach each other, and I always felt like I was a beat off. One of the worse things I feel bad about but it feels surreal to think on now because I was really in denial, I was being so compulsive that I ignored myself when I told my friend I didn’t know how real the feelings were and I didn’t think things would last. Which is strange because I know I said that while really wanting to be close with her for a long time. But that’s the thing, I did love her, I did care, but I was trying to fill in a glove that didn’t fit me. So the fingers were too long, the palm too big, I couldn’t access what I was supposed to because my hand didn’t fit.

And that’s why I identify why I do these days. Being Aro, Aplatonic, Panalterous and such has really freed me in a way I didn’t expect. In my situation I was compensating the ENTIRE time, in all of my relationships I was performing to some degree even when I genuinely love who i did. And it doesn’t invalidate my experience but I know none of that was genuinely me, it was at least always half of a performance. In a certain way that’s why I had to come out as aromantic. Because I had a pattern and I couldn’t continue it. Of course, for some people it’s not going to be “every relationship wasn’t ever romantic” especiallly if someone is on the arospec.

What was important for me and the advice I like to give is, What do you want from a relationship? Have you ever actually gotten it, or have you gotten close with people who never fit quite right?

Was the reason you were dating those people because you romantically liked them? Or did it all just work out and it was good to like them?

And I guess, if you’re searching for an answer to any of you’re questions. I think the heart of a story or an action is always something that matters enough to know about. But at the same time, if you don’t care it doesn’t have to matter. But has it been hurting you? Has it made relationships fail or result in others getting hurt?

I remember feeling like a heartbreaker. Like I liked the game more than I liked the person. I would call it “The Competition” which is a very monogamous allo or sirve phrasing to look at that dating scene as. Sometimes the person and I clicked just right enough but I didn’t have my heart with them, and so that harmed me and the situation via my own misunderstanding.

So I’m questioning if I’m aromantic again.

Something I’m learning about now is comp allo which Comp allo is the compulsion to feel romantic or sexual feelings. I know I’m demisexual that’s for sure but am I actually demiromantic or am I aromantic? Oftentimes I feel like I should be dating because that’s what I’m supposed to be doing as a young woman ( I’m agender but for the sake of the conversation I’ll be referring to myself as a young woman)

Now I identify as a problem /j ( as a lesbian) but again learning about comp allo really makes me wonder and think. Also learning of ��amannormativity.

It’s weird because sometimes I look back at myself and my crushes(?) and I can clearly see I was crushing on them and wanting to date them but why

Does the why matter?

[twopoppies]

Hi, Gina! I hope I'm not bothering you with this question. I tried to get an answer for so long but I couldn't find anyone appropriate to answer this. I'm from a VERY conservative country, there's very few lgbtq people who are open about themselves. We don't even have proper heterosexual sex education, let alone lgbtq. So I'm a bit confused about my sexuality right now. I'm a girl in my late teens and I've always been attracted to guys. I've only ever dated them and crushed on people of the opposite sex. But since about a year ago, I've found myself questioning my sexuality. I sometimes fantasize myself with another girl and even think about it while I'm pleasuring myself. So I'm wondering if I'm bisexual. I have never had a crush on a girl and have never felt that intense desire i feel when i meet someone of the opposite sex. Yet, thinking about being in a relationship with a girl doesn't make me uncomfortable and I feel like I'll do well in it too. I haven't been too concerned about it because i know that labels don't really matter and I probably don't have to think about this seriously until i find myself being attracted to a girl in real life and experimenting to find out what i like isn't really going to work out because of the kind of society i live in. If i were to date a girl, I'd have to be very secretive about it. But I really would love to know if you think i could be bisexual and maybe i just haven't met a girl who was good enough for me to be attracted to.

Hi sweetheart. First of all, given the country you’ve grown up in, I’m so happy to hear that you sound so at ease with exploring your sexuality. It sounds me that it’s very possible you may be bisexual. You don’t ever have to act on your attractions or thoughts in order to identify as bi. Sexuality is also fluid… your feelings could change with time and you find yourself more/less attracted to women than you are now. And, in case you didn’t already know this (because I didn’t when I was younger), you can literally be 99% attracted to people who ID as men and 1% attracted to people who ID as women, and you’re still bi. AND… some people are not sexually attracted to the same gender, but can be romantically attracted to them or vice versa (I’m sure there’s a term for that, I just don’t know it). I guess, what I’m saying is that there really isn’t a need to put a label on it now (or ever) and labels can change with time. What matters most IMO is that you’re aware of the possibility that you could be bi and you’re ok with it.

I hope that was a bit helpful. ❤️

[lyrebirdswrites]

How did you distinguish between comp het and genuine attraction, if that's something you ever experienced before/while IDing as lesbian? - sincerely, a questioning sapphic! 💛

Hi anon! I have experienced comp het before, and I’m happy to talk about how it felt for me vs the actual crushes I’ve had ^^ I’ll whack it under a read more because my answer involves a lot of rambling about my personal experience.

A quick note that comp het can be different for everyone and I am certainly not the word of god on the subject. Also, I’m asexual, so sexual attraction did not factor into comp het for me, and I previously thought I was bi so I was already comfortable with the idea of me being attracted to girls. That might not line up with your situation, but hopefully my experiences can give you some insight regardless.

Anyway. There was this guy I really liked back when I was in high school.

When I was ‘crushing’ on him, it was pretty cerebral. I was always asking myself questions, trying to figure out how much I liked him and whether I could really see us together. I remember thinking to myself, “well, he’s not exactly conventionally attractive - but that’s okay, that doesn’t bother me, I would never be so shallow as to not date someone just because they’re not the most drop dead gorgeous person in town” (the issue had nothing to do with how attractive he actually was; rather, the problem was that I wasn’t attracted to him and I didn’t know it). I’d ask myself, “do I feel butterflies when I think about him?” And lo and behold, the butterflies would spontaneously appear! So I’d have to assume, “well, there they are, there’s your answer.” When I wondered, “can I see myself with him” the answer was a firm yes - but it was the kind of yes that was firm in order to push down tiny doubts, so nebulous and vague it was difficult to even know they were there at all. Not the kind of yes that was organically certain.

Typing it out like that makes it seem pretty obvious that whatever I thought I was feeling, I probably wasn’t feeling it after all. But what made it confusing was that I honestly, genuinely, really liked this guy. He was one of my best friends and one of my favourite people on the planet. He had a good heart, he was confident, he was intelligent and articulate, we could talk about anything. I cared about him very deeply, and that wasn’t fake. So when I started hearing from my friends that he might like me that way, and when I started noticing things in his behaviour that indicated he might want to be more than friends, it made me wonder - this care I have for him, is that love? Maybe it is. I like him a lot. I like spending time around him. I like that he likes me. If I like him so much, then I want to go out with him, right? It’s called compulsory heterosexuality, but at no point did I feel consciously compelled or pressured - when he asked me out, it was my choice to say yes, and in all that thinking I’d done I came to the conclusion that this was something I wanted. I felt all the warm fuzzies I was supposed to feel right afterward; I rang my best friend the moment I got home and we had a big long squeal about it together.

Except very quickly I figured out that this was not something I wanted at all, because once the initial warm fuzzies wore off and I was actually dating him, the gulf between what was expected of me and what I felt turned out to be massive. The main thing I remember from that relationship is that it felt stifling. Not because he was doing anything wrong or coming on too strong, but because I had fundamentally misinterpreted my own feelings. A hug from him or a hand on my shoulder became something I had to grit my teeth and endure instead of something I enjoyed, practically overnight. Physically, I did not want him near me, because the new meaning behind his gestures made me feel like my personal space was constantly being invaded, like I had to get away. Needless to say, that relationship did not last very long. He was very gracious and understanding, but I felt really guilty about the whole thing. 0/10 would not recommend sorting out comp het by actually dating a guy.

I have had crushes on girls since then, and to me it feels very different. I think the biggest difference is that when I’m experiencing comp het, I wonder if I’m feeling something and then the feelings may or may not manifest; when I’m experiencing a genuine crush, the feelings come first, and then I identify them, however long it takes to do so. That’s not to say that I don’t question whether I have a crush - but I’m not responding to the thought that a relationship might be on the table, I’m figuring out an emotion that already exists, if that makes sense. The angst involved is less do i really like him tho and more does she like me back. I’m not up late at night imagining what it would be like to be in a relationship and trying to figure out if I’d be comfortable with that in the first place; I’m either thinking oh wouldn’t it be nice, or I’m going to bed early because it means tomorrow will come quicker and I can see her again lol. My thoughts about the crush are less self-focused, because I’m too busy focusing on how lovely she is. I ask myself less, and try to prove it to myself less, because it just is.

I do remember that after the whole situation with the boy from high school, I stumbled upon this big long google doc about comp het. If you haven’t read it, I’d recommend doing so - it was helpful for me at the time.

Hopefully this was helpful, anon! I wish you all the best while you’re figuring things out, and whatever answer you settle on, I hope it’s an answer that feels comfortable to you <3

[kissimirrit]

as an ex truscum how did you come to terms with the harm youve caused others and make up for it? do you still struggle with unlearning truscum standards?

i think it’s important i don’t hide or censor my past, no matter how embarrassed or regretful i might be from it. people have the right to know about someone’s past bigotry and to decide their boundaries with that person from that point on. i think it’s an important part of my past for people to know of when the topic comes up.

i stopped being truscum almost 5 years ago; and yes—i still struggle with unlearning truscum standards, because i learned them during my formative years of development. because of that, i really vibe with the saying "The first thought that goes through your mind is what you have been conditioned to think; what you think next defines who you are." —because i’ll still catch myself thinking very... exclusionary things and have to stop and reflect why i’m thinking that, and then correct my thoughts accordingly. it’s forever a process of self-reflection and checking. 

(read-more’d for length) tl;dr—i realized being truscum was bad and then i became a die-hard inclusionist, and even began identifying with labels that 2012 me would hate.

i only really came to terms with the fact i was causing harm in say, late 2016 or *very* early 2017 when one of my most treasured friends admitted to me that xe was afraid to tell me xe was nonbinary, because we both had identified as truscum and xe was in the process of dropping those beliefs, whereas i hadn’t gotten to that point myself until xe told me about hir identity and reason for being afraid of telling me. and if one of my best friends felt terrified of telling me their identity, or literally anything about themselves; then obviously i was fucking up big time and doing something incredibly wrong.

so that was like, my first step in dropping those beliefs. and making up for it has been an incredibly long road. dropping all forms of gate-keeping, queer-separatism, and otherwise exclusionary beliefs in favor of becoming a radically inclusive person of any good-faith identity, to the point of even adopting some “discoursed” labels myself (ie: straight-lesbian trans man) has been a 5 year long journey. 

i started identifying as truscum when i was 13 or 14, back in 2011 or 2012 when the word was first coined. there was a tumblr post, calling those who were binary trans people and (forgive me my memory is fuzzy) didn’t hate cis people as “true transexual scum. truescum.” and the term truscum stuck from that. and back then the community was really small. there was just a handful of us in the FTM tag telling other trans guys that they can’t identify as lesbians and that they should stop tagging their selfies as both “FTM” and “lesbian”. (which is funny to me now because... i literally identify as an ftm lesbian now lmaaooo. i became the very thing i set out to destroy /lh).

and being truscum was kind of a catalyst for so many of the early exclusionary queer-separatism and incorporating radfem beliefs into early lgbt+ tumblr that i never really noticed until ace discourse got notoriously bad in 2016. 1. nonbinary-exclusion. back in 2012/2013 ‘trans’ used to be written as ‘trans*’, with the asterisk, for the inclusion of nonbinary identities. and at the time, truscum were notoriously against it because at the time, truscum believed that nonbinary identities weren’t real, so the asterisk was unnecessary and useless. and then an article came along that went into detail about how the asterisk was useless BECAUSE nonbinary people were inherently trans without any caveats, and ‘trans’ (without the asterisk) was already inclusive on nonbinary folk, not just binary trans men and women. so that kinda trickled down and eventually became the end of trans* asterisk, and after that an influx of nonbinary folks started to identify as truscum—however a lot of people who identified as truscum prior to this still held heavily anti-nonbinary beliefs. (and then truscum got kinda blamed for adding the asterisk in the first place so that kinda became an in-joke for a year or so. like, things truscum invented: the asterisk after trans asterisk, the word truscum, whales. etc)  2. transmisogyny, and adopting radfem talking points. i know in the early days (and probably still now, but i don’t know the demographics as i never kept up with them), the majority of truscum before 2014 were white, and binary trans men. (emphasis on the white trans men part.) Because of this, whenever there was a collective schism with a notable trans woman for whatever reason (adele idislikecispeople, genderpunkrock, kat blaque, etc. were all big ones during 2014), transmisogyny would be rampant. there were groups dedicated to somehow proving idislikecispeople was pretending to be a trans woman that were really invasive of her privacy (years before kiwifarms even touched the subject), and despite claiming to be a vehemently anti-radical feminist group—willingly accepted radfem talking points and even radfems who self-identified as truscum. and cisgendered self-identified truscum, especially adult cis MEN (usually gay, and were fairly aggressive to us teens??), were accepted with open arms and were looked up to for some fucking reason. y’know, bootlicking.  around 2014 was when the term “transmedicalist/transmedicalism” was coined by john snarkytransman, and was popularized by users who followed suit. it came about around 2013/2014. since then, the term has been synonymous with truscum- but in may 29, 2015, users who wanted to detach themselves from the label of truscum due to drama wish to mark a distinction between the two labels, which was largely popularized by john myragewillendworlds. because truscum was never supposed to be a community initially, it was supposed to be an ideology “like atheism”.  and a lot of the drama around the time when transmedicalist was coined was due to three distinct groups forming: the old truscum (those who had been around since near the beginning, like i was. usually adult binary trans men over 18 and in their early-to-mid 20s.), neo-truscum (mostly made up of teens around my age who were newly out and majorly identified as nonbinary, and latched onto the first group they came across, like i had years prior), and the FUCKING MARIGANG (a notorious group of radfem truscum who only believed in 2 distinct nonbinary identities, agender and bigender, and were... extremely volatile.) i was somehow in all 3 of these groups because of 1. the fact i had been truscum since the near conception of the term so i was oldscum, 2. i was within the age range of most of the neo-truscum so a lot of them were my friends, and 3. mari from the marigang was the first ever other non-SAM asexual (and adult!) i had ever met (aside from my then-gf, Gabe. whomst i still talk to and luv with all my heart <33) and i clung onto her despite how.... fucking wild she was. and her boyfriend eliot was the first ever intersex person i had come across after learning about my own intersex variation, and i was so desperate for validation from these two adults who both held two identities integral to myself that i had never met any else sharing before, so i ignored so many of the red flags they had. (and they had... so many.) which brings me to my next point!!!!! 3. queer-phobia and the beginning of ace discourse. (NOTE: i didn’t realize all of these groups were radfem until years later, and i didn’t know what “TWERF” meant at the time. i barely knew was a radfem was.) so the marigang (2013/2014 i think?) was known for being notoriously volatile and violent at the drop of a hat to anyone who they didn’t like and labeling them as “fauxscum”. even to their own members in the skype group. it was largely made up of radfems and even eliot was a self-described TWERF (despite... at the time identifying as a intersex cis man????). the marigang believed in two nonbinary identities only: bigender and agender. mari herself was agender, asexual, and aromantic, and would brag about abusing eliot because of how much she despised men. she was incredibly anti-AVEN and refused to be called ace, aro, or aroace, and would only go by non-AVEN terms like “asexual” and thought the split-attraction-model was bullshit. (which is why i also refused to go by the terms ace/aro/aroace and would only go by “asexual” up until late 2016/early 2017.) mari was also incredibly hypocritical, criticizing me for having a girlfriend despite IDing as asexual & aromantic, even though she also had a boyfriend with the same sorta partnership (except Gabe and i weren’t abusive, just a bit too young.) despite that, i latched onto mari as an idolized adult figure. branching off from the marigang was a group of asexual & aromantic, usually nonbinary, radfem truscum who called themselves asexual elitists. and i ended up joining that group through mari. this group in either late 2013 to mid 2014 became the basis of what ace discourse would become a year later. some of our key beliefs that would later generally be accepted by truscum (a lot of them even sharing some of these beliefs despite hating the marigang and such) and then later spread throughout tumblr were: 1. there is no asexual spectrum. you’re either asexual or you aren’t. micro-identities like demisexuality and grayasexuality are unnecessary because that’s 90% of the population. (the part about demigray-sexuality was already popular amongst truscum at this time.) 2. people aren’t oppressed for being asexual. it’s either misogyny or misdirected homophobia. (i don’t think the term aphobia/acephobia was coined yet, or was popularized at this time.) 3. queer is a violent slur and should not be used as a personal identity or for the community. (already a common opinion amongst truscum.) 4. the split-attraction-model is unnecessary, redundant, harmful, and destructive. that if your sexual and romantic orientations “conflict” (ie: biromantic heterosexual, homoromantic pansexual, etc.), then you’re either one or the other and just confused. that it’s homophobic/biphobic/lesbiphobic because it reduces people to sex. (was already 50/50 with truscum.) 5. the term “allosexual” is very AVEN-y (therefore bad) and, again, reduces people to sex. because us asexuals were the “abnormal” (an actual word used that i internalized) ones in society, we didn’t need a word to refer to non-asexuals, and just not-asexual worked for it. 6. pansexuality don’t real and it’s just bisexuality under a special label. (was already 50/50 with truscum.) 7. the only existing orientations are gay/lesbian, bi, and straight. asexuality is the LACK of a sexuality and therefore not an orientation.  8. AVEN sucks. fuck AVEN. fuck david jay. MOGAI sucks. intersex isn’t lgbt. (i was the only intersex person a part of the asexual elitists (sans eliot) so i was kinda expected to just... agree with it. so i did. i didn’t have any opinions of my own for it. and mari was adamant about it because she was outspoken about eliot’s intersexuality.) — i’m probably missing some but these were off the top of my head. do those sound familiar? these were the beliefs of both the marigang and the asexual elitists groups, that were probably taken from radfems and then spread to truscum and to the rest of tumblr—which then spread out further through the internet, since many users had deviantarts and twitters and would take discourse to other places. et cetera et cetera. i left the marigang in late 2014 i want to say? and returned to the general truscum community, and the marigang fell apart due to in-fighting. but the damage had already been done at that point, and those of us left were still spreading this rhetoric to others who then continued to spread it. ------ i think i started to become an inclusionist in late 2015 or early 2016 when ace discourse STARTED to take off outside of truscum circles. because whenever i talked about bigotry i happened to face due to be asexuality, i was met with “that didn’t happen” and people dismissing my experiences and telling me i had no place in the lgbt community (“i never thought the leopards would eat my face” -person who supported the ‘leopards eating faces’ party). i began to notice how kinda... fucked up these exclusionist beliefs were, now that i was on the receiving end of them? so i left the truscum community (despite still holding transmedicalist beliefs at this time) and i made an ace discourse blog called acehet (which at the time i made it, was called allosexuel. but before that i helped run a blog called allodiscourse which then got rebranded to something else after i left idk??) i still held onto some of these initial beliefs. that the split attraction model was silly, that asexuality wasn’t a spectrum, that AVEN was harmful, pansexuality is just special bisexuality, queer was a slur, etc etc. and i did my best to actively work towards unlearning a lot of these things and began to blog in support of them, even if my best friend at the time (the one who later came out to me as nonbinary and inspired me to drop transmedicalist beliefs entirely) still believed in all of these things and felt like i was beginning to believe in the wrong things. (i think because of that i sorta inspired hir to become an inclusionist too after hir past exclusionism too? ze's never said what sorta made hir change hir stance. idk!) and through that, i began to realize that the root of so many gatekeeping beliefs and arguments were founded through radical feminism, truscum/transmedicalists, and bigotry in general. that so many of these parroted arguments were rehashed versions of “trans women aren’t women” to “nondysphorics aren’t trans” to “bihets aren’t lgbt” to “asexuals(and aromantics) aren’t lgbt” to “intersex people aren’t lgbt” and so forth. invading communities, stealing resources, preying on young lesbians (making her reject womanhood and become nonbinary/trans, internalized lesbiphobia and IDing as ace or bi, somehow sexually abusing them, etc.) and so on. they’re all the same fucking arguments. from the same fucking sources.  and i have been saying this for years since i realized it. there are maybe 1 or 2 beliefs i held onto since i started interacting with the truscum community back in 2011, before the term was coined. but i believe it only for myself, and do not apply it to anyone else. i, personally and for myself only, believe my own transexuality is a medical condition characterized by my dysphoria, and i’ve never really identified with the trans community. i don’t identify with the trans flag, so i don’t use it for myself. i avoid the term “trans” unless necessary. and in 2016-2018 i pretended to be a cis man online until it became too much and i hated lying. i don’t apply this to anyone else, only myself. because i only want to focus on the medical aspect of my transition. this is a major contrast with my intersex identity. where i don’t consider my intersex variation to be a condition, but rather a major identity of mine. whereas most people would see the inverse of this—that trans is an identity and intersex is a condition. for me, and me personally, it’s the opposite. my intersexuality is my identity and my transexuality is my condition. (i cannot stress enough that i only apply this belief to myself, nobody else.) i identify with the intersex community, i identify with the intersex flag, and being intersex is the most major part of my presentation and gender. there’s probably so many things i’ve missed since it’s been a decade since the conception of truscum as a group. before that i believe there were a similar group made up of trans women on some forums called HBSers (harry benjamin syndrome-ers). unlearning all of these beliefs i’ve internalized in my youth and trying to use my past as a way to dissuade people away from gate-keeping and exclusionism has been what i’ve been doing my best to do since around late 2015, even if i was still in the process of dropping my own harmful and exclusionary separatist beliefs after that time. there are still truscum-y thoughts that creep back into my mind every time i might come across something new or “cringy”, but after 2018/2019 when i finally came to the full realization that HRT would never work on me (my biggest nightmare since 2013 when i learned i was intersex)—i fully embraced my own cringy identity as a straight-lesbian ftm intersex man and embraced MOGAI as a term.  all queer-separatism beliefs, exclusionism, gate-keeping, and other lgbtqia+ infighting all stems from bigotry and hate. it stems from radfems, from truscum/transmedicalists, from people “exclusionists” claim to hate yet have no problem parroting arguments from. it’s all rooted in hatred and elitism and separating the “pure” identities away from the “bad” ones. all forms of gate-keeping in queer communities like this is bigoted and harmful, because it’s a slippery slope into all the other forms of gate-keeping as well. anyway i hope this wasn’t hard to read? i’m pretty rambly and i have trouble keeping my thoughts in check. i’ve most likely missed a lot of things and forgotten many more, but this is more or less the timeline that led me to learn that being truscum was genuinely and incredibly fucking harmful and i am still trying to make up for it. my 2 biggest regrets in life are 1. being truscum and 2. inventing circumgender. 

[love-to-lgbtq]

Hi, so I'm a cis girl, and I'm thinking I might be bi but I'm not sure and it's driving me a bit crazy bc I feel like I should've realized before (?) Or maybe I just think that I am but I'm really straight (?) Idk

1- I just started college and I'm living on my own for the first time in my life, and ever since getting to this city I've been like "wow, girls are hot", but I never had that feeling before

2- I've only had one (1) actual serious crush in my life, and it was on a man. But I am notoriously terrible at identifying how I feel, and I've had some mini-crushes on other guys, as well as some rather confusing and unclear feelings for some of my female friends (one of which is bisexual and even had a crush on me at one point, so I always felt like I was just responding to the attention, but maybe I had an actual crush on her as well???)

3- Obviously, I have no romantic nor sexual experience to speak of with anyone of any gender, so...

4- I play a lot of videogames and interactive fiction where you have like romance subplots and the like, and I've almost always romanced men in those. And the few times I chose a woman, my character was an OC instead of a self-insert. However, lately I've become more and more interested in exploring some wlw romance routes on some of the games I'm playing with a self-insert

5- It makes objectively no sense for me to be somehow repressing my sexuality. I grew up in a fairly liberal country, my parents are not homophobic at all, and 3/6 of my closest friends (and many of my more casual friends) are in the LGBTQ community. I don't know why I wouldn't have known before or why my mind would be hiding this information from me

6- I'm not even crushing on anyone. It's not like I fell in love with a girl or anything, I'm just noticing them more. But it's like a switch flipped. On my first day, I was asked my orientation by a very nice lesbian and I said "straight" without hesitating, all the while thinking "she's cute, but I don't think I'd be into her even if I were into girls". The other day I crossed her on the hallway and I was like "whoa 😳". I thought sexuality was something that was always there, but in my case it seems like I somehow acquired it here or something idk 😂

7- I'm scared to start identifying as bi because that would mean becoming part of the LGBTQ community, and I don't want to enter those spaces only to later realize I was straight all along. It would feel dishonest and wrong. Especially since absolutely everyone I know knows me as a straight woman. Not in a "assumed heterosexuality" kind of way, but in a "a lot of people thought I wasn't straight and I've been verbally communicating my heterosexuality for years" kind of way.

8- I also don't want to ID provisionally as bi bc I don't want to feed into the "it's just a phase" myth

9- Sorry for the long ask, but it's just that I needed to vent and to get advice from someone who doesn't know me irl. Should I wait until I actually get a crush on a girl? Is there a way to know for sure if you're attracted to girls? What do I do???

Dear anon,

Oh, honey. Its as if I actually know you. You sound just like so many people im acquainted with. First I will tell you a joke that my mom and i have which is "straight people don't question their sexuality" if youre thinking you might be bi, ive got some news for you. You probably are. College is a time where a TON of people figure out their sexuality. Also I will note another queer joke that queer people tend to "flock" so yes you may be the token straight friend now, but all your queer friends have probably just been waiting for you to realize youre queer too. Different people figure themselves out at different times. Some people figure out in their 40s or later! Theres no shame! And if you realize you arent bi (but I'm almost certain you are) then thats fine! Labels only hold as much power as you let them. They change. Thats life! Ive changed my labels before. I used to identify as gender fluid and now I identify as nonbinary.

I think you should act upon this to your comfort level. If you want to experiment, go ahead. If you want to wait and see, that's fine! If you want to just tell people youre questioning, that works too! It's up to you. Its your identity. It sounds to me like youre bi, but if youre not ready to accept that or if you still arent sure, then that's fine. Live in the moment. Feel whatever you feel without questioning it. The rest will come later. Theres no need to stress over it.

Good luck, let me know if you have any more questions or just need to vent.

-Day

[elftwink]

im medicated so it is hot take time. first of all while i agree that straight women often treat gay/bi men like fetishes i think certain sentiments are also indicative of like... real feelings that should be given thought and sensitivity rather than brushed off. like people who are like “i wish i was a guy so i could be gay”. i understand the knee jerk reaction of being like ‘thats fetishistic’ especially because that sentiment is so often followed with complete and total nonsense about mlm relationships, or something actually fetishy (because they’re cuter/hotter than m/f relationships, for example)

but like. someone who is almost certainly currently iding as a cis straight girl expressing the idea of “i like the idea of being attracted to men as a man more than as a woman” is saying something. most likely that they’re not a woman or that they’re not attracted to men. like speaking as a trans guy into guys, pre-transition i often found myself wishing i were a guy specifically so i could be gay, because i knew i was attracted to men but the idea of being someone’s girlfriend made my stomach turn.

like, in the eyes of cishets gender and sexuality are inextricably linked. performing your gender ‘correctly’ depends on you also being heterosexual. being in a relationship with a man prior to knowing i was trans was baffling because i hated it despite being fairly certain i liked men. at the time i didn’t know why, but in retrospect it’s obviously because being the ‘girlfriend’ was not just about the person i was dating, it was intrinsically about me being the girl. which obviously was not fun for me.

but like, you don’t have to be a trans guy for that sentiment to be deeper than it appears to be. like, maybe they are a cis straight woman, but their conceptualization of m/f relationships is of toxicity and imbalance, they might be wishing they were a gay man as a proxy for wishing they had a healthy relationship. obviously this doesn’t justify saying anything fetishistic and it does require someone to come in and be like ‘hey m/m relationships aren’t inherently better or worse than m/f [or f/f] relationships, that’s an idea you’ve internalized and it is damaging to both yourself and also actual gay/bi men” but the actual sentiment behind it is, for lack of a better word, valid and expresses a real fear that person has. maybe they are gay and just feel they’re not “allowed” to be gay as they are (i know i often felt that while it was fine if other people were lgbt+, i wasn’t “allowed”), so it’s easier to imagine being gay as a hypothetical man than as the person they actually are. and it’s really only through being allowed to explore their ideas of gender and sexuality that people will people able to understand why they feel that way

like.... no doubt that the way these sentiments are expressed is often homophobic and fetishistic and damaging and that should be confronted but the problem is not actually that someone wishes they were a gay man the problem lies in what they think defines gay/bi men and m/m relationships. if there are no problematic assumptions about mlm being made then it’s just someone trying to articulate how they feel about their own sexuality and gender, admittedly in an overly simplistic way

also if you dismiss "i wish i were a gay man” as straight girl nonsense talk out of the gate it does make it that much easier for transphobes to argue that gay trans men are fetishistic straight girls who transitioned to trick gay men into sleeping with them. you are arguing that their attraction to men is fine if they are [cis] women but becomes predatory if they are [trans] men, and implying there is something laughable or disgusting about someone who was assigned female at birth who wants to love and be loved by men as a man.

moreover that knee-jerk negative reaction is doing nothing to deconstruct any harmful ideas that person may have about m/m relationships, and instead it’s just telling them they’re only allowed to love men in the pre-approved, heterosexual female way (a way they clearly think is harmful or unpleasant since they’re expressing they don’t like that even though they are attracted to men). which i just don’t think is good for anyone except maybe conservative think tanks. 

[anaryllis]

thank you ange!! okay so I'm recently coming to terms with being an nb trans guy despite id-ing as an nb lesbian previously. i've known for a while, but i'm just now telling people who are important to me for the first time and pursuing transition. my gf has been super supportive. i love her deeply. i KNOW i'm into women and many nb people, but lately i've been questioning if i like men or not. i know that since becoming more comfortable with my transmasc identity i've been fantasizing (1/4)

about situations with men, specifically other transmascs, and sometimes fictional / celeb men somewhat incessantly. like it's my go to fantasy right now. but i'm not sure i've ever been like attracted to a real guy irl. in fact i'm actively repulsed by many men. i guess all the transmascs in my life (my bro, my best friend) have only ever been in same gender relationships since coming out and i don't know if i'm genuinely into men or if like being mlm is just how i understand trans (2/4)

identity bc of the people in my life. like on one hand i really want for a guy to be attracted to me as a guy and care for me, that sounds so pleasant and gender affirming. the thought makes me happy. but it's also v possible that bc i identified as a lesbian before this i'm just sort of biased against heterosexuals and i'm not mentally prepared for the transhet label. like maybe being a straight guy in a ""queer"" relationship is too confusing to me. idk. me and my gf are openly polyam (3/4)

so i don't know if this desire to pursue men is like genuine potentially bisexual attraction or just some last ditch effort for gender affirmation or to escape straightness. i know on one hand it's not really that important but it's just so hard to categorize these thoughts and feelings and i was curious if you (or maybe any followers) had any thoughts about that. thank you so much. really (4/4)

hi yeah!!! first of all congrats on the new Gender, i hope its giving you all the joy & peace u deserve! & im especially glad u have ur gf to support u thru all of this. from my experience at least the switch from lesbian to well, not that, felt particularly difficult & having the positive ppl in my life rly made a big difference

this ended up rly long so under a cut it goes

like u said before u can rly only answer these questions for urself BUT i can tell u what happened for me & what i rly asked myself! my attraction to women has like, pretty much never been in question. i realized i liked girls age 12 and since then the fluctuations have been based on whether men were involved also lol. during my strongest time identifying as a lesbian, i definitely still had some attraction to men - but it was typically in the context of unattainable men & fictional characters, which sounded like comphet to me so i just didnt worry about it. most men disgusted me & i didnt rly have any close male friends. the closest man in my life was a recent ex that i had difficult feelings surrounding so i preferred to just, ignore it lol. i felt especially disgusted by the idea of being with a man while i identified rly strongly as a woman - both b/c of a revulsion to str8ness lol and also just like. discomfort w the way men see women u know? not to mention i was nonbinary even as a woman, and i had faith that women i dated would see that - i didnt have that faith in potential men i’d date

the real Crisis thing for me was actually developing a crush on my then guy best friend / now boyfriend lol! i didnt understand how i could be feeling so strongly about him when i was supposedly a “lesbian”. i’d already been questioning my gender for a time and that just added more confusion for me & i did a lot of rly long & hard thinking about it, reflected on my own interests (previous partners/crushes, unattainable crushes, etc.), how my own gender played into it, etc. the conclusion i came to was: 1. my attraction to men (irl, attainable ones) is rly dependent on trust. the fact of the matter is ive just never been in that many close, trusting relationships with men so crushes rarely developed. but when they did it rly v obvious it was genuine so i believed it was true, and 2. i do think my gender has a lot to do with it! i feel a lot of the same gender euphoria ur talking about when it comes to my relationship with my boyfriend. idk if id call myself transmasc truly but that element of my identity is rly tied to my attraction to men. aand 2b. i think a lot of my stress surrounding relationships with men in the past (like i talked about with dating them as a woman) has been about dysphoria. i didnt feel like it was possible to be with a man before that wouldnt be dysphoria-inducing - but instead it gives me gender euphoria!! which rules!! 3. oh and also like. when it comes to unattainable men im into cis & trans men, but of ppl ive known/been into personally its p much always been trans guys. i felt a lot of guilt around that before, but i do think that just has to do with t4t feelings & that feeling of trust! so unpacking that as being ok also made a difference for me

i do get ur concern about avoiding straightness - i havent had that specific concern, but i do think i was rly moralistic about my attraction to men. like, i felt like being bi didnt fit with my feminist politics, you know? and im definitely bi, so that was bad for me. so i do wanna say: if youre not into men, thats okay!! being a trans guy who loves women is wonderful in its own way, and i dont want u to have to feel shame about that. that said, in my experience i think having Gayness at the core of your attraction makes perfect sense. if exploring your gender as a guy feels linked to being attracted to guys, ive felt the same and you wouldnt be alone in that!

do whatever feels good to you & explore however. but imo my advice is basically: if/when you pursue men romantically, i feel like you’ll Know if its genuine or not. if you’re wanting to be particularly cautious, i’d say like leave the dating field open for guys even if ur not Actively pursuing them, and if the right one comes along that you feel that attraction for him, then i think thatd be wonderful!

sry for the. incredibly long answer but TL;DR: only you’ll know for sure, but it sounds to me like a potential attraction to men is worth exploring for you! so be gentle & patient w urself but whatevr conclusion u come to will be good. and ALSO u can always change ur mind!!!! theres not a max amount of identities u can have, u can change and rethink whenever. best of luck to u!!!!

[sugar-petals]

idk if it's common but i'm queer and i had a while when i questioned my attraction to men bc i felt like so much of being attracted to men was about liking the masculine, dominant man while i just didn't fit into the picture of the submissive woman. and it was so freeing to realize it doesn't have to be like that. but also through that i realized i have prejudices against men who for ex are muscular bc id think if they look the part they must be the part which is unfair.

your thoughts are going into the right direction imo. attraction to an ideal doesn’t equal the real deal sometimes, especially when you’re not heterosexual, and most importantly: a certain visual VS sexual behavior can be miles apart.

where the bias comes from: if you ask me, women have made the association of muscles = dom more than male doms themselves 😅 among the younger ones, they treat it as an aesthetic or self-improvement/health/image thing rather than the sign of a master in particular. what makes a real dom remains intent and skill. being strong as hell you need in fewer bdsm disciplines than you think, it’s a huge irony.

a certain baseline strength is good and needed, standard rough sex or punishment 101, but even in bondage where gravity indeed is sometimes at play (think creating a suspension), what you need first is good memory and diligence. there’s no reason other than visual to be jacked when all you do is complicated knots. if you’re a passionate rigger, you don’t have time to work out in the first place 😂 

that being built makes a difference, you really have to be into the hardcore things that take a lot of money, maintenance, experience, and vanilla inclinations, believe it or not. the freakier brands of male doms of any sexual orientation often rather resort to dress codes to signify something instead. us dommes are no different 😄 the actual mega ripped macho guys are usually far away from being your certified dominant (even if they claim it) with ten thousand kinks and a play room, did you notice? 

my arguably bold hypothesis is that they don’t need much more to ‘gain’ power while someone who becomes involved in bdsm is not the bodily type to do so — hence they use other means. they’re into the minutiae, the details. meaning tools: say, restraints do the job for you. 

using a cane multiplies even a small impetus. you see the appeal. some guy walking around like a unit doesn’t need kink unless they are of course way into the sex toy side for its own sake. but you get the principle. you’re too kinky to bother with lots of gym time. that’s why most dommes don’t walk around like xena the warrior princess either 😂 we do like swords though

meanwhile, subby guys with masculine appeal or muscle are quite a thing, they should be. as i always say: unless you’re a gentle domme, pragmatically speaking it’s better if your sub is reasonably sturdy. mind you, the opposite is also very juicy and just as preferrable (how else would the fandom coo at yoongi all day 🐱), but you get the logic.

if he’s working out, he wants to be appealing to you in a way, too. ripped guys and submission are not mutually exclusive, nor are they a threat to your dominance (unless they’re abusive). example: look at jungkook being the most popular bts member in the femdom community lmao! like, this guy out of all possibilities. it’s hilarious.

and it’s not wrong to be attracted to that, nor is it wrong not to like it vice versa. the personality and subbiness will shine through anyways if you’re really getting into the person 😁 hope that clears things up.

[domesticangel]

I'm sorry if this ask makes you uncomfortable, I'm not sure, if it's something to discuss with strangers. But do you think there's a concrete way to tell your sexuality?

I've considered myself straight, since I've never felt romantic feelings towards women, but I had sexual fantasies about them even before I had them about men. Your Yugioh post made me remember hoping my barbies would turn alive to do horny things with them... And now, when I'm lucid dreaming (so it's conscious), I go for whoever there is, no matter the gender.

My confusion stems from being an extremely visually stimulated person, so even fashion Items or makeup can make me h word. So I'm really not sure if I'm bi-sexual, or just find women pretty and trying to be spicy straight.

Sorry again if it's inappropriate, I'm not sure who to even talk about this. And I'm not really in a place to find out through trial anytime soon lol

NAH YOURE FINE but its the kind of ask i could see making maybe someone else uncomfortable, so in the future you might wanna ask someone before sending something like this! but it doesnt bother me personally, so ill go ahead and answer ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

cramming under a cut since it got kinda long LOL

sooo i dont think for everyone sexuality is going to be a “concrete” thing. for some people it very much is, which is great, but for some people it can be very fluid and changing. i dont think either way is better than the other; they just Are. i only mention this bc i have also very much been where you are so i know it can be pretty stressful and frustrating, feeling like you cant even really tell what your own sexuality is, especially since my brain has never been the best at handling grey areas. i identified as bi for the vast majority of my life before realizing i was actually a lesbian. and i dont say that to equate bisexuality with confusion, but rather to illustrate just how long of a process really understanding the nuances of your own sexuality can be, and how truly normal and okay it is to explore different identities

i would suggest considering why you dont think youve ever had romantic feelings towards a woman or never could; this can actually be a very common thing for wlw bc of compulsive heterosexuality--women live their entire lives in a world that for the most part tells them that love between two women could never be “real” or romantic. its kinda like that whole messy stereotype that biphobes and homophobes like to propagate about bi people being confused, and that bi women are just confused straight women and bi men are just confused gay men. it centers around men. so when women’s sexualities have always been defined by their relationship to men, it can be really hard to figure out how you feel about people who ARENT men, and can def lead to the kind of confusion it sounds like youre having. mainstream Love as a concept is really so eaten up with heterosexual archetypes that they can muddy up your own feelings on what it means for you specifically to love someone regardless of their gender if that makes sense

re: visual stimulation: i think that can differ for everyone, and may or may not play a part in their sexuality. for example, you might become aroused because you associate fashion and makeup with women you find attractive/youre attracted to femininity, OR you might find them stimulating because of a certain mood or vibe they evoke for you, like feeling sexy, the idea of dolling yourself up for someone, etc. or it could very well be both!!!

just from what i can gather from this ask, it sounds to me like youre sexually attracted to women but struggling with figuring out the romantic side of things. ill make this clear first and foremost; i dont believe in the split attraction model, so im not positing youre “bisexual but heteroromantic” or anything like that. HOWEVER sometimes certain aspects of attraction as a whole are easier to parse than others. i know for sure that way before i ever considered IDing as a lesbian i was wildly physically attracted to women but really only gave credence to the crushes i got on men  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

tbh i wouldnt worry too much about it. and i dont mean that in a brushing off kind of way; more in a you absolutely have time to figure this out and explore your options type way. let yourself feel the way you feel about people, try to think about it without OVER thinking, and just be open to things. treat it like a journey at your own pace rather than a timed exam. if you dont want to figure things out by trial as you said right now or for a long time? thats fine. that option will always be waiting for you when youre ready for it. and remember, if bisexuality is something youre considering may be a proper fit, it doesnt have to be 50/50. you could be 90% attracted to people of different/dissimilar gender and 10% attracted to people of same/similar gender and you would still be 100% bi, not a “fake,” not spicy straight. try calling yourself bi. try calling yourself straight. see how it feels and if it fits. dont be afraid of thinking youre one thing and turning out to be the other. this isnt something you can get “wrong.” sexuality can be totally messy and confusing for a lot of people, even after you think youve gotten it all figured out; one of the best things about being alive is how you feel about and interact with other people, but thats such a vast and varied experience that its totally normal imo for it to be nonlinear and not always clear cut. either way your sexuality is yours to explore no matter where you end up

[allthephils]

I hope this is not invasive and you can just say you don’t want to talk about it. I am curious about being an adult with grown children while being queer or dating a woman. What I’m asking is did or do your children know? Most of the time it’s the other way around and children come out to parents. But I know alot of children have come out to a parent and the parents has been like “I think I’m bi too, or I use to date girls before I married X.” I think it’s beautiful and Id love to know everyone’s story. We need more queer women’s stories. We need more stories from women who didn’t know they were queer till later on. If that’s in their 30s, 50s or 70s. (Not that I’m saying that applies to you) I know women who didn’t know they were even attracted to girls till they were into their adult years. Like me. I just want to say you and your partner seem very happy. I wish nothing but the best for you both.

I don’t mind talking about it at all! I agree that telling our stories really helps to make the world a little smaller and hopefully safer feeling for other queer people out there. I am nothing if not wordy though so I’ll put my response under the cut.

I have to say first that we are not a typical American family. My kids were raised as gender neutral as I could muster so they could figure it out on their own and queerness has always been openly acknowledged and discussed in our family. Feminism and sexual health, as well as civil rights have always been topics of discussion at our dinner table. I have three adult kids as well as a little one. The adult three are all queer and out. Even in our family, it took all of them some time to come out and then to come out to me. Which just goes to illustrate that it’s not about anyone but the person figuring it all out. My family, at least the ones close to us that we actually talk to, is super accepting too. My close family is not religious or politically conservative. I am very lucky.

I knew I was attracted to women my whole life, my first kiss was with a girl when I was around 11. Still, compulsory heterosexuality is some real bullshit. I told myself everyone thinks women are beautiful, everyone finds them attractive, everyone feels sexual desire toward them, doesn’t make me bi. Lol. What does that say about what our society values in human relationships? What does it say about the way women are framed in our culture and what that does to young people and the way they see themselves? I can’t even imagine how much more difficult that culture makes it for people who don’t experience sexual desire or don’t prioritize it to figure out. There are so many layers I could go off about but I’ll save that soapbox for another time. I had a lot of shame. I felt like I didn’t deserve to be queer, like I hadn’t earned it somehow. I was attracted to gender-nonconforming people and masculine presenting women and somehow I used that as proof that I was a fraud. There was definitely some internalized biphobia as well. I spent my adolescence with a very gay group of friends. All my time was spent at gay bars and goth clubs. And yet, I still couldn’t get to that place of comfort even though I knew there was something missing for me. Honestly, watching my kids figure themselves out taught me so much and changed my perspective on so many things. I’ve always said kids teach you more than you teach them, if you listen. They really helped me out but they didn’t know that at the time. (Can we learn from our kids without making them the parent in the scenario please? Thank you) This phandom also helped me grow comfortable being open about my queerness.

I finally figured it out/admittted it to myself in my late 30s and didn’t come out to anyone till I was at least 40. I told my mom and she literally forgot. That’s how much she didn’t mind. Again, I’m lucky but I also felt like she didn’t take it seriously. When I told her about my relationship, she asked if i was “switching sides or just trying it out.” Lol. I gently reminded her of my previous coming out. I never actually came out to my sisters but they just kind of figured it out. My daughter, who is gay, has known the longest. We hang out weekly (precovid) and we talk about everything. My other two kids only found out recently. They are both trans and their path has been winding and complex. It just wasn’t time to make it about me. All of them are supportive and so happy for me. My 7 year old knows all the words to discuss his family so he can be proud. It’s just normal to him because it is normal. He knows I have a girlfriend and he knows I identify as queer and/or bi. The only people I’ve had to ”come out’ to in the traditional sense of the term are my co-parent’s family. They weren’t surprised after knowing my family. Some of them are supportive, some not. I genuinely don’t have time for anyone who can’t love me for who I am. If you have to leave pieces of me out of your stories about me, then maybe you just don’t get to have those stories. If I make them uncomfortable at family gatherings, they can leave. I’m still telling people all the time but it’s usually just , “oh I’m in a relationship with the most wonderful woman.” And my friends are happy for me. I don’t know many straight people though :) There’s my story. I hope I get to read your story too at some point, anon. 🖤🖤

[joan-deactivated20230204]

tangentially related & idk how to frame this in a way that tme people will like... get, but it seems to me that my experiences as a trans woman with gender & sexuality are different enough from tme people that it feels like framing myself within the ‘clearly delineated’ boxes of cis sexuality will always be a failing endeavor.

like just off the top of my head the fact that before i recognized being trans as a possibility, i ID’d as a bisexual man bc it felt closer to a femininity i didn’t yet know i was after, then when i discovered i was trans i started calling myself a lesbian bc i idolized cis lesbians & to bring myself closer to them was gender-affirming, but at the same time heterosexuality is intrinsic to womanhood and attraction to men is also gender affirming in a way which is not visibly separable from genuine attraction, moreso when i stopped idolizing cis lesbians, but ALSO being aware of the high risk of violence trans women are at + the desire to express emotional intimacy with someone who understands, at least to an extent, these experiences that im talking about here, makes me wary to enter into any kind of relationship with a cis person in the first place

and when you put all that together i cant really just say “oh im a lesbian” or “oh im bisexual” bc the reality is more complicated & somewhere in between. like personally id just consider my sexuality “trans woman” bc its best expressed as a complicated culmination of my experiences as one, when im with cis people i just say im bisexual bc its the easiest way to say “im into women and sometimes men but the latter is because of trans woman stuff you wont get”, and when im with other trans women ill call myself a lesbian, bc in my experience other trans women will generally understand that its not that clearly cut, yknow?

but anyways my point with all this is tme ppl telling trans women that our sexualities are wrong and bad bc we’re not fitting perfectly into “lesbian OR bisexual” should shut up and let us be lol