Confused and dazed

[Frankly]

I first and foremost want to thank everyone for what is provided by this site, not only in fantastic material but great people who are friendly open minded and understanding. In the past I have come seeking advice and have been relieved to find people in similar situations.

A little break down
I am a religious studies student heading for law school. I have lots of knowledge about training, can give some run downs on cycles and know a fair amount about a wide variety of religions so if anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask.

My Issue of which I am looking for some guidance

As everyone here, I am a fan of muscle. I am aroused by muscle growth and expansion. Now, I am still unsure of my sexual preference which is wrecking serious havoc on my mental state. I am aroused by muscle but feel a personal connection to girls. In most of the stories, in all honesty, I skip over most of the sex scenes simply to get to the muscle growth. Now I know no one can tell me my sexual preference but I am wondering if anyone has any experience or has worked to figure the same thing out in themselves and how they went about it.

I have come out as gay so that is not a fear for me I just don't know whether I am or not. How have you guys figured it out?

[no name]

Hey Frankly,

Just briefly, I think that you don't have to put so much pressure on yourself and decide once and for all. You know that you are attracted to men, but you also feel that you can be attracted to girls.

My suggestion would be to assume you're bisexual.

Maybe, at some point in the future, you will change your mind and either say definitively that you're straight or gay. But there's no real pressure to decide. It's great if you can find both women and men beautiful and attractive, and love is good whether you fall in love with a guy or with a girl.

Just my thoughts, of course.

Cheers,
no name

[mdlahr]

That's hilarious. I'm also an RST major.

I think that all human beings are bisexual, and that they choose to entertain their thoughts towards one gender or the other, or both!

I work as a model, so needless to say I'm pretty good-looking, and to boot I get looked up and down by straight and gay men alike.

I think the previous post made a pretty good point. It's up to you what you do with your thoughts. Encourage straight thoughts and discourage gay ones, and eventually you'll find yourself drifting to the straight end of the spectrum, and vice versa.

I think the gay movement in the US is stupid in thinking that people are born with a particular sexual preference. Experience and psychology have just as much to do with it--even unto the rewiring of the neural pathways--as do genetic predispositions. Do with your thougts as you like; they're yours! Don't be afraid of them. Do whatever you know is right. That's what's most important.

[Bull]

"...stupid for thinking that people are born with a particular sexual preference." Wow.

Who in their right mind would choose to be gay in a society as bigoted and intolerant as this one? If it were as easy for people to slide around Kinsey's scale as you imagine, there would be no gay people at all. For that matter, there would be no intolerance, because everyone's seuality would be so fluid, they would all understand alternate sexual orientations implicitly. I, for one, have never felt a moment of physical attraction to women in my entire life, and I have known hundreds of gay men for whom that was true. Are you going to say that we weren't born that way? Absurd. Particularly when straight people have no problem asserting the same about themselves.

Your way of thinking is highly dangerous, and could be used to justify attempts to "reprogram" gays, and all types of repressive measures. But more than that, it is simply false, as anyone with any common sense can see from their own experience.

To get back to the first poster...I don't understand why you would come out as gay if you have doubts about being so. Are you physically attracted to women, or just emotionally? Do you "skip over" the sex parts in straight stories too? If so, your issue may be with sex, not with gay sex.

There are a lot of unanswered questions here.

[luvyalots]

I used to believe that sexuality was strictly inherit from birth; being born gay or straight was like being born left-handed or right-handed. You were one or the other and that's what you were.

However, I now believe that it's not that simple. In my opinion (and feeble experience), it more likely comes down to that age-old competition between Nature and Nurture. As in many things, it's both. You can be born lefty or righty, but at the same time you can learn to be the other. Likewise, you can be born gay or straight, but you can knowingly "teach" yourself to be the opposite (or both, in some cases).

In the same way, you can "learn" to be gay or straight as you develop from a young age, subconsciencely, if you will.

The bottom line is this: go with your gut. If you find yourself pulliing more toward men than women, go with it.

[achilles]

Well, I used to be in the same boat Frankly. Thought I was bi. But how did I come to truly know I was gay? When I first fell in love with another guy. That was the clincher. Maybe one day the same will happen to you :-)

[arpeejay]

I was married to a woman for 11 years and I have 2 kids, now in college.

I always had a thing for muscle but because it was about the idea of ME being big and strong I wasn't sure whether that meant I was gay (which I didn't want to be), or that I just had some pretty serious body image things going on. Like you, I felt strong emotional connections to women; I had more female friends and I found making friends with guys difficult at best.

Within a year of being married, I knew I was gay. Why? Because whenever I had sex with my wife, I thought about men. The fact that it was about ME being those men, I finally realized, was irrelevant. It was also the case that I only had sex with my wife infrequently -- and in between I masturbated every day, again always thinking about big, muscular men.

It was another 10 years before I finally acknowledged that I actually got around to accepting that I needed to live my life as a gay man. I was a bit unnerving to find out that I was still fantasizing about big, muscular men, even when I was having sex with guys (turns out big, muscular men have ZERO interest in me, which is a different story), but even then it felt right in a way that it never did with my wife.

My simple test: Do you get hard looking at men? Do you get hard looking at women?

All the best & xoxo...

Richard

[joel24242]

I went through a similar mental anguish as you seem to be going through in trying to work out my sexuality. For me a had a major crush on a girl all through highschool, but tended to be turned on more by the thought of a hot guy. The other bit adding to my confusion is i have an identical twin brother who is straight. That kept adding doubt to how I was feeling.

In the end for me it came down to the fact the emotionally and interlectually I tended to be more turned on and attracted to women, but physically, it was guys that got me going. So the crux of the situation was with which gender would I find both types of connections with. Since then I have come out as gay, and have had all rounded connections with guys. however I do believe that potentially I could still have that with a women if the right one came along.

Hope any of that helps. You just have to remember that there is never a definitive answer. Just experience live and do what you feel comfortable with. There is no rush to categorize yourself.

[Corwin]

Originally Posted by Frankly

As everyone here, I am a fan of muscle. I am aroused by muscle growth and expansion. Now, I am still unsure of my sexual preference which is wrecking serious havoc on my mental state. I am aroused by muscle but feel a personal connection to girls. In most of the stories, in all honesty, I skip over most of the sex scenes simply to get to the muscle growth. Now I know no one can tell me my sexual preference but I am wondering if anyone has any experience or has worked to figure the same thing out in themselves and how they went about it.

I have come out as gay so that is not a fear for me I just don't know whether I am or not. How have you guys figured it out?

Achilles and Richard have given you good advice. Now it's my turn.

"gay", "straight", "bi", "queer", "faggot", "tranny" are all labels. Don't worry about labels. They aren't what's important. What is important is what makes you happy.

You say that muscle growth arouses you. The key is, what else does? If you see a shirtless muscular man mowing the lawn, becoming all sweaty, his muscles flexing, does that do it? What about a woman in a bikini with firm abs? This is what you need to figure out. What type of person do you find sexually attractive and arouses you?

I had a friend (he died of AIDS) who identified as gay. He was a flight attendant and suddenly found himself attracted to and fantasizing about a woman. Blew his mind because he worried more about the label he adopted than the fact that he found someone interesting.

If you are really stressing about this, many schools have counselling centers. You might want to talk to someone there about this.

Just keep in mind, what is really important is your happiness. It is OK to explore and play (just play safe). Don't worry about the labels. Focus on the goal of what will make you a whole, happy, healthy person. All the rest will follow.

[TheMM]

Originally Posted by no name

Hey Frankly,

Just briefly, I think that you don't have to put so much pressure on yourself and decide once and for all. You know that you are attracted to men, but you also feel that you can be attracted to girls.

My suggestion would be to assume you're bisexual.

Maybe, at some point in the future, you will change your mind and either say definitively that you're straight or gay. But there's no real pressure to decide. It's great if you can find both women and men beautiful and attractive, and love is good whether you fall in love with a guy or with a girl.

Just my thoughts, of course.

Cheers,
no name

No Name covered my POV quite well. I'll add this to it though:

IMO, everyone is bisexual. It's just a matter of how much you lean to one side in a sense. You see guys in HS who slap each other on the ass after a hard workout, it might not turn them on, but honestly, doesn't that show even just the tiniest amount of homosexuality? They'd deny that it was, but they probably wouldn't stop doing it. It's just kind of a way to show a good job.

You can push a pendalum to one side and hold it there, but no matter which site you hold it on, both had to start in the middle. When you let it go, it still has to swing back to the middle no matter where it goes after.

*feels like he wasnt that helpful*

[Frankly]

thanks to everyone for their posts. I do agree that there is no sense in getting hung up on titles or terms. It just seems that its hard for me to be me without actually knowing where I stand. I guess bisexual is the best bet for now.

I also wondered something along the same lines, if everyone was attracted to beauty in general, be it of the same sex or opposite.

This basically bubbled to the surface because this weekend, i met a guy, a friend of my housemate who I am crushing on, I just can't get his muscle out of my mind, while at the same time I am hitting on and really hanging out with a really cool girl who I find cute and fun and great to be around.

The guy i know is straight but I am still curious as to whether straight guys would go for worship or something of that nature. I can't get him out of my head but my first thought in the morning is how is this girl doing.

Torn and really don't know which way to turn.

Thanks again for all the responses.