I’m a man. Only ever dated, been attracted to women. Recently I met this guy and I’m having weird feelings. I can’t quite tell if I’m attracted to him as a person or just like the way he treats me; nonetheless something makes me want to treat him differently than any other guys - the way I would a girl I suppose. My friends say I might be attracted to femininity in general regardless of gender and that’s why I feel this way, and the reason why it hasn’t surfaced until now is because I haven’t yet met a guy to tick those boxes. Wondering if anyone has been through something similar.

  • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
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    27 days ago

    I think gayness is a spectrum. Likewise, I think emotions are not back and white. So you could have some feelings for this guy, you could be confused, and if this was ancient Greece you probably would have slept with him by now, but whether you see him as a partner or a little brother you want to protect is a conscious choice you can make.

  • hendrik@palaver.p3x.de
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    27 days ago

    Btw, questioning things is usually a healthy thing to do. And sexually or attraction is complex. For some people it’s also (or more) about personality and less about body features. Or it’s multiple factors. You can be attracted to more than one gender. It’s a wide bandwidth. And there’s a lot of different things out there. You do you.

  • BougieBirdie@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    27 days ago

    I think anybody who says they haven’t questioned their sexuality is likely to be lying. Then again, we’re all biased by our lived experiences and I’ve spent a lot of time questioning things, so I could be projecting.

    At the end of the day I want to say to like who you like. What happens between consenting adults is nobody’s business but theirs, and the sun isn’t going to implode because you dig on a girly dude.

    Hell, you don’t even need to put a label on your sexuality. Or your gender for that matter, although that’s a whole different can of worms.

    Depending on where you are, you might be growing up alongside harmful anti-queer rhetoric. That kind of thing makes it very difficult for a lot of people to admit their sexuality with any degree of nuance. People living in fear will lie to their friends, family, and selves in order to hide their attractions. It’s sad and harmful, and it also makes it difficult for some people to be open about sometimes liking a person that is outside what they believe society expects of them.

    You guys should get coffee or something. I wouldn’t pass up on a chance to learn more about myself

  • treefrog@lemm.ee
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    27 days ago

    I tend to find myself attracted to kind, not aggressive men. I don’t think of them as feminine men. They can be quite masculine and still kind and not aggressive.

    I was a feminine man, now I’m a trans woman. I still mostly find women attractive, because men tend to be socialized to be aggressive and I don’t like aggressive energy.

    One of these kind, non-aggressive men, the first man I was ever attracted to, is still a dear friend of mine and dating a trans woman himself now. I believe our deep love for each other is something that helped us both to accept ourselves. Even though we’ve never been romantically involved with each other.

  • Bear@lemmynsfw.com
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    27 days ago

    No. I like feminine women who are healthy, strong, and supportive, and always have.

  • slurpeesoforion@startrek.website
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    27 days ago

    In the teenage boy caught in the hyper masculine world of American highschool? Yes.

    In the actualized adult trying to understand myself and the world? Also yes.

  • Call me Lenny/Leni@lemm.ee
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    27 days ago

    I’ve never questioned the sexuality itself, in fact it was a friend of mine who had to inform me I was asexual (aceflux to be exact). I did not question it, but he had realized he was asexual based on conversations with his siblings, and he let me know based on the signs that caused him to realize it. I in turn went to his GF and did the same thing. We’re all asexual.

    The biggest sign, for those wondering, is really just that NSFW thoughts don’t come naturally, and it was profound enough in us that, in my guy friend’s case, he thought that when people get physically lovey-dovey with each other, it was simply a form of rebellion against social norms. One day he was asked why he and his GF don’t “do it” and he had the epiphany “wait, I didn’t know that’s something we’re supposed to do”.

    Even more intriguing is we all have different “fetishes” that all correspond so little to relationships and would be irrelevant to anything we encounter in daily life that our minds did not connect the “feeling” of the fetishes to “doing the act”. So a lot of people have looked at us, the two friends being in a relationship and me being in one with a non-asexual (but who is genderfluid), and they see we get “turned on”, and they think we’re offensively misusing the asexual label, unaware that it’s not cut and dry. Often I’m asked to explain how, in their words, such a thing is possible, as if someone whom the whole concept of sexuality is alien to couldn’t ask them the same thing, and it’s even a source of hate as people looking to hook up with me think it’s just a trend/phase/excuse.

    Aside from all of that, I’ve also had enough trans friends that occasionally the thought goes to my mind that maybe I myself should start questioning it, which is why there will be times when I am identified externally as the gender I am not. I, however, don’t identify as trans at the moment, not that I am fully aware. I have always identified as female. Though I’m jealous of my friends for having acedar (the asexual equivalent to gaydar) while I seem to have a subconscious transdar.

  • Susaga@sh.itjust.works
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    27 days ago

    Its like a math question. You need to show your working, even if you guess the right answer, or you don’t get full marks for it.

  • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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    27 days ago

    I saw gay porn once and was immediately sure that I’m hetero. That’s definitely not the flavor for me. If how I felt is how gay people feel when they see hetero sex in movies, then you guys have my condolences. Yuck!

  • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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    27 days ago

    I never really questioned my sexuality, but I did have an experience that somewhat confirmed it for me.

    I’ve had a fairly open relationship with my wife and we’ve brought people in for various reasons, and I had the opportunity to have a devil’s threesome with my (at the time) brother from another mother, and during a lul when my wife had to use the bathroom, we kept the mood going ourselves. Found out that I’m definitely not (physically) into AMABs, and they (eventually) found out they were trans. I still love the hell out of her even if I don’t talk to her nearly as much as I’d like (damn life always life-ing), and I have a couple non-sexual semi-ronantic relationships with AMABs in my life, and one of my partners is a (semi-transitioned) trans-man.

    All that to say, you never know if you don’t try. And if you feel that the person is safe/trustworthy/receptive enough, it can’t hurt to test the waters and see. You may find out that you’re bi, demi or pan. And you might just have your cis-het confirmed as well. But you’ll never know unless you’re willing to make that step.

  • Jerkface (any/all)@lemmy.ca
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    27 days ago

    Binary gender is such bullshit. Nobody is attracted to every man or every woman. It’s totally normal to be attracted to people who fall into both buckets if that’s your only way of categorizing people. Because that’s not how attraction or sexuality work. It’s so much richer and more nuanced than that.

  • vonbaronhans@midwest.social
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    27 days ago

    I am straight, but my social media habits put me into a lot of contact with memes from gay, lesbian, pan, and everything else under the sun. A lot of it seems relatable, even if I never experience those same feelings IRL with real people. Definitely makes me question my sexuality semi regularly, lol.

  • BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world
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    27 days ago

    A little in my twenties. It turned out that I just wanted to try out sex with women and once I did it that was pretty much it.