Sexual orientation? Asexuality?

[nbnik]

Or: What even is sexual orientation? (Just a quick side note: There are no specific details. This is PG 13 at worst.)

For years and years, I've been fairly convinced I was asexual. I found people attractive, all sorts of people, but I didn't find myself motivated to do anything with anyone.

Then I started testosterone. And boy, let me tell you, things changed.

In the first place, I recently switched from getting my doses in my thigh to my glutes, and I'm not sure, but the effects seem more noticeable. I say that I'm not sure, because it's possible that it's psychosomatic -- I wanted to see stronger effects and expected it, so that's what I'm perceiving.

But I've been on T since December, and incrementally, I've noticed a number of changes, as one does. Most of them I expected, even if they're not exactly perfect. (I'm talking about breakouts, oily skin, extra sweating, etc.) But one thing I didn't expect was that, along with my libido increasing, I feel as if my sexuality may be changing?

I'm under the impression this is not unheard of. I've watched stuff on YouTube where trans guys talk about this sort of thing, and some of them report not being interested in men at all prior to their transition, but being interested in them after beginning T and whatnot.

For me, I've always had a high libido. I wouldn't consider myself hypersexual or addicted in any way, but let's just say, all the parts are in working order down south. But even though I had possibly a higher than expected libido, I've never really found myself wanting to be with anyone in that way. That's changing, and I didn't expect it.

The romantic side of things is something I have a hard time grasping as well, but me and interpersonal relationships have never gotten on well as a general rule. So I consider that somewhat unrelated.

The point is, I'm wondering how many of you (if any) thought you were gay/straight/bi/ace/anything else prior to starting hormones, and found that that changed after going on hormones? Especially if you identified as asexual or gray ace or something along these lines prior to that, because as I said, I did not expect this.

NOTE: I do want to clarify that I'm not actually very bothered by it. It's confusing, but it doesn't like, scare me, exactly. Well, I've only been with one person, a cis woman, ever in my life, and that was about seven years ago. So, in that respect, I guess it makes me kind of nervous. I'm not in a good headspace for meeting people anyway. But as far as my identity shifting, I'm dealing with that okay. It's weird, but not bad? I can't explain. I guess, if anything, I'm just intrigued by it and wanting to hear about other folks' experiences.

[ollyander]

I am only 5 weeks on T as of yesterday, so I think this got little to do with the T itself, but I did notice a... "change" in my sexuality starting from when I came out as trans and started to present masculine in everyday life. A pretty big change, actually!

I have always kind of identified as asexual as well. For some time, I considered myself to be lesbian (romantically?) despite the fact that I was not really attracted to women... at all... but men were a definite nope so I thought I had to choose "the lesser of two evils" (at least that's what 13 y o me thought, yeah yeah...).
When I found out what asexuality was, I immediately started using that term for me.

And I guess... it fit, for quite some time? I found people attractive ie good-looking, both men and women. But actual... physical attraction to someone? Nope. Never. I liked to fantasize, but there was always a clear limit: Fantasizing about others was cool, fantasizing about others and ME was not cool. Regardless of that, my libido has always been high as well, but I was 100 % sure that I never wanted to "do" anything with anyone ever.

So what changed?

I am... attracted to men, suddenly. Hella. Hella attracted. I work out at the gym 6 x a week and all I do is... stare. (hopefully not in a creepy way, I try to be subtle, but god, some guys there are so freaking hot...?) And I have started to fantasize about me being with other guys now as well, something I had never... ever done before. Okay, maybe once or twice, but always with a reaction like "Haha yeah. Nope. Never ever. UGH."
Now, ironically, I find myself wishing for that... and wishing for that a lot.

I think, for me, it got to do with the fact that I am starting to slowly (slooowly) become more comfortable with my body, or I at least see a future where I can be comfortable with my body now. My "nope" reaction to men when I was younger was probably due to the fact that I was very dysphoric about my femininity, although I did not know a thing about what transgender was, and I did not like the thought of being "the woman" in a relationship with a man. I guess my past me thought that I could be more "masculine" in a relationship with a girl, so I tried to be attracted to them (and ultimately failed), and in the end I decided I could be with nobody because I'd always feel bad about myself.

Now that my body and how others see me is slowly changing, I... am more comfortable being attracted to men. I am still rather feminine, but I at least know I'm a guy and that I'm on my way to manhood.

So I went from identifying as lesbian to asexual and now... I'd say I'm gay? But I'm more confused about all of this than anything else.

In the end, I guess T does play a role? In the sense that it's making me more okay with my body, and thus more comfortable exploring a sexuality that I repressed for soo long because of dysphoria. But as I said, I noticed this change about two months after my coming out, when everyone started using male pronouns for me and I started feeling a bit more secure about my gender identity.

[Jonathan L]

Wow, nbnik and ollyander, a lot of what you've both said resonates with me. I've been attracted to men since I was a kid, but when I got to the age of dating everything felt a bit off. Around high school I started going back and forth about whether or not I liked women too. This is terribly heteronormative of me, I guess, but it always felt like there was more space for me to feel like a guy when I liked women, whereas with men I was always conscious of having to be a woman. I always had a pretty high libido which was why it shocked me when I went completely numb the first time I kissed anyone. I just didn't feel anything. Since my first kiss was with a woman I panicked and thought, do I not like women? So then I kissed a man and the same thing happened. It was like I had to be coaxed into feeling anything and it was just a pale shadow of what I felt when I imagined kissing someone (incidentally whenever I imagined kissing someone or having sex it was as a guy with another guy). So I thought maybe I was just nervous? This was all new to me.

And then I had sex and it was the same, just numb wrongness. Like I could kind of get myself to a point where I enjoyed it but afterwards I would feel really ambivalent about it, like what was so great about sex again? That's when I started thinking maybe I was asexual, but that made no sense to me because I thought about sex all the time, lol. So then I thought maybe this just wasn't the right guy. We didn't know each other that well. So fast forward a few years and I had my first what I might call a boyfriend. Kissing was still weird for me. Sometimes I almost wanted to throw up. Sex was ok, but still not right somehow and I started to wonder why everyone maked such a big deal about kissing and sex when they were both obviously not that great.

When that relationship blew up in my face I had gotten to the point where I was convinced I never wanted to be in a relationship/have sex/kiss someone ever again. I was determined. The idea of marriage particularly made me feel sick to my stomach but I would also feel really jealous of all my friends who were in relationships and getting married. They get to be happy, why can't I??? I would think. And any time a guy showed any interest in me I would panic and get really upset. It wasn't until I started thinking about transitioning again that all the pieces fell together for me. If I could be a man with another man? ->-bleeped-<-, yes. If I could marry another man as a man? Definitely. I've only been on T for about 3 1/2 weeks so I don't know if my sexuality will change or not, but I'm pretty sure I'm not actually asexual at this point I'm more curious to see if my attraction to women becomes stronger or dissipates. I've often wondered if the reason I clung so hard to the bisexual label was more because it was the only thing that allowed me to feel queer for years, since I was obviously not supposed to be a gay man according to everyone else. What I'm really curious to know though is how kissing/sex will feel once I'm more comfortable with my body and people actually see me as a guy. At this point I have no idea if it will actually be better, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it was.

[nbnik]

I don't know what I'd call myself, if I had to call myself anything specific. For ages I've just called myself a word that starts with q and rhymes with ear. (I put it this way because I don't know how admin folks feel about the q word, or how other people here do, for that matter. Just to be safe.)

But that's pretty uninformative, isn't it? It feels like a cop out. The scientist and logician in me want to find and grab hold of a more substantial concept. I suppose, in terms of sexual orientation, who I find attractive in that way, I would have to say I'm pansexual. But as far as being with anyone, I don't know that I would want to be with a cis guy.

It's not a matter of what he's got downstairs or some other sort of dysphoria, for me, but more that I don't necessarily feel comfortable with cis guys in general. I find them attractive -- even though it feels weird to say so -- but for some reason, the idea of being with a cis guy is just... unpalatable, to me. And I don't know for sure if that's just a matter of some internalized issue I have with cis guys. I think it's got a lot to do with just not feeling safe around them, so I just want them to keep their hands to themselves.

That could change, I suppose. I'm beginning to think of my sexuality as a moving target. I mean, I wouldn't say that I've totally come to terms with it, because I'm just over four months on T now, and I'm still hella confused by it. My lizard brain is like, dude, who cares? The rest of my brain is like, um, me. I care. But I think the reason I do is because I don't fully understand it. It's hard for me to accept that my concept of sexuality can be so radically changed just by changing up my hormones.

I think, for me, it got to do with the fact that I am starting to slowly (slooowly) become more comfortable with my body, or I at least see a future where I can be comfortable with my body now. My "nope" reaction to men when I was younger was probably due to the fact that I was very dysphoric about my femininity, although I did not know a thing about what transgender was, and I did not like the thought of being "the woman" in a relationship with a man. I guess my past me thought that I could be more "masculine" in a relationship with a girl, so I tried to be attracted to them (and ultimately failed), and in the end I decided I could be with nobody because I'd always feel bad about myself.

Now that my body and how others see me is slowly changing, I... am more comfortable being attracted to men. I am still rather feminine, but I at least know I'm a guy and that I'm on my way to manhood.

...

In the end, I guess T does play a role? In the sense that it's making me more okay with my body, and thus more comfortable exploring a sexuality that I repressed for soo long because of dysphoria. But as I said, I noticed this change about two months after my coming out, when everyone started using male pronouns for me and I started feeling a bit more secure about my gender identity.

When I was a kid, I liked Barbies, but I also liked legos and play doh. I wasn't happy, but I had this idea in my head that, once I started to get my monthly moonsickness, all this weird discomfort would go away and I would feel all right being called by the name my parents gave me and all the rest of the feminine things that had been assigned to me. That didn't work out, of course, and I went through a phase of trying to teach myself to perform femininity around when puberty hit. That made me feel even worse, so after about six months, I gave up. I found boys attractive, but no one was allowed to know that.

I don't know if this was just because I'm trans or if it had something to do with some other psychological issues I've had, but it seemed v important that this stay a secret. But I think you're right in terms of becoming more comfortable with things like this now that I'm not constantly under the strain of pretending I'm something I'm not. Again, though, I think that if I were to be with a man, I'd feel safer with another trans guy.

This is terribly heteronormative of me, I guess, but it always felt like there was more space for me to feel like a guy when I liked women, whereas with men I was always conscious of having to be a woman.

...

When that relationship blew up in my face I had gotten to the point where I was convinced I never wanted to be in a relationship/have sex/kiss someone ever again. I was determined. The idea of marriage particularly made me feel sick to my stomach but I would also feel really jealous of all my friends who were in relationships and getting married. They get to be happy, why can't I??? I would think.

I was the butchest of butch lesbians, lol. I didn't know why, but I was driven to amp up my masculinity as much as I possibly could. I wanted it to be obvious that I was a giant lesbian who also hated heels and knew eff all about makeup, as obvious as if I wore a neon sign around my neck that said lesbian in big, bright letters.

I honestly have zero interest in marriage, either as a concept or a reality. I listen to my friends talk about getting married and engaged and everything else with polite interest but honestly I'm just bored by it. I might be aromantic or aroflux or something like this, because I suppose I probably could love someone romantically, but it's not something I really want. Never has been.

As I mentioned, I've been in a relationship before, and I thought it had a genuine romantic component at the time, but I'm not convinced now. I knew I found her attractive, but I think I also just really, really wanted to love her, so I made myself believe I did.

I don't think I'm scared of marriage or romantic relationships in general, but I'm just like, meh.

In terms of sexual attraction, it definitely DOES feel weird (to me) to be saying this stuff and meaning it. It doesn't really feel bad, but it certainly does feel weird.

[FTMax]

I identified as a lesbian from about age 12 through 17, when I found out that being trans was a thing. Then I tacked on genderqueer to that, and clung to the lesbian label until I came out at 25. I identify as a straight man now.

I've never had any interest in cisgender men. I've dated other transguys in the past (pre and post coming out), but I don't find it appealing anymore. I almost feel like the masculinity I was attracted to in those people has been replaced by my own masculinity, and I have no interest in doubling down on that? If that makes sense. I've always been attracted to women, and I remain very much attracted to women.

I've never been a very sexual person. When I have sex, it is usually because my partner wants to have sex or because it's been a while and I want to have sex. I wouldn't describe myself as asexual, but about as un-sexual as you can get while not being asexual.

T didn't change my sex drive. I stopped being interested in male-identified people around 3 months on T.

[groudon18]

I used to think maybe I was asexual before transitioning/at the start, though I'd always been romantically interested in men. The more I got through transitioning, the more I felt I would actually be comfortable in a romantic and sexual relationship. I don't know if that's directly from hormones, but it's for sure from becoming more comfortable with my body and identity. I'm in a satisfying, happy relationship with a cis man for almost two years now.

[arice]

Back in my teens when I realized that I was never going to feel like a girl, I thought I might be a lesbian (it was the early 1990s and that seemed the only option for a non-conforming female bodied person). There was just one problem... I wasn't sexually attracted to women (romantic yes, sexual no). So I quickly realized that the lesbian label didn't fit any better than the straight woman label... the problem was with the woman part. I have known for my entire adult life that I am a gay man in this feminine body... but because I'm not "fabulous" (flamingly stereotypically gay) most people didn't believe me. So I passed (often badly) as a tomboy straight woman who much preferred the company of men and couldn't relate to other women.


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[DarkWolf_7]

Sexuality, at least for me, is confusing.

I didn't know the term "asexuality" at the time when it applied to me but that was me for a while. I was very much a late bloomer but for some reason people don't often talk about how sexuality can develop later for people. But since I didn't know about asexuality I just went with the default heterosexuality even though I wasn't really interested in anyone (so I guess you could say I was close to aromantic too).

Kind of stuck onto that label for a while even though eventually girls seemed pretty appealing. I don't think I really felt comfortable in the dating scene until coming out as trans* and transitioning didn't really increase my libido as much as it making more comfortable with the thought of myself being intimate.

[FtMitch]

I have identified as bisexual since high school when I dated a girl for a short period of time, but I have always had a preference for men and only dated that one girl my whole life.  After starting T, my sex drive (which was already really high) was amped WAY up and now I find myself attracted to everyone.  I wouldn't say that T changed my sexuality, but it amplified my sex drive which made me really start noticing both men and women all the time.  Not to mention watching a lot more straight porn.  I don't think T changes sexuality, but I do think it amplifies the sex drive which can make you more aware of attractions that you didn't recognize before.  The fact is that 99% of men have higher sex drives than 99% of women, and this is because of T.  Trust me, as someone who had a SUPER high sex drive before T compared to most people whose bodies only manufacture estrogen (I was a huge BDSMer and enjoyed countless one night stands), after starting T the change was enormous.  So don't feel alone in the fact that your sexuality seems affected.  It's really not changing some innate part of you, it's just bringing out interests that the estrogen didn't touch because it isn't as powerful when it comes to causing arousal.

[nbnik]

I have identified as bisexual since high school when I dated a girl for a short period of time, but I have always had a preference for men and only dated that one girl my whole life.  After starting T, my sex drive (which was already really high) was amped WAY up and now I find myself attracted to everyone.  I wouldn't say that T changed my sexuality, but it amplified my sex drive which made me really start noticing both men and women all the time.  Not to mention watching a lot more straight porn.  I don't think T changes sexuality, but I do think it amplifies the sex drive which can make you more aware of attractions that you didn't recognize before.  The fact is that 99% of men have higher sex drives than 99% of women, and this is because of T.  Trust me, as someone who had a SUPER high sex drive before T compared to most people whose bodies only manufacture estrogen (I was a huge BDSMer and enjoyed countless one night stands), after starting T the change was enormous.  So don't feel alone in the fact that your sexuality seems affected.  It's really not changing some innate part of you, it's just bringing out interests that the estrogen didn't touch because it isn't as powerful when it comes to causing arousal.

That makes sense. I also still think that, like others have said in this thread, taking T can make you feel a little more comfortable in your attractions and body? I doubt that's true for everyone, but for me, the more I think about it, the more I feel like maybe I was just hella repressed in terms of sexuality prior to T.

And like, it's probably due to the chemical nature of the hormones themselves, including the differences between T and estrogen. But I think it's also possibly a psychological thing for some people. I have limited experience as far as being with other people, but even so, the last time I didn't feel remotely aroused was before I knew what that even meant.

So I identified as ace, even though I had a high sex drive, because I would be aroused a lot, but I wouldn't feel like it was directed at anything or anyone in particular, if that makes sense.

But as I said, now I'm thinking that it's more a matter of no longer repressing attraction rather than feeling it for the first time, exactly. I don't know if that makes sense, but I think the T made me a little more open to attraction psychologically, which was convenient, since it made sexual attraction much more difficult to ignore.

I'm still not sure about romantic attraction. I don't rule it out, but to me, it's just something I've heard of and not something I really understand. So, on the one hand, I might be aromantic, which is fine. I've never had a desire to have anything approaching a traditional nuclear family sort of lifestyle. But since I don't really understand romantic attraction anyway, I'm not even sure I'd know it if I felt it.

I'm definitely more into porn, as well, and it's not restricted to any one type as far as straight/gay/etc. I think I've become a more visual person in general, but that's where I first noticed it. It's interesting to me, on a personal level and in a more general scientific way, as well, and I guess it surprised me because I did quite a bit of research on T before I started it, and I don't remember getting any indication that all this would happen. I'm not complaining, mind you. I'm just saying that it was a surprise.