Guys I don't mean to be beat a horse to death by discussing this topic but I really don't have anywhere else to turn. I thank you guys for allowing me to post and be open. So I've stated that I'm struggling with my sexuality. A few years back I got a little curious about experimenting with another guy that I worked with and was willing to try with me. I also got to experiment with his wife. They seemed to be a pretty open couple. Or they were just willing to help me. That is beside the point. So after experimenting with them both I just felt so awkward and ashamed from it all. It even went as far as having a threeway with this couple. I couldn't even make eye contact and was ashamed and guilty of it all. I was able to perform during it all. I just got really nervous and had to stop. Does this all have to do with our intimacy being taken away or destroyed in a way and all screwed up? Part of me really wants to have a wife and kids but then I really think I might be gay. I just don't know what all this means. I don't like in our society that we must define people by their sexuality. Why does it have to have such a negative connotation. I know I need to happy with myself and try not to worry about others but I seem to get stuck in this need to please others. I really want to happy with myself but I just wonder if that has been taken away for good. I also just kind feel awkward in life in general. Nothing seems to feel right and I seem to be more comfortable by myself and alone which I've been told isn't healthy. I just wonder how to interact with other guys. Sometimes I think guys can sense my fear, uncertainty and then start to question me if I'm gay. Now I'm getting off topic. Your input, advice would be greatly appreciated.

Charlie.

Ask yourself this - in that threesome, if you subtract the female - how did you feel, erection ot no erection, who did you want to do most. There is your answer.

Whatever that answer is - just accpet it and stop busting your head about what it means.

Whatever it is that you like - there you are!!!

Charlie...

feel free to beat the dead horse, glue and sausage can come in handy. :-)

As someone with Fsck'd up sexuality who was raised to hate let it be known that healing can and does occur... I'm sure not the poster child for Healed Weekly; however, I have made strides over the past couple of years. Therapy support groups both 12-step and therapist led abused boys groups... I hear an undertone of seeking approval. At my core are a couple of selfish and self centered fears those being my fears of abandonment and rejections, which drive me to seek the external approval and nurture that I did not get. These fears have driven my aberrant behaviours with food, work, and sex... this has fed my shame cycle until I hit my bottom and committed emotional suicide.

Open yourself to being led to greater healthy human contact and support groups be the spiritual, emotional, clerical or whatever... submit yourself to the will of the Most High and you will be led to your path.

Love and Hope, Wes

I take it you are a CSA?

Charlie
there is a difference between being gay
having same sex attraction
having unwanted same sex attraction set up by csa and subsequent association.

or you might be just experiamenting, curious
which might say nothing about your sexual orientation
you might just ant sex and don't care where you get it.

I do recommend that you care where you get sex
because it's about relationship
not just sexual indulgance

our moral boundaries might be there for a reason
just a thought

Nathan

i think it is very important, especially here in the sexual identity forum, that people be careful about such statements, or at least qualify them by being less vague regarding exactly what personal meaning such a statement holds for them.

i don't see how this issue is a moral dilemma for charlie, and making this statement may cue people to think that there is something wrong with them for not feeling as if there should be.

reinforcing cultural and personal shame ideas that sex is bad, is not helpful in a place where men come to find recovery from negative attitudes and messages. the impact of these only contribute to the disassociation which helped form the dissonance state in which such 'concerns' arise.

morality is relative to the individual's value system. one man's boundary may be another's liberty. and regarding sexual experimentation, who is to say what someone elses moral boundary should be. that is a private matter between individuals.

i think all the questions that are raised in the original query are valid questions, and show that charlie is in touch with what is going on inside himself, unlike many of us who come here is a disassociative state.

it is natural to experiment with different sexual configurations, and commendable that someone is able to report on their own reaction to them in such as manner as to say, 'yea, i like that' or 'no, that is not it'. it's part of the process of learning how to form a sexual identity. a process so many of us missed out on because the abuse more or less drove us into relationships that were not right for us.

to ask questions is healthy. to be able to rule out certain possibilities is healthy. to be able to come to male survivor and ask for support with an issue is healthy.

to act responsibly in sexual experimentation is recommended. by no means should it be avoided because of a cultural taboo against sexual things. shutting the door on sexuality and locking it behind a chastity belt does nothing but cause people more pain and suffering, mentally emotionally and otherwise. we can't keep running from the responsibility that we have to ourselves to unpack and to explore the topic of sexuality in healthy and responsible ways. it is part of becoming fully human, fully alive.

just some thoughts that arose,

ron