Hi, All.

As I experience the feelings and establish my own place in life, I am feeling sensations in my skin in areas of my body that I thought I would never have again.

This is exciting but somewhat strange.

I also am attracted want to have sex with (I am single) men younger than me. I am 45. I will not act on the attractions at this time but the "feelings" are uncomfortable
as I aware of the feelings so wanting to be more assertive than I have been in the past.

The new sensations and being assertive are so new to me.

I had a great weekend out with a group of other gay men at a retreat that was NOT sexual and I learned aLOT about myself.

Peace,
DJ

Good to hear about the retreat being a good experience! I'm really happy for you.

I think you are experiencing stuff we hit upon before, the releasing of your sexuality. The interesting part of this is going to be that some of the feelings are going to be your emerging sexuality, some of the feelings are going to be legacy feelings that you've buried for so long. The trick is going to be sorting them out.

The other challenge is that for some guys (me included), your sexuality provides strong emotions (wants and desires) for physical contact. The issue can be, has the survivor developed and progressed far enough along to be able to keep himself safe emotionally? Can we protect our heart from getting emotionally involved too quickly? Do we have a tough enough skin to take rejection? If we don't, these sexual encounters can be extremely triggering and provide us with another instance of feeling abused instead of a healthy, beneficial sexual encounter.

This is really something you need to consider and discuss with a therapist. I know it is hard, especially since these new feelings are SO STRONG! And isn't nice to feel these things again?

Protect yourself - head and heart.

Peace and love...

Michael