Hello!

I'm a brand new member to MaleSurvivor, so I don't know if I should label this as a "triggering" post. I can say that it isn't explicit or graphic.

I'm also brand new to the LGBT community--as in I haven't quite decided to come out yet, or not. I'm 47 going on 14, and I still haven't figured it out.

Anyway. My question is this:

How can I know if the fantasies I have are real feelings of attraction towards men, or simply a way of replaying my past, re-traumatizing myself?

When I was 13 going on 14 I hated having sex with him, everything about it. That continued for five more years, when he raped me one last time as a freshman in college.

And then as I approached my twenties, working on an English major in college, I read gay poets like Walt Whitman, and Allen Ginsberg, and found a dark, forbidden lust, and I didn't know what to do with it. I was also smoking a lot of pot at the time, and in those pot drenched fantasies, there HE was again, the man who raped me all those years, and the lust, the obsessive fascination became so great, I actually took the steps to meet him, and "seduce" him. By that time he was completely gone from my life. I never had to see him again. But I couldn't keep away the fantasies, so I decided to reach out to him and try to act them out. I thought it might be a way of taking back control.

I was wrong. His power over me was undeniable, and the experience of having sex with him was miserable.

But somehow, it helped me realize that all the ugliness he made me feel was not my fault, but his own projection on to me. It felt good to know that he was just an awful lover, who hated his own body, his own urges so much he could never meet me openly and honestly.

But the obsessive fascination didn't go away. For more than thirty years, I've done this inner dance with him--disgust, revulsion, arousal, lust.

Then out of the blue, a close friend of mine came out of the closet, a friend I really respected, trusted, and it completely blindsided me. I had absolutely no clue that he was gay. I spent the next ten years turning my friend over and over in my mind. Could this respect, this friendship have turned into sexual love, under the right circumstances?

And does that mean I'm gay, or bi?

How do you know--given what has happened to all of us here--what you really feel? How can I trust my attraction towards men, when the only man who ever had sex with me was raping me? Now that I'm careening towards 50, it's hard to know what I really feel anymore.

Thank you for your help with this!

Heal well,

E

Welcome to MS, wounded
(mountainous in my name comes from years spent skiing in Colorado)

It takes time to untangle sexuality ripped open by abuse and starved by years of false solutions, fantasy, and isolation. I had a lot of fear and shame tied in with my sexuality and had to seek help in a twelve step program for compulsive sexual behavior-that helped me examine and review and talk about my history and start to make sense of the path I had been on. It wasn't until a few years later that the SA came out and now I see how much this impacted my development sexually.

There is healing and affirmation- but facing the past - all of it- was necessary for me to get through it and untangle it.

I'm really thankful that this is one of those questions I just don't really have to deal with. I'm gay, always been, always will be. Even when I was in elementary school I knew I was different and once puberty hit I figured out why, when all my friends were checking out girls and I was checking them out. And I think on some level other people knew it, too, for some of the stereotypical reason (didn't like sports, more "sensitive" than others, etc). But stereotypes exist for a reason I guess. And in fact some of my abuse actually stemmed from being gay and being an easy target I think.

Wish I knew what to tell you. Sexuality's just insanely complex and I don't know if the reasons that anyone likes what they like are ever really knowable. I mostly try to stay away from the whole sexual identity question since I find the language around SSA and recovery from it pretty invalidating. And much of the anxiety about homosexuality seems to stem from a religion that I don't share.

I dunno, I guess maybe just take heart in the fact that homosexuality or the behaviors involved appear in nearly all species. So however it got there, whether nature or (dis)nurture or some combo thereof, at least it's not like you're a total perversion or anything.

three things i feel are helpful for any survivor struggling with ssa/sexual orientation issues:

1: love yourself, and forgive yourself for your feelings
2: address the shame you have around the abuse and around your attractions
3: look deeply at yourself in the mirror, ask questions, and trust your heart- your heart knows what your mind can not see

i feel that many many people have been wounded by>

i totaly understand where grump is comeing from. I ues to have vivid dreams in secound graed, about runing off on whiet horses with some of my best freinds, to play togther forever. Being gay..isn't about sex, i mean look at the statistics, there are millions of "str8" men out there that get blown daily by gay men. It's a fact, i've done it..sad to say. So shocker guys, being gay really has less to do with acutaly sex, and more to do with members of the SAME SEX! Yup..it's true, see caues being gay isn't about what hole you'd choes or if you really like penises over vaginas. What it comes down to is Love, can you be romanticly linked in a wonderfuly healthy relationship, ok if you can, can you do it with a Dued? IF YES, congrads, welcome to the club, here's your gay card, it's good for halfe off on gliter and pink shiny objects..wooooh! If not then your not gay..sorry you didn't win the gentic jack pot for guys, try again with in the Karmic cycel of rebirth. Well that's my simplestic 2 cents..the reality is..this is all very confuesing shit..sexuality isn't black or whiet it's shades of gray, problem is our society isn't built to deal with that. I hope you can find peace and love at last.
Tom.