When did you 'figure out' your 'sexuality' or have you never really understood it?

I didn't discover sex until mid-20's, never had girlfriends in school or when I tried university after high school. Parents were divorced when I was 12, neither of them ever talked to me or tried to help me navigate 'discovering' what sex and sexual attraction meant or was. I've never been big on friends in general, and throughout most of my childhood I always did things by myself.

I've always felt very confused about sexuality and sexual preferences, and don't feel I've ever really understood where I stand/sit/walk in that space.

Anecdotally, a lot of people seem that they 'worked it out' early on in teenage years, or they 'knew instinctively' what their sexuality and sexual preferences were by the time they became adults. I can't say that's happened for me.

I suppose for me because I doubt myself so much in terms of social anxiety and have a massive fear of everything around sexual attraction, sex, intimacy, relationships, etc. I find sexuality, etc. to be a 'blocked out' topic area in my mental 'library'.

Being single long term in a 'couples world' (as manufactured 1st-world cultures tend to be) kinda makes you question everything about your understanding of human intimate/sexual interactions because everything focuses on being 'coupled' and as a single person you're socially an outlier.

I'd love to get other people's perspectives on all this as I know we're all different.

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BearLeeDangLing · M

I can vividly remember when I was around 8 or 9 years old and my mom's younger sister, my aunt, was babysitting me. She told me to get a bath, so I went and got in the tub and closed the shower curtain while I was in there. A few minutes later, the shower curtain sprang open and she was looking at me!
I was mortified and angry, no one outside of my mom had seen me naked for years.
She was looking directly at my thingy!
I yelled at her to get out and she eventually did.
That was the first time my "little man" tingled a bit that I can remember.
I think that one event, which I can still see vividly in my mind today, triggered something in me.
I won't go into what that may be...lol

ThePatientAnarchist · 61-69

What would you be hoping for in working out or discovering your sexual orientation? It seems to me that if you continue to live life alone it really doesn't matter, and if you are hoping for an intimate relationship then compatibility with another human would be much more important than working out beforehand what your desires are. They can and do change. But maybe I'm missing something?

BohoBabe · M

I remember there being a period of realizing I was bi, I think I was 13 or 14. It didn't last too long, since I was already fine with the concept of queerness. I didn't have internalized homophobia or anything like that.

zonavar68 · 56-60, M

@BohoBabe Did you feel that discovering and learning about sexuality was a 'positive space'? I guess that's what I'm alluding to as for me the entire subject of sex, relationships, intimacy, sexuality, etc. has always felt like it's a 'negative space' ever since childhood when it was effectively 'shut down' and 'locked out'. However feeling I'm not neuro-typical now in mature age could well have been a contributor in childhood as I would have felt different about it compared to most others. My mum (rip) claimed I have 'aspergers' (what we call 'ASD' today) though I was never clinically assessed during my childhood and effectively just left to fend for myself in everything about becoming adult. Haivng no loving parental family unit certainly did not help. Sometimes I feel I wasn't wanted by my parents though that's only ever been a suspicion.

BohoBabe · M

@zonavar68 It was for me because a have a lot of friends who were cool with queer people.

It's probably not that your parents didn't want you, it was just that they were raising you in a time where there was a lot less support for the parents of neuroatypical kids. They probably felt overwhelmed at times. I'm also neuroatypical, so I drove my parents crazy, but in a funny way.

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