r/questioning • • 1h ago

Questions About What/Who I Am [F 26]

• Upvotes

Hello, I am reaching out to see if i can find help in identifying what I am or at least help me understand myself a bit better
I always thought I was Demi Bisexual but now I don't feel so sure. I don't have many friends or family who are part of the LGBT so I have no one to turn to for this. And the few friends I do have when i talk to them say I'm just picky or "don't really know what I want" which is really making me question myself lately

I know I am attracted to men and women, and honestly am a bit hypersexual. In terms of actual attraction I am into personality and the smallest thing that seems to be problematic is a turn off that makes my attraction go "nope not anymore see ya". I have tried like hook ups before and while the sex was nice its more just ".........yea that happened time to move on".

Like I could find someone sexually attractive, think about wanting to have sex with that person, but then their personality if its terrible then I want nothing to do with them (like all physical/sexual attraction to that person goes off like a light switch and its just dead to me at that point), I feel romantic feelings for someone but its more i have to get to know them as a person. THEN i could see them romantically but even then that same switch can go off if they do/say something that makes my mind go "nope"

Like lets say an anime character for example; if the character is drawn attractive and i find him attractive and may think "oh i would like to have sex with that person" but if his personality is "i'm a jerk because FUCK YOU" then all that attraction is just gone and i can't feel it anymore. But in this same example, if i found a character attractive and their personality is the perfect thing i have ever felt its like i have a romantic feeling (like love or a crush) to that character cause i know their personality (hopefully this helps me explain things clearer/better)

I know I am more into personality and its hard to connect romantically in my opinion cause I don't know if I'm just picky like they said or if I'm something else, any help or advice would be nice.

Thank you


r/questioning • • 2h ago

[M 24] I know how I feel about my gender, but I'm wondering if I should find a label for it

1 Upvotes

TL;DR (this is a long one): I would currently identify myself as a cis male with a very loose attachment to my gender, and am fairly gender non-conforming personality-wise and aesthetically. I'm wondering if it might be worth using a label to describe that more clearly and feel more like I belong in the queer environments I already end up in. If so I'm wondering what labels would best describe my experience.

My personality and interests is/are not traditionally masculine, and also not traditionally feminine, I am just me and don't really consider my gender as part of it. When I'm buying clothes I will equally look at men's and women's, and I wear skirts and other traditionally feminine-perceived clothing as if it were anything else in my wardrobe - the only thing that limits this is fear for my safety in public depending on what I'm doing that day. Some days I wear a T-shirt and jeans and I can love how that looks on me just as much as a skirt and a crop top, and it doesn't feel like the genderfluid thing of having different 'modes'.

I feel like a boy, and if asked I will say I'm a boy, and after a lot of deep dissecting of my thoughts over the years I feel pretty comfortable with the fact I am physically a boy. I went through a questioning phase of whether I'm transfem, but ultimately I don't feel like I want to be a woman any more than a man, and if I were born a woman I'm certain I would feel exactly the same the other way around, and my approach to fashion for instance would be largely similar albeit with the opposite childhood socialisation. I don't really get much gender dysphoria, and when I do it's generally smaller annoyances and usually practical things, like wishing I could wear a top that doesn't fit well on a flat chest, or being frustrated when shaving about how thick my body hair gets. I am a bit offput by male fat distribution I guess, but none of it a super cutting feeling, and I plenty of things I like about being male. So I definitely don't feel transfem.

What stops me from relating to a non-binary identity is a little harder to explain. Again, it feels like my gender is a very loose part of who I am; I aim to not let the fact I was born with a Y chromosome impact how I express myself or create rules about who I am. To identify as non-binary does ditch a lot of rules. But it's also strongly relating to a gender identity where there are no rules, versus not placing any weight on my gender and thus rejecting/ignoring the rules of whatever gender I happen to be. It wouldn't change anything practical for me to be non-binary, because I already don't care about what gender I am. I actually think the idea someone like me should be non-binary or be pushed towards that is kind of problematic, like we're meant to be loosening gender roles and rejecting that clothes have gender but when I dress more fem wth a new friend group I nearly always get asked if I'm non-binary or trans becuase heaven forbid a man just dress like that.

Pronouns are kind of a difficult topic for me. I do not care and think it's completely unimportant what pronouns people use for me, but I'm male and have used he/him forever so I expect people to just use that. Being asked about pronouns can even feel kind of cutting because it comes up when I'm meeting someone new and it reduces all the deep feelings I'm talking about here into a little tiny box. And I can only honestly and accurately fill that box with he/him, which in a lot of the communities where pronouns are being asked basically feels like I'm flagpoling "I have no depth in my feelings about gender". I've said before to use any pronouns or just written he/they just so people get the idea more immediately but honestly even defining an answer to the question feels weird. It's just so completely unimportant to me.

So while it is always evolving, I am pretty confident about how I feel about my gender and those feelings are fairly developed. However, I'm considering whether the way I label and communicate that feeling is appropriate to my situation.

In general I currently describe myself as cis. I've actually made it a point of pride that I push the line on what being a cis man is in terms of fashion and expression. But I feel like not having some kind of label I can use to describe the different way I express my gender has grown limiting and honestly stigmatising sometimes. It's a weird example maybe but I feel kind of bad when I fill in a survey saying I'm a white cis he/him male, yes I can often say I'm bisexual, but it feels like a big asterisk is missing on the cis male bit. Like I'm adding just another cis white guy to the demographic data and underrepresenting people with queer identities.

I can feel a bit excluded from queer communities, often just getting my foot in the door by being bi and then letting the people I meet organically figure out the gender element. I've been personally invited to a couple of trans events, so my friends do clearly get it. Meeting people is tricky though, I either have to let them make assumptions or give a whole explainer of my feelings, there's no super clear cut way to sum it up. Being in the arts there can even be funding opportunities and so on that I miss out on because I've chosen to still identify as a cis male when practically-speaking my gender experience and how it impacts my life is far closer to a non-binary person's than the default cis male experience.

What I'm considering is whether there is a label that might describe my experience well, and I can begin to use, even without doing anything larger-scale like identifying more as non-binary etc.

Queer or genderqueer as umbrella terms is my starting point, but both are pretty vague and maybe I'm wrong but non-binary seems assumed with them sometimes. I guess I'm just trying to brainstorm what words I could use to explain these feelings without new people needing to host a mini therapy session while I break down my deep feelings about gender. Or whether this would even be appropriate. I know my feelings here are valid but I don't really know how to best tackle the roadblocks I hit from my identity.

Thanks to anyone who reads this!

(btw I'm bi and on the ace spectrum but neither is super relevant for this)


r/questioning • • 7h ago

[31 AFAB] Questioning my gender

1 Upvotes

After thinking I was a trans man for several months, I think I made the discovery that I might be nonbinary.

For me, I like the name Vesper, I like the neopronouns Thon/Thons, and when I try to express my gender in video games, I like a more androgynous body type and usually pick the pronoun They/Them.

As much as packing and binding have both been good experiences for me, I feel like I still hold on to womanhood and/or femininity.

I don't feel like much of a woman nor do I feel like much of a man.

I have been curious about being more androgynous and seem to think being nonbinary would be more cool than being a binary man.

And thats why I feel confused. I feel a mix of masculinity and femininity within me, to the point that now I am going by the labels Genderqueer and Androgyne.

I think Androgyne fits me more because I like mix and matching feminine clothes with masculine clothes.

Please help me out with finding a nonbinary label for myself.


r/questioning • • 10h ago

[F 24] Questioning my sexuality when my physical attraction and sexual interests don't line up.

1 Upvotes

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24f, I've been questioning my sexuality for a while and I feel like I'm going in circles trying to figure this out, so I wanted to see if anyone else has experienced something similar. I've identified as pansexual loosely most of my life, and more recently as just queer.

I'm very physically attracted to women. When I see a woman's body that I'm attracted to, I actually feel sexually aroused. I like boobs, ass, female genitals, etc. I mostly only masturbate to women, and the idea of a woman wanting me sexually is appealing to me. I've also had some experiences with women before, just never to the point of sexual touching. I have had SA experiences from a woman before though.

But I'm not sure how I feel about actually having sex with a woman in actuality. I don't know why I'm uncertain about it. I can't tell if it's just the unfamiliarity of it or something else. It's not a matter of disgust either. I'm also not keen on the idea of a romantic relationship with a woman.

With men, it's pretty much the opposite. I don't really look at men in public and feel attracted to them. Men's bodies don't do much for me physically, and I don't generally feel that same kind of sexual response when I see one. I also have a lot of negative associations with men in general because of my many, many traumatic sexual abuse/general abuse experiences with them.

At the same time, I do enjoy the idea of sex with men, but it's mostly about the role I play in the act and how the man treats me. I'm submissive and masochistic, and the idea of a dominant, sadistic man who enthusiastically desires my body is very appealing to me, especially someone who is genuinely attracted to chubbier women and makes that obvious. The power dynamic, being touched, being desired, and the validation are all part of what appeals to me.

But I don't necessarily find the man himself physically attractive. It's more about what happens between us and how he makes me feel. That being said, I enjoy sexual acts with men and with cock, I'm just not visually attracted to those parts. I don't really want a relationship with a man either as of now, but have had one long term previously and have attempted dating men since. I've only had sex with two people, and they were both men, one being my long term ex. Neither were particularly great or fulfilling experiences.

I also tend to be much more interested in male fictional characters than female ones, intensely so, but it's not really a visual attraction thing as much as it is what the character represents, his themes, the kind of man he is, etc, but I don't know how much that actually says about my attraction to real people or if there's much overlap there. I know I'm very attracted to the worst of the worst in fictional men, like Leland Coyle from the Outlast Trials, but I wouldn't say that's my type remotely irl. I also don't particularly have a type irl.

I guess what confuses me is that if I had to choose between a hypothetical sexual encounter with a woman whose body I'm attracted to and a man who fits the dynamic I described, my first instinct would be the man. But when I actually think about it, I'm not sure whether I want the man himself because he's a man, or if I just want the experience and the dynamic, and the feeling of being wanted by him.

I'm not trying to force myself into a particular label, I don't care much about that (though it would be nice to have something easier to explain myself with) but I would like to understand what I'm experiencing and see if there's anyone else like me, and see if there's a term I'm just not aware of. I don't have anyone irl who cares to engage with me on this topic. I'm also questioning if I'm aromantic or just avoidant, but that could be its own post. I'm also hypersexual but have not had sex outside of relationships, so I'm essentially celibate at the moment.


r/questioning • • 14h ago

[22 F] and I don't know my orientation anymore

1 Upvotes

So I have struggled a lot throughout my life with my identity. When I was 13 or 14 I tried to come out to my family. I was bisexual and my mother had put the fear of God into me. She cried for 3 days and three nights and told me that I was going to hell and that she was never going to see me again and I think for her that hit particularly really hard because she already feels like she's not going to see my dad again who had passed when I was younger.

Because of this event I feel like I force myself to behave straight. I also feel like fun of this event, I cultivated a lot of internalized homophobia and I genuinely find women attractive, but I don't know if I'd be able to have physical intimacy because of all of the homophobia I have been exposed to that is what I am used to being conditioned to think. For instance, my mom will talk about how gross she thinks Genitalia is especially woman and I think that left an imprint in my thinking. However, when it comes to women, I am so much more intellectually stimulated with them. They're much more kind and would stimulate me more emotionally.

I still catch myself vying for male attention But I'm not sure if that comes from the fact that my father passed when I was younger or if I actually like men I genuinely hate them with a burning passion from my experiences. But there are physical attributes that I find attractive. If I do hang around with men or try to find a man that I might potentially like, I go after men who have been raised around women or almost always surrounded by women. I do not like a man's man and ussaly prefer if they are just a little gay 🤣.

I know with whatever label I choose I 100% asexual and that is probably what is putting a damper in trying to figure out who I truly am.

Thank you all for listening to my story I appreciate any advice!