My Gender/Sexuality Crisis

[Guest Laura T.]

Hello everyone.

I am having a crisis concerning my gender and my orientation . It is ongoing and disrupting to my welling.

i will try to explain, but my thought process is chaotic right now and what follows may contain logical fallacies, inaccuracies, and inconsistencies as well as a few contradictions.

I apologize in advance.

The two main points are my Gender and my Orientation. I feel the need to talk about how each is affecting the other and how the result of these interactions affects my Mental sanity and functionality in my daily life.

I am currently unsure about my Gender Identity as Well as my Sexual Orientation as Severe doubt has been cast on each recently.

On Facebook i joined an LGBT group and that group has just concluded a week long safari into the lesser known corners of the community, revealing several overlooked sub-groups, such as Pansexuals, Transsexuals, and Asexuals. It was the last group, Asexuals, That intrigued me more then i think it should have.

Doing my own research into the subject i discovered a wealth of information and resources that i still have yet to fully grasp. On the face of it, it seemed as though I might actually be considered an Asexual, that is what has started this current crisis.

it has been this second guessing of what i have long since assumed that has doomed me yet again. i was now fated to rethink and doubt my knowing of my Gender, and my Orientation,

So, now i am curious as why i felt so sure i might be Asexual, i read a few testimonials and browsed a few blog posts of asexual experience and i think that i found commonalities with those people. most of some of a few of those peoples words resonnated loudly with me but here comes the contradiction that plagues me, I enjoy sex or at least, i think do.

I enjoy fantasy, Erotic thoughts. i enjoy viewing pornographic imagery and very much enjoy indulging in erotic literature. surly this is proof that i am not asexual right? I am not sure, i know i like thoughts but it is the actions that i find my self uneasy about.

I have had "sex" once, i don't consider it a complete sexual experience as not every thing went as i had planned it. and maybe i should have thought twice before pursing that encounter.

Even now i am left unsure if i actually enjoyed it. i didn't know if it was because the conditions weren't right or if i wasn't ready yet, but there a lot of feelings here that i haven't figured out yet.

The reason I even went as far as i did is because at the time i was on a journey of self discovery that wouldn't let me end until i had fulfilled what it was that i felt needed to be discovered. i felt i needed to experience sex as a woman. maybe i needed to prove i could do something i set my mind out to do, maybe i really liked him, maybe i was just pressured into it by the mood of the party,

I want to think that i enjoyed it, that i was a real woman, that i reached a milestone and that i i could be proud, but honestly i don't know how to feel about that experience, did i accomplish something? dose that prove that i do indeed like men? that i can have real emotional attachment? these are the questions i was so desperate to answer and still i want answered. and what really makes me so sad is that i don't have thees answers.

Even as a sit here writing this, i have to call into question my Actual gender, because there has to be one right? I tell my self i am a woman, i am a girl, i am feminine but all the evidence suggests otherwise, i look like a man, i act like a man and to every one i am and yet, i don't know.

the real truth to it all is simply that i do not know. i pretend to know and i fear the vulnerability of never knowing. I want to know.

I know that as it is, i am not a woman, and looking at it realistically i don't think i can ever become one physically, not magically, not in the eyes of the majority, or even most of the world but myself? can i see what other will never be able to? and what is the point if only i see it?

Seeing is believing, actions speaks louder then words, so if seeing my self in the mirror and going places as Laura isn't enough to convince even myself, then what is the point?

even if i can be Laura just here, or in my room or with a friend at the mall two towns over, is it worth all of this, thees constant times of angst and breakdown, deteriorating logical loops? so much pain for a little happiness.

i feel, i am human, i resent, i fear and i loath, constantly i am aware.

I don't know if i am Asexual, i don't want to hide under another label, and if it's true that i am i would want it to be because that was the actuality,

I don't like sex, i don't want to be sexual with any one, but why? do the reasons matter? should i even dig that deep? what can i find out and why am i scared to look,

Am i a Man even if i dont know what it is that makes me one? Can i ever discover what it is that makes some one female? Can what ever i am ever equl either of those? and do i even what that? do i even what to know?

I have always assumed to be the opposite of what i am not.

Not knowing if i am a man i assume that i am not, therefor i must be female? but if i can never be female and i can not be male i must not be either, but if i feel i am a woman one day, am i? even if the other days i am unsure? can i be a woman sometimes? is that too confusing and complicated to be a truth?

I don't know how to feel like a man to tell you that i have ever felt like one. nor do i know what it is like to feel like a woman yet i can say that every so often and that is very often i do feel i am a woman, and i cant explain that.

why dose this happen? have i blocked out any ability to know masculinity? have i made it so taboo? that i can not even examine it?

Dose a man need to know what makes him a man in order to know that he is a man? and if he doesn't know what makes him a man is he still a man?

dose this thing exist? because i don't think i know what it is.

if there are men that know they are men even with out knowing what it is that makes them so, then surly i am not a man.

and if i am not a man then i am neither one or i am a woman.

and if i am neither a man nor a woman then what am i? and if what i am is something how dose that something exist in this world? what is acceptable for a something to be? how is a something to feel?

that is something i wish to know.

But, if i am not nither a man nor a woman and i am not a man but insted i am actually a woman, am i to pursue what it is a woman is to be?

do i just emulate that which a woman is and dose? can i even become a woman or do i just have to be one? and how do i know that i am one? if i dont realy know how a woman feels and i say that i feel like a woman, am i wrong?

as you can see this is an endless logic loop that never ends in a good place, so i need to navigate away from here,

if you have read this far, i apologies again, you dont need to answer all the previous questions in a reply. this is sortta just what i need to do right now, and i don't think any one actually needed to read this, and i could have probabbly just written this in a text file and deleted it but i didn't't and its here,

so i guess im done now,

yep....

its like 10 in the morning, i got off work at am and i took a shower, that wasent fun. i didint breakdown or nothing, i just got really down, its like anger and sadness and tiredness, like paying to see a lousy movie that you are forced to sit through you just want it to end, this feeling is like that movie.

so again im sorry, and im just gonna push the post button now...

thanks for moving your eyes across the screen, ...

[VickySGV]

This is not something that can be resolved quickly and once and for all time! Considering the fact that the brain is the largest single organ involved in both gender and sexuality, it is going to be a while before it is completely sorted out, and you may need to accept the fact you never will get is sorted perfectly, or if you do on one day, that it will be in a wholly different sort order within the hour of making it perfect, but the new order will also be perfect in its time and then only for that time.

I may not have wisdom, but I do have experience at nearly 66 years of age that says that my "sexuality" is the more variable of the two issues, but not in the most common sense of normal sexuality ideas. I fathered three children, and while the intimate relationships that resulted in my fertilizing their mother's ova was pleasant and not traumatic to me, neither was it the stuff of legends. Note the word "legends"!! From the experience, I learned that two things were there that are never mentioned in legends, one is the communication between the partners issue, and the second issue was that of trusting the other person with your body and its senses. Our intimacy of communication, which exists today, although we have both been legally divorced and both celibate with no effort, is still very real and lasting for thirty years this coming June. For reasons I will not discuss fully, the trust of physical intimacy and accessibility to our bodies has changed. For me it was the growing certainty that our sex life had shown me that I did not feel right about my birth organs of sex being as they were. It was this discovery of un-rightness that has kept me in an Asexual mode for three decades, but now as a Post Op, the new configuration is waiting and possibly ready for physical intimacy with a male, IF I can develop the communication intimacy first.

This is my path, and it is many years in your future if it is the same for you. The best I can give you is a hope of peace as you work out and on your journey. The journey has no need to be completed by tomorrow's dawn. 40 or more years from now you may still be on it. It is and can be maddening, but take your mind off of it, and use your brain for other things for now, and you will have a chance for happiness.

[Charlize]

Somehow we have the feeling that we must have sex for happiness and peace. I felt that and my wife did possibly more than i. I was a mediocre lover. We had children but it never seemed right. I was expected to be a pursuer and i wanted to be pursued if that makes any sense. It caused both of us stress but we just kept being close regardless. I can't say that there were never amazing moments but it never became a real part of my life. I had desire but didn't know how to let myself go.

Some of this history is ,i'm sure, wrapped up with my gender feelings and expression. I am happy now that with long term abstinence, age and HRT thoughts of a sexual nature rarely come up. To have sex i always needed a close relationship and i'm not planing on getting to that soon so for now peace reigns.

Hugs,

Charlie

[Miss_Y]

I'm not as experienced as some of the other people here and I'm certainly not a professional by any definition of the word. I would have to say everyone is unique however, it's unlikely that you will ever meet anyone exactly like you. In my opinion, the way to go would be to stick around here and meet people. You may find some things that work for some other people work well for you, others not so much, but you're the one who will be able to figure out what works best for you. Another thing you might look into is reading trans-literature and gender studies to help educate yourself better so that you may be able to come to understand yourself. I've only just started reading myself and I've come to what I feel is a better understanding, if still incomplete.