I’m a man. Only ever dated, been attracted to women. Recently I met this guy and I’m having weird feelings. I can’t quite tell if I’m attracted to him as a person or just like the way he treats me; nonetheless something makes me want to treat him differently than any other guys - the way I would a girl I suppose. My friends say I might be attracted to femininity in general regardless of gender and that’s why I feel this way, and the reason why it hasn’t surfaced until now is because I haven’t yet met a guy to tick those boxes. Wondering if anyone has been through something similar.
Who cares? If you like him, and he likes you, go have some fun. If you like it with him, do it again with him. If you like it in general, do it again with other guys as well.
If you don’t like it, don’t do it again, wt least until the next time you feel curious
Don’t let weirdo’s dictate.thst you can’t have fun with being curious, don’t feel the need to label everything
Same thing happened to me.
We connected more emotionally than normal friends.
Guy was interested but I let him know that before we did anything physical I might not be ok and it wasn’t anything to do with him. Did not want to hurt his feelings.
We eventually had a rom com ass first date. Ending in kissing. For me it just felt the same as girls. Always been indifferent sexually but like you said feminine men check boxes.
Enjoy! It was a formative time for me as a person that made me realize your life can change when the right circumstances come along. No longer with them but glad for the time period.
Yeah this makes sense to me. I’ve got queer friends who are in a hetero marriage with one another.
Yes I’ve seen Jason Mamoa.
I think gayness is a spectrum. Likewise, I think emotions are not back and white. So you could have some feelings for this guy, you could be confused, and if this was ancient Greece you probably would have slept with him by now, but whether you see him as a partner or a little brother you want to protect is a conscious choice you can make.
I tend to find myself attracted to kind, not aggressive men. I don’t think of them as feminine men. They can be quite masculine and still kind and not aggressive.
I was a feminine man, now I’m a trans woman. I still mostly find women attractive, because men tend to be socialized to be aggressive and I don’t like aggressive energy.
One of these kind, non-aggressive men, the first man I was ever attracted to, is still a dear friend of mine and dating a trans woman himself now. I believe our deep love for each other is something that helped us both to accept ourselves. Even though we’ve never been romantically involved with each other.
Binary gender is such bullshit. Nobody is attracted to every man or every woman. It’s totally normal to be attracted to people who fall into both buckets if that’s your only way of categorizing people. Because that’s not how attraction or sexuality work. It’s so much richer and more nuanced than that.
I think that in reality, every human can relate to this post. Straight, gay, bi, asexual. You meet a person that makes you go “what the fuck is happening?”.
My opinion is that it doesn’t really mean (or necessarily equate) that you want to have sex with the person. For myself, I consider myself to be heterosexual although I wish I was bisexual. I do however consider myself to be biromantic, and could very well see myself in a relationship with someone of the same gender. The difference is that when I’ve envisioned or been close to trying the sex part, I get actually physically nautious. Not to say “gays make me sick” but, uh 😂😂 Me personally having gay sex makes me sick.
I identify as bi but I don’t really find myself attracted to outwardly masculine or ‘normal’-looking guys, often, as you said, femininity is a thing, and consideration. There’s also the pansexual concept which transcends traditional borders. I do find enby peeps attractive too.
I never really questioned my sexuality, but I did have an experience that somewhat confirmed it for me.
I’ve had a fairly open relationship with my wife and we’ve brought people in for various reasons, and I had the opportunity to have a devil’s threesome with my (at the time) brother from another mother, and during a lul when my wife had to use the bathroom, we kept the mood going ourselves. Found out that I’m definitely not (physically) into AMABs, and they (eventually) found out they were trans. I still love the hell out of her even if I don’t talk to her nearly as much as I’d like (damn life always life-ing), and I have a couple non-sexual semi-ronantic relationships with AMABs in my life, and one of my partners is a (semi-transitioned) trans-man.
All that to say, you never know if you don’t try. And if you feel that the person is safe/trustworthy/receptive enough, it can’t hurt to test the waters and see. You may find out that you’re bi, demi or pan. And you might just have your cis-het confirmed as well. But you’ll never know unless you’re willing to make that step.
Yea I pretty much threw away labels because it got to be a pain in the ass to try and say anything when I always end up going into that description “I’m just attracted to femininity”.
Everyone, and I think probably especially intellectual people, questions their sexuality (am I attracted to the opposite gender in some way?) and at least their gender expression (am I masculine / feminine enough?) to some extent. It’s no different for a lot of people I think than imposter syndrome and can be tied to a lack of self confidence.
Everyone is also capable of fantasizing about, basically, whatever, and enjoying it, without the fantasy or enjoyment having to mean anything about how they feel about themselves or how others will feel about them.
Also, sexual preference, as kinks and fetishes, develop and change in men at least until some surprising age, like, into your 50s. Like you could live your entire life identifying and living as a one thing and by fifty-five be identifying as something else. I think, and I’m not sure yet, be that’s just life. Most people who don’t live in a safe space bubble and don’t leave their home town or school aged friend group have to reinvent themselves multiple times in life.
Also also, sexual pleasure and gratification is a full body and mind experience and it’s possible that different partners stimulate and gratify different parts of that experience, even different encounters with the same partners. And none of that has to be carried around with you as if it changes anything about who you are or how you should be treated.
And lastly, it’s fine to treat this person and anyone else in a positive and fun way for both of you. It could be that this person expresses themselves femininely and so your instinct is to be a little different, whether that’s with more compassion and tenderness and even flirty, and I would say confusion is probably a very healthy and intelligent, internal reflex to something like this that is new to you.
And finally, anyone that says the Roman Empire collapsed because of all the fucking without making babies is a right cunt. If society collapses because of who any of us are fucking then… it was coming either way.
Edit to make sure someone catches that joke, which may be one of the best I’ve written.
Only when my wife gets out her strap-on.
Nothing wrong with that.
I am straight as a board, to my despair. Women are so beautiful and in general hold up better as we get older, it would be so lovely to know I could switch teams if my husband died or we divorced, my kids say I should date women next time if there is a next time but alas, I’ve tried and there is nothing. It’s men for me.
I would argue that being attracted to individuals regardless of their gender is the most natural and reasonable sexuality there is, though. I think of bisexuality or pansexuality as the default setting for humans - we don’t have a mating season or anything, we use sexuality for all sorts of non- reproductive reasons. My kids were raised with no pressure to be straight or not, 3/4 of them are queer, 2 of those lean gay one leans hetero, but as preference not orientation if that makes sense. One is as straight as I am, it’s an orientation.
Yep. Thought I was straight until my 30s and saw a picture that made me feel things about men that I usually felt about women. Turns out I’m not that picky about gender but women get a +5. (which means, even if I wasn’t married, the guys I’m attracted to are wayyyyyy outta my league.)
Romantic attraction and sexual attraction can often be different. It’s just society says you can’t have sex with people you aren’t romantically involved with, and once you’re romantically involved with someone, you can’t have sex with others. That’s totally unfair IMHO. You should be able to have a romantic relationship with someone and not expect sex and then be able to have sex with others who are interested in sex. This is why asexual people have a hard time with monogamy and have to pretend to be into sex because otherwise they can’t have a relationship with someone they love.