Same sex attraction?

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how do you know if you are attracted to members of the same sex? in march i had a panic attack about questioning if i was 100% heterosexual. from what i can remember, before that i never has any problems or worries about before other than the usual insecurities people have. could i have had the panic attack because it was something that i really was worried about? now whenever i see another guy, even on tv, i think to myself “am i attracted to this person”. I’ve always been attracted to women but recently i have been having this problem with myself that how can i be sure of anything. things that i used to feel so one sided about i now see the other side of it. you could say this is a good thing but it’s causing me to question everything that i believe. the thing is i don’t want to have these doubts. an example is that i am a conservative but i see the liberal view and my mind tries to justify it somehow. i feel like a loss of identity. i do suffer from depression and anxiety and they say that being unsure and uncertain about things causes depresson. so how can i really be sure of anything. I have doubts about the Lord but i continue to pray but i’m worried about other things like the sexuality thing. i feel like i’m in a limbo completely unsure about myself. it’s much more the anxiety of not knowing if i am attracted to other guys than the anxiety about commiting homosexual acts. in fact at the moment i’m not worried about that because i plan on waiting till i’m married to have sex anyway. even now when i see a straght couple i get a wierd anxiety. possible because i am not sure myself.
 
Dave18 said:
how do you know if you are attracted to members of the same sex? in march i had a panic attack about questioning if i was 100% heterosexual. from what i can remember, before that i never has any problems or worries about before other than the usual insecurities people have. could i have had the panic attack because it was something that i really was worried about? now whenever i see another guy, even on tv, i think to myself “am i attracted to this person”. I’ve always been attracted to women but recently i have been having this problem with myself that how can i be sure of anything. things that i used to feel so one sided about i now see the other side of it. you could say this is a good thing but it’s causing me to question everything that i believe. the thing is i don’t want to have these doubts. an example is that i am a conservative but i see the liberal view and my mind tries to justify it somehow. i feel like a loss of identity. i do suffer from depression and anxiety and they say that being unsure and uncertain about things causes depresson. so how can i really be sure of anything. I have doubts about the Lord but i continue to pray but i’m worried about other things like the sexuality thing. i feel like i’m in a limbo completely unsure about myself. it’s much more the anxiety of not knowing if i am attracted to other guys than the anxiety about commiting homosexual acts. in fact at the moment i’m not worried about that because i plan on waiting till i’m married to have sex anyway. even now when i see a straght couple i get a wierd anxiety. possible because i am not sure myself.
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I have a generalized anxiety disorder and so I am wll aware of how you can work yourself up with many situations. People with anxiety will tend to dwell on a certain issue for a while until something comes along to take its place. Right now you are putting your emphasis on your sexual orientation. This is not uncommon and the more that you dwell on trying to realize whether or not you are attracted to the same sex, the more you might think that you are. It’s a vicious cycle and it will take some time to break. Our sexuality is very fluid and many of us will have thoughts outside of our “normal” orientation at times. It’s just that now what would normally be a fleeting thought is magnified and dwelled upon.

So, for now let those thoughts go. I know that it is easier said than done. When you try to ask yourself whether or not you are 100% heterosexual you tend to panic because like everyone in this world no one is 100% anything. So you are stuck on what most people would just let go of. Realize that your main orientation is towards women and when you get these thoughts or even these slight attractions just know that they will come and go and move on. Reward those times with a smile when you are attracted to women and remind yourself of those times when you think that you are leaning the other way.

So just relax and let go and let God. I believe that you are just fine and if you are not seeking help with your anxiety, you really should. It made a big difference for me.

God bless you…teachccd
 
I think you have an anxiety disorder and a bit of a negative feedback loop going on-- you wonder which scares you and makes you wonder more which scares you and makes you wonder more…

Just because you think someone is good looking doesn’t mean you want to have sex with them. Just because you may have encountered a person of the same gender who gives you a little tingle ‘down there’ doesn’t make you gay, especially when you’re young and your hormones are raging.

The men I know who pretend they ‘haven’t noticed’ or can’t admit that Oscar Dela Hoya [or whoever] is attractive [in a purely artistic sense, if nothing else] are the ones with the biggest doubts about their own masculinity. Their own feelings scare them so badly they can’t even acknowledge objective reality, which is very sad. The feeling that triggered it all is often dead and buried, but they are haunted by its ghost. They make what should be less than nothing into a lifetime of fear, doubt, and self loathing.

FWIW, I think pretty much every adolescent has been attracted to someone of the same gender in at least a vaguely romantic way-- maybe a popstar, a coach, someone glimpsed in a crowd. For most, it’s well below a point where they’d ever act on it, but the feeling is still there.

It springs from a bit of confusion about who we want to be, versus who we want to be with. There’s a reason why Tarzan-- so popular with boys of a certain age-- wears only a loincloth, why pro-wrestlers show so much skin, why the majority of Britany Spears fans are teen age girls.

There’s nothing wrong with having the feelings, so long as you don’t relish them, invite them, act them out.

So relax: you are human, with human temptations, feelings and failings. Trust yourself a little more, worry a little less. If you were really, truely attracted to other men, your body would have made its inclinations known loud, clear, and often.
 
teachccd said:
Realize that your main orientation is towards women and when you get these thoughts or even these slight attractions just know that they will come and go and move on. Reward those times with a smile when you are attracted to women and remind yourself of those times when you think that you are leaning the other way. So just relax and let go and let God. I believe that you are just fine and if you are not seeking help with your anxiety, you really should. It made a big difference for me. God bless you…teachccd
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Realization of one’s main attraction takes time, self-knowledge and acceptance. The only person who can learn about and respect their own sexual orientation is the person having these attractions. No one else.
 
Dave18 said:
how do you know if you are attracted to members of the same sex? in march i had a panic attack about questioning if i was 100% heterosexual. from what i can remember, before that i never has any problems or worries about before other than the usual insecurities people have. could i have had the panic attack because it was something that i really was worried about? now whenever i see another guy, even on tv, i think to myself “am i attracted to this person”. I’ve always been attracted to women but recently i have been having this problem with myself that how can i be sure of anything. things that i used to feel so one sided about i now see the other side of it. you could say this is a good thing but it’s causing me to question everything that i believe. the thing is i don’t want to have these doubts. an example is that i am a conservative but i see the liberal view and my mind tries to justify it somehow. i feel like a loss of identity. i do suffer from depression and anxiety and they say that being unsure and uncertain about things causes depresson. so how can i really be sure of anything. I have doubts about the Lord but i continue to pray but i’m worried about other things like the sexuality thing. i feel like i’m in a limbo completely unsure about myself. it’s much more the anxiety of not knowing if i am attracted to other guys than the anxiety about commiting homosexual acts. in fact at the moment i’m not worried about that because i plan on waiting till i’m married to have sex anyway. even now when i see a straght couple i get a wierd anxiety. possible because i am not sure myself.
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Pray, hope, and don’t worry. Trust in God. Worry is useless.
 
this thread was filled with strong responses. i think it’s important to have Catholic homosexual support groups.
 
i do worry about things until something else comes along. this can happen in the same day.

until about 5 or 6 months ago, i would have a painful infatuation with a girl until another one took her place. it caused me much anxiety becasue i felt so strongly about them.

as for the my current situation, i fear that i won’t be able to relax and get rid of the anxiety until i force myself to be have same sex attractions.
 
The media / entertainment industry has been fueling same sex attraction for decades.

As a young boy back around 1970, David Cassidy used to scare the living daylights out of me… My little ten year old brain didn’t know what to do with the visuals he was projecting. What do you expect when good looking, baby faced, talented young man is on television with a gorgeous head of “girl hair”. The Breck girl had nothing on this guy!

It didn’t take me long to figure out that this was screwed up. I immediately sought answers! As soon as my eyes fell upon his co-star, Susan Dey, everything suddenly became chrystal clear!

😃 😃 😃
 
I’m not even vaguely surprised that anyone nowadays, male or female, would be anxious about their own orientation, regardless of how naturally attracted they might be to the opposite sex. It’s important not to trust your instincts, and to let the media do your thinking for you.:rolleyes: (The rolled eyes are not directed at the OP.) It’s also important to let the media confuse you with its distorted images of what is normal and what is not. Hey, anything goes, right? I mean, maybe, unless we’re fully in heat toward the opposite sex, just maybe we “don’t really know” that we’re gay/lesbian. We should all just come out and be done with it.

There are a lot of theories about sexuality out there. Believe it or not, not all of them are recent. Psychologists, physicians, biologists, sociologists have investigated SSA for quite some time. One thing that is undeniable about human sexuality is that it goes through phases. That includes phases of SSA actually: some people have it earlier, some later. Some have it more strongly than others. Even the very young infatuation that girls develop with each other (intense friendships, exclusive friendships, demands for commitment/loyalty) is said to be part of this SSA phase.

In some people, SSA coexists with equally (or greater) attraction to the opposite sex. The difference is, only in the most modern of times have so many people felt the apparent need to act on every question & urge, to explore every possible sexual experience. Thus, plenty of people in eras past (of both sexes) have felt a somewhat equal balance of the male/female polarity in themselves, yet did not act out those equal attractions by engaging in (physical) bisexuality.

I’m about as straight as they come. Yet I am very much a “woman’s woman,” not a man’s woman, and I’ve never had a single male friend who could be described as a “man’s man.” Every one of my male friends is a woman’s man. I have very close, trusting, psychologically intimate friendships with women. This once or twice in my life have led some outsiders (who did not know me well) to infer that I was a lesbian! Well that one takes the cake. If a scientist were studying me, he or she might conclude that I would be on one side of the spectrum of SSA. But unlike many modern people, I know that fully trusting & sharing emotional intimacies with one’s gender does not require one to get into bed with them in order to benefit fully from these relationships.

I do think that it can be more difficult for men to make these distinctions, but I don’t have scientific proof of that. I think that men are impelled toward expressing their sexuality in a physical way, by nature, & thus might be more inclined to question a comfort-level with the same-sex as one which necessarily implies sexual behavior. I do agree that only the individual can know that, but I caution all individuals in this oversexualized society not to assume too much about attractions, phases, and tendencies which can co-exist without having to act on every urge, struggle with every inclination, question every aspect of identity, & assume that every way we act toward the same or opposite sex has to have a genital component to it.
 
Dave18 said:
as for the my current situation, i fear that i won’t be able to relax and get rid of the anxiety until i force myself to be have same sex attractions.
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Dave, I don’t look at every woman I encounter in real life or on tv to determine if I am attracted to them. We all know what good looking men look like and good looking women look like. No need to test ourselves.

From what I understand, if you just started thinking this way, it is more your anxiety than an attraction.
 
cristininha said:
Realization of one’s main attraction takes time, self-knowledge and acceptance. The only person who can learn about and respect their own sexual orientation is the person having these attractions. No one else.
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It didn’t take me a whole lot of time to realize that I was heterosexual. 😉 But, on the other hand, I have generalized anxiety disorder and I can fully understand the OP’s condition. You are correct in that only the person can know his or her sexual orientation but if you insert my quote that you used into the full context of the issue, you will see that there is more to the OP’s question than his sexual orientation. Anxiety “looks” for negativity and is not happy unless it finds something to dwell on. It’s a “what if” syndrome whereby one must continually ask themselves, “What if?” What if I’m gay, what if I lose my job, what if I get sick and so on.

So I was just going past the issue at hand and moving into the real problem…peace…teachccd
 
thanks everyone for your advice. it’s very much appreciated.

another thing is that i fear that by having this anxiety i could become attracted to men in the long run. i know it sounds crazy but sometimes it seems true. because the fact that i’m dwelling on it could cause me to become attracted. like when your exposed to something you sometimes get used to it (like music). i guess i’m just elaborating more on my previous post.
 
I see what you mean: if every time you notice another man you are asking yourself ‘Is he cute? Does he have nice muscles?’, I think you run the risk of shifting your preferences a bit in that direction.

So for your own peace of mind, I think it would be wise to break this habit. Perhaps you can get your willpower involved. Every time you find yourself ‘noticing’ a male in that way, you could say to yourself "No, I don’t find him sexy, whether he’s good looking or not doesn’t matter, I’m a man, I like women, I’m not going to upset myself with this silliness anymore’.
 
YipYupYep said:
Me too.

Its a dirty trick, isn’t it?

If you haven’t gone here: algy.com/anxiety/gad.php
Do so.
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Yes it is. Thank you for the web site. The OP is going through the same senarios that I continually go through. Your mind goes somewhere, even the slightest pain in your body, and magnifies it to trick you into thinking that this is it. The OP sees his thoughts as though he might be homosexual and his mind continues to trick him. When he finally rids himself of this vicious circle he will pick up another “issue”.

After almost 10 years of anxiety and panic attacks I can now cognitvely recognize the “dirty trick” that my mind is playing and work around it for the most part.

Unless you have this disorder, like any disorder, you can never really know what he is going through. You can know what it might be like but you can never really know…teachccd
 
do you think that if this continues i could eventually be attract to men?
 
Gay people don’t have doubts, they know.

If you are attracted to female persons, you are not gay. In my judgment, bisexual types have a cake walk compared to the homosexual in a recovery.

Tell me this. Are you sexually attracted to females?

YYY
 
Dave18 said:
do you think that if this continues i could eventually be attract to men?
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Not if this is your anxiety messing with you. There have been times when I dwell on a pain in my body and think that I have cancer. The more I dwell on it the more I “feel” this pain. And in fact it becomes a real pain. And then I am convinced that I have a tumor and that I am headed for disaster. There have been times when I saw a doctor concerning these phantom illnesses.

BUT does my anxiety turn my feelings of pain into an actual disease? Not so far. Did the pain in my head (that I thought for so long was a brain tumor until I broke my toe and focused on some real pain) become a brain tumor? Not that I am aware of and the pain “mysteriously” went away.

Please re-read my posts and PM me if you wish. I’m curious on how old you are. If you are young and have not had much experience with anxiety you are going through what I have been through in trying to figure all of this out.

Just remember this: the more that you worry about becoming homosexual, the more you will notice guys and the more that you notice guys, the more that your mind will find an attraction and the more that your mind finds this attraction the more you will think tht you are becoming a homosexual and so forth. You have to break this cycle. I wouldn’t suggest a broken toe but it worked for me…teachccd
 
Having an attraction to the same sex is not in and of itself sinful as long as you don’t try to feed these attractions (through deliberate lustful thoughts) or act out in sinful sexual acts.

In my own case it is emotional factors that attract me more than physical. I am probably attracted physically to women as much as men:blush: 😊 🤷 , but I have been happily married to my husband for nearly 10 years.👍

I never seriously considered engaging in lesbian activities:
  1. because of the moral and social implications of such activities
  2. because I wanted to have a family and procreation works much better with men and women, also I believe that children ideally should have male and female parent role models
  3. I am totally in love with my husband, the spouse that God designed and intended for me
I would try not to obsess too much about it. If you have trouble with anxiety perhaps you should seek counseling. Pray to God for his guidance and try to remain faithful and chaste in thoughts and actions.
 
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