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Sexual orientation and traumas -- a place to share your struggle with sexuality

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littleoc

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I have noticed this a lot in the forums lately, but haven't seen a thread dedicated to it yet.

I think it would be nice to have a space where we can talk about sexuality, and how our traumas have confused that or made it harder to accept. It's hard enough to be different -- it's hard enough to go through trauma.

So, I'll start. I am a gay person, although it's more comfortable for me to say that I will love whoever I love. I'll try not to make it labeled if the label is causing trouble or confusion.

I was "kidnapped" (I've had to convince myself of this) at age ten and released at age 11, and the perpetrator was a man. He abused me sexually once he got the confidence to.

I grew up confused, having had weird thoughts about preferring women even while I was in elementary school -- before not-traumatized kids would usually think of it.

Way before it could have possibly mattered or anyone could have known if I was gay or not -- in first grade -- I remember a known bully chasing around a girl (also in my class), H. She was trying to avoid him and get some peace while playing outside, and he kept going up to her repeatedly and saying that he had a crush on her and wanted to marry her. She told him no several times, but he wouldn't listen.

I was always in trouble at this point (usually for things my father was responsible for, not me..) and I was sitting by the teachers not allowed to play with the other kids. I heard them talking to each other about how "cute" and "precious" it was that the boy liked H so much. They weren't doing anything to help H out.

So, the moment I got up to be allowed to play (the last minutes of recess, usually), I went up to H and told her that I liked her. She looked confused, but that was all.

Then the teacher exploded. She placed me in in-school suspension, after telling me and my entire class what I had done. How disgusting and wrong it was. She placed me in a windowless closet-like room and had me doing math all day, math above my level (which I managed eventually). She told me that she was doing me a favor by not telling my mom -- she would only ever tell her that I wasn't doing any work. But she warned me that if I ever got caught doing that, again? She would make sure my mom knew.

My first grade teacher clearly had problems :p

Being kidnapped did not make me straight. In fact, I became SURE that it had scared me away once and for all from being straight. I was afraid of men, definitely sexist against men now, and my kidnapper had ruined me in so many ways.

I got a girlfriend who would never admit we were dating several years later -- she was a complete nightmare but I don't get into that here. Just know she was a bad cookie who dearly needed adult help, and I literally ended up "stuck" with her for ten years out of fear, well into adulthood.

Anyway, my ex, B, insisted that her intuition was always correct, and she knew people's inner truths in a supernatural way. I believed her somehow, even when she started telling me that I'm not gay. Because I was just afraid of men. I was just confused. I had chosen this life in order to feel in control. I'd get over it and have a husband. ...yes, she and I were dating when she said this. I believe she may have been projecting on me, who knows.

I believed it so thoroughly that I found tiny bits of science to back me up. Scientifically this hasnt been researched well enough to answer anything, but there are hypotheses out there. I would take little pieces of them to prove it was true, that I was into women because I was damaged.

A hypothesis states that sexuality is determined partially by the child's genes, partially by the mother's genes (that deal with the environment created in her womb), and therefore partially environmental reasons could determine sexuality to an extent as well. In some kind of distortion, I believed that being exposed to liking women at a young age, and then being scared away from men, had made me gay. I didn't want to think I was confused and scared anymore, so I had made it scientific -- I WAS truly gay now and there was no turning that back. But, I thought, my trauma had caused it.

That changed while I was on this forum. I saw a member (who I'll keep anonymous here for now) who had been sexually abused by females. She felt that because of the abuse by women, they had influenced her to become gay.

I almost thoughts my previous thoughts -- that this was some kind of evidence that my hypothesis was true. But luckily I realized that this was a distortion. It's difficult to determine sexuality when your body has always been yours and nurtured. With trauma? There is confusion, because you have to wonder if something damaged you. Something about being gay... feels like you were damaged.


I'm not sure if straight people feel this way about their sexuality -- although I will welcome any straight people with similar problems with sexuality.


Of course, if trauma did make us gay, then why are there so many untraumatized gay people? It makes more sense to face the fact that we were already who we are, and never should have been defined by a private sexual thing. What happened to us is horrible, and it did affect us, but it didn't change who we are.

The bullying caused by my first grade teacher teaching the class that what I had done was wrong (we were kids -- we didn't even know how relationships work, anyway!) continued for years, causing me plenty of harm until sudden in my very last year of high school, it stopped. Several of my main bullies I had comforted when I saw them cry, and they admitted to me eventually that they were gay themselves. I had already stopped caring about being bullied by high school, and while my ex would cower and lose her wits when a bully approached, I'd play games and accidentally make friends with people who just wanted to be accepted.

My ex was never hit by a bully. I was; but she'd tell me her life sucked much worse since she had chosen to be gay for her ex, J (all while she insisted that she wasn't gay with me. Hard times for everyone I guess, but that may have just been another mind game).

My teachers sometimes didn't care at all, but other times cared a lot. The ones that cared wouldn't help me when I reported some bullying as sexual harassment -- ironically from the same bully in first grade! He did stop bullying. The teacher i reported to, an assistant principal, insisted it was my fault for hugging a female friend or touching her -- had I not done that, then there would've been no rumors about kissing by the lockers (which was, of course, untrue). What a silly assumption! Luckily the bully stopped bothering us. He likely had something going on of his own.

And, interestingly enough, the girl in first grade who I said I liked, H, ended up marrying a woman in 2017!




So, what's your story?
 
What a cool thread! Thanks for making it -- it was interesting to read your story and see some similarities to mine.

I started to realize I might be bisexual in the 8th grade, and I immediately assumed my csa has been the cause of it. So I figured, if I could heal from the sexual abuse, I could be straight.

I spend a bunch of time trying to heal, but I had no guide or therapist or anything. Basically, I just triggered myself a lot and hoped I'd eventually get used to it. It did not help. I tried some other things, like making myself relieve bad memories every time I thought a girl was cute. I'd heard about electric shock therapy and did some very harmful DIY version of that, too, still believing I could make it go away. Nothing ever helped. I was still religious so id lay awake and cry a lot of nights, praying to god to make me straight, trying to figure out why he was punishing me.
Then out of nowhere, I remembered having a crush on a girl back before the csa had even happened. I cried so much, finally feeling okay with myself. Like my identity wasn't a symptom.
I finally accepted myself as someone who liked girls, but then I had to go through the whole rodeo again when I realized I was trans. I mean, /sarcasm/ obviously, I only felt like a boy because it made me equals with him, right? (Though my gender is another tale entirely haha).
What helped me finally move on past that was seeing another person's story. I figured I was "trying to be a boy" because it would make me "equals" with him, and thus make me safe from him. But I read a trans woman's story, and she was worried she was "trying to be a girl" to escape being a man, like her abuser has been. It made me realize that I was who I was.
There's also a really good (though possibly triggering) poem. It's on YouTube as "Hieu Minh Nguyen & Ollie Schminkey - "Go Away"" I think, if I've got the right video. It really helped me too :)
Thanks again for the thread!
 
I really appreciate that you started this thread. I'd wanted to for a long time but was so afraid that it would be met with silence that I didn't have the guts!

I grew up in a very conservative, very catholic environment. Being liked and loved in my family was contingent upon fitting into the boxes that we were assigned. I never fit my boxes and being gay was definitely not a box any of us were assigned. I started to feel like I was different when I was in middle school, but I was also being sexually abused at that point so I probably felt different for a lot of reasons other than just my sexuality. I was so afraid of losing friends and family that I kept my mouth shut until late high school. When I started to come out it was such a huge relief and I finally had the strength to tell my abuser that I was done.

When I was a little older and a lot more comfortable with my sexuality I had no shame in being a bit more masculine in the way I dressed and felt like I finally belonged somewhere. Then I got raped by a coworker. During the assault he brought but my being gay over and over. After that, I felt like I had to be able to pass as a lesbian- had to be super butch, had to always have a girlfriend, had to listen to a whole bunch of tegan and sara (who am I kidding? T&S are awesome either way.) In my mind, I had two choices: I could either be gay and raped, or I could be slutty and not raped. I spent so much time and energy trying to feel like I belonged again.

After a while I had a some vandalism happen to my car relating to me being gay. Then I made a huge shift and tried to be as femme as possible for the next 5 years. I felt like I belonged nowhere. Fast forward to now and I still struggle to find the right balance but that's completely ok with me. They're just clothes, you know?

The thought creeps into my mind occasionally that my orientation is what it is because of how badly I was hurt and for such a long time when I was young. It makes no sense and I know it's not true, but it slithers into my thoughts and f*cks with me. It probably doesn't help that literally the only other person who's told me that they were sexually abused as a kid (my therapist) is also a lesbian. I should probably bring that up....

I think we all know that this is just how we are, but it sucks that there's so much stigma surrounding sexual trauma and then so much misinformation about the nature/nurture idea of sexual orientation.
 
Wow, I think it's great to have this discussion. This is going to be a novella so you've been warned.
I grew up in the nineties in a small midwestern town. My mom's side was very German and my dad's side was everyone is a piece of shit addict who's been to the penitentiary. The town I grew up in was like the fictional town of Derry in IT. It was very clear that the poor working class people in town were trash and the middle class people were golden. This was definitely hammered in at school. If you were different or wore Kmart clothes you were treated like dog shit. My parents, I hate to say, were typical white trash. My dad was a violent drunk and my mom, well, is a f*cking enigma wrapped in a mystery. Let's say she had an undiagnosed mental illness/peronality disorder. They've both been arrested. My dad went to prison for armed robbery and my mom for grand theft.
I have always been sexual even before I knew what being sexual was. I was really submissive around women and girls my age. I would do things like undress my barbies and have them kiss and rub their crotches together etc. I was also overly sensitive and I cried about everything. I used to let people hurt me so bad and walk all over me. Needless to say, I was bullied mercilessly.
I was never interested in being around boys. The only boy I liked being around was my little brother. I hated them. Mostly because I hated my dad with a f*cking burning passion and boys were mean to me. Girls were mean to me too but I found my own group of misfits I enjoyed hanging around. They were all girls but it's typical to hang out with your own gender in grade school.
I always dressed like a boy and even when I got older I didn't really care about makeup or being "pretty." I got yelled at for getting my hair cut off. I got bullied by my parents and relatives into being "feminine." It really upset me because these people could truly give a f*ck if I lived or died were upset about the length of my hair and my clothes. I begrudgingly learned how to put on makeup. In my late teens I started wearing female clothes but I always felt like I was a man in drag.
I never had a crush on anyone in school because I was being so sexually and physically tortured I just didn't even think about that shit. I was so closed off I was tested for autism. My T told me recently someone should've called DCFS and my brother and I should've been placed in foster homes.
My mom went through a Jesus crisis when I was in 5th and 6th grade and it f*cked me up. We went to this church in this crazy woman's house. It was all fire and brimstone and who knows what else. She said we would start having to wear dresses and that my purpose in life was to get married and have children. We started having to do Bible studies every night. It was awful. My dad of, course was always completely absent getting drunk and re-watching the same movies over and over. People who didn't follow Jesus were going to burn in agony forever but you could never do anything right. Having any thought about your own needs was a sin. I started to obsessively worry about going to hell.
Once I started being tortured by a man and occasionally his wife I totally rebelled and became the scapegoat metalhead gothic queen lol. We got a computer and I got in trouble for trying to look at bondage porn ( the kind of porn my abuser was showing me) but nobody asked why I wanted to look at it. I was 12. I was forced to do things to two other boys and I had to watch them be violated. The older boy and I kind of formed this brothers in arms thing. I didn't really feel like a girl. I don't feel like I ever did.
I didn't think about being gay until I got my own laptop at around 15 and I compulsively watched lesbian porn. I tried to watch straight porn but it did nothing for me. It's been that way ever since and I'm so worried about being a skank because I'm so sexual that I keep myself from meeting other women. I have no boundaries. I would literally have sex with any woman who offered. I don't want to do that to myself emotionally so I keep myself very far away from people. I'm terrified of my sexual urges and I'm ashamed of them. My mom who molested my brother and I think is part of the reason I'm gay but she loathes gays. I can tell she is disgusted by me and always tells me she doesn't understand why I dress like a man. She doesn't like my tattoos. My dad told me when I still tried to talk to him that I looked like an ugly dyke. The other woman who abused me always affectionately referred to me as her "hungry little dyke." I watched this documentary about the gay agenda recently and it really bothered me. I feel like this hate is coming from the same conservative Christian people who were too cowardly to protect me or abused me. If I was "turned gay" by anything it was these people. I learned to be sexually submissive and aroused by lesbian sex while at the same time terrified of male sex and penetration because I associate it with extreme pain, humiliation, blood, death, and terror.
I don't really know why I'm gay and I've started to wonder if I'm trans. I don't feel like a man or woman. I'm still confused and I'm too old to be.
I don't really hate men or women. I think people are incredibly flawed. I believe in equal rights which includes women owning up and taking the same responsibility as men for the horrible shit they do. I also don't want to do the "I'm super oppressed. Treat me special." victim thing. Not everybody is going to like me or who I am but since I turned 30 I give 80% less f*cks. I feel like I'll find a way to make it work even if for some reason I'm possibly denied an opportunity for being who I am. At least that way I maintain the illusion of having some dignity left. I really believe free speech is free speech even if you don't agree. Other people have a right to their opinion just like I do long as it doesn't start to completely interfere with my human rights. Also, I might get some shit for saying this but I think that some teenage kids are using "being gay" or having 800 different sexualities as a fad and that irks me.
Recently, I've been confused by a man my age because I think he's adorable. I thought about it lots and it's more like "No one hurt him. He's trying his best" type of thing. Like I want to fish, have a beer, and laugh at bad b-movies with him. I also feel instinctively that he was sexually abused too just by his body language and different things. This might be me projecting or something. He tries to act bossy and macho around other guys but I'm 100% not threatened by him and he's so bad at it I know it's not who he is. Believe me, most other men I'm cautious of. So, I don't think it's a sexual thing. I think I just think he's a good egg and would be fun to hang out with.
So anyway, that's my long confusing story.
 
What helped me finally move on past that was seeing another person's story. I figured I was "trying to be a boy" because it would make me "equals" with him, and thus make me safe from him.

I don't think I'm trans, even if I do have identity problems surrounding gender, because I don't feel so out of place about gender as much as I do about sexuality. I wanted to specify that before I went ahead and said: I totally get this. I remember in kindergarten telling all my classmates that I was actually born a boy, but obviously at that age (and time in history) it wasn't necessarily because I was trans. I wanted everyone to know I wasn't a girl, though. I changed my name for a while too, to something more boyish. I'm not sure what to make of it still, but I do know this: gender is certainly hardwired into the brain. You can't help what your gender is when it doesn't match your biological gender -- both are clearly seen by the right way of looking. :) If definitely wasn't because of trauma. But I understand feeling that way.

If you want to talk about gender as well on this thread, feel free :) I think it can be very closely tied.

Religion is also a fine subject, for the record -- I'm assuming we all know we have varied backgrounds here. (People who want to debate religion can take it to the debate section of the forum :) )

My little brother is bisexual, and has heard people tell him that people use the word "bi" to have an excuse to cheat on their partners... my gay aunt told us that. It's been a few years. Hopefully she knows better now!

I think we all know that this is just how we are, but it sucks that there's so much stigma surrounding sexual trauma and then so much misinformation about the nature/nurture idea of sexual orientation.
I'll make you a co-author of this thread! :P

Seriously though, I think you're right. It's just so hard to accept, and when your raised like you were -- having to fit in some kind of category instead of creating your own identity, then it's especially hard. My mom's side of the family is Catholic, and my dad's side is Jewish, though my father tried to raise us as atheists (with manoras...?) and my mother ended up being agnostic. However, my mom's sister is gay, and left handed. Going to a Catholic school in the 50s/60s with left handedneas was bad enough -- being gay was no better.



Oh, fun fact. A larger percentage of gay people are left handed than in the general population, according to a few studies. I never looked up the methods of the studies, though, so take with a grain of salt ;)
 
I'm still confused and I'm too old to be.

Nope, whenever you're ready to address it, that's when you do! There's a popular show on Netflix called Grace and Frankie that addresses this. Two men in their seventies realize they're gay, creating catastrophe for their wives. Interestingly, it's a hilarious show.

There's also a show I love called Unbreakable Kimmt Schmidt. I identify with it so much -- it's a about a 15-year-old who's kidnapped and forced to live in a religious bunker for 15 years. The show resolved around her after-escape and how she's adjusting to freer life with her super gay black from-Missouri roommate. Her mother abandoned her, though, and I'm glad I don't identify with that. Anyway, this show, believe it or not, is a comedy, and very light hearted despite the premise. :) The only episodes I really couldn't watch were ones involving the court case, though they do keep it light. It's written by Tina Fey, but it's not the most insensitive :)

But anyway, I get that with the one man that seems safe. In high school I used to subconsciously look for men I'd be willing to date and marry if gay marriage never became a thing -- that way I could adopt. Gay men were usually my go-to's. In college I met this kid who was male but very feminine, but apparently not gay. I was so confused, thought I had a crush on him for some reason. I couldn't get over it... until he told me that he hates cooked food, lol. Then I felt like we could be friends. I'd never marry someone who only eats raw food -- not because I'm judging but because it just straight up wouldn't work out. He started eating bread though :P

It's nice to find good eggs after all the sh!t we've been through
 
Gay men were usually my go-to's. In college I met this kid who was male but very feminine, but apparently not gay.
I've always wondered why I felt so comfortable around him and why he's so super nervous around other men. He might be gay. It's always like we want to talk but we don't really have time and he's in a managerial position so he has to be super professional. He was the snottiest thing that ever was when I first started working there but I saw right through after a couple months and he calmed his ass down. Now we like each other. I think I'm so adamant about getting to know him because most people I don't really care if I know or not so it's a rare insurance for me to have a genuine interest in getting to know someone.
 
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