Coming Out

I just stumbled upon this and would like to let you know that I feel like you’ve been crawling around in my head for the past 25 years and stole my thoughts.

Hey! Thank you for having the courage to write your posting. I found this site a few months back and find myself coming to read posts once in a while, when my true self emerges from the life I live in denial most of the time. As I read your posting, I was almost brought to tears because of how much I identified with it. It was like a big sigh of relief in a way. I was thinking, “Oh my god, there really are other people out there like me!”

I am in a relationship, engaged actually, to a man I’ve been with for 6 years. I too have the fear of abandonment thing going on. Probably because the closest person to me, my mother, passed away when I was 23 after I just started dating this new guy. I clung to him for comfort and as we grew closer, I really thought I fell in love with him. Now, I’m not sure if I am “in love” with him or I just “love” him because he’s a decent, caring person.

I have issues too with things being so “gray” instead of black and white. I’m the type of person who would rather just know one way or another what I am. I don’t want to get caught up in labels either, but yet, I wish I just knew in my heart what I truly wanted. But when you think about it, people that identify as strictly straight, don’t have to sit there and contemplate “why” they feel the way they do….the just “do.” So, maybe being a lesbian doesn’t require explanation…maybe we are who we are, and that should be enough. Of course, that’s easier said than done.

I know completely what you mean about not wanting to let go of the straight part of you. I know for me, it’s what I’ve “strived to be” my whole life. At 29, I thought if I were going to be gay, I would have figured all this out a long time ago. I even had a secret relationship with my best friend in high school. I now acknowledge that she was the first person I ever fell in love with. I always trivialized her and our relationship over the years, trying to pretend it was just curiosity. After all, I hadn’t dated men yet so I didnt know what I was missing, right?!

Well, the sex part still eludes me too. Because in my mind, sex involves a penis and a vagina. So what defines sex with a woman? Is clitoral orgasm using your fingers enough to be called sex? Do some women need vaginal penetration? Are vaginal orgasms as intense with a dildo as with a real penis?? What if I decide to be with a woman and then miss the penis? Sorry to sound so ignorant, but these are crazy things that go through my mind!

I was never against touching the penis, or giving oral sex. Maybe because I just wanted to make sure my partner was please more than myself. Or maybe I’m just more experienced with that because it’s what I’m “supposed” to enjoy…straight sex. Frankly, the whole woman-woman oral thing kind of scares me. But I remember being scared of heterosexual sex for the first time too. I was afraid it was going to hurt, which it did. So, I was always sort of hesitant about it.

I was with one boyfriend though, and all we did was have sex. I was physically attracted to him and sex was enjoyable even though I never had vaginal orgasms. He always had to provide oral sex to “finish” me off. I that common, I wonder?

I do remember the intensity of my sexual relationship with my female friend. I always thought of it as intense emotional feelings, passionate, romantic, love-making. Maybe that was my naive way of avoiding calling it sex. It didn’t have to “count” as sex because that was wrong because it was with a girl.

Sorry for rambling, I could go on and on. If you’d like to get in touch through personal email, let me know. Or just post on here.

Comments and advice welcome, please!!

I am out and thank heavens for it. If you are thinking so much about being a lesbian, you probably are or at least are bisexual

i just think that living in the closet is so stiffling. People like you for what you pretend you are rather than who you really are. I don’t think that those sort of friendships are valid.

Life is oh so very short and the only person responsible for securing your own little piece of happiness is you.

There is no shame or terror or reason to be embarrassed by being a lesbian

The only shame is being afraid of living the life you should have

This is for both you two (raze & eighties):

Go to After Ellen’s website and watch the most recent episode of Lesbian Love (I think it’s like 15 minutes long). Lacey and Jessica are a real lesbian couple that video blog about their relationship. This particular episode (Ep. 7) happens to be about coming out. You get Jessica’s perspective (she had a very easy path towards being her true self) and then Lacey’s. Lacey’s perspective, coming from a much more conservative, Mid-West background, might help put some things to words. Also, Jessica addresses dating men; something I think a lot of us are capable of, but something that won’t lead to a completely fulfilled lifetime.

Don’t worry, you’re not alone! I just came out a couple of months ago, had the same feelings of denial, same experiences with guys, and I’m still trying to figure out what it means now that I’m “out”. I look at girls, and it’s overwhelming, so I look away. I’ve started (like, just barely started) meeting other lesbians, and I’m extremely shy when I first talk to them, but happy to know I’m not alone at the same time. Anyways, just wanted to let you know that it’s okay to feel afraid, and it’s okay to be a lesbian! It’s true that it’s not as easy as being straight, but if happiness is what you’re striving for, easy tends to be the wrong street. Just go out there, and start being gay

For anybody wondering about these questions, read this book:

Tantric Sex for Women: A Guide for Lesbian, Bi, Hetero, and Solo Lovers by Christa Schultz

I am going to write something that I wish someone had written me when I was facing something like this. It is hard to imagine your way into the difference between sex with men, and sex with women. I had all of these questions and they terrified me. I just took things step by step and now I am in a place that is magical and so alive. My only question now is, how could anybody have a problem with the sexiness, the sweetness, the kindness, the love, and the plan old hot pleasure that me and my girlfriend create with each other. It is so good, so delicious, that it is hard for me to imagine that homophobia even EXISTS. But of course it exists because it took me to my 30s to even begin to figure this out. all the time that I spent going down these false avenues . . it is time that I can never get back.

But we all have our journeys. The important thing is, what are you doing right now to create honesty and pleasure in your life.

The first thing it is so important to do is to stop any behaviors that don’t feel good to you. STOP them. If you can’t stop it totally, stop it a little bit. If you can stop it a little bit, see if you can stop it a little bit more. Start pushing yourself to get as close as possible to the ideal of not doing anything you don’t WANT to do. And it’s better to err on the side of caution in a situation like yours. If you are not absolutely yearning for it, then that counts as not wanting it. Don’t do it.

You need to start giving yourself accurate information about what you respond to, and that begins with saying NO to what you don’t ACTUALLY LIKE. Try not to do it at all, or try to do it only minimally, or if you do do it anyways then try admitting to yourself and if possible your partner that actually you didn’t like that. Just be moving, as much as is tolerable to you, in that direction, with the ultimate goal being that you never do anything that you don’t want to do. I have reached that goal sexually and let me tell you, it is heaven.

You don’t need to come out, you don’t need to take on the whole thing about lesbian sexual identity– just STOP doing the things you DON’T want to do.

Sometimes it feels like the sky will fall if you don’t do the things you don’t want to do. But that is not the case. What actually happens is that you experience some awkwardness and rough edges in certain relationships. If you stick to your guns then certain relationships will fall away. Then you feel terribly afraid of the loneliness. Then you start to notice things that you DO like, and they are nothing like what you imagined you WOULD like. For me, I started to notice the erotic charge I get from nature. Totally removed from humans, gender, any of that stuff . . the sight of trees blooming, rivers moving quickly, open spaces . . vines growing . . huge turn-ons. I worked with that for awhile. The erotic experiences that I was giving myself created the energy and sense of self-respect that I needed to keep taking things to the next level in terms of saying no to things I didn’t want.

By this time I was in completely uncharted territory. I started a relationship with a woman this summer and I have to tell you now, from the other side . . there is no comparison. It helps that I am in love with her and it helps that we have tremendous respect, for each other and ourselves. Those things always make sex better I don’t care who it’s with. But sex with a woman . . indescribable. I wondered if I would miss a penis and what I discovered is that there are a million ways to incorporate penetration if that’s what you like. All of them are BETTER than a penis. The reason being is that when she penetrates me, she is responding to what *I* like. It is MY desire that leads what happens to me. No comparison. Doing the exercises in the book that I recommended above will help you see that and they are all exercises you can do alone. Figuring out what really feels good, versus what feels good because you are satisfied to have performed well to someone else’s expectations.

The thing is, sex is not supposed to be about can you “tolerate” it, are you “against” men, can you “bear” it. Sex is about real pleasure. I never knew that before. When people would ask me my fantasies, I would make things up because I didn’t want to disappoint them. I avoided looking at women or telling my friends how gorgeous I think they are because I was frightened that someone would call me out as gay . . and then what would I say? Just starting to allow myself to look at women the way I wanted was a huge revelation. I would think of orgasms as a good way to end sex. I liked penetration because it meant that sex was almost over. I felt happy after sex because I knew that I was off the hook for at least some period of time. And yet I compulsively looked for sex and tried to make myself sexually available to men . . i guess in order to “demonstrate” that I was “healthy” and normal. It makes me want to cry right now writing these things. I didn’t know that sex could be something different.

And now, with my girlfriend, I have real fantasies . . and then we do them and they are even better than I imagined . . and they are REAL fantasies, things I REALLY want. I didn’t know that was possible. I WANT to make love to her all the time. I KNOW when things start moving towards sex that I am in for a good time, that we respect each other’s pacing because we understand from the inside how much easier pleasure is when you have time . . I don’t feel afraid to initiate, thinking I’m starting something I won’t be able to get out of . . if we are having sex and I want to stop we stop and it’s all good . . I don’t want her to come or me to come in order to “get it over with” . . orgasm is a beautiful thing that emerges from the matrix of respect and devotion we show each other. None of the old stuff about sex applies anymore. I didn’t know things could be that way. And my sense of personal pride has changed too. I am so much more loving with my friends. I tell them how beautiful they are because hey, they already know I’m queer, they might as well also know that they are beautiful people. I like how I dress better. I like it how much easier it is to avoid interactions that don’t feel good. I just have pride in myself because I know that I can have real pleasure and that my girlfriend loves me and wants me to have real pleasure too. And because I know when I give her pleasure, that it’s because I want to . . I desperately want to . . not to “prove” anything to anyone but just because she is so fantastically beautiful and alive when she feels pleasure, it is a sight to behold.

I cry on a regular basis during sex because when I tell her I want her, and mean it, I remember all the times I told people I wanted them and didn’t mean it, and it breaks my heart that I have to use the same words now to describe something that is so incomparably different.

I would also recommend counseling or support groups of some kind. You don’t mention this but given the level of sexual abuse in our society, and given your behaviors, it is quite possible you are dealing with serious abuse issues as well. That was certainly the case for me. Being raped as a child removed me from my own internal sense of sex as something that should turn me on. If you think that sexual abuse might be a relevant part of your story, I recommend this book:

The Sexual Healing Journey: A Guide for Survivors of Sexual Abuse by Wendy Maltz

I started working with it a year ago and am still getting a lot out of her approach. You don’t have to read it all the way through if you don’t want, just check it out lightly, consider what it might look like if you WERE to take on the task of recovering your own real pleasure.

Homophobia is part of a large system meant to keep you from knowing what you really like and meant to keep people from loving each other the way they deserve. The good news is that there is life outside of homophobia. Beautiful, pulsating, real, vibrating, luminescent life. From within a heterosexual world, or a world of sexual abuse, we are told that those things don’t “exist.” That the only thing that is real is what’s on offer and we better get used to it or else . something bad . . or else the sky will fall. But real pleasure does exist. And people really can create relationships with each other on the basis of what they truly like. Your own pleasure exists and it is reliable. It has patterns and rhythms of its own that when you come to know them, can be communicated to others as the basis for a relationship. You really can follow your own pleasure to an actual life. Maybe certain people won’t notice it as “real” or validate it, but when you’re regularly having mind-blowing sex and worshipping the body of the woman you are lucky enough to be with in that moment, it really pretty much fades away as something to be nervous about. (Of course you must protect yourself always). Homophobia, sexism, abuse, all those things look so much more compelling when you are inside their grip then they do once you step outside. I feel the struggle that this posting represents and I can feel it as something I could have written once. So I guess I am talking to my own past self here, not just you. It really is possible to be happy and those things that you have been told about what sex has to be are flimsy, flimsy lies that have only the power you choose to give them through the choices you make.

I am sending many blessings to all who are on this amazing journey.

Maybe you need to re-read your post, then think about if you still feel the same way, if you do you may consider giving yourself the chance to be with a woman and see how you feel. If it fulfulls you more than being with any man, or even all the men you have dated put together then I think you have found your answer. But dont let this eat you up until you begin to hate yourself, dont let the fear of coming out and being who you are tear you down. It might be what you need to overcome anything else life throws at you. There will be others who will deny you, others who try to change you (mainly family), but you have your own life to live and whether you want to enjoy it and live it to the fullest is up to you…sometimes, it takes being scared to do something you never would do when you think you are not afraid. Being afraid is ok, denying things for the rest of your life and lying to people, to your friends, your family, and most importantly to yourself will just keep you in misery. You will never stop driving yourself crazy, you will never stop hurting, you will never stop hating yourself. When you finally accept you, people will slowly start to accept you. And even if they dont, trust me if you love and accept yourself someone will love and accept you too.

Evolution, do you have facebook or something? I also just came out and am looking for more people in the community to relate and talk to. Thanks