Please help - Questioning my sexuality and attitudes towards sex after first real breakup

[anonn89]

VERY LONG POST - advice is greatly appreciated

I recently broke up with my first serious boyfriend (2yrs) and I’m now questioning my sexuality.

I’ve never been big on one night stands so I’ve only ever slept with 2 people, both guys. First experience was not fun at all and I was dropped by him immediately after, after being strung along for 2 years at school.

Fast forward a year, and I started dating my ex boyfriend at the beginning of university. I was with my ex for 2 years and sex always felt a bit weird. We were friends before and had sex before we stared dating but I never really felt totally comfortable with the sex itself. He also had a higher sex drive than me and had more experience. I never really felt like having sex a lot, but if didn’t feel like doing anything, he accepted it but also asked if I could do something else to get him off instead.

SIDE NOTE: I’m very interested in sex itself, can imagine myself having it and not repelled by it at all, but I don’t think I felt comfortable having sex with him (or other people, I tried a one night stand with a guy in between my first time and before I started dating my ex, and I got incredibly scared and couldn’t go through with it.)

We recently broke up because we went on a break and decided we weren’t going to sleep with other people, but he slept with someone only a few days after we went on the break, which really upset me and is why I broke up with him. It’a nearly been 2 months now and I see him often because we have mutual friends, and I thought I was over it because he hurt me and he is moving on but I don’t know if I’m over it.

I’m also questioning my sexuality. I’ve always been into guys and I’ve never had any girl crushes on friends or anything. I’ve liked female celebrities and characters before and have always said that I would have sex with a girl but I’m not sure because my attitude towards sex is pretty skewed. I’ve never had sex with someone I have met in one night before, they’ve always been my friends. My ex also said when I said I may be bi a few months ago ‘that’s great, as long as you don’t become a lesbian and leave me / as long as you don’t leave me for a girl’ and when we went on a break he said ‘oh this gives you chance to explore’, when I didn’t want to get with anyone else at that point and he obviously did. I wasn’t wanting to have sex with him towards the end because I felt something was going south in our relationship.

I’m thinking I’m more into girls because at the moment it just feels right, but I don’t know if that is a result of how upset / traumatised I am at how boys have treated me in the past, because I’m feeling extremely intimidated by men at this point. I’ve also read the lesbian master doc and it’s made me even more confused. My ex has made me feel very small and insignificant at certain points during our break up and I don’t know how to deal with all of these feelings of questioning, go through a breakup and heal at the same time. I only started officially questioning when we broke up.

I am also 21 and an old child (my dad is also a very devoted catholic who doesn't agree with gay marriage), and I feel like my parents are insanely involved in my life to the point that I'm scared of experimenting, even though I don't know if its what I actually want to do.

I have kissed girls before and not felt really anything emotionally, but I don’t know if I’m denying myself the freedom to be with girls as a result of compulsory heterosexuality, if I am scared of sex in general, or if I am just extremely hurt by men to the point that I feel like I have no other choice?

I know i need to heal from the breakup but I think that it’s hard when I’m questioning at the same time. Any advice would be greatly appreciated ❤️

*21 and an ONLY child, not an old child. I don't know how to edit these posts

Unsatisfactory sex and uncomfortable dating situations are so common when you are at your stage in life and younger that they should not by themselves make you doubt your sexuality and neither should remarks made by clueless young men.
Don't panic, everyone matures at a different rate and a good sex life takes luck, practice, a bit of confidence and partners who are good at communicating and are not selfish, it sounds like you haven't had that yet, doesn't mean you are a lesbian? Id keep an open mind but maybe take a wee break from dating for a while.

Maybe you are gay and maybe you're not, and maybe you're bisexual or something else, but the first step is thinking about what YOU want. If you never felt completely comfortable having sex with your ex perhaps it was just because... You didn't want to have sex with him?

I know I spent a lot of time as a young woman having sex with men because that's what you do, or sometimes because it was easier just to do it (!) or sometimes because I wanted him to like me and I never really enjoyed the sex itself though I did enjoy the feeling of being wanted.

I am heterosexual and I do like sex, it turns out, but I didn't find this out until I decided to have sex only when I positively WANTED to - i.e
I was physically aroused rather than felt I should/wanted to be nice to my sex partner. I do think a lot of young women ignore that aspect of sex.

Maybe you do want to have sex with women and that's fine - if you feel aroused enough to have sex with a woman then, yep, you like having sex with women. I suppose you won't find out unless you experiment a bit, in a way YOU want to.