I am perfectly normal, just as I am.
Even though I’m 36, I still sometimes struggle with my sexuality.
Is it a disorder?
Is it a result of my damaged childhood?
Is it a sin?
What we are taught as children is engrained so deeply into our being that even if we know we consciously don’t believe or support something, our subconscious still wonders.
A really big epiphany came, ironically, when I was at work. I work in a very small office (there are only four other women with whom I directly work), and they often talk about men and penises and the hunk of the hour and romance books or whatever. I typically just ignore it; it doesn’t bother me or anything (though when I’m feeling particularly bitchy, I might throw out how hot some chick is just to fuck with them). I don’t even know what they were looking at, but I turned around and saw a Google image search that was mostly nearly naked men. I was probably 15 feet away so I could see generalities, not who the men/man were/was.
What occurred to me, though, was that while they were all legitimately attracted to (or so their extremely excited words and tones implied) and very vocal about finding the man/men incredibly sexy, I have honestly never thought that. There are men that I think are attractive and men with whom I’d totally have sex (at least in theory since I have done so in the past), but I have never made a legit groan of sexual frustration over a man ever in my life, especially not at work.
The number of amazingly beautiful women of whom I’ve made similar noises, though, is, possibly, innumerable. My first very clear memory of finding someone attractive in a more than “they’re pretty/handsome” way was about my second grade teacher, Mrs. Brewer. Growing up in a very small town, I’m 99.9% sure that I had never been exposed to anyone liking someone of the same gender in “that way” before. It wasn’t until years and years later that I realized that there was something “wrong” with me for thinking like that, feeling like that.
This isn’t societal.
This isn’t cultural.
This isn’t a conditioned response.
This is chemical, instinctive, primal, the ID showing itself.
No amount of reeducation or intervention or prayer or celibacy or therapy will ever change that.
It’s taken me so, so long to learn and accept this lesson. There is nothing wrong with me. I am not damned for loving women. I am not so damaged that I simply “turned to women” as an “easier” alternative to men.
I am the way that I was made. I can no more be faulted or held responsible for this than someone is responsible for having freckles or one blue eye and one green eye. Is it common? Maybe not.
But that doesn’t mean it’s not normal.