Thoughts: The evolution of my sexuality- Part one

Even though I have been mostly open and out about my sexuality since my early 20s, it is still something I haven't gone into depth about on the internet yet. But, as I have benefited so many times from incredible people being vulnerable about their experiences and processes on Youtube or other forms of social media, I've decided it's time I share as well.

As I mentioned in my previous blog about my spiritual beliefs, I was raised in a very conservative Christian religion and household. Sex was not discussed other than that abstinence was expected until marriage. And we all know how effective that mode of education is (insert eye roll).

Needless to say, I was always obsessed with sex, sexuality and learning as much as I could about pleasure and intimacy from a young age. I was the friend everyone knew to come to with their various questions about pleasure and sex and techniques on anything they had an interest in. Nothing was too taboo or too weird or gross for me to learn about or discuss. I was a sexual judgement free zone for everyone and I absolutely loved it. I am actually still this way for anyone who comes to me with these topics.

My mom would and has described me as boy crazy when younger as I always had crushes and boyfriends since elementary school and had my first kiss when I was 10 years old and first french kiss at 11 years old. The great thing was that my mom didn't scold me for it when I came running to tell her flushing with excitement. She joined in on the excitement and let me go on and on about those innocent first experiences with boys.

To paint a picture of my earlier understanding of sexuality: growing up as sheltered as I did, I honestly never thought about any other sexuality option other than heterosexuality. I got a glimpse of the possibility of some men not being interested in women when my mom started going to a gay hairdresser when I was a teenager. But even then, I never knew girls or women could ever be sexually interested in anyone other than cis gendered boys/men.

I was always into fashion magazines and I was a dancer so I littered my bedroom walls with magazine photos of gorgeous women, both models and dancers. I even had some images of nude women in artistic poses and always brushed off my excitement over those sexy images as just appreciating the female form since I was a dancer. But I also would have a desperation to spend time with babysitters or certain friends that I never could quite understand as I had no framework to work with other than friendship and admiration.

Fast forward to my senior year of college and I'm in a cultural anthropology class in my Seventh Day Adventist University and there are three of us in the class that are actually from other cultures so we are having the majority of the discussions with the professor. It was me, a guy from South Africa and the most stunning, gorgeous girl from Burma. I could not take my eyes off of her, would watch her full lips as she talked or would sit behind her to see her thick, wavy black hair tumble down her back accentuating her curvy body.

I found myself daydreaming in class about what it would be like to kiss her and touch her and have her look at me with desire. What the hell? Where did that come from? It shocked me at first that these desires and thoughts seemed to come out of nowhere but because of my positive experiences being open to other people's desires and interests, I luckily didn't judge myself for these new desires that were coming up for me.

I stayed curious about them even though I knew there was no way for me to act on them. I would most definitely have gotten kicked out of the school for any kind of homosexual behavior.

I was dating a cis gendered guy at the time who would later become my husband, now ex-husband. I told him about these desires and he was understanding and supportive and encouraged me to do whatever felt right. My female crush and I had become friends and I would sometimes have her over to my dorm room. I was always a nervous wreck whenever it was just the two of us, but she was engaged to the guy from South Africa so I had no reason to believe she would ever have been interested in me as more than a friend.

A couple years later as I was coming more to terms with my sexuality and my interest in dating women, I did send her an email to let her know how I felt about her while in school. She thought my email had gotten hacked and called to let me know. I assured her that the email was, in fact, from me. It was a little embarrassing, but I'm still very glad I told her despite the fact that she was more than a little confused by the declaration.

I've decided to break this up a bit as this blog is already getting quite long. Stay tuned for my coming out story, my divorce and moving to LA amongst the heyday of the L Word.

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