In my late 30’s, I finally managed to untangle myself from an abusive marriage in which a lot of fights over the last couple of years were about me not wanting to have sex often enough. I assumed that the high-anxiety, high-stress relationship was killing my libido, so after I’d taken a little bit to recalibrate myself after the divorce, I started dating again.

It went fine, I was reasonably “successful” (as such things are often measured from the male perspective), but every time I had sex, I left the event feeling distinctly unfulfilled. It’s hard to describe. It was something I thought would make me happy, but, at best, it left me kind of empty, and, at worst, I’d spend the next couple days fighting off anxiety.

So I decided to get my testosterone checked (it was normal) and get some therapy. At some point I realized that I hadn’t been on a date, much less had sex, in over a year, and I was fine with it, and, most importantly, that apparently wasn’t normal for guys. I noticed that all of my friends would complain up a storm if they hadn’t gotten laid in longer than about a week and a half, and that there were always these very confusing threads on AskReddit or AskMen where guys would say things like “I might be able to go 6 months without sex for a million dollars” or whatever. Whereas I was over here having to look back at old text messages just to find out exactly how long it had been since I last had sex, because I hadn’t been keeping track.

I had one more hookup (Feb. 2021), got the same kind of empty feelings afterwards, and decided that, while the act itself was enjoyable, all the complicated unwritten rules and rituals around sex just made it not worth it, especially considering I never got the happy-fuzzy-euphoric feelings everyone else talked about. I wasn’t getting the same payoff that all my other guy friends said they were getting, and instead of thinking they were full of hot air, I decided to take their word for it.

So after some research, I started identifying as sex-indifferent gray/ace.

It’s not a perfect label; I do experience sexual attraction, but it’s not powerful enough to be a motivating factor. Sex is kind of like mowing the lawn, in that it’s not awful, and sometimes it can be relaxing or enjoyable under the right circumstances, but I’m not leaving work early because I’m excited to mow the lawn when I get home. And if someone said “Hey, you never have to mow the lawn again!”, that would be pretty good news. Sometimes I miss the smell of freshly-cut grass, but on the whole, it’s just one more big thing I no longer have to worry about.

My current girlfriend is also ace, and it works out wonderfully. We cuddle, we hold hands, we laugh, and we never have to argue about sex. Life is much simpler. I’m reasonably happy.

I was a young 13 years old boy when it happened.

That’s when I started watching porn. Too young maybe. By that point, I actually was quite late compared to all of the guys I knew who got into it way before me. I don’t when I first saw porn, but I do remember what it was and I can still name it. I didn’t like it at all. And it never interested me past that… for a time.

Eventually, I started to have my “sexual awakening”. Watching TV and developping strong new feelings at the sight of some women. Having my first sexual and wet dreams. Don’t remember what made me go towards porn, but I did.

I watched some, started masturbating for the first times. But it quickly dawned on me that more often than not… when I was watching a video of a man going down on a woman, well… I wanted to be her, more than I wanted to be him. I started to explore other sides of porn and also my body.

I’ve had my first actual sexual experiences a few years later. I didn’t have many sexual partners, and funnily enough, I am now married, ten years after we first met, to the women with who I had my first time. We broke up multiple times for various reasons and during one of our longest hiatus, I also had sex with another guy, those are some great memories too. We never went past oral though but I loved every second of it.

Eventually, she and I started seeing each other again. Tried to stay friends. And eventually, we both accepted we were like magnets, we kept being drawn to one another. We figured out our shit, set our boundries with external elements who were trying to fuck up our relationship and and I went to live with her. And I still am to this day. That’s when I started to really figure out who I was sexually, a process which took years.

I’m in my mid twenties now. Last year, lots of things happened in my life, it was an awful year, perhaps the worst of my life. But all of that stress had the unforseen consequences of pushing out of me the femboy that was arguably, always there, just hiding in me. Can’t say she was surprised. She helped me figure it out and never pushed me in any direction, she just encouraged me to keep on digging. She always knew who and what I was. Me being this, was not a surprise at all to her and it just made her love me even more.

This also made me question if maybe I was trans. That was a whole mess of tangled questions and past traumas that I had to figure out and unwrap in my mind. That wasn’t fun at all to go through but in the end, I’d say it did a lot of good. The answer is most likely no. I don’t think I’m trans. I’m just a femboy, I don’t feel like a men, but I don’t feel like a women, I just feel like my weird androgynous self and she loves me the way I am, so I’m happy being this. We both keep on exploring our bodies and sexuality together, and I keep on finding out things about myself. I couldn’t dream of a more humane and healthier relationship.

Turns out, I’ve always been this way, naturally feminine in my way of dressing and acting, without knowing it. Which leads to lots of people not knowing if I’m a man or a woman… and I love it. I love being “this”.

And this year, I mustured the courage to go to my first pride event with my wife as a bisexual pair. I had an amazing time. I have yet to go out in public in “full femboy mode”, one thing at a time. If I’m being honest, I genuienly believe that it wouldn’t be safe for me to do so.

But maybe one day I will. Who knows. However, I don’t feel the need to right now. My dress code has pretty much always been whatever pants, oversized hoodie and fingerless gloves. Skirts and thigh high stockings are just comfortable and fun to wear at home. :3

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So yeah. It started when I was thirteen and I’d say it’s still an on-going process. It feels like I’m finally figuring it all out, though. But I’m sure there is a whole lot more to discover and it’s no longer scary.

I grew up surrounded by people who were talking during lunch about how “Homosexuality is a birth defect, a mental sickness”, so, yeah. That wasn’t fun for me to live with that. Most are quite supportive now, but the damage is done and I try to avoid talking about that stuff. I may not look like it now, because it’s the internet and it’s much easier for me to express things through a written format. But I am quite discreete and private in real life. I don’t talk much and certainly not about my sexuality.

What helped me is that I met her. Especially when I went to live with her. She is also bi. She was always into the LGBTQIA+ culture and had supportive parent. She is the best thing that ever happened to me. And to all my fellow bisexual peeps out there, get yourself a bisexual partner. 10/10 would definetely recommend.

Telling all of this felt… good. I don’t know why, but it did. Thanks a lot OP, for the opportunity.

EDIT: 4 months later, if someone somehow find this and ends up here… turns out that this egg here finally cracked and I’m actually definitely trans, not a femboy, just fem. Happier then ever.

I didn’t really find out until I was in my early 20s. I had a close and sometimes intense relationship with my best friend who I met at college. We spent a ton of time alone together, opened up to each other about things we’d never talked about with anyone else in our lives, and had one or two dramatic “friend breakups” before making up again and coming back to our friendship. It took both of us two or three years of this before we realized that this was more than just bros being bros, but that we had real romantic feelings for each other. We confessed our feelings for each other after experimenting with cuddling in a hammock on a hiking trip together and wound up as boyfriends for about a year.

I had a lot of confusion about my identity around that time and didn’t really know what to call myself, but I eventually settled on bisexual cis male.

Not sure I every really found out, tbh. The gender identity was more at odds with society so sexuality has always seemed less pertinent in virtue of being relative. What good is a box for my sexuality when I’m already considered a “deviant”, y’know?

The general trend of my sexuality made me feel like my gender identity wasn’t real or valid or whatever. Finding a partner was more of an immediate survival thing when I was younger since my living parent was my abuser.

Having married as a teen, I am cosmically lucky that my spouse continues to be my absolute best friend who ended up not having any gendered preferences in sexuality.

We’re theoretically ENM, but in practice, relationships are hella work and neither of us has dated in years. At any rate, I’ve never managed to determine the precise character of my sexuality and I don’t know if I ever will.

Human bodies aren’t really all that different and it’s always seemed weird that so much weight is placed on what specific configurations of genitals a person prefers 🤷

I knew I had a thing for guys as well as women when I was in middle school but was deeply in denial. I didn’t want to admit it and was afraid of what it meant to come out.

It wasn’t until I went to college and met more out LGBT people that I felt comfortable admitting I was bi. Now, I’m 4 years into a same-sex relationship and it’s fantastic!