Am I a lesbian? (the lesbian masterdoc)

Sexual Fantasies

Our culture places a big emphasis on sex when it comes to orientation.

Some people's orientation includes sexual attraction and some people's orientation doesn't, but most of us feel like our sexual fantasies are the most important indicator of non-straight sexuality because LGBT people have been so thoroughly reduced to sexual acts and sexual objects in the homophobic culture we've grown up in.

Along with that, we've also grown up in a heteronormative and cisnormative society that repetitively teaches and reemphasizes the same singular sexual "script" for how
sex is supposed to go, over and over and over. They do not teach any others, and it requires non-straight and non-cis people to invent their own sexual scripts individually
and with partners.

But as a young person, when you're aroused, your mind has a very limited template of potential narratives associated with that feeling, so many people default to the same heteronormative script in their fantasies because it's unconscious and easy. Because of this, you might feel like you must be attracted to men because you imagine abstract situations of sex with men, even though you have absolutely no desire to sleep with men in real life.

Actual Attraction:When you fantasize about men, it is because you're attracted to their bodies or specific men or the idea of having sex with men. You imagine qualities of their body and you like the idea of what you're imagining. If you think about the fantasy later that day, you might feel like it's embarrassing, but you also feel like it's sexy.

Compulsory Heterosexuality:When you fantasize about men, it is mostly just enacting a kind of narrative. More focused on movement than features- the men in your fantasies might be faceless or blank-featured or their bodies might symbolize some emotion. You don't really like the idea of what you're imagining. You might not even be in the fantasy, but instead another faceless woman might be. You might even imagine yourself as the man. The narrative follows the sexual script, but the details are more vague and abstract and might even shift and change throughout the fantasy. If you think about it later that day, you might feel vaguely nauseated or uncomfortable or feel invalidated and wrong.

It's really difficult to unroot compulsory heterosexuality. My simplest advice on getting through it is this: even if you are attracted to men, you do not need to date them if you don't want to. If you only want to date other women, then you have the right to that. The rest is less important than the simple reality of what you want right now.