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The original was posted on /r/twoxchromosomes by /u/FermentedFruit on 2023-10-06 17:52:19.

Posting here because I’d like the opinion of other women that may feel the same way, or from gay/bisexual men that have been on the other side of this.

I’m a woman, attracted to men, and also have a pattern of being attracted to gay men.

My first ever boyfriend, when I was 12, was my gay best friend. We never did anything other than hang out platonically, and he was clear with me that he is gay, but I loved him.

I have since had more crushes on gay men, and have dated men that say that they’re straight, but then later it comes out that they are at the least bisexual and at the most, a gay victim of comphet

(compulsive heterosexuality - because the societal default is hetero, it can be difficult, challenging, scary for men to explore that they may not be hetero, and so they fall into relationships with women just because that’s the default expectation of them).

I have been more than one gay-identified man’s first girlfriend - and have not always been the one to initiate that relationship.

I don’t feel attracted to women - I haven’t ever seen a woman and felt sexual attraction to her, but I do find some masculine presenting women attractive and would consider dating them, but haven’t put any energy towards exploring that, and haven’t been approached by anyone that I share mutual attraction with.

I’m also attracted to blue collar and blue collar adjacent men - big, capable, men that get their hands dirty and know how to build/fix things. Makes me melt.

I’ve also dated men that my friends would ask me if they were gay, because of their mannerisms and how they carried themselves, but self identified as straight.

So - what am I? Am I queer? It doesn’t feel so because I am a woman, attracted to men/masculinity, but I don’t know why I also am so attracted to queer men, even closeted ones!!

Thank you to everyone that has (or will) shared their insight! Here are some of my favorite comments, in case anyone else questioning the same about themselves finds this!

I’ve had several crushes on gay men before. Upon reflection it was because I felt safe around them. Some of them were genuinely great guys over all, but the big factor for my attraction came down to feeling safe in their presence.

Gay men are some of the few men that treat women like whole human beings. A lot of women love m/m stories and fanfiction so much because misogyny is so built into heterosexual romance that this is the closest women can come to a story where the partners are equal.

You like men that have basic hygiene, see you as a person, and are nice to you. It’s a condemnation of men as a class that it’s so rare to see from heterosexual men.

After reading your comment, it just struck me that many straight men are consciously or unconsciously waiting for a woman to come along and do all the traditional feminine things like cooking and cleaning, whereas gay men are more likely to learn to do all the traditionally feminine things themselves since they aren’t expecting a woman to fill that role. Lesbians are the same in that they are more likely to learn how to do traditionally masculine things like home/car repairs since they aren’t expecting a man to come along and fulfill that role.

I’m bisexual, but for me, I found a lot of what was causing me to feel attraction to (even not-out) gay men was that I like being treated like a person, and not like a sexual object.

I found that the straight men who were interested in me but I didn’t reciprocate that feeling, they were very obviously into me, despite not really knowing me very well. It felt like they didn’t like me, they had a woman in their head that they liked, and they were projecting that on me because they wanted me to fill that role.

And then there were straight men who were hot, but didn’t find me attractive. So they ignored me entirely. Had no use for me.

And then there was the small subset of men who got along with me, who seemed to enjoy interacting with me, but who weren’t immediately trying to get me to come home with them upon meeting me. It felt like they got who I was and wanted to be my friend, and also they were attractive. And that’s what I wanted. And there were definitely straight men like that, who I had great relationships with. But I also ran into a couple of gay dudes in there too.

Is it just gay men in general, like a wide variety of men that happen to share a common trait of being gay? Or are the gay men you’re attracted to of a similar body type or aesthetic?

If the former, it’s something in their personality. My guess would be all the things that result from the emotional maturity gained in confronting/accepting/being gay in the first place. In my experience, most gay men have generally sorted through a truckload of masculine identity bullshit to arrive at where they are. Because they had to. It’s the same reason you find that so many of the outcasts and unpopular kids from high school become remarkably awesome human beings rather quickly into adulthood, compared to their EQ-stunted, life-just-extension-of-high-school “popular” kid peers.