Reconsidering Same-Sex Attraction, Identity, Relationships and the Future

By Koby Frances PhD

Maybe coming out once felt like an answer.

It gave a name to attractions and experiences that may have been confusing for years. Perhaps it brought relief, honesty, community, or simply the feeling that you no longer had to keep asking yourself the same question.

Maybe it also helped other things make sense. Why you had been so drawn to certain people. Why dating the opposite sex had felt confusing. Why you seemed different from friends or family members. Why particular fantasies or sexual experiences had felt so powerful.

And yet years later, other questions may remain.

Why is it so hard to be satisfied with just one person? Or, I like this relationship, but I don’t know where its going? What kind of family do I want? How does the life I am building fit together with the world that I grew up with and still feel connected to? Why do I sometimes feel as though the life I am now living belongs to a completely different person than the life I used to see for myself?

Perhaps the questions are less obvious than that. You may simply feel dissatisfied in a relationship, lonely, anxious about the future, or increasingly unsure where you belong.

None of this necessarily means that coming out was a mistake.

But sometimes dissatisfaction brings older questions back to the surface.

And if that happens, it may be worth asking whether certain factors that made a decision feel right years ago, are no longer as important. And whether changes in your attitude, social life or worldview are now asking you revisit the decision with a new set of eyes.

When Several Different Questions Become One

When people first begin trying to understand same-sex attraction, several very different questions can easily collapse into one:

Who am I attracted to? What kind of attraction is it?

What does that attraction mean about me?

What kind of relationship am I capable of having?

What identity best describes me?

What kind of life do I want to build?

These questions are related. But they are not necessarily the same.

Perhaps when you first came out, for example, you knew something very clearly: you experienced attraction to the same sex.

From there, another conclusion may have seemed almost automatic: Then I am gay.

And from there still another conclusion: Then a genuine relationship with someone of the opposite sex is probably not possible for me.

Maybe nobody explicitly told you all of this. Maybe a therapist, rabbi, friend, website, or someone you trusted did. Either way, the conclusions may have felt so natural that there seemed little reason to examine them separately.

There may also have been another comparison happening in the background.

For years, you looked at straight friends who seemed excited by attractive women, heard the way they talked about them, and assumed that heterosexual dating must begin with that same kind of immediate sexual pull—and then simply continue from there.

If you did not feel that same reaction, it may have then seemed obvious that dating women would always be flat, forced, or unfair.

You may have also asked ourself: Why should everyone else get to pursue people they are genuinely excited by while I am supposed to settle for something that feels muted?

That concern deserves to be taken seriously. No one should have to settle for a long-term relationship that feels dull and uninspiring.

But sometimes, that concern rests on an incomplete picture of how attraction actually works—even for people who report feeling highly aroused by opposite sex images or strangers.

The Straight People Around You May Not Be Experiencing What You Imagine

A man, for example, may notice an attractive woman across a room and feel immediate interest. He might “check her out”, and have trouble moving his attention away from her. He may want to engage such a person in conversation.

But here’s where misunderstandings are common: That reaction still does not mean that this man brings that same level of arousal once he actually begins to engage her in conversation or even goes out on date with her.

He may discover within two minutes that he actually does not enjoy her personality, does not feel understood by her, finds the interaction awkward, or simply does not feel any chemistry. The woman may fit his physical “type” perfectly, causing him to stare at her with desire from afar. Yet the attraction can quickly diminish once there is an actual person sitting in front of him.

The opposite can happen too.

The same man may meet someone who does not immediately match his strongest physical type, and feels no strong pull to look twice at her when passing her by. But once he sits with her, maybe the conversation is easy. Her smile lights up her face in a way that he didn’t notice when she was just a stranger. She seems genuinely interested in him. He feels unusually relaxed and alive around her. Later, he finds himself replaying something she said later that night. When she calls or texts, seeing her name appear on his phone makes him smile and he’s excited to interact more.

A few dates later, he may find himself feeling drawn to sit closer to her, kiss her, touch her, and be wanted by her.

In other words, even for people who experience obvious opposite-sex attraction for strangers or images, the attraction that catches their attention from across a room is not necessarily the attraction that carries an actual relationship with a real person.

And this does not end once people marry.

Sexual desire in long-term heterosexual relationships is not fixed or guaranteed. It can rise and fall with stress, exhaustion, conflict, resentment, familiarity, emotional closeness, novelty, physical changes, parenthood, and the particular dynamics between two people.

There is a reason entire areas of couples therapy, books, magazines, and relationship advice are devoted to helping heterosexual couples preserve or rekindle desire.

The standard is not that heterosexual people find someone who produces powerful sexual excitement and then simply remain at that high level for the rest of their lives.

In fact, the unfair comparison that is often made by people with same-sex attractions—and without even realizing—is between their strongest moments of same-sex arousal and an imagined version of heterosexual desire that even heterosexual couples do not live with continuously.

That is an important comparison to reconsider.

Attraction Can Begin in More Than One Way

One distinction I have found especially useful to talk to clients about is the different ways that attraction can develop.

Some attraction, for example, is immediate and “triggered”. A particular body type, appearance, personality quality, role, interaction, or other characteristic quickly activates excitement or sexual interest. We can experience this toward someone we barely know—or even toward an image.

Other kinds of attraction can also develop quickly but through actual connection.

Often these moments are so frequent and common we forget to even notice that they are forms of attraction. For example, you enjoy a shared moment with a stranger in an elevator or on line in the grocery store and find yourself smiling and repeating the conversation in your mind, becoming curious about who the are and what a longer conversation with them might feel like.

On an actual date with a new person, you talk and feel you have something in common or a way of speaking that is similar. You feel good when she smiles and laughs at a joke you make. After the date, you replay the conversation and hope she is also thinking about you. Seeing her name appear on your phone when she calls gives you a jolt. Maybe as dates continue, you start wondering what it would feel like to sit closer, hold her hand, kiss her, or have her want you physically.

The attraction may have begun through humor, admiration, warmth, ease, mutual interest, or emotional chemistry, but it does not have to remain merely “emotional.”

As the connection becomes more personal, the person herself can become increasingly exciting. You may begin noticing her body differently because it belongs to someone you now feel close to. For some, stronger physical interest may not be noticed until there is more overt verbal and physical affection or flirtation. This is more common among people who date in more religious and traditional settings where people may be more reserved about expressing this and may be more focused on intellectually evaluating long-term compatibility.

The important point to remember here is that connection attraction is not friendship plus obligation. It is a different—and often much more lasting—route into romantic and sexual excitement.

Both forms of attraction are real.

But they are not identical.

Where things get confusing is when we are only familiar with the kind of attraction that is immediate, powerful, and sexually charged—what we are calling triggered attraction. We may then be skeptical of experiencing connection attraction, especially if it is for a type of person who is not typically desired from afar.

“Why would I feel excited and attracted to this type of person or this gender, when my triggered attraction is only for this type of person or gender?”

It’s a common and legitimate question to ask. And you have every right to be skeptical because you haven’t experienced it—yet.

What may be helpful to remember, however, is that most people who have yet to experience connection attraction are skeptical if it can ever be developed. In that sense, you may not be that different from others.

Also, connection attraction requires the right combination of two people. It can’t just be “two people who have common interests and goals and who like how they look”. It actually requires a special kind of complementarity feeling. This helps the connection beyond a friendship kind of feeling, toward what people later describe as an unmistakable “spark”.

For connection attraction to unfold is also important for people to meet one another under the right circumstances, when they can be natural and confident enough to present themselves well and be open to the necessary give and take required for an intimate connection to form.

“But I’m Only Attracted to Men”

For many people, this seems to end the discussion.

I have been attracted to men for years. Men catch my attention. Men appear in my fantasies. The feelings are immediate and unmistakable. So what else is there to understand?

Potentially quite a lot.

In my clinical work, I have found that people sometimes assume that the attractions which have been most immediate or familiar to them thus far, are an accurate prediction of who they can even feel attracted and connected to.

That assumption is worth examining rather than simply accepting—but the answer will not be identical for everyone.

Human beings generally do not build their entire relational lives around every attraction, fantasy, or sexual impulse that comes first to them or most easily to them.

A married person, for example, does not stop noticing other attractive people once they are attracted and in-love with their spouse.

Someone else may have fantasies involving situations he would never actually want or pursue in a long-term relationship.

Another person may repeatedly feel drawn toward unavailable partners, novelty, a highly particular physical type, or people who would make a stable relationship extremely difficult.

Think about it for a moment: If every powerful attraction were automatically treated as a directive about whom we should build our lives around, monogamous relationships of every kind would become very difficult.

That does not make those desires fake, or easy to forget about.

It simply means that experiencing a desire and deciding what kind of relationship and life to build are different human tasks.

Your strongest or most familiar attraction may tell you something important about yourself.

It does not necessarily tell you everything.

“But I’m Not Attracted to Women”

This objection can feel even more decisive.

Maybe you dated women before coming out and felt very little. Perhaps you looked at attractive women and wondered why your friends seemed excited while you felt almost nothing. Maybe you went out on a date and felt no arousal with them even though you found them good looking. Maybe you even kissed someone and spent the entire time checking yourself:

Am I feeling anything? Do I want this? Shouldn’t I be more aroused?

Those experiences matter.

But they also need to be understood in context.

For example, suppose the standard you were unconsciously using was the intense, immediate attraction you already knew how to experience toward men. You meet a woman and look internally for the same unmistakable jolt.

Nothing comparable happens.

The conclusion comes quickly:

There it is. I’m not attracted to women.

But perhaps you were testing for one particular kind of attraction.

You may also have been evaluating heterosexual feelings according to a standard that many heterosexual relationships themselves would fail.

The same caution applies to early physical experiences. A first kiss or first sexual encounter—especially when someone is inexperienced, anxious, self-conscious, or closely monitoring how he is supposed to feel—can be surprisingly awkward or even somewhat mechanical. This is true for heterosexual people too. Physical intimacy does not always begin with an immediate rush of effortless desire simply because there is some attraction.

This comparison can become even more misleading if same-sex fantasy or sexual experience is already much more familiar. You may be comparing a new, uncertain experience with a woman to a pathway of attraction that has been rehearsed in fantasy or experience for years. The fact that the unfamiliar experience initially feels less natural or intense does not, by itself, tell you what might develop with greater comfort, connection, familiarity, and mutual desire.

For many people, physical attraction itself becomes more spontaneous and pleasurable once the awkwardness of being new to one another gives way to greater confidence, familiarity, and the experience of being mutually wanted.

Connection attraction may also begin somewhere else: enjoying her presence, wanting the date to continue, feeling unusually comfortable, admiring something about her, wondering whether she likes you, feeling excited when she texts, or gradually wanting greater physical closeness.

Sexual desire often grows out of that process rather than preceding it—no matter how objectively attractive the person is.

Many internal and external factors go into the development of attraction.

You might be looking at your interactions with the opposite sex and questioning your innate capacity for satisfaction and fulfillment based on those experiences. But perhaps you have yet to meet the right person where there is that kind of strong connection, one that feels different than just having a good friend.

Perhaps you were dating while extremely anxious or preoccupied with something else going in your life.

Perhaps you were comparing every subtle feeling toward a woman with a far more familiar and reinforced form of attraction toward men.

The point is not to predetermine the answer.

It is to recognize that “I haven’t experienced it” and “I am incapable of experiencing it” are not necessarily the same statement.

Dating Can Become an Internal Test Instead of a Relationship

There is another complication.

If much of a date is spent checking yourself—

Am I aroused yet? Do I want to kiss her? Is this as strong as what I feel toward men? What does this prove about me?—

your attention is repeatedly pulled away from the person in front of you and back toward your own internal reactions.

You are no longer simply meeting someone.

You are conducting an examination.

That does not create attraction where none exists. But it can make it harder to discover whether interest, chemistry, warmth, anticipation, or desire might develop naturally.

Someone who walks into a date thinking, I need to find out tonight whether I am capable of heterosexual attraction, is having a very different experience from someone who is simply wondering, Do I like this person? Do I want to know her better? Am I looking forward to seeing her again?

That difference matters.

Familiarity Can Feel Like Identity

Sexual and romantic patterns become familiar over time.

The people we have repeatedly fantasized about, the situations in which we first experienced strong arousal, the kinds of bodies or personalities associated with excitement, and the relationships in which we have repeatedly sought intimacy can all become increasingly easy to access psychologically.

Eventually, that familiarity can make an attraction feel less like something we experience and more like evidence of what we fundamentally are.

That can become even more powerful when an identity has also become connected with friendship, community, honesty, relief from secrecy, or a sense of finally belonging somewhere.

None of those experiences should be dismissed.

But they can make reopening the question emotionally difficult.

It may no longer feel like asking:

What kinds of relationships am I capable of?

It can feel like asking:

Was everything I understood about myself wrong?

Those are very different questions.

And perhaps nothing was “wrong.”

Perhaps at a previous stage in life you understood one important part of yourself accurately while assuming that it answered several other questions that had not yet been fully explored.

What If the Life You Want Doesn’t Fit Neatly?

You might have considered yourself to be innately gay but now have come into contact with other interests and desires that make being gay somewhat more complicated.

Perhaps you feel more deeply connected to Judaism and more ready to be fully committed.

Perhaps you miss aspects of Orthodox life you once assumed you had to leave behind.

Perhaps you want children or a family structure resembling the one you grew up imagining and the one your friends have built.

Perhaps you are currently in a same-sex relationship and care deeply about your partner— yet still find yourself uncertain about where your life is heading.

Or perhaps you simply have a persistent sense that some important question remains unfinished.

None of those experiences alone prove that you should pursue heterosexual marriage.

But neither should they automatically be interpreted as shame, denial, internalized prejudice, or an inability to accept yourself.

They deserve the same curiosity your attractions deserve.

You are allowed to say:

I genuinely experience same-sex attraction and have for some time.

And also:

I genuinely want to understand whether another kind of relationship or life may be possible for me.

Those statements do not have to cancel each other out.

You Don’t Have to Eliminate or Rewire Your Same-Sex Attractions

Another assumption can make reconsidering these questions feel impossible:

Even if I wanted a relationship with a woman, wouldn’t I first have to get rid of my attraction to men? Wouldn’t I need to start feeling attraction to random women in public or in the media in order to know I can get there with a real person?

Not necessarily.

First, people in satisfying monogamous relationships do not generally lose all interest and desire in anyone outside the relationship.

A person can remain susceptible to familiar fantasies, old attraction patterns, or powerful sexual cues while still being romantically and sexually attached to one particular person.

Similarly attraction to random opposite-sex images and strangers is not considered a prerequisite for being able to feel excited and sexually attracted to a real person who you spend time with and admire.

The more useful question is:

Can I develop enough genuine emotional, romantic, and sexual connection with this specific person that the relationship itself becomes something I deeply want to invest in and remain loyal to?

Those are very different standards.

Maybe You Didn’t Have Every Piece of Information Yet

Looking back at an earlier decision does not require condemning the person you were when you made it.

Back then, you were trying to understand what you felt with the concepts, experiences, and information available to you at the time.

But one possibility that you may have been never been encouraged to think about was that your strongest existing attractions might not be a complete map of your future relational capacity.

Perhaps nobody distinguished immediate attraction from attraction that develops through connection. Perhaps no one told you that many people’s most immediate and familiar attractions are quite different from the kinds of people who they ultimately want to spend their lives with.

Perhaps nobody questioned the assumption that your straight friends entered relationships carrying the same powerful arousal they displayed when talking about attractive strangers.

Perhaps nobody explained that even heterosexual desire changes considerably within real relationships and marriages.

Perhaps nobody asked whether constantly testing yourself around women was actually interfering with the possibility of becoming interested in the woman sitting across from you.

Perhaps no one taught you that even for people who only have opposite-sex interests, it typically takes a special type of connection to generate excitement—and that good looks alone, or even a close friendship with a girl, may not be enough to create this.

Perhaps identity became the answer before questions about relationship capacity and life direction had really been fully explored.

And perhaps none of these possibilities ultimately changes your answer.

That is possible too.

The purpose of asking is not to manufacture a different conclusion.

It is to make sure the conclusion is actually yours.

You Are Still Allowed to Ask

You may ultimately arrive at many of the same conclusions you reached years ago.

You may decide that your current identity and relationships remain deeply right for you.

But you may also discover that something you once considered impossible now deserves another look.

The point is not that you owe yourself a different answer.

It is that you are still allowed to ask the questions.

Your history does not require you to deny what you feel.