Am I a lesbian?

Last updated on October 25, 2020

Question:

I’m 17 years old and I’m a female.

My sexual problems are so deep, I don’t know where to begin.

When I was younger, there was a lot of sexual relations between my family, like one-off occasions. I began to experiment at an early age. Some of the relations, I initiated and others that they did.

In primary school, I was a tomboy, and I was also very confused. This was because up until my preteens, all the girls I got close to initiated something sexual. For example, a girl came to me and suggested we lick vaginas, which we did. It never got worse than that, but I started to wonder if my friends viewed me as a boy. I grew up with males, so I was like a tomboy. I wasn’t really interested in boys – well I was, but I wouldn’t tell anyone. This happened with a few of my best friends, my little brother, my godsister and it happened with my little cousin as well (I initiated but she continued). Normally, in these scenarios, it would be a case of rubbing bodies to stimulate. Some would say, it’s just experimenting, but at the age, I would say it was quite extreme.

During primary school, furthermore, I was masturbating. I liked the pleasure, but the guilt would come after. The first time, I did it was when I was about 8 or 9, and I wasn’t exactly sure what I was doing until the guilt overcame me after. Since then, it became quite regular. It normally started off playfully and innocently – slapping each other’s bums and running away – but then it would be a rub of the bum and I remember on a trip I was basically using the girl to get pleasure.

I remember questioning my Mum if I was a lesbian because all my sexual experiences were with girls, but I was not building relationships. It was almost as if I was drunk, and when I climaxed I became sober and completely disgusted.

As I entered secondary school, I had boyfriends. It never was as extremely sexual as it was with the girls. I genuinely liked the boys and wasn’t using them for sexual gains. I was with a guy for about a year and that was the most sexual I got with anyone. In this stage of my life, I started to watch porn alongside masturbating.

I’ve always analyzed people’s shapes and bottoms because I’ve started to want the bodies that the big-bottomed-ladies have in porn and the hourglass-shape. I kind of congratulate a girl in my head if she has it. I find that when I get horny, whatever is available, I do – whether that’s watching lesbian porn or straight porn (nowadays more so straight). Normally it is to things that I idealize for myself, so I masturbate to big bums, etc. However, when I climax, I feel completely dirty.

However, on a normal day, it wouldn’t pass through my mind. I feel like almost I masturbate to girls’ bums or whatnot because I wired myself like a boy (when I’m in that mode) and my thoughts are almost like a boy’s. Really and truly, it’s the deepest secret I hold. I’ve told two of my dearest friends and I’ve told some of my ex-boyfriends’ before but never in the entirety that I’ve written it now.

I understand I’m very sexually active, and I have more testosterone than the average girl, so maybe that’s why romance novels don’t affect me as much as they do others, but it’s such a struggle for me. What would you say I am? A chronic masturbating sexually-confused girl? I know I’ve been very bi-curious but I can’t imagine myself actually being with a girl and holding a relationship. Recently, the Devil’s been putting in dreams in my head where the scenes that I watch in porn are being replicated in my head but with me playing as the boy.

I feel I’m rambling on, but I really do wish for your help.

Answer:

I’m going to approach this from a different direction than you have been doing. You have been chasing after feelings to determine “who you are.” The problem you keep running into is that feelings don’t give you an answer because anyone, male or female, can turn you on. But that is because a large element of sex is a mechanical process that our bodies are wired to respond to.

Though you don’t see it this way, you were sexually abused as a child. You were exposed to sex at an early age instead of having your innocence protected. It would be nice to be able to turn back the clock and undo this, but it can’t be done. It is a part of your history, but it doesn’t have to define who you are unless you let it. Not knowing any better, you carried it with you through school. Now you do know better but old habits are hard to drop.

God gave us laws to teach us how life works best. They aren’t arbitrary restrictions. They keep us from making mistakes that interfere with having a fulfilling and happy life. As ancient Israel was told: “And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the LORD and His statutes which I command you today for your good?” (Deuteronomy 10:12-13). Thus, I would like you to consider straightening out your life and views by using God’s laws as the standard. Not all of it will be clear at first. You might wonder why this instead of that. But all the way through, what I’m going to do is say that these behaviors are right and are known to bring about a good life and these behaviors are wrong because they are known to bring harm.

So let’s start with pornography. Pornography exists to create a lust for sex in a person, but sex outside of marriage is wrong. “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge” (Hebrews 13:4). To create is longing for sex when you are not married then is also wrong. “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God” (I Thessalonians 4:3-5). If you want a clearer view of what sex should be like, you have to stop filling your mind with the perverted sexual images found in pornography. Therefore, step one is that you have to get rid of all the pornography. It will take a bit of time for its impact to fade from your life, but you’ll find yourself feeling better about yourself as it disappears.

Being sexual with people with whom you are not married is also wrong. “Now concerning the things of which you wrote to me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman” (I Corinthians 7:1). Sexual touching arouses a passion for sex that can’t be properly fulfilled because you aren’t married. It doesn’t matter that it feels good. Sex is supposed to feel good. The point is that it isn’t a proper time because you aren’t married.

Now notice that this isn’t about whether you are a lesbian or not. It would be similar to asking if you are a thief or not. If you steal then you were a thief, but it doesn’t follow that you are permanently a thief for the rest of your life. People acting sexually with people of the same gender is wrong and, thus, the behavior is not to be done. “For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due” (Romans 1:26-27). You were acting as a lesbian in the past, but that has nothing to do with what you choose to be in the future. You also have been acting as a fornicator in the past, but that has nothing to do with what you choose to be in the future.

Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?” (Romans 6:16).

What I’m suggesting is to make a radical change in your life. Break with the past and become a new person. A Christian doesn’t have to worry about crazy questions like “am I a lesbian” or “am I too much of a tomboy.” A Christian confirms his life to Christ and watches as the various piece of life falls into place with certainty.