all 27 comments

[–]SailorMoon2020 34 insightful - 1 fun34 insightful - 0 fun35 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

A late bloomer isn't someone who figures out she's gay, it's someone who accepts she's gay. She's often someone who:

-forms a relationship with a male due to societal expectations and obligations

-having no sexual or romantic feelings for her partners, simply going through the motions so as those around her are happy

-putting others above her own happiness

Everybody's situation is different. I believe we are born this way. I do not believe in sexual fluidity. I believe people simply hide, supress, or deny their urges and/or feelings due to the negative consequences that could or will arise within the environment of the individual. Once an individual is in a more tolerant environment, they often come to terms with who they are and for the first time begin to think of their own happiness and it becoming a reality.

[–]reluctant_commenter 16 insightful - 2 fun16 insightful - 1 fun17 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

Jesus, this is so accurate to my situation I laughed out loud. I am not the latest of bloomers per se, but I really relate. Thank you for describing this.

edit: Just to be clear, in case it helps anyone else. I started realizing I was horny around age 15-16 or so and decided it was time for a boyfriend-- dating a girl was literally not even an option in my brain. I knew I had been attracted to girls from a young age but I assumed that all women felt that way but were ashamed to talk about it, like me, because I heard words like "girl crush" and people talked about women being sexually fluid.

I dated my male best friend for several years, and knew I wasn't attracted to him the same way he was to me. I felt bad about it and wondered if there was something wrong with me. I chalked it up to "men and women's attraction works differently" and he did, too, the few times I brought it up to him over the years. I felt awful at the idea of breaking up with him because he would constantly tell me how happy he was, and told me he would fall into severe depression if we ever broke up. (Which is emotionally abusive, but yknow, that's another story.)

I am seeing a theme, even in this thread of far, of this:

-putting others above her own happiness

A late bloomer isn't someone who figures out she's gay, it's someone who accepts she's gay.

And this. If people delay or resist saying they are lesbian when their attraction to women is obvious and their lack of attraction to men is obvious, it probably means they have some accepting to do. And, wow, is that so relevant for me personally. I feel like I had heterosexuality rammed down my throat, "When are you going to get a boyfriend" "I just know you've got all the boys chasing you", I tried so hard, I really did. But I could never like him like that no matter what I tried.

Sorry this turned into a rant, lol.

[–]RedditHatesLesbians 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

See I didn't realise my childhood attraction to women until I analysed it later as a teenager. But I had many "girl crushes" on classmates who I had an obsessively close friendship with, and one girl who I tried to "court" when I was 11 who I thought had the most beautiful long black hair in the world. And looking back the feelings I had for them were intense. Wanting to make them like me, wanting to constantly be around them, thinking they were really pretty and wanting to hold their hands. I thought I was just a touchy person and clingy physically all around but nope turns out it was only ever with girls because I'm a lesbian.

[–]reluctant_commenter 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Hahaha same. Oh man. Honestly 9/10 times I've worried about being clingy with someone while growing up, that's what it was. Lol.

[–]SailorMoon2020 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

We have these feelings when we're extremely young. We don't know what they are yet. As we get older into our tweens, we learn about sexualities but we do not connect it to how it pertains to us especially if we have yet to hit puberty. During this time, we also learn what our environment thinks of it. As we get into our teen years, our environment plays a key role in accepting or not accepting our homosexuality. At least, I believe so.

[–]CJLez 22 insightful - 1 fun22 insightful - 0 fun23 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I can't speak for women who have been married and then realise that they're lesbians but for me (coming out in my 30s) I knew that I was attracted to women from when I was young but because my family is fairly homophobic and I wanted to be the 'perfect daughter' I buried my feelings towards women as deep down as possible. Online there is so much nonsense about sexuality being fluid and that all women are inherently bisexual so I believed that and thought that maybe I was only 99.998% attracted to women and, if I waited long enough and tried hard enough, I'd eventually find a guy that I wanted to be with. However, whenever a guy asked me out or tried to pick me up I felt very sick to my stomach imagining us dating or kissing or having sex, almost to the point of having a flight response, but just told myself that it was because he wasn't the right guy. Surely, if all women are bisexual, there has to be at least one guy out there that I'll be happy with.

Eventually I realised that there was never going a guy, because I'm 100% attracted to women and 0% attracted to men but letting go of that last little bit of hope of being 'normal' and acceptable was very difficult.

[–]reluctant_commenter 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I knew that I was attracted to women from when I was young but because my family is fairly homophobic and I wanted to be the 'perfect daughter' I buried my feelings towards women as deep down as possible. Online there is so much nonsense about sexuality being fluid and that all women are inherently bisexual so I believed that and thought that maybe I was only 99.998% attracted to women and, if I waited long enough and tried hard enough, I'd eventually find a guy that I wanted to be with. However, whenever a guy asked me out or tried to pick me up I felt very sick to my stomach imagining us dating or kissing or having sex, almost to the point of having a flight response, but just told myself that it was because he wasn't the right guy. Surely, if all women are bisexual, there has to be at least one guy out there that I'll be happy with.

I relate to this so, so much. Thank you for sharing!

[–]HighPlainsDrifter 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Wow, that list is wild. Like some of it was valid to my experience but mostly that list is nutso.

I came out when I was 28 but I had known I was a lesbian since I was young, I did a lot to try and force myself to be bisexual. I dated men who were objectively great men and good people and I thought if I just found one that was good enough I would suddenly be able to enjoy sex with men, rather than having to be incredibly fucked up to do it. So for me it's not a matter of "figuring out" but "accepting" and those two things are very different.

When I looked up "signs of being a lesbian" it wasn't because I actually wondered, it was to see if maybe I could find a list that didn't have anything I felt on it, if one thing didn't match how I felt I thought "see, gotta be bisexual". I've been gay for as long as I have been alive I just felt like if I tried hard enough I could ignore it and not have to deal with the implications of what that meant for my life. Honestly my parents and my family didn't even care, besides one cousin who is racist and homophobic and who still supports me and has never said a bad word about me or my partner, no one in my family was even slightly fazed when I came out. "Oh, you're gay, ok, pass the peas." so I don't even know what pushed me so hard to deny who I was and what I wanted, probably a lot of internalized worth issues wrapped around the idea that women's value is correlated to male interest/opinion. I also had a lot of internalized "all women are bisexual" and thought that since that was "obviously" true and had research behind it, I would have to find my perfect male fit eventually.

So yeah some of that list is valid in action but the motivation is all wrong. The motivation for nearly every late bloomer I have ever talked to has either been safety or denial of a truth that is bone deep.

[–]Destresse 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Well I'm not sure how late 22 is, but speaking for myself : no sign or question could have helped me. I just wasn't ready. My defence mechanism was denial, there was no way I could have accepted it no matter what was in front of me.

I think this is the case for a lot of late bloomers, realising it is just... an accumulation of facts that seeped through the wall of denial, at one point your tolerance can't take any more and the wall crumbles.

The one thing that made me realise, was listening to other lesbians for the first time. I sat there. And watched my wall crumble. I don't even think I was ready back then because I spent something like a month or two trying to find facts that could at least make me bisexual and despairing at finding none.

I guess this is something that can vary a lot from person to person, but to me it wasn't "figuring it out" it was... One day I never thought about it and the next I knew I was a lesbian and my ideal little world of denial came crashing down and I needed a lot of time to recover from a delusion that big lol

[–]uroborosjohnson 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Same for me. It scared me a little, how much I was able to deny something so basic. I even had myself convinced I was "straighter" than most girls because I couldn't form attachments to the men I tried to date. I could never watch movies with lesbians/female nudity in it and also attributed it to my excessive straightness. I even got mad at what I saw as lesbians constantly being in movies and TV (lol).

All it took for this to break down was some exposure to lesbians that I couldn't ignore (a coworker). That broke the dam and it was actually pretty painful after that. The intimacy I've been craving and searching for, I could have had years ago.

[–]Destresse 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah... Painful is the word. Being alone can get us really lost in our own heads huh? I thought "OK lesbians like girls" but it felt far away, something like I was told there are aliens on Mars and they only eat ice cream. And they're portrayed on TV, but sometimes they eat other food. And then you meet one and they talk about their life and suddenly you realise you've always lived on Mars and only crave ice cream lol.

I too avoided the lesbians on screen, it made me anxious and uncomfortable.

[–]VioletRemi 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Not sure if I can count as late bloomer, but I was married on a man for 3 years. However, during childhood and teen years I only had crushes into other girls, and relationship with man was lenten, even though he was really great person, still nothing romantically or sexually was working. I was thinking that I am frigid and that is all. Wake up call was after divorce, when in dormitory I slept in one bed with girl I was somewhat liking - that was just another level of feelings. I never felt anything like that with men or around men. So about your question...I don't know if such question exist, most likely it will be personal to each woman. Maybe they should look into their teen years and crushes they had? Or how they are looking on other women, but then restricting themselves? How they feel when hug or sniff another woman?

[–][deleted] 7 insightful - 4 fun7 insightful - 3 fun8 insightful - 4 fun -  (6 children)

That varies from person to person, but the majority of it is physical. It’s hard to “ask” anything, so much as feel attraction to women and not to men. These questions are always very confusing for me because you can’t really intellectualize attraction, it’s either there or it’s not. If a woman realizes she is not experiencing attraction to males in the way other women seem to, then she would naturally end up noticing a difference with women.

If anything, I think instead of trying to ask questions about lesbianism, read about the signs of literal physical arousal during different parts of relationships and sex. Or even about love and the chemistry there. Our bodies tell us if we listen and some people are a bit checked out of their physicality and I think that is the main reason for late blooming aside from everything else, including comphet (which does cause distress for sure, but in mental ways too). The comphet list is not of the body, or even about lesbians as much as it is about men, attraction is of the body.

[–]Innisfree 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I think instead of trying to ask questions about lesbianism, read about the signs of literal physical arousal during different parts of relationships and sex. Or even about love and the chemistry there. Our bodies tell us if we listen

I knew pretty early on, just because of the intensity of the attraction I felt towards other girls. If a girl I liked would sit next to me, my whole body would go into high resonance, palms were sweaty (mom's spaghetti :)). Yeah I could hear the blood in my ears. And I'd go red of course. :)

When puberty came I read up about it and just through observation I realized that what I was going through, in terms of intensity, was more akin to what the boys were supposed to be feeling.

So, I can understand why some girls either burry this or dissociate entirely. It can be a scarry bodily experience.

But then again, maybe, like you say:

some people are a bit checked out of their physicality and I think that is the main reason for late blooming

So yeah I wonder about the role of mind-body connection, sexual drive in all this..

Edit: spelling

[–][deleted] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Some people just don’t have good relationships to pleasure or their bodies at all, for lots of reasons. Trauma, illness, they are told they are ugly, they have shame over aspects. Those people probably take longer to figure it out because they have a fraught mind-body connection anyway. That’s what I figure, a body is such a specific experience, even if attraction happens in specific ways across the board.

I knew really early, but I also have a healthy connection to my body and experience heightened sensitivity physically and notice changes. So when the horny started it was clear as a bell.

[–]Innisfree 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

So when the horny started it was clear as a bell.

Yeah, I hear ya :). And it's illuminating - what you say about other ppl's mind-body connection. I hope the latebloomers here can weigh in with their experience on this specifically. How did you guys feel about your bodies then? Did you feel neutral, did you feel positive/negative?

And I am curious, hear me out, even if i'm about to make a faulty assumption here :). I wondered if butches were butches specifically because we are more aware of our attractions earlier - and we have no feminine examples in our environments to model ourselves after. I wonder if I were surrounded by feminine lesbians in my childhood and crucially - saw them being affectionate with each other - would i have grown up more feminine rather than more masculine leaning...

This may seem obvious to people but i never had a chance to talk about this stuff with lesbians, they are too deep undercover where I live.

[–]reluctant_commenter 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

If a woman realizes she is not experiencing attraction to males in the way other women seem to, then she would naturally end up noticing a difference with women.

That's very easy to say, at least in theory. But in practice:

Our bodies tell us if we listen and some people are a bit checked out of their physicality and I think that is the main reason for late blooming aside from everything else, including comphet

I actually think comphet (in the helpful sense, not the TRA brainwashing sense that we've talked about) makes more sense if you think of it like this:

  • Society is trying to convince you that what you feel in your body, is not real. (attraction to women)

  • Society is trying to convince you that you feel something in your body, that you actually don't. (attraction to men)

At least, that was the case for me. It is a form of gaslighting, in many ways.

[–][deleted] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

That is how I think of late blooming. Your brain doesn't lie when it goes on a massive chemical trip after falling in love. Your body doesn't lie when it's physically aroused by other women. And you notice that those things only happen with other women and not men. I guess there's comphet / homophobia which causes women to deny their feelings or deliberately misinterpret them, but again, they will still only be turned on and fall in love with other women.

[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

If you’re a lesbian you get there eventually. There have been lesbians throughout history, at times much worse than now here in Canada and the States.

[–]yousaythosethings 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I came out at 30. I just want to respond to some points raised in here to add a few clarifications. The line between "not accepting" you're gay and not understanding that you're gay can be very fine. I truly didn't believe I was gay gay. Just thought I was kind of gay and that every woman was and that my feelings were just a little more intense. I did suffer from trauma and emotional isolation during the years I should have been exploring my feelings 12-18 and having an unstable home life caused me to seek out stability and independence from my family above all else. I didn't prioritize my personal fulfillment, happiness, or well-being. I wanted to feel free and unburdened.

When I was 12, I became cognizant of my "gay thoughts" but I thought of them as intrusive thoughts. I thought every girl thought women were more attractive than men. I never went through a boy crazy phase and assumed I just didn't like any of the thousands of boys in my high school either because they were lame and unattractive or I was the problem and was too standoffish and difficult to like. I figured as I worked on my issues, I would be unhindered in my ability to be attracted to men. Soon after high school I met my one and only male partner who I later married. He's a great guy. We clicked as friends immediately, which was notable since I never clicked with boys since puberty. I felt comfortable in his presence. He was very attracted to me, and I valued his attraction to me above my own attraction. That felt safe and it almost felt noble to place that above my own need to feel sexual attraction. I enjoyed his companionship. We admired and respected one another. All of my flaws he considered my strengths and really helped build up my self esteem. This felt like a good healthy relationship to me. He also knew I was attracted to women because we talked about very casually.

Over time I worked on all issues and the attraction to men never came. Instead my feelings for women got stronger and felt more clear until they were all I could think about. So I broke it off with my husband. I didn't leave him for anyone. I just finally understood that being gay is a pattern of attraction. If I'm very attracted to women and never attracted to men, I'm gay regardless of how I feel about that. I came to the realization, I hate to say it, but because I was finally in a stable point in my life where I was able to have the clarity of mind.

[–]Innisfree 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This is very illuminating on the points raised. Thank you for a detailed account.

[–]RedditHatesLesbians 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Curious, what's the cut off age for normal coming out time and late bloomer?

[–]reluctant_commenter 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I saw in a paper once that 19-20 was the average age for lesbians to realize, in that sample. Not sure what people here would say.

[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Not being sexually attracted to men and not being in love with any men for starters. Someone should go through that document and erase all the 'signs' that contradict those criteria.

[–]beereadit 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

In my opinion it's a person who was never attracted / aroused or emotionaly interested to/by men however due to social stigma she may have decided to be with one regardless and later on accepted her repressed sexual desire and feelings for women.

If a woman can get off to a man at any point of her life but is also attracted to women then she is bi and not a late bloomer lesbian as simple as that.

[–]Astrid2448 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I imagine it would be the same as a regular lesbian for a longer period of time. Trying to fit in and make others happy. However, I think the longer it goes on, the less likely that this person is really a lesbian as opposed to a bisexual who prefers women.

[–]HelloMomo 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I wasn't "late" (19), but I think the part of my story where I was never repressed it—I just genuinely had no idea during me teen years—isn't uncommon at least.

There's the stereotype of teenagers with raging hormones. But for me, I was depressed during my teen years. Depression is known to put a damper on sexuality, make people not interested in things they'd otherwise be interested in.