How to understand?

[PomPom]

(english isn’t my native language, probably i made a lot of mistakes, sorry) so, i’m struggling with my sexuality, mostly because of bodies and sex topics. i’m a virgin, i’ve never had relationships with anyone, and i don’t masturbate, so i can only imagine and look for photos/videos to understand. and the question is, what do you feel when you see the body that you’re attracted to? i mean, how can i understand that i like woman or men body? i tried to watch porn, but it didn’t help much, it’s just look..dirty? in a bad way. i tried to search for some nudes,
and i found some pretty photos of both sexes. but i still didn’t felt anything. i looked at them as you look at pretty dress - you look closely to see the details and then you decide if it’s pretty or not.
when i think about having sex with someone it’s the same. i think that the male body is more functional, but that’s all. I know that I can't rely on aesthetics alone, because many hetero women find the female body more beautiful but are not attracted to it.
this whole thing makes me anxious, and i wanna cry every time when i think about it, all i want a clear answer about my sexuality, but i know i won’t able to get it, and i’m struggling with it ridiculously long. i just wanna know what people usually do when you see a body that you’re attracted to, how can i understand it, what should i try?

[Latha]

Hi there, PomPom- welcome to the boards! Don't worry about any mistakes, I can understand you just fine.

I can see that you're really worried about this. Before I try to address your concerns about attraction, I want to assure you of something: you can take as long as you need to figure out your sexuality. You're not on a schedule or time limit of any kind (don't listen to anyone who tells you that you are). The answers to these sorts of questions are not always obvious, so it is okay to be unsure. If you wanted, you could choose a word to describe your sexuality for now, and you could change it later if you wanted.

Looking at pictures of people or at pornography is one good way of trying to learn about your sexuality. But not everyone can look at pictures of people's bodies and feel an obvious sense of attraction to them. I certainly don't- my experience is pretty similar to yours. Your sexuality is about more than whether you can feel visual attraction to certain bodies.

While experience and time often help clear up these kinds of doubts, we can ask you some questions to help you think about your sexuality. To start, do you have a sense of who you might be attracted to romantically? Also, are you familiar with the term 'asexuality'? If so, does it resonate with you?

I'm curious, what do you mean when you say the male body is more functional?

[PomPom]

the question about romantic feelings is kinda hard too, i think i felt something to some boys when i was a kid, when i was in age 11-13 i felt something to girls. i guess it was some light crushes or something, but i still used to confess. i remember that i liked to hug one of my friends, i liked to caress her hair and stuff, i remember that i really liked her hands haha. when i went to a summer camp at age 13 i felt something to another girl, i remember that she was the center of my attention, she had some insecurities and i wanted to help her badly, i cried when i confessed to her, and i cried after because she became more distant. we kissed at once, but i don’t remember how i felt, i mean, i was giggling and all shy, but i don’t remember being aroused or something, but i guess i still felt something more to her than just “friend love”, but i’m still not sure, it was 3 years ago, and i was a different person, obviously. for past 3 years i didn’t have any crushes, but i caught myself staring at women’s chests a few times.
i know about asexuality, and i thought about it, but i hope that i’m not asexual. i don’t want to be asexual, i want to experience sex, and i think about it a lot. plus i still think that i can get aroused, maybe i’m just a late bloomer or have a low libido.
by “the male body is more functional” i meant dicks, i guess. it’s silly, but i feel like male’s body has more potential because of it.

[Willa]

Hi Pompom, thank you for the added context!

It is very normal to begin to notice different people in a "more than a friend way", but still not be necessarily thinking about sex. It sounds like you felt an attraction to some of these people, whether that was personality wise or physically. To echo what Latha was touching on, attraction and sexuality are a spectrum- and there is no one time or age in our lives where we need to be feeling one way or another. Have you tried exploring different mental scenarios with people you have felt attraction to in the past? There is also a plethora of written material that people often feel more connected to sexually than visual pornography. This is one way that people often experience mental and physical arousal.

One good rule of thumb with masturbation and arousal is that safely exploring different things is one option, but if it ever causes intense discomfort or expectations from it are causing mental strife- it can be a good idea to give it a rest for the time being. Putting pressure on expectations for your body to react one way or another can often make it something stressful and unpleasant. To also touch quickly on the functionality of penis's, I just want to quickly add that there are many ways that two people without penises can have fulfilling and dynamic sex- we often can assume otherwise because of the ways that our homophobic society diminishes queer sexuality. Does that all make sense?