Sift

I'm male, 35, and I still don't really know what I am. There's so many labels and whatnot that I'm just easily confused and not sure what to think.

I figured the best way to get things out there is to post this out there and maybe someone can help me out a bit.

When I was young growing up I was a survivor of serious SA/CA, it's not something I go into very often but it is what it is. Ever since then and to this day I have a bad trauma response to men in general. If they're older then teens I instantly feel like I'm back to being a scared kid myself and it's hard to function. Because of this I've never once felt attracted to men offline and I still don't, despite me having crushes on Kass, Bowser, or other furry male characters. All that stuff is online only.

Backtracking a small bit, I remember one time I told my dad I was gay as a April Fools joke and his eyes popped open and when I said 'April Fools' he sighed and my mom nearby laughed and for like the next month every day he just wanted to affirm that I was straight just in passing 'you're sure that was a joke, right?' and while funny at first it started making me really nervous.

To this day if I talk to my mother about it when she asks I simply mention "I think I'm bi." She instantly jumps to 'so you want to have sex with other men?' and I have to quickly shoot it down because no, I don't think of sex at all. Honestly with either gender. I try to explain it to her that I see being bi as a romantic thing, and that I'm starved for personal acceptance, so that if a guy came up to me and was genuinely kind to me I'd probably fall for them.

What this means for my role in the community is that I often post small lines about "I love Bowser." "I love Kass." , I've posted pictures of them among other male characters... but getting the courage to do so is just so hard sometimes. Like even though the furry community is one of, if not the most accepting, LGBTQ+ communities I have this huge fear that I'll be judged or made fun of. That it's wrong for me to like fictional men and if I show more than a line of my own interests or wants I'll be canned.

Silly or not it's something I just don't know how to handle and it's something that bothers me a lot. Kenju, my partner, knows that I love him for example, but even mentioning it to others feels like "I don't want backlash to hit him."

I'm just a confused mess about myself and iunno, any advice on handling this or sorting this out in my head would be appreciated.