Sexual orientation - does your porn type preference tell you what yours is?

Hello - a new member here - just signed up to ask a question really, if I may?
I'm 50 years old, and have been a porn user all my life. Starting with dirty magazines in the playground at school, through to purchased porn magazines (heterosexual only) in my 20's. Up to this point I was straight.
Then in my early 30's I discovered gay porn, particularly of young guys up to the age of 25-30 - "twinks" in gay parlance. All legal, before you ask. This switched my orientation over to fancying these young guys - this has carried on to the current day.
I haven't had a proper relationship with either a guy or a girl, but I've had sexual encounters (free and paid) with both.

For the past 10 years, I've always had the choice to whacking off to either twink gay porn, asian gay porn, or heterosexual porn. In 90% of the times that I do masturbate, I do to to gay porn, and 10% to straight porn.

My question is, is this a good indication that I am mainly gay?

The reason I ask, is that I want to take a decision whether to pursue getting a relationship going with a guy, or a girl. I want to choose one or the other in line with what I "naturally" fancy. Can I take my preference of guys in internet porn, to mean a preference for guys in the real world (i.e. that I would prefer guys vs girls in the real world if I had not ever started with porn in the first place).

And yes I accept that this might have to involve cutting out the porn - which would be to kick the habit of a lifetime.

Thankyou very much

 

That's obviously sensible. Thank you.
I think that even outside the world of porn I much prefer young guys instead of girls. Again it is 90% to 10%. The problem is, I don't fancy guys my own age. I think it is internalised homophobia. I am planning to try going with a guys my own age in order to try to get myself used to the idea. But I digress. I am going through a bit of a mid-life crisis at the moment, a period of anxiety related to being alone. So I am doing lots of research (I'm off work with stress since the middle of this week).

When you say that what most gay men and most gay women seek in a relationship is different, what do you mean by this please?

 

No, I see your point. I didn't explain myself properly. I think my homophobia probably extends only to guys of my own age and older. For some reason I don't have that fear with younger guys - although some very camp and girly young guys, and transvestites and the like do cause me to barf a little - that's homophobia.

I just want to address your other point about promiscuity regarding gay men. You are not to know, but it is a cliche that gay men are highly promiscuous. I would say that around 30-40% of them are. These are the guys who go onto the apps like Grindr, and try to solicit gay sex from other local guys - hookups. These guys have had sex with literally hundreds of other men during their lifetimes, and the large numbers of these contacts mean that despite practicing safe sex, some infections do get through, and you get a fair few of them with HIV and other STDs.
But the rest of the gay male population, the 60% remainder, don't do this form of promiscuity - or at least they do it for a period and then settle down with a partner. These are the silent non-scene gays who exist but are not at all obvious within our communities.

Thanks

 

Put this way, I think what you say is self evident.
Why keep myself in the throes of mental illness, when by giving up vices like porn it is possible to have a healthier brain and happier brain.

I've decided to stop watching porn. It has been two days so far.
I am still masturbating, but I think - one thing at a time.
I remember 20 years ago I tried to stop using porn. Wank mags (magazines) at the time - heterosexual ones. But I didn't understand the effect porn could have been having on my brain, so there was no compelling motivation for me to keep off them. I think I lasted a few days before going back onto them.
Porn would seem to warp your view of reality. It is dishonest, and it treats your sex drive and sexuality with a lack of respect. I think when you do that, you treat your whole psyche with the same lack of respect - and this damages your self esteem.

I think that the mistake I have made over the past 30 years is to have considered sex, sexuality, and masturbation, as being like a hobby like cycling, or chess. I think the problem with this approach is that with a hobby, you know that you don't have to do the hobby in order to remain happy - you can switch to a different hobby and be just as happy.
I think this meant that I implicitly considered that sex and sexuality were also a part of my body and mind that were also entities that could also be disregarded and vacated without having any adverse effect on one's psyche or mental health.

I remember at University, 31 years ago as a fresh 18 year old, depressed, phoning the student support helpline from a phone box. I complained that I didn't know how to attract women for sex. At the time I thought that the reason I was depressed was that I was not getting any sex. I believe now that the reason I was depressed, is that I was not giving the fact of my sexuality, heterosexual at the time, the respect that it deserved, because I was treating it as a base commodity, not a thing of value, and dignity.

I need to read some more of the articles on this site to see whether I would need to stop that as well, in order to keep mental health.

 

Porn is not real. It therefore serves as a denigrator of integrity. It cheats our mind, and in so doing it cheats our self respect and self esteem, because they are one and the same thing. We may not think its effects are real, but that is because porn blinds us to the reality of what we are, what we want, what we need, and what we seek.