Am I lesbian?…..
Hello everyone, I am writing this because I have bottled this for soooo long that I can no longer keep it inside. I feel like I might not be interested in the guys for marriage due to my attraction to women. The problem is that I practice my religion very strictly and it is wrong to get married to your same gender. Another problem is that I am only attracted to the physical features of women. I am a young woman and I sometimes have cravings of searching or watching the chest or butt of a woman. And I know it does sound crazy and it always lowers my self-esteem. Once when I had a sleep over with a particular friend of mine, we had stuck out our tongues and let each other lick our tongues! She let me see her chest and I felt soooo incredibly dirty and wrong after this. She had than let me squish her chest and after that I just felt extremely horrible for such a young age.I feel like a stupid worthless girl. Although I pray regularly, fast, read quran, and wear hijab I feel like I am a bad person. But I am so confused with myself because I have feelings for guys but I am attracted to girl body parts. I used to watch girls making out with girls or boys but I just think men body parts or soooo incredibly disgusting. I have trouble sometimes and I catch myself sneaking a glance at the chest of a girl or watching disgusting stuff. I need help because I am stuck and don’t know what to do. I feel like I’m the only muslim girl that feels like this . Sometimes I will stop watching bad stuff for a month but watch the very next month. I always tell my mom that I don’t want to get married but there is a reason and I don’t how to deal with it. I am can’t wait for you guy’s comments and I willy try to apply them to make myself better.
Anonymous
Salaam sister,
First of all, like many others pointed out, you’re incredibly brave for putting your struggles on here, especially ones that are so taboo in the Muslim society. I believe that because we as Muslim youth are not taught about sexuality and development, we don’t realize that what we are going through is what many many many other people are as well. You are still young, and it is 100% normal to be curious (about males and females). You are by no means any dirtier than anyone else!
That being said, another story is acting upon these urges. I second the comment that urged you to start writing in a diary to just let out your feelings and frustrations. It would be a great way to talk yourself through your feelings and emotions instead of letting them come out through other means (such as the experimenting and images you spoke of).
I hope you find peace within yourself soon, and trust me, as you get older, this will pass and guys will get A LOT more appealing 😉
Sincerely,
your sister in Islam
ht
Salaam Sister,
I want to commend you for reaching out about this, it had to take a lot of courage! I think it is natural to be curious about sexuality and bodies, especially when you’re young. It’s all new and different. I would give yourself a little bit of slack, I don’t think you’re a bad or horrible person for having thoughts about female bodies. Having such thoughts are not haraam.
It is important, though, to make sure that you are not acting out on those thoughts. I would do whatever I could to make sure not to indulge myself in watching porn or acting out with friends and the suggestions that the other commentators have given seem to be really helpful.
I also wanted to repeat another thing a poster above has mentioned, it’s easy to be mean to yourself and judge yourself because of the way you feel, but that isn’t fair to you. Try to be a little kinder to yourself and remember that Allah (swt) doesn’t test a person with more than they can bear, so He knows you can get through this.
May Allah (swt) give you strength and clarity. Don’t forget to make a lot of du’a about this. It may not always feel like Allah is responding, but He is, and He loves it when you turn to Him.
Anonymous
Hello everyone, I am the girl the posted this and I really appreciate the advice you guys gave me. I am still struggling and I just forgot to mention that I’m a thirteen year old and I loved the advice but I can’t really use the purifyyourgaze website because of my age. I hope to get more support and advice ! Thank you
acharan
Salaam sister, I’m glad you are benefitting from the comments. I think the purifyyourgaze website is for all ages so inshaAllah you can still benefit. Some parts might be related to married individuals but I imagine it has many parts you might still find beneficial. Good luck in your journey!
Anonymous
I can’t use that website because I have to pay and I don’t have credit card and I don’t want my parents to know about my homosexuality
Anonymous
That is completely understandable! I’m sorry I wasn’t familiar with the site and the program myself. I just went to it when the other commenter mentioned it. Couple of thoughts that might work?!?… I just went to the site and at the bottom of the homepage they seem to have some free videos if you provide your email. Once you provide your email, they send you a link to some free videos. If you feel like you’d like to watch the videos, maybe you can start with these. They also show you a page to purchase an e-book for $4.95. I’d be happy to pay for this e-book once you watch the free videos and find they are beneficial to you. If you’d like me to purchase the e-book for you, please email info@stonestobridges.org with your email address.
Other than the purifyyourgaze site, I hope you find the support on this Stones to Bridges site helpful to you.
Anonymous
Salaam sweet sister,
I pray you are having a beautiful and blessed Ramadan!
First, mashaAllah, I’d like to commend you for being so honest, both with yourself and with the community on this site, so you can gain the loving support you deserve when going through your struggle. We all go through so many difficult struggles in our lives, and unfortunately many of us are not courageous enough to be honest, even with ourselves when going through inner struggles. Since you have overcome this bigger battle of acknowledging that you feel you have a disconnect within yourself of what you would like to feel versus what you are feeling, now inshaAllah, you can get the support to overcome this struggle. It reminds me of the ayat in the Quran 13:11 which states, “Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves.” My understanding of this ayat, though Allah knows best, is when we feel a disconnect within ourselves, Allah will help us once we strive to acknowledge and overcome this disconnect ourselves so we can come back to our true “fitra,” being in the original state of peace and innocence in which Allah created us. So again, kuddos to you for what I feel is one of the true blessings and intents of fasting and Ramadan, and in general in Islam, working on purifying ourselves of these inner disconnects we feel so we can find a state of true peace.
Now, all of this tells me that you are absolutely not a “stupid worthless girl,” rather you appear to be quite the opposite because from what I stated above, you actually sound to me like you are an extremely intelligent and good hearted human being who is really striving to find peace within herself. To me it sounds like you are a human being like all of us, just trying to find her way home to her true fitra. This actually reminds me of another ayat in the Quran 95:4 “We have certainly created man in the best of stature” which continues to 95:6 “those who believe and do righteous deeds, for they will have a reward uninterrupted.”
As far as your concerns about homosexuality, I really appreciated what the other anonymous commenter wrote here before me. Also, I appreciated the other posts and respective comments on this site about homosexuality which can be found at: http://www.stonestobridges.org/tag/homosexuality/
I don’t know if any of this helps, but I just wanted to let you know that you seem like a truly beautiful hearted person. It saddened me when I read your post because you seemed to be judging yourself for going through a struggle within yourself, and I wanted to remind you that we are all human beings going through our own individual personal struggles and Allah loves those who strive to overcome our lower desires and inner struggles, so I hope you don’t ever judge yourself for just being human, and instead know that Allah loves you and we all love you because Allah has created you as a fellow human being.
Your loving sister in Islam and humanity
Anonymous
Salaam my dear sister,
This must be a really tough situation for you. You are trying to be a good observing muslim but there is this part of you that has done things which make you feel ashamed and dirty. Like you say in your personal reflection, you feel stupid and worthless. I think from your post I also got that you may be searching for sexual content/maybe some light lesbian pornography for females but you don’t like the male parts because you think they’re disgusting.
My advice for you would be to go to purifyyourgaze.com and sign up for coaching with Brother Zeyad. MashAllah its a great program and there are other girls who are in your situation there, so you don’t have to feel like this is ONLY you, or a guy thing.
Some insight I have is that you are going down a dangerous path. Putting aside the discussion of what your sexual orientation may be, you are going down a path that even if you are straight, you are turning lesbian. I am not trying to get into the debate of gays in Islam, but you need to at least give yourself a chance to see if you actually are straight before dismissing marriage with men.
It is possible that as an observing Muslim female, you have always been taught to not look at the opposite sex and so seeing naked men feels disgusting. Obviously, a naked man looks very different than a naked women and Allah has created women to be the more beautiful of the pair so it makes sense that you are turned off. It also doesn’t help that you have no emotional attachment to the men you are seeing. Being with a naked man who you love will feel VERY different than the emotions you are feeling now. But you won’t know if you don’t give it a good chance. You are in a difficult position right now and if you don’t get therapy or find someone to talk to regularly to work though some of the emotions, your situation will probably not get better.
About the sleepover you had with your friend, the stuff you’ve watched online…they come from being young and having that sexual desire. Like I said earlier, you may think that looking at a naked women is better than looking at a naked man. But one question I ask you is that is it really their boobs and butt that turns you on? Or when you look at the videos/pics/whatever, are you looking for that sense of excitement from people being aroused in a relationship? I guess my question is, do you enjoy looking at two women having hardcore sex with their lower parts showing as well, or do you only enjoy the light stuff where two people are making out and enjoying each other? If its the light stuff, you may actually only have a relationship addiction where you wish you had someone and looking at this lighter female only stuff feels more halal because you’re not looking at a guy and satisfies your sexual cravings too.
Those are just some of my thoughts…hope they help you with your introspection. I am keeping you in my duas sweetheart. You are not a bad person. InshAllah this will be a phase in your life, that although it is filled with confusion and you feeling terrible about yourself, will help you grow closer to Allah swt and show you some of your weaknesses. Sending tons of love and dua your way!