So. This is something I've never talked to anyone in my real life about, but for whatever reason I'm more comfortable asking a bunch of strangers on the internet for advice. Deep breath.
I am coming up on 40yo, and since I was 16 I've mostly been in dedicated heterosexual relationships. I have always considered myself a cis male and maybe a little bi but things are... changing rapidly, I guess. I am single for the first time in years all this freedom and time means I'm doing some long overdue introspection. I don't think I've ever been particularly happy with my body or my gender. I am finding myself much more attracted to people with penises, and more importantly, I am finding myself wanting to play a different, more submissive maybe, role in the bedroom. I finally have an opportunity to try new and different things with all sorts of different people, and that's sort of exciting, but I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing or even what I'm feeling.
I see a lot of trans folks self-actualizing and I'm super happy for them. I envy them for knowing what they want. I don't know what I want and it's driving me a little crazy lately. I would kill to have that level of knowledge of who I wanted to be. I am not a particularly masculine man, but I don't think I feel like I would be more comfortable being more traditionally feminine, though that doesn't necessarily repulse me, either. I would certainly be happier with less body hair. When I was I kid I wanted to be a robot. Now as an adult I maybe just want to be a robot who fucks occasionally, gender irrelevant. Fully functional, you might say. I don't really know what to do with that feeling, though.
Any advice on how to navigate literally any of this would be awesome. I feel like a teenager again, no idea how any of this works or where to even begin. I don't have the knowledge or the language to talk coherently about any of this stuff, and certainly no experience. I am doing my best you guys but all of this is confusing as fuck.
I see where you are coming from, and I appreciate this explanation. I apologize if that's how I came across. The phrasing was poor and I did not intend to conflate sexual attraction and gender. Two separate things that I am dealing with simultaneously, lol. The one sort of led into the other. I chose the phrasing about penises because I did not want to exclude trans women, but I see how it could be problematic. As Valmond said, it does appear that my attraction seems to be with the penis itself and less with whatever gender has said penis equipped, and I recognize that does not determine or necessarily influence my own gender expression. The internet is a difficult place to have thoughtful conversations, and I really appreciate your well-thought out and helpful response.
I think you meant to respond to Sop, I personally didn't find your statement about being attracted to people with penises offensive.
You know yourself better than I do, but I don't know that it's so easy to be certain where attraction to a penis comes from, and I think there are plenty of pressures to deny gendered associations with the penis in this context, especially after all this discussion about the importance of not seeing it as male. Not everything going on in your psychology is transparent to you, I would just remain open and sensitive to your feelings as they come up - it's a complicated time for you and it's better to be listening to yourself than trying to strangle unorthodox feelings, if that makes sense.