What is Wrong with Me?

I would greatly appreciate some advice, thoughts or any input regarding my situation.

I am currently 34, but I've only had one very short relationship that ended very badly. I was only 17 at the time and exceptionally horny. I also thought at the time that I was definitely a gay male. I really did like the guy and we ended up living together, but he passed away on my 18th birthday. We'd only physically been together for 4 months when that happened.

That resulted in a lot of anxiety and depression and I lost interest in relationships. I turned to an online community called furries. Furries are people who enjoy and pretend to be anthropomorphic animals. Google can provide more detail for anyone interested.

I had been into the community kind of as a small time hobby for several years, but nothing serious. It's where I met the guy I ended up living with. After his passing, I turned all my attention to that and isolated myself from real people and became fully intertwined with the deepest roots of the furry community.

A lot of the adults who are in the community create x rated art and pictures of anthro animals having sex, and the ones who can afford "fursuits" of their characters have all kinds of sex parties where a bunch of suiters have orgies and other sexual activities. I found this to be comforting for many years until just very recently, as recently as this past Thanksgiving.

At that point, I started realizing that living an online fantasy was only adding to my isolation and loneliness, but I encountered a new problem. I had gotten so used to the furry porn and videos that I became flat out disgusted with regular human sexual acts. In just a short amount of time between Thanksgiving and now, I have almost completely removed myself from that community, gotten rid of my own hyena character and I've tried to get away from any furry related images and activities.

The problem I have is that I want to have a partner, but I don't know if I'm gay or straight or bi because I find human anatomy and regular sex disgusting from both sexes. I don't know what made these thoughts and feelings become so strong, but they are affecting me in the sense that I would love to have a partner and somebody to lean on and love and share my life with, but the idea of having sex with them is such a turn off that I'm not even willing to try it at this point. That doesn't work for most people who want to have a healthy sex life because if I say I am grossed out by them, obviously that's going to hurt their feelings and they'll move on down the road pretty quick.

I want to understand why isolating myself in fantasy land has created such a terrible problem and how I can reverse it and possibly welcome real life back into existence so I might be able to find love before it's too late.

This is very hard for me to post and I hope I'm not met with a lot of disgust or resistance. I'm fully aware that it's quite strange and pretty wrong, but rest assured, I really want to be done with it all. The only lingering issue is that I find the artwork drawn is still extremely attractive to me as opposed to the real life thing, and I want that to end too, but I just don't know how to stop enjoying it.

Also I'd like to make it especially clear that furries and zoophiles are two very different groups. Furries resent and disbar any kind of animal abuse, so I just want everyone who reads this to know that I'm not THAT messed up in the head. I personally despise any acts like that towards real animals.

How can I find humans attractive again so that I might end this miserable loneliness? Or is it too late and I'm just out of luck forever?

This is very serious. I think you need a well qualified therapist to take you back to real life. You did nothing wrong and nobody would find you disgusting, but you let this problem spiral out of of control. I am very glad you caught yourself and have made such well laid out plans for getting back to real life and finding love, care and support in another human being, and reciprocating all of that to that human being, so in theory, you are all set. How to convert it into practice is a very big issue.

Do you have means to afford professional help?

If you do, I would interview candidates very carefully, making sure that you do not sound guilty or as if you were confessing some horrible sin to them, but instead you should calmly and rationally assess their aptitude and experience in this delicate matter. Have they handled similar cases? What were the outcomes? what are their professional qualifications? What approaches do they favor? Will they give you some kind of homework to do between sessions? Etc.

PS I do not know anything about furries and am just writing this from the vantage point of common sense.

Regarding "The only lingering issue is that I find the artwork drawn is still extremely attractive to me as opposed to the real life thing, and I want that to end too, but I just don't know how to stop enjoying it.", there is an approach called desensitization and there is also a very helpful paradoxical approach. Instead of forbidding yourself these pleasures, indulge in them as much as possible, doing more than you actually want, and maybe you will reach your limit and become bored of this kind of art.

I would also enroll in a good art history course (online?), ideally one that traverses many centuries of nudity in classical art. And take it very seriously, do your homework, complete the assignments, read up on the personal history of artists and of their times and social circles.... really get into this. Both paintings and sculptures. And as you go through examining painting after painting, ask yourself if there is anything that speaks to you, anything that you can find relatable?

This will be skewed more towards female than male nudity, but you will still find enough male nudity. So, it should give you some material to try to determine if you are attracted more to male or female human form.

And you do not even have to make it about nudity. You can examine, more generally, human form in art.

I don't think what matters most is for you to try to define what label you fall into i.e. gay, straight or bi.

What matters is your attraction to that community and the hold it has on you. And yes, you are right - people wanting to break an addiction or obsession, are best served by disengaging and separating with the people/environment that are the source of such cravings or desires.

It is also important to address the cause. From what you write, I wonder if you have processed the death of that guy. You really liked him & it seems that his death (a traumatic loss?) was the trigger point which led you to throw yourself obsessively into that community at the expense of 'real' human connections

In your words: "After his passing, I turned all my attention to that and isolated myself from real people and became fully intertwined with the deepest roots of the furry community").

This seems the most important to address right now: processing the impact of this impactful relationship and his subsequent death. These might help uncover the root cause of what is happening with you.