I wish to suggest alternate conclusions based on your experience. It may only be a matter of the words you chose in your post. If that's the case, then my suggestions may be misapplied. Here they are.... You said it never really worked, but could it have worked if a circumstance or two or three were different? Such as a location, a relative, or anything in your environment that had an influence?
I would agree with you if the circumstance was adjustable by venue. Don't take offense to this but have you ever been in a circumstance where you thought that the same sex was more attractive than the opposite? The circumstance that needed to exist is that I found men not sexually appealing, more so than the particular female I was with. Take the most amazingly attractive women on the planet, not just looks, personality, humor the whole package. I wouldn't find her as attractive as my boyfriend, she hasn't a penis, she has breasts, where this things are nice, they are not as good as what I have. It's hard to explain just right but having sex with women is not exactly possible, much less tolerating sharing my life with one. If I didn't find men sexually and romantically attractive I would be asexual or non sexual. The dozens of women I had dated don't compare at all to the threemales that I have been with. That is pretty damning evidence. On top of that, I deeply loved more women then men. It tore me up to be with them, they deserved a straight man, I convinced myself that I could love enough to make one in particular become more of a compatible partner for me. It was her words that convinced me I was gay. I was with her for three years. She told me I was distant during sex, I couldn't last long. She told me one day that we had to talk. She asked me if I had been with a guy before, I confessed that i did once sleep with a boy when i was a boy and that I had a secret boyfriend that ended horribly two years before I meet her. I hated the experience i had with Josh when i was 19, I wad convinced it was because I want gay. Dated some women on and off then I meet her. Fell in love. it just broke my heart when she found out I was gay, that made me hate myself. If I had just tried harder. But her words were kind to me eventhough her heart was broken and she had all right to be angry with me, she told me that I tried for three years and never made it work. She always had a doubt about me though I never strayed from her, she did from me but I can't blame her the sex was so unsatisfying.
I think in the three years I gave it I had enough to know it wasn't circumstantial, she was pretty, very much to me. Dark deep chocolate colored skin a strong but kind personality the same qualities i love in my boyfriend, but the sex is passionate and fulfilling, more than that our closeness is sustaining even though we have been through some hard things at times we were nearly walking out on one another but when we are in each others arms it doesn't matter.
Excellent question, very well delivered and it made me really think. My hats off to you, you really made me think, hard on that one.
You said that it is an illusion. I think "illusion" is a value-based term. In other words, whether or not it is an illusion is in the eye of the beholder. Of course, this is your experience and you are the expert on it.
The illusion was mine, I was the last to be disillusioned. My ex girlfriend would cry sometimes after i fell asleep next to her. Her sounds would wake me, it ached so deeply that I couldn't find out why she was upset. I asked her a couple times, took her hand and pleaded with her that i wouldn't be mad no matter what she told me. I speak with her on occasion still 12 years later she confided in me that she really thought that there was something wrong with me not necessarily that I was gay, sexually damaged or in some way not capable of emotional attachment to sex. She told me she would cry at night after it dawned on her that i was gay and didn't recognize it and she felt selfish fur not breaking it off because she loved me.