Current Events > Question about people that are gay/lesbian. When do you know if you're gay?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I really don't want this to turn into an argument about "it's a choice vs. decided at birth", so let's not use that as something for this argument. I want a constructive conversation here, not a classic CE argument that just goes in circles.

When did you/do they accept that you're gay? Assuming it was something you realize fairly early on, did you immediately accept it, or try to repress it and hide it? And what made you finally feel comfortable enough to accept it yourself (not comfortable enough to tell other people, but comfortable enough to admit it to yourself)?

Do most homosexual individuals realize and accept they're gay before or after they try out a relationship with someone of the opposite gender? I understand the answer depends on the person, but I'm curious what people think happens more often, and any personal accounts from people on CE.
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You know the sorting hat from Harry Potter? It's like that, but it tells you if you're gay, straight, bi, etc. instead.
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well... in early middle school, I started to find guys attractive. The girls never interested me. :v

I'm not sure. I repressed it for so long, I only accepted it 4 years ago (when I was 27). But I do remember thinking about same sex stuff in my early teens.
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When did you decide to be straight, tc?
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gunplagirl posted...

When did you decide to be straight, tc?

I understand you're a troll, but can you try harder? I literally said in my OP that I did not want this to be a topic about whether it's decided or not. So if you wanna troll, I'd at least appreciate if you came up with something that wasn't so blatantly ignorant and dumb.
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Fine then. When did you know you were straight?
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Really you'll hear all kinds of answers about this and largely because the rigid insistence on labels really stifles our understanding of human sexuality, which is not only more commonly conceived as a spectrum but is also somewhat fluid and subject to slight shifts across our lifespans. When girl grows up never expressing interest in the opposite sex we might try and label her as asexual, but how does that label serve us if she later ends up in a sexually fulfilling relationship with a woman later in life? Is she still asexual with one small exception? Or maybe she was always a lesbian and it just took her this long to find someone she liked.

We really don't have the language for this, we barely know how to even conceive it beyond looking back at past decisions we made or feelings we had and wondering if they might not have been a clue.
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Oh yeah didn't talk about the questions in the OP.

I had couple of girlfriends in my early teens, but nothing more than making out happened. Since then I never pursued anything. Most likely because I was repressing my sexuality.
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gunplagirl posted...

Fine then. When did you know you were straight?

Around middle school. It was stupid, but I was slow dancing with a girl and I remember thinking it was the most amazing accomplishment of my life.

But my point is, it was obvious people always wanted me to be straight. I was always asked "Do you have a crush on Girl X or Girl Y" or "Girl Z has a crush on you", all that elementary school nonsense.

I guess I should phrase it better. Instead of when you "knew you were gay", I should say "accept you were gay".
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jenningsnash313 posted...

gunplagirl posted...

Fine then. When did you know you were straight?

Around middle school. It was stupid, but I was slow dancing with a girl and I remember thinking it was the most amazing accomplishment of my life.

But my point is, it was obvious people always wanted me to be straight. I was always asked "Do you have a crush on Girl X or Girl Y" or "Girl Z has a crush on you", all that elementary school nonsense.

I guess I should phrase it better. Instead of when you "knew you were gay", I should say "accept you were gay".

Imagine that, but in reverse with people questioning you every step of the way
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AugustAdoulin posted...

well... in early middle school, I started to find guys attractive. The girls never interested me. :v

Did you try to hide from those feelings, or were you pretty accepting of it right away?

FF_Redux posted...

I'm not sure. I repressed it for so long, I only accepted it 4 years ago (when I was 27). But I do remember thinking about same sex stuff in my early teens.

Okay, yeah this is what I was looking for, I worded the questions and topic title pretty poorly I think. What do you think was the trigger that allowed you to finally accept it?
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gunplagirl posted...

Imagine that, but in reverse with people questioning you every step of the way

Is this your experience?

I'm only asking because I know many repressed and refused to accept it. For me, it was obviously easy to accept that I'm straight, since it's expected. But I know for a lot of non-straight people, they don't accept it immediately because of people questioning you. I have a friend that dated girls until his last year of college because he refused to accept that he was gay.
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I wasn't convinced until after I had sex with men a few times. Then I was like welp guess there's no going back now
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jenningsnash313 posted...

Okay, yeah this is what I was looking for, I worded the questions and topic title pretty poorly I think. What do you think was the trigger that allowed you to finally accept it?

Took courage to sleep with a man.
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Jeez, I was #TeamBottom as a sophomore in high school and spent four years thinking I was looking for a particularly manly girl I could take home to my parents. It's obvious I was completely delusional now, but seventeen year old me would rather have died than be gay.
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For me it's more like

>assigned male at birth
>people thought I was gay, maybe
>but I like girls
>lololol I'm trans
>I like girls and maybe guys
>never mind guys are terrible, don't even need to date one to find out
>girlfriends abound
>I'm so gay
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jenningsnash313 posted...

Did you try to hide from those feelings, or were you pretty accepting of it right away?

At first I tried to tell myself I was just confused and that I'd start liking girls eventually. I just wanted to be normal and not stick out. But when the feelings for guys didn't go away at all I tried to convince myself I was just bi. Think around high school is when I finally accepted I just plain didn't like girls at all and was okay with it.

Girls are icky.

Yup, it's like gravity and if you give in for a moment or out of curiosity and mess around with a guy you're totally trapped.
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I had my first big crush on a boy in 4th grade. Can't really pin down when I was 100% sure, but I was pretty rational about it I think. I never had any feelings for girls and I lolnope'd at the prospect of pretending to be straight, marrying a woman, and being miserable so I just stuck to my studies for primary school haha.
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I kept trying to play doctor with my male friends back when I was a kid. When they wanted to stop I wanted to keep doing it. Then when I found the porn channel I kept focusing on the men. Add to that being drawn to the male bulges on the underwear packages I knew I liked boys and not girls. I accepted I was gay right away. I didn't know of the word to describe it back then though. That said I still acted as if i had crushes on girls because I knew others did not find boys liking boys to be "right". I hid my gayness all through high school and college. It was fairly recent that I got at began telling people I am gay.
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I was pretty sheltered and lived in a small town anyway, so I didn't really know that men could be attracted to other men. I only knew of "gay" as an insult and that I didn't want to be that.

So I thought I was straight for a long time. I'd try to masturbate to women and it would take me upwards of an hour and take a good deal of effort to really go through with it. I always thought it was boring and wondered why people liked doing that.

Then when I was around 16, I met a bisexual guy online and found out that dudes could like other dudes, and began to worry. I asked him if there was a way I could find out, and he sent me a video of two guys making out, which I enjoyed...a lot.

Then I thought I was bi for another 3-4 years after that until I realized I was exclusively looking at gay porn and that I really didn't have any interest in girls at that stage, either sexually or romantically.

I still routinely wonder if I'm gay because I generally don't have a very high libido and often find myself shying away from really looking at porn or anything. But I definitely have feelings towards men in some capacity, while women do nothing for me. I'm probably either gay with a very low sex drive, or asexual but homoromantic considering I enjoy spending time with guys a good deal.
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dotsdfe posted...

I was pretty sheltered and lived in a small town anyway, so I didn't really know that men could be attracted to other men. I only knew of "gay" as an insult and that I didn't want to be that.

So I thought I was straight for a long time. I'd try to masturbate to women and it would take me upwards of an hour and take a good deal of effort to really go through with it. I always thought it was boring and wondered why people liked doing that.

Then when I was around 16, I met a bisexual guy online and found out that dudes could like other dudes, and began to worry. I asked him if there was a way I could find out, and he sent me a video of two guys making out, which I enjoyed...a lot.

Then I thought I was bi for another 3-4 years after that until I realized I was exclusively looking at gay porn and that I really didn't have any interest in girls at that stage, either sexually or romantically.

I still routinely wonder if I'm gay because I generally don't have a very high libido and often find myself shying away from really looking at porn or anything. But I definitely have feelings towards men in some capacity, while women do nothing for me. I'm probably either gay with a very low sex drive, or asexual but homoromantic considering I enjoy spending time with guys a good deal.

Do you envision yourself getting married, or is it something you'd want? Just curious since you said "asexual but homoromantic", and I'm wondering if an individual that identified that way has an interest in marriage.
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I'd love to get married. I'd be more interested in just spending time with a guy than in sex, basically.

To elaborate further, I find most parts of males attractive, but I have basically no feeling towards a penis whatsoever. It's like staring at a wall for me, it's a totally neutral stimulus. I can also go for weeks at a time without a single sexual thought. I just don't...have much of a sex drive.

But at the same time, I get crushes on guys and I wouldn't mind having sex with one at all. I'm just far more interested in spending time with one than in just having sex.

Which also makes it difficult because I live in the midwest, so I don't meet...any...gay people unless I were to use a hookup app, and I'm not really interested in anonymous hookups like that.
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When I was 6 and used to touch myself to Link

is it gay to like looking at beautiful men but not really interested in touching etc

like to just appreciate excellent bone structure and hairstyle and body shape etc
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jenningsnash313 posted...

gunplagirl posted...

Imagine that, but in reverse with people questioning you every step of the way

Is this your experience?

I'm only asking because I know many repressed and refused to accept it. For me, it was obviously easy to accept that I'm straight, since it's expected. But I know for a lot of non-straight people, they don't accept it immediately because of people questioning you. I have a friend that dated girls until his last year of college because he refused to accept that he was gay.

Not gay myself, but a few of my close friends that I grew up with were gay and so I got to meet them and all of their gay friends and I never really cared that much about the subject, so I didn't really ask too many questions, but here is what I figured out from what I did ask them.

pre-puberty, they don't really know, don't really think about that sort of thing. Most people who spent their first grade years saying "girls have cooties" grew up to be perfectly heterosexual people.

Once you hit puberty, you end up into one of the following categories as a homosexual.
1. You realize it and accept it
2. You realize it and accept it but hide it from everyone (i.e. in the closet)
3. You realize it but refuse to accept it ("maybe I just haven't met the right girl/guy")
4. You don't realize it, and spend a great deal of your life miserable because you're not really emotionally connected to the people you hook up with

Things change over time per person. Generally speaking some people say not to accuse/question someone when they say they're sexuality is one thing, but it's often because some people get their sexuality questioned at all that they realize they were wrong about themselves.
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Im a lesbian in a males body and ive known since i was 16
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