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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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if he is gay? What is the defining nexus of realization that allows a person to say to himself, "I am gay"?
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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Marc wrote:
>>When does a person know if he is gay? What is the defining nexus of realization that allows a person to say to himself, "I am gay"?<<
I think the number of answers to this question will very nearly approach the number of gay people in the world. There cannot be just one answer.
The paradox has often been noted that the United States, founded in secularism, is now the most religiose country in Christendom, while England, with an established church headed by its constitutional monarch, is among the least. (Richard Dawkins, 2006)
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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That is a very, very safe answer.
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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"Know" means so many different things
I knew at 13. I fell for a boy. And lusted after many
I knew every year after that and turned my knoweldge into denial
I realised I was in denial when I was 48
After I admitted to myself I was gay I discovered I "had been gay" way before I was 13.
I never had a defining moment unless you count falling in love
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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I didn't have a specific realisation, as such. Not everyone does.
I have *always* been physically attracted to males not females - I have vivid memories of being aware of this from aged five onwards.
I *always* knew that gay sex would be important to me, and remember listening (in secret) to the radio reports of the progress of the bill to 'legalise' homosexual behaviour in the UK when I was 12 - well before puberty started for me.
I have *never* made a secret to close friends of the fact that I am attracted to boys/men - but until I was 20 I didn't admit to *anyone* that I wasn't attracted to girls/women to any significant extent. Yup - it was the 'let's pretend to be bisexual' phase.
If I had a "defining moment" at all, it was probably when I was 17 and finally allowed my jerk-off fantasies to include being the 'bottom' for anal sex - something I'd felt was 'unmanly' up to that point. In a very real sense, that finalised my self-identification as 'gay'.
But I think the experience is different for each of us. I have one acquaintance who found that falling in love with someone of the same sex at the age of 42 was the catalyst to realising that he'd always been gay and in denial, and I don't think that's uncommon in people my age.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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NW wrote:
> But I think the experience is different for each of us. I have one acquaintance who found that falling in love with someone of the same sex at the age of 42 was the catalyst to realising that he'd always been gay and in denial, and I don't think that's uncommon in people my age.
I don't think that is uncommon at any age. The point seems ot be our ability to realise it.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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I don't mean the point where a person "accepts" being gay....
That is not necessarily the object of my queery....
I mean the realization, the inner self admitting that there is something different.
Also... As a second thought...
Is there a point where a person which might be questioning his sexuality to the point of engaging in experimentation, only to cross a line from which there is no return?
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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"Is there a point where a person which might be questioning his sexuality to the point of engaging in experimentation, only to cross a line from which there is no return?"
I take it you mean cross a line in terms of physical activity - in which case my experience is that not everyone has a point of no return.
I have been deeply honoured in the past on two seperate occasions by close friends who were gay-curious asking me to help them explore that aspect of themselves physically. In neither case did the person decide that they were actually 'gay', despite some fairly prolonged and wide-ranging periods of 'experimentation' spread over several months. Both have settled down as happy heterosexuals.
So, either I'm a really lousy lover, or (at least for those two guys) there isn't a *physical* line from which there is no return. Or both, of course.
I'm with Timmy on this - what counts is *realising* you've fallen in love with someone of the same sex.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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How does one know when he is in live as poopsed to being drawn up into the heat of the moment?
From my observations, most love affairs last not very long in the gay community. Either one or the other partner seems to eager to continue looking for the perfect lover, the perfect partner (which anyone with a modicum of sense knows doesn't exist).
Also there is the enigma of the person that feels it is chic to be gay but when the time comes to actually dance the dance that person usually ends up running screaming into the night.
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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Marc wrote:
> How does one know when he is in live as poopsed to being drawn up into the heat of the moment?
LOL.... that's
> How does one know when he is in love as opposed to being drawn up into the heat of the moment?
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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I think I 'knew' at the age of seven or eight, even though I didn't know the word 'homosexuality' or its concept then.
When I retired someone said to me "When you retire you don't have to prove anything to anyone any more." When I made the decision to retire, that's when I realised my true self was gay. I also realised that the years of denial were wasted years. Then again I remain closeted, except on the internet, because I have nothing to prove and I am content with this one outlet.
Hugs
N
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
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Much as someone else pointed out here, i knew at a very early age that i was attracted to other boys/men...though at that age, it was all just a desire to hug them and hang out with them. But i was stealing peeks at the packages of my sister's boyfriends even back then, so i must have known something was up, even at that age.
I was in denial for most of my teen years, because i couldn't reconcile my religious life with being gay...and i think the epiphany came when i was 17, and had my first contact with another guy. Instead of the guilt that i expected to feel, i felt like i was coming home, like this was what i was supposed to be doing. Lying in that sleeping bag and listening to the other boy breathing in sleep in the bag next to me, that was the moment when i gave up the pretenses in my mind...i allowed them to continue in my life for a few more years, but i KNEW.
"I promise not to try not to fuck with your mind/ I promise not to mind if you go your way and i go mine/promise not to lie if i'm looking you right in your eye/promise not to try not to let you down."
--Eve6
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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I was actually told I was gay when I was 16, as strange as it sounds. The conversation (online) would have went something like this:
Me- "So there's this one guy at school who I'd love to see naked and maybe jack off and do some stuff with. He's really cool and nice and I just want to be able to touch him."
Bisexual friend- "Dude.... You're not straight..."
Me- "No, it's not that, I just want to see him naked, playing with his cock and spend time with him.............."
Friend- "............ Ummm......"
Me- "........ It's not that I'm gay, I'm just curious. And he's really good looking, but I mean that in a totally platonic straight way, of course."
Friend- "So, ummmm, yeah... What kind of porn do like?"
Me- "Well I was downloaded this really hot video of these two guys going at it the other day, I tend to find you can find some really good stuff if you type in 'gay teen sex'. There was this one video I downloaded a while ago and the guy in it is really attractive."
Friend- "........ Do you know what it means to be straight, bi or gay?"
Me- "Yeah, if you're gay you are attracted to other males and like doing sexual things with other guys. If you're straight you like females.............. Oh......... Oooohhhhhhhhhh..... You know what.... maybe I am bi or gay...."
Friend- "You think?"
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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It is amazing what we don't notice, isn't it?
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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i'd been going along kinda like saben had for a while... looking at lads, gay porn etc etc, but i wasn't gay, hell no, i was straight... i just knew that some of this stuff turned me on.
and then one summer, not to long ago,i was browsing for, umm well, erotic stories if oyu must know, lol and i found, not so much a story, but a whole novel, posted on a website. andi downloaded it, and started reading, hoping for, you know... well anyways, i stayed up all night and read it through, the most beautiful, amazing story i ever read, and i read a lot. and it was soo emotional... it had me in tears several times, and i never cry.. well, never did... and when i was done... i could just so relate to the people in that story, and it wa like, as they discovered what their love for each other meant, it kinda helped me to face it as well... i knew i was gay, and always had been, i'd just been denying it...
Odi et amo: quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
Nescio, set fieri sentio et excrucior
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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I think you put your finger on something important there. The dawn of realisation can be very slow.
I put it off. I did not want to be "gay". In fact, I don't compartmentalise myself as "gay". I hate the idea of being "gay".
What I am is timmy. timmy happens to find males attractive sexual objects if he finds them good to look at, but finds females almost invariably,, but not always, unattractive as sexual objects.
So I denied my sexuality to myself. It was hard admitting it. What was harder to admit, and I think it may be worth discussing, were my preferences.
The first time I actually said to anyone "I am a natural bottom" I burst into tears. I felt I was somehow unmanly. And yet I know I am not feminine. I am just a regular guy who is not into penetrating but whose idea of a really great time is to be penetrated.
Yet society has said "one of you is the boy and the other is the girl". So I felt "girlie" in my needs. And there was my tearfulness. I was not embarrassed to say I was homosexual, but was embarrassed to say how I want to make love.
Have any of you experienced that odd facet?
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Yup. I worried about that for awhile...when i first came out, i was mostly a bottom. And i wondered if that made me 'girly' or a 'sissy'. I agonized about it for awhile, and then i said "F*** it, I am who I am. This doesn't change anything."
Part of the problem is that we get that crap not only from the straight world, but from our own as well. Lots of gay men look down on and deride guys who are bottoms as somehow unmanly, and it's all crap. Some of the most masculine men i know like to bottom. They don't buy into the bullshit that they hear about it, and remain who they are.
"I promise not to try not to fuck with your mind/ I promise not to mind if you go your way and i go mine/promise not to lie if i'm looking you right in your eye/promise not to try not to let you down."
--Eve6
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i dont know who you guys are kiddin'-- I LIKE IT ALL!! hehehehehe
just kidding 
"more tongue and groove than a hardwood floor"
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