I don't remember when I actually figured out that liking guys = gay, but I'm guessing that was sometime in jr. High.

[Link]

Still fully on the horny,
Blondie

[Link]

Edited by - Feels So Right on Jun 1 2001

[Link]

My first kiss was with a girl, in the guise of "learning", and my first true sexual experience was with a womyn.

Until about 17 I never considered myself other than straight, regardless of my feelings, I think mostly because it was too hard to face in the household I was raised in.

When I was 17 and beyond I started recognising my own feelings as valid and exploring them. I persued a sexual relationship with my long time girlfriend. I had a few male partners but never found fufillment there, sexually or emotionally.

When I was 18 I fell for a rugged, bad boy type and was trapped in an abusive relationship for 3 years (at the same time continuing a relationship w/ my GF) Which in hindsight probably did not help my overall opinion of men.

Then I was convined I was gay, and remained celibate for a couple years to get my head on straight and decide how I wanted to handle it. Then I started dating womyn exclusivly.

To come out or to stay in, that is the dilema.

I came out.

Then I became involved with a friend, a male who I cared for (still do) immensley but things just never seemed right between us as anything other than friends.

Then I met my husband...and my world as I knew it came apart. I fell in love with his sense of balance and right, his kindness and open-heartedness, and because we met here at ADT, physicality was the last piece of the puzzle to consider.

When we did meet in person I was terrified there would be no chemisty, that I would be doomed to a friendship that desperatly wanted to be more, or a sexually barren relationship. But things fell into place, just like us meeting, it was destined to be.

Since I met my husband I have learned to feel things both emotionally for a man what I never had, to trust and care without worry. And to experience physically what I had only found before with womyn.

And so..am I bi? I am straight? Am I gay? Who the hell knows...lol

I just kind of see it as, my heart does not recognise gender.

For what it's worth, I believe we are all born bi, and society "trains" us what we are supposed to accept in ourselves and others as the proper expression of our sexuality.

-lunacy-

[Link]

Dear Andrea:
Too often I've heard people say that they believe all people are born bi, and our sexual orientation is brought about by conditioning, etc. I think this not only flies in the face of thousands of years of evolution, but could actually be dangerous to the gay community (i.e., you could change if you really wanted to). Being bi is very trendy these days, but aren't a lot of them just sexually adventurous, confused, or "bi for pay," such as 90% of the women in porn?
Love,
Troubled by Trends

Dear Troubled:
Your point about one of the more worrisome aspects of the social constructionist argument is well taken. If all gender roles and sexual preferences are constructed or chosen, we needn't worry about civil rights for transsexuals or queers of any stripe - hey, if they don't like being discriminated against, they should just get normal like everybody else, you know?

Bisexuality may be a bit trendy, but arguing about whether homosexuality is or could be a heritable trait is far more so. I find the whole debate rather tiresome, but I should point out that there's nothing keeping bisexuals from breeding, so there's no reason why bisexuality couldn't be genetic. Why it should be is another (impossible) question.

You asked whether most bisexuals aren't really just adventurous, confused, or professional, and that I can answer. Adventurous, sometimes. Confused, no more than most people. As for the porn actresses - how do you know what those girls like to do on their day off? Many, many sex workers really are bi, which says nothing about whether they are or aren't also adventurous or confused.

There's one thing I do know for sure: those people who claim "everyone is born bi" are deluded or just plain lying. Many, maybe most (confused? adventurous?) gay men and lesbians try straight sex at some point, only to report later, "I don't know, it was OK, but it just wasn't my thing." There are also plenty of (adventurous? confused?) heterosexuals who give it a try with their best friend or whoever, and use pretty much exactly the same words to describe the oddly lackluster results. These people are not homophobic or in denial, they're just ... straight.
Love,
Andrea

[Link]

Ah well, she had some interesting points, thanks so much for sharing Blondie.

Maybe I'm just.."adventurous"

-lunacy-

-lunacy-

-lunacy-

-lunacy-

[Link]

I will use an extreme example first.
People born with Downs Syndrome, a genetic "defect" generally arises by mistake. Both parents 99.9999% of the time do not have downs.

Less extreme example:
Parents of fairly average or below average intelligence giving birth to an above average or genius kid.

Is homosexuality a genetic defect?
I know some people would love to say that... and they do say this terrible thing. The answer is NO. defect causes an impendence to personal survival. Homosexuality is most likely natural genetic variation.
Just like in the example of the smart kid born to not-so smart parents.

so why this particular variation
No one knows why. but I have a theory. I think its a natural way of populatation control.
DOn't like this answer, send hate mail to: [ invalid url ]

You're born what you are.. you just may not know what you are cuz society tells you, you aren't that...

Evil_RIP

[Link]

I can see that it was not clear to everyone to when they figured it out.

Thank you all for your replies.

TigerDragon

[Link]

I must say that I have had crushes since junior high , so that probably coincides right around puberty. I don't think I had any sexual notions - or that I was "gay" - until high school, probably, when crushes turned more to lust, and you start realizing WHY you have a crush on somebody (i.e. pretty eyes, cute smile, nice ass...) .

I didn't come out until college, because I found high school to be extremely restrictive and college life was just so free relatively.

[Link]

-----------------------

About Dumblonde´s statement of 90% of porn actresses doing bi for money i would recommend her to read some interviews (in adultdvdempire.com, rogreviews.com, etc) and make a final a count. There are many kafe lesbians, but 90%?

[Link]

Regarding the idea of us all being a sexual tabula rasa at birth, able to go either way, I think it’s a crock. If societal “training” were that important, there would be almost NO gay folks. Do you realize the thousands and thousands of messages, overt and subliminal, we get orienting us toward heterosexual development when growing up? Do you seriously believe if being gay or hetero was as easy as flipping a coin, that any gay guy BY CHOICE would put up with what we gay folk have to put up with? As I mentioned in that other thread, they haven’t yet found the gay gene and maybe it’s a combination of a lot of genetics and some environment, but I’m betting heavily on the genetics. This seems to be the prevailing current scientific view of the situation. I don't necessarily agree with Evil_Rip's take that gayness may be a way of natural population control, but I do agree with the statement, "You're born what you are.. you just may not know what you are cuz society tells you, you aren't that..."

And as for the “dogma” European 25 wrote about:

__________________________________________________

"I think sexuality is just a very personal thing and each individual has the right to define (or redefine) her/himself beyond those medical categories. It bothers me a lot that people talk for the rest of people and, what is worst, using scientific arguments to stablish a kind of dogma."
________________________________________________

I am a libertarian on this, as on many other issues. Far be it from me to suggest or say that there are too many people who call themselves “bisexual” who are in fact hetero or gay. Call yourself whatever you want; have whatever consensual sex you want with whom you want. But, because of the genetics, I strongly suspect there are few true bisexuals out there. And I find myself chuckling a lot when I hear people, particularly gay males who declare, “I’m really bisexual!” There are lots of reasons why someone might not want to declare himself openly gay. But by saying you are bisexual when you are actually gay you inadvertently come across like you are looking down your nose at folks who are gay, like you're not REALLY as gay as all those people. In a way, there is harm in not being truthful and pretending to be something you aren't, both for yourself and for the rest of us who are out here being real. We’d be better off if these folks would just have the balls to say they’re gay when they are, if they're going to say anything. Or just shut up.

Just one gay man's opinion.

Billy, keeping

[Link]

Did you actually read these beginning and ending sentences from the last paragraph in your post before you posted it? They don't fit together especially well. It's not terribly "libertarian" to tell people whose feelings and orientations are different from yours to "shut up".

You're awfully quick to deal out harsh judgment to others whose hearts and minds you have no access to. You presume far too much. The only person's soul you know is your own.

[Link]

I was merely attempting to express my personal displeasure with those among us who, by declaring themselves to be bisexual when they know they are not, are, in effect, attempting to “pass” for what majority society has deemed as more nearly ‘normal.’ In many ways it is akin to what happened many years ago with very light skinned African Americans who attempted to “pass” as white, as if there were something to be ashamed of in being who you were born to be. I don’t know if you are gay or not, but in either event, you must know that it is a much tougher world out there for those of us who are gay. I’m sorry, but I feel that our community would be better off if people who do not fully own up to their gay sexuality and instead lie about it, if in fact that is what they are doing, would help themselves and us more by saying nothing.

This sort of thing has happened many times in the past—not exactly with the issue of bisexuality, but with dishonesty. There have been repeated instances of so-called “ex-gays,” those religious fanatics who claimed to have been “cured” of homosexuality who have later been revealed to have continued their fag ways. Then there are the gay-bashing right wing politicians who have been caught having gay sex, of which there have been several. These events cause much hurt and many gays are very bitter over such incidents. I’m not lumping insincere bisexuals in the same exact pool, but it does strike me that they do fit in somewhere on the gay-dishonesty continuum. The gay community needs all the solidarity it can get and honesty is one step in getting there.

Billy

[Link]

I agree with European25 about seeing people as individuals, but people do like to identify in groups. Billyjizz has made that quite clear in his statement on solidarity in the gay community. However, I have never met a gay person who claimed to be bisexual in an attempt to be more accepted by society. It's been my experience that bisexual men in particular are ostracized just as much as gay men and probably less understood in straight company. (Are you gay or not?) If you know of people who do that Billy, they are only fooling themselves.

I can tell you about sincere bisexuals though. I regularly attend a bisexual discussion group at the local LGBT community center. Sometimes attendance is split pretty evenly between men and women, but usually there are more men. Hey, society frowns more heavily on bisexual men than it does bisexual women, so it's no wonder men have more issues. Without being specific enough to break confidentiality, here is a typical mix of people attending the group:

One woman and one man who have always known they were attracted to both sexes and identify as completely bisexual. One is not currently in a relationship. The other is in a same sex marriage.

A gay man who isn't sure why he is there (just curious) and is dumbfounded by the fact that four out of the other five guys have actually had sex with women.

A gay man who finds that his feelings for a female friend are beginning to develop into a sexual attraction.

Two men who didn't self identify as bisexual until they were almost thirty. One is divorced and considers himself straight-bisexual. The others marriage is on the way out and he considers himself gay-bisexual.

One man and one woman who self identify as straight-bisexual. Both are married.

All of these people are being honest and sincere about who they are. This is just my take as a bisexual man.

[Link]

I think RobHammer hit it on the head for me when he noted the theme in your posts about the importance of "solidarity in the gay community". I'm not a fan of solidarity -- certainly not at the expense of individuality and authentic self-expression, self-exploration, and self-development. I don't believe in sacrificing the "personal" for the benefit of the "political".

I'll give you a personal, non-sex-related example. I was raised in a "Jewish" home, but I loath organized religion. I declared my agnosticism when I was 13 and opted out of the whole religious-school thing. When I was 30, I married a non-Jewish woman, who is also an agnostic. My parents were against the marriage; among other things, they felt that I owed it to others Jews to marry a Jew (keep the Jewish population strong, keep the tradition alive, etc.). Yeah, right. Not my idea of a life plan.

My wife and I are raising our 2 kids without organized religion. My parents often say to me, "You should be raising your kids as Jews because, regardless of your own philosophical beliefs, the anti-Semites of this world regard you as a Jew and will regard your kids as Jews, so your kids had better be raised knowing who they are." I can only shake my head in wonder at these kinds of comments, because I'm not going to let the anti-Semitism of some force me or my children into a box.

I don't need to decide "who I am"; I just need to be myself. I'm trying to teach my children the same thing.

That's my take.

[Link]

Anyway, there's a guy who had a fling with a pre-op male to female transsexual. Of course his girlfriend/wife freaks out on the show. The audience starts chanting, "You are gay! You are gay!" I can picture the film crew holding up a sign to prompt this chant.

[Link]

Rob/Bob made some intriguing points, points I will surely consider. It helps to be reminded that, as Rob points out, some people are in various stages of discovery about themselves throughout life. Certainly not all gays would agree with my take on what Bob zeros in on—the solidarity issue. I was tempted to say, it’s a gay thing; you wouldn’t understand. However, I hate it when others use that sort of empty rationale so I won’t.

In any event, people should keep in mind that, if you are gay, it becomes important to know who is gay and who is not. Maybe I overstate this. However, every gay male at some point has experienced the fear that one small wrong comment, one come-on, one remark to someone who is not playing on “our team” may be an open invitation to getting your skull bashed in in some dark alley. It is something we live with. What I am saying is this: Be yourself, whatever that is. I don’t care. But be honest with yourself and others because if you are dishonest you knowingly hurt yourself and in more subtle ways you may not realize, you may end up hurting many others besides yourself. And that, I think, is the last thing I have to say on this subject.

Billy

[Link]

and

[Link]