How do I know my orientation?
Not such a stupid question. Not a stupid question at all. Only those who are convinced that they are heterosexual can feel totally sure. I suspect you have an inkling that you might not be simply heterosexual, though, or you would never have got as far as this site, let alone this page.
Now I've probably just offended a lot of my gay friends who are one hundred percent certain that they are gay. But give me a bit of a chance to explain, please. This is based on what I know, and what I've learnt from others. It doesn't make it right, it just makes it a framework, guidelines, helpful.
First, look at the way we were all brought up.
Not one kid is brought up to be a gay kid. All kids are expected by their parents to be model heterosexuals. All kids are brought up with the expectation that they will find a partner of the opposite sex, that they will have children, and "do their duty" to perpetuate the species. From birth we are tutored in our roles as future fathers and mothers, and go about our lives confidently expected to marry, or breed, or both.
At some point a few of us start to suspect that we are different.
It isn't a sudden revelation, usually. It isn't often too much of a shock. Sometimes it is a revelation or a shock. Yet, even then, the shock comes from realisation, and looking back all the signs can be seen.
I'll start by taking me as an example before I go on to try to define what it is to be gay, to be bisexual, or to be heterosexual. Oh, and I doubt that any male is one hundred percent heterosexual. I'll deal with that at the end.
My own history
When I was a kid I had friends with sisters. Older sisters and younger sisters. I had male and female cousins. I was a normal, if repressed and shy, kid, with a natural curiosity about what was under other people's clothes. And I did the usual "I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours" stuff. I felt as I grew up that I had equal curiosity about boys and girls. There was more to see on a boy's body, mind you. And little willies got stiff when you looked at them. So it was more fun to look at a boy than a girl.
I was an innocent kid, and sexual excitement didn't seem to come into it. I'm talking about age five to twelve. Because at thirteen years and six weeks I knew I was gay. That bit you can read about in my life story. That bit was an awful shock, and, for me, it was terrible to learn. But I'm digressing.
In the changing rooms at school we were all fascinated with other boys' bodies. I think this is pretty natural. Nothing gay about that. Some kids as we got older wanked each other off. Others had solo sexual experiences. Mine were solo. Regrettably! Mind you, we had a weird tradition of "cock fighting" at school.
The idea was to grab your opponent's bollocks and grip them tightly while protecting your own. This was almost always done through clothing. If you won, then you could get a good grope. If you lost, then it hurt. One lad had a novel technique. If you were doubled up with your hands over your balls, then he simply thrust a finger deep into your arsehole area. Though outside the clothing this was amazing at getting you to uncurl. It was also very very erotic. It was almost the first time I learnt that the arse could give pleasure. Mind you it was always tinged with the pain of having my balls grabbed as a reward.
Also, in the changing rooms a slightly older lad one day persuaded his friends to strip, to bend over and to pull their cheeks apart and show him their holes. That was the first day I had ever seen one. And they looked wonderful. Enticing. Still not sexually alluring, but I was drawn to look, and wanted to touch. I was half scared that they would be smelly, but they looked clean and ridged and just lovely.
That weekend I persuaded a young neighbour to show me his (if I showed him mine). If I was ten, he was seven. We spent ages inspecting each other. No touching, just looking. And our little willies got stiff, but neither of us had the wit to know why, or to know how to wank, so it was just an exciting game. One day another neighbour came and joined in. He wouldn't show either of us his body, but when I showed him my hole he touched it with his fingertip. It was a cold fingertip, and I flinched. So did he, scared. He wouldn't touch me again, no matter how hard I begged him to. I was maybe eleven, and I knew, just knew that I wanted his finger inside me.
I had no idea that I was gay. I had no idea that these were sex games. Yes, I was as innocent as that. I was rock hard, I know that, but I had no idea that the erection was a sexual thing. But I knew that I was enjoying myself. And I knew instinctively that it was wrong, so I was also guilty.
Very soon after then we went on holiday to a relative's house. He is two years older than me, and I persuaded him at thirteen or so to do the stripping game with me and to show me his hole if I showed him mine. He had also started to mature. His cock wasn't a willy any more. It had started to grow and thicken. It was massive compared to mine. It looked lovely, though I wasn't used to cut cocks. I've always preferred uncut ones. He let me touch it, though never dared to let me wank him. I would have. He only had to ask me. But he didn't. But when I bent over and showed him my hole he put his cockhead against it, and pushed. He knew about sex, and he was pretending to fuck me.
With lube he would have succeeded, but I was dry and nothing happened. Same when he let me press my little hard willy against his hole. No luck. I was scared, though. Scared in case someone found out. Not scared in case he fucked me. We justified what we were doing by "practising for fucking girls". Later that day he talked about a schoolmate of his who had wanted to play "bum bandits" with him. He described bum banditry to me. Maybe he was sounding me out. Oddly the idea of playing bum bandits sounded dirty, even though we'd already almost done it. We never put it into practice.
Even so, even enjoying this experience I was not gay. In my head, I mean. I was a happy, healthy, heterosexual eleven year old (yeah, right!), who fantasised about girls and talked with his schoolmates about fucking girls, and meant it .
At school, though, I'd found a defence against having my balls crushed. The kid with the anal invasion technique and I were good friends. We sat together in class. And, knowing that he liked feeling me, and knowing I liked feeling him, we made a pact. We could each feel the other if we stopped the instant the one being felt said "stop". At a stroke we turned it from a vicious game into a sensual game. And this carried on until at almost thirteen I left that school.
I also extended the game to other friends. I managed a good feel of lots of my schoolfriends. But I was not gay. Being a homo was something we none of us knew about, but all hated. Not one of us was a "fucking homo", however much we felt each other's little genitals.
I tell you all this because I was not gay. Well the word hadn't been invented then. I wasn't queer. I was just a growing kid.
But looking back over that part of my life I can see that I was gay as you like.
I detested girls, found them silly, uninteresting and giggly. I adored boys. The company of a boy, the ability to wrestle like puppies with my best friend (a totally non-sexual relationship, for sex horrified him!), the look of a boy's face, the look of a boy's body were all wonderful things. I just never saw it. Which was just as well for many other reasons. Check out the "fear" pages to see why that was.
It was only later that I found I was homosexual. That I am homosexual.
It was much later than that when I was able to say so for the first time. Speaking the words "I am a gay man" was very difficult. The more so since I hate labels.
It was only when I could say it that I was able to come to terms with it.
When I was able to come to terms with it, then I became comfortable with who I am. But I wish with all my heart that I were not a homosexual man, and that it could be "removed" in some way, and that I could be as other men, and not feel I have to hide, or that I am different. There are degrees of comfort. All of that is in my life story on this site.
For what it is worth, that is my own sexuality as it awoke.
But that is me. What about you?
I Think I am gay
Start with one important thing. Almost all of us are attracted at some point to people of the same sex. Whether this is a "crush" (I hate that word), or sexual excitement, or full blown love matters little. For most of us it truly is a phase and it passes.
If your fantasies are totally about bodies of the same gender as you; if you desire only people of the same gender, more than one person, several people, lots of people; if you see people of the same gender and only the same gender when you masturbate or daydream; if you have a distaste for bodies of the opposite sex; if your fantasies leave nothing to the imagination, if these are true, then there is a ninety percent chance that you are and will remain gay. The more so if you feel that you want to spend your entire life with a person of the same gender as your physical and emotional partner.
Only ninety percent, because emerging orientation is not fixed, and there is scope in your life to change as time passes. Weird but true.
I may be bisexual
You find that you are genuinely sexually, erotically and emotionally attracted to people of either gender. Fantasies come about both genders in equal measure, or in a ratio that you enjoy. You have no particular preference about whether you want your life partner to be male or female.
You are likely to be bisexual. Also the degree of attraction to one gender or the other may later, and you may develop to be homosexual or heterosexual. Simply be aware of the possibility.
I am heterosexual
Probably you are, if your fantasies are about the opposite sex, and if you cannot see yourself having any form of sexual and emotional fulfilment with a person of the same sex.
You may be here, reading this, because you experimented with a friend of the same sex, and are scared in case you are gay. You may be a parent, trying to understand your child, too.
Experimentation is not homosexuality. Experimentation is fun, a shared experience, binding, if you like, but not homosexuality. So you are heterosexual. You knew that, though. But you wanted to check.
Hang on. You doubt that any male can be 100% heterosexual!
I'll stand by that, but I don't expect any of your heterosexual friends to admit it, or to agree with me. Come to that, if you are a confirmed heterosexual, and especially if you are a US Southern Baptist, then I expect an argument. Well, if you want to argue the toss then click this email link and go for it. Only do learn that I ignore flames. Well I ignore their content, but I do fight them. Quietly.
What do I base my argument on?
Porn videos.
Heterosexual porn videos.
Well there'd be little point in using homosexual ones as evidence, now would there?
In almost every porn video there is 10% female solo masturbation, 15% lesbian action, and the remainder is supposedly heterosexual action.
And when you study this heterosexual action you see something very odd. You see cocks. Erect cocks. Being sucked, being wanked, entering and leaving every suitable (female) orifice. The camera focusses on the cock. Hard focus on cocks the size of which leave you gasping and feeling inadequate, but on the cock.
And the orgasm? The male orgasm? That happens in the open, under close camera scrutiny. We see the man masturbate to orgasm, and we see the semen leaving the tip of his cock, spurt after spurt. And we watch him deflate gently.
This is not heterosexual behaviour, watching this man have an orgasm.
Add to porn videos the male behaviour in changing rooms and at the urinal.
All men look at other men's cocks. All men do this. All. "It's for comparison purposes". Yeah, right. It may be. But other men's cocks are fascinating. "Wow, what would that look like when it's hard?"
I don't know about female outlooks. I know about male. Homosexuality is just beneath the surface for every male alive. It just takes a real man to admit it.
