When did you realize you were gay?

After the Doc slapped my ass at birth I turned and said, "Thank-you, sir, may I have another?" 😉

Realized I was attracted to men - fourth grade when I saw some naked guys on an underwear package

Realized the implications of being gay - when I fell in love with my uni professor during freshman year, then found out he had a wife and realized I would probably never have that sort of life myself.

19. I'm fluid.

When I saw my swimming teacher showering off in the change room.

I felt different from the time I was about four years old. When I felt I might be a baby gay is when I would go down into the basement and find where my mom had her one single PlayGirl mag from 1984, All that thick dark beautiful man bush, chest, and facial hair! Oh and the amazement of the cocks!

I was six when I saw Marc Bolan on Top Of The Pops singing Metal Guru. Something told me I wasn’t in Kansas any more. I also knew I needed to keep it to myself.

R5 link doesn't work.

When the aliens from space yelled "Hey, Gurl!"

.,.,

I'm not.

Mother says I just haven't met the right girl.

She certainly would not lie to me! She just reminded me when we were fabric shopping last Saturday.

Early on about 4 or 5 years young, I realized I liked hugging boys more than girls, and it felt really exhilarating when the boys hugged me back. I knew something was going on. And I mentioned in casual conversation around that time that I thought a fellow male school mate was cute, and my older brother said in an admonishing tone and side eye, "You're not supposed to say other boys are cute, what's wrong with you?", and I immediately felt that I was truly different... And I've been blessed by the gay gods ever since. :-)

When I was eight, Hugh O'Brian played Wyatt Earp on television. I was turned on by his hairy chest.

Friend knew when he wrapped his arms around the neck of a fireman who was carrying him down a ladder from fourth floor apartment.

Before I even knew what 'gay' was.

Always felt nicely funny seeing certain men on tv and wanting to be with them or just admire them.

I've never ever had any doubts I was gay, never went through a phase of dating women or trying to change it. I had a very idealised view of gay life. Once I started going on the gay scene at 18 I felt much more of a misfit - I really didn't think I fit in there. That was a huge culture shock.

Totally agree with R14. I knew I was into other guys long before I had any clue about sexuality. As others have stated. I was probably 4 or 5 years old.

Fourth grade was when I started to put 2 and 2 together. Our health class textbooks had a very simple cartoon drawing of a young guy with his shirt off and they'd actually given him square shoulders and chest definition. I remember wanting to stare at that picture but also feared it was more evidence that I was about to take the exit ramp from the highway we were all assumed to be on.

At that age, it's an intense admiration and you really can't put your finger on what's going on, but I was aware of the concept of gay and knew I had to conceal my true self. Looking back, I realize what anxiety and stress I was under from such an early age. Having older straight brothers probably compounded the shame.

How wonderful it must be to move naturally through all of the stages of adolescence with no such internal conflict; liking whom you like and holding hands with no concerns and everyone smiling in support, if they even pay attention. Compared to that, my adolescence felt like it was was lived under a bell jar.

Interesting thread, OP.

Same as everyone. Like 4 or 5. I had crushes on boys in pre-school.

I remember there was a girl in my pre-school who had a crush on me and my Mom and others thought it was so cute.

It’s almost sad how the gay child isn’t properly guided? I don’t know how to articulate it but it’s like as soon as you’re gay, you’re automatically fighting the norm, even as a little kid. And you even know to keep your crushes a secret as if it’s instinctual.

I dunno. Maybe someone else could elaborate if they get it.

Here we go…DL Forum.

R4 Tell me about the soap, Clarice.

Flash Gordon / Sam Jones. At 12 I had never had seen anyone like him before but realized I was digging it and what that meant.

R18 that is how most cultural "norms" work--tacitly and automatically.

More efficient to not go around questioning everything nor even consciously thinking about it much.

When I was born C-section. You see, I’ve never been into vagina. I need cock and man ass. I AM GAY.

When I saw our gamekeeper, Oliver, wiping the sweat off his torso.

I finally admitted to myself I was homosexual around age 10-and-a-half.

Once I did that, memories going back as early as I could remember (around age 3) made so much more sense.

I didn't come out to anyone else until I turned 18.

R22 For me, that was the great thing about being gay. I just spent my whole life ignoring “norms”. I just threw out a lot of bullshit that was said to me because it just didn’t apply to me.

But at the same time, I’d probably have better connections with people if I hadn’t spent my childhood hiding something. I came out at 14 to my parents and 16 in school. But there’s a part of me that still feels like I hide myself.

It’s like the closet lingers emotionally.

I was in college. After class, a guy asked if anyone wanted to go to a movie. I said yes. That night I slept in his bed and he slept on the couch. Same thing the next night. On the third night when we were hugging each other goodnight, I said, can we hug lying down? And we rolled around and my lips fell on his lips and that's when I knew the line had been crossed and that was going to be what I am. Gay.

When the check cleared for my rent, car payment, and new Gucci belt, hunty!!!!!!

While prematurely lusting over Garrett from Swans Crossing!

4 and 5-year-olds don't know they are gay. They don't form an identity at that young of an age.

Yes they do R30 - even if they can't articulate it.

No, they don't. I looked it up. Only %1 percent sort of know when they are 9 or 10. Most don't know until they hit puberty. Memories are so sketchy at 4 and 5 people only have brief flashes of memory at that age. Most don't remember anything at that age at all. People's memories of childhood are faulty until you get to be 8 or 9 years old.

I knew way before 9 or 10, way before.

[QUOTE]No, they don't. I looked it up.

And I actually experienced in real life.

I don't doubt you knew felt different by 7 or 8 but you didn't really know about sex or being gay. Lots of kids get same-sex crushes at a young age that are not gay. I had a very big crush on my best friend because she was cool but at 8 years it wasn't sexual and I grew up to be straight.

I know what I know about my own self and my own memory.

At 7 the neighborhood kids all circled up to show each others’ genitalia and my eyes were glued to the more developed boys. Ay age 8 I ducked around with some of the neighborhood kids. By age 10 I had graduated to my phys ed teacher, an ex-military 40 year-old and obviously a pedophile (no penetration but he taught me how to kiss).

No big repercussions but, yeah, I’m slightly damaged goods - did drugs after college and up to my 50s (like a lot of circuit party gays), could never be monogamous, still frequent public cruise areas, and still drink more than I would like to admit publicly.

[QUOTE] but you didn't really know about sex or being gay.

How the hell do you KNOW what I felt or knew about? That's what I mean when I said in my response R31 - plenty of people know that they have sexual feelings towards the same sex, even if they can't articulate quite what it is yet. I certainly knew I liked seeing some men with their shirts off, but no I didn't equate that with fucking them. What I absolutely felt that only about men, never ever about women. Same way I didn't equate camp comedians with being gay or relating it to my liking / appreciation of male bodies.

I didn't even know that such a thing was "allowed". Which is why you will hear many, many, lesbians and gay men say that when they were growing up they felt like they were the only person who felt as they did, especially people in the 40s or older.

I think it during one of my baton twirling recitals.

It was the Summer, and a gorgeous hairy man on the front row was going commando in a pair of shorts - there was dick and ball slippage - and I could not have been more distracted.

While it didn't do much for my baton twirling career, I found my life's passion.

As many people have already pointed out, you don't know the concept "gay" at an early age; however, you do know (on some deeply instinctual level) that your feelings are not part of the norm. At that age you don't really know about sexuality but you're very aware of attraction to another male.

I think I was about 3-4 years old. I remember when my parents' friends would try to hug and cuddle me; I'd always squirm away from the "aunties" but if an "uncle" wanted me to sit on his lap....whoosh! I was there in a flash.

Also, as many people have mentioned, you are very aware that you can never really voice these feelings openly and you slam shut the closet door with yourself inside. Thankfully, things have changed and many young kids have the freedom of expressing this side of them.

Everyone rushes to justify "born this way"....

You sound like a right-wing homophobe.

No, technically I am "bi scum" to most of DL, who take biology lessons from Lady Gaga.

Gold star tyranny is what I'm talking about, to be clear.

Think Hank from Boys in the Band.

Sneering dismissal of gay men's experience is homophobic no matter who you claim to be.

"Gold star tyranny"..... that's amusing.

Are you talking to me or about me?

I am the only man on DL who came out after 40, give me a break. Nobody talks about that.

And I realized I was gay in the midst of planning a trip to stay in a boutique downtown hotel and see a Mark Eitzel show in a bookstore.

R49, what point are you trying to make?

My point is that most people are claiming to have figured out their sexuality at age 4. I don't believe it, and I feel that it's nothing but an old strategy (now internalized and gone wrong) to keep homophobes from saying that gays can convert you. What happened to the Kinsey scale?

When I was 5, the little girl next store wanted to play a game where we would go in the closet, when the other would open the door, you would have your pants down. I asked her if she knew any boys who liked to play that game.

Probably grade 4 or 5. I already knew (ostensibly) what gay meant, and that I was more attracted to hot guys than hot women both in real life and on TV.

When I was about 4. I was in church and getting fidgety and turned around to look at the people behind me. There was a big, handsome young man standing behind me, probably in his early 20s. He smiled and waved at me and I was instantly infatuated with him. I couldn't stop looking at him. My mom kept grabbing me and turning me around to face forward, but I just kept turning around and looking at him.

I still remember him vividly to this day

R35 Maybe you as a (straight) female should not be commenting on the recalled gay consciousness of little boys.

I was conceived through IVF, born through cesarean section, and I'm gay. God did not want me going anywhere near vaginas!

[QUOTE] What happened to the Kinsey scale?

It was published in 1948 - 74 years ago. Perhaps the experiences of people born in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s etc is a bit different?

Also, not sure why that is relevant.

Yep, everything old is garbage.

Tell me, R58, which section of the human genome is responsible for gay four year olds?

The same one responsible for four year old straight kids I guess.

I actually think I realized I was gay right after narrowly escaping a public beating for showing up at middle school with a New Kids on the Block button on my jean jacket. Or at least that's what they all told me.

I will never understand people who don't figure it out into their 20s. I have no idea how you don't NOTICE during puberty that you're turned on by guys and not by girls.

Some people are so terrified of being gay that they suppress those feelings. Especially when you are growing up in the 80s.

It can also be impacted by their background - if they come from a very religious family for example.

R30 / R32 / R35 is such a perfect example of a clueless straight frau that she must be a put-on.

[quote] I looked it up

? That HAS to be a joke.

Anyway - like everyone else here, I got tingly “funny” feelings looking at guys in the swimming pool showers when I was four or five - I knew that made me different.

By the time I was 12, I knew what to call it.

when I wanted to see pictures of naked men

R52, yeah ... that's nonsense. As I said, I know what I know about myself and my own memories. I wasn't 4, but I know how I felt when I was just a little bit older, and I know the exact moment I first felt those feelings even if I didn't have a grasp of the concept.

I don't know what part you thought was nonsense, R68, I spew a lot of nonsense around here.

Beyond inappropriate for a straight woman to be commenting on this thread and saying it’s impossible to know at the ages gay men are saying they knew. So inappropriate that I’m wondering if it’s trolling. If not - kindly fuck off.

It’s not like anyone is saying oh yeah at 4 years old I knew I was a screaming bottom who loved to be face-fucked. It’s a clear memory of feeling other or different or feeling a certain way about men or other boys etc. And that is valid. Period end of story.

I was 4 or 5 , with my parents in a laundromat. I can still remember the cute man with his wife, wearing a suit and thin, pale blue tie (this was '67 or '68). I didn't want to leave when our laundry was ready...to busy looking at the hunk. Next telling memory is when I was in Grade 3 and I REALLY noticed an older boy, who wore a leather jacket. So my interest in leather started at 8 years old. But I didn't come out until I was 21.

I wonder if society has changed enough so little kids who feel different don’t have to feel ashamed and try to hide their feelings. I doubt it though, because even adults who feel different often feel uncomfortable about it.

I remember being a very young boy, maybe around 6 or 7, and seeing the famous Jockey underwear ads with Jim Palmer in my dad's Time magazine. I was fascinated, couldn't stop staring at the picture. A few years later, when puberty hit, I realized what that was all about.

I was playing DR with the neighbor’s son a lot. I couldn’t have been 5 at the time. When we slept over we got naked in bed and just played with our hard cocks. I can never recall being “confused”. I wanted COCK.

I was twelve. His name was Palo. We were both in the Legislative Youth Program. He was a few years older than I: very cute, dark curly hair, dreamy eyes.

Age 11. I discovered masturbation the summer before starting 7th grade, which had gym classes with naked showers. When I saw all the other boys naked, especially those who were more advanced in their puberty, I quickly realized that I was clearly attracted to boys. I would come home and replay gym showers in my mind every night like a video and beat off furiously. There was one boy who was a blond dumb jock with an incredibly muscular body (even in 7th grade!). He was the star of many of my beat-off sessions, along with Tony Dow (Leave it to Beaver), Luke Halpin (Flipper) and Don Grady, who played Robbie Douglas on My Three Sons. This was also about the time I began fooling around with my older cousin, who was 13 and was very developed, compared to me. He had thick dark pubic hair which triggered a fetish for pubes to this day.

[quote] Don Grady, who played Robbie Douglas on My Three Sons

Dude, you had exquisite taste even at the tender age of 11.

R77.. remember the episode of "my three sons" where robbie took up ballet and he was in tights! oh yeah! and daddy played by fred macmurray was a stud in his youth....

Seeing clint walker, steve reeves, reg park for the first time!...

then "cemented" seeing lee majors, gil gerard, reb brown, tom selleck, robert horton, jim palmer, steve garvey, hugh o'brien, cal bolder, the batman tv show, robert conrad, etc,.....

Kiefer Sutherland in Young Guns?

I knew very early on. I also knew what gay was because my over protective mother, raising two boys alone, with no filter would try to correct my actions if they seemed too gay. She’d say, “Stop pretending to be Sailormoon, you aren’t a girl!” Criticize how I would stand or the shows and music I liked (Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Britney Spears).

She’d also warn me about the world. After that poor girl was raped in a Nevada casino, my mom came into my room in tears telling me about the dangers of rape. I couldn’t have been in 2nd grade at the time.

I also couldn’t go to sleepovers because my mom didn’t trust their parents. So I had a lot of time alone to ponder my existence and knew I was gay. Like a prisoner, I was making my plans to breakout.

Also in 1 st grade I found my older brother’s straight porn stash. Short video clips on our new desktop computer that he only really knew how to work. His bus would arrive before my ride to school. My mom left before all of us so I locked up and set the alarm when a female family friend drove me to a separate a different school. I’d watch his porn collection almost every morning for a month till my mom found it.

Those fat cocks were mesmerizing.

So some kids are forced to know about those things early on.

[quote]No, they don't. I looked it up.

Well, it MUST be true if someone said it, despite many other men saying otherwise. 🙄

[quote]My point is that most people are claiming to have figured out their sexuality at age 4. I don't believe it

Your belief is irrelevant to anyone else's experience. I might believe that leprechauns live in my closet- doesn't make it true.

[quote]I wonder if society has changed enough so little kids who feel different don’t have to feel ashamed and try to hide their feelings.

Unfortunately, not at most of the schools I've worked at. I currently have a client in a classroom run by a Christian frau-in-training. Even though it's public school in a supposedly liberal city and state, there are a lot of conservative educators who make their fear of homosexuals obvious.

R82, exactly how much do you remember about being four? I might remember one thing, and it was pouring my OJ into my oatmeal and getting in trouble. Nothing about sexuality yet.

I actually remember quite a bit about that year, which was a pivotal one in my life. Why do you insist that nobody could remember anything at that age? Were you dropped on your head? I would think that feeling something intense for a man for the first time would stand out in my mind at that age, even if I don't have photographic memory of every second.

I have a mindblowing revelation for you: others experienced life differently than you did. Some people don't remember much, others can tell you what color underwear they wore on their first day of kindergarten. Instead of trying to force everyone into your limited experience of reality, try opening yourself to a bigger sense of the world.

So I'm the "toddler memory denialist troll" everyone, please take notes.

And not all of us are gold star gays, R85, I can very well say the same horrible things about your own disdain for my experience.

[quote]I'm the "toddler memory denialist troll"

Catchy!

[quote]I can very well say the same horrible things about your own disdain for my experience.

Go ahead. I'll just chalk it up to your differing experience. I am capable of understanding that some people don't remember much of their early years. What I don't understand is why someone would insist that nobody else could possibly remember anything, just because they don't.

4 or 5 year olds aren't toddlers, btw. I taught child development and there is huge difference developmentally between just 3 and 4, so I don't dismiss people's claims of being able remember important things at those ages. I remember getting a beatdown from my mother with a flip flop, which my father said happened when I was 3, so it is possible that anything noteworthy is going to stand out in someone's memory.

[quote]And not all of us are gold star gays

Correct, although irrelevant. Not all "gold star gays," whatever those are, have the same experiences or opinions.

I'm not gay. That's why I wouldn't presume to tell gay men what they can or can't know about their childhoods. Go thou and do likewise.

Wait, I'm gay? I just thought I enjoyed dick.

Like when I want to spend hours on end underneath Dan Abrams desk.

My early childhood was weird and I remember a lot of it. I was walking at 9 months and there's a super 8 film of me running around in a pair of jeans during the 1st moon landings in 1969 when I was 14 months old.

I could read when I went to school at 4 and do basic math(s), I read the whole of The Chronicles of Narnia at 6, the rings Tolkien books at 7.

I was taught COBOL programming before I went to Secondary (High) school in 1979. After that It all slowed down, shit teachers and I'd exhausted my parents knowledge.

I only have one brother and he's 8 years older, so my home life wasn't really spent around other children.

Back to the thread though, I always knew I was gay and came out at 14. I've been with my Husband since I was 18.

R73, my memory is similar if maybe a bit more extreme.

When I was 6, I was being baby-sat by one of my mom's friends and her son was the same age as me. We were playing around upstairs while his mom was downstairs (being unsupervised was VERY common back in the early 70s), and we found his dad's stash of Playboy magazines in his closet. So we started looking through them.

It was exciting because on some level I knew we weren't supposed to be doing it, but as I flipped through the pages, at one point, in one of the magazines, there was a picture of a bunch of men streaking... naked men, full frontal. And I just stopped and fixated on that picture. I totally wanted to just stare at it. I was entranced by it. I wanted to see MORE pictures like that. I rapidly flipped through the pages of other magazines hoping to find some, but I didn't. There was just the one.

Don't try to tell me I wasn't a totally gay 6 year old. I knew what I liked even if I didn't exactly understand why.

only crowd that didn't believe in childhood sexuality were the "political" lesbians and separatists... it ruined their whole any woman can be and every feminist should be a lesbian deal. (but also given to some proto feminists, the moralist biddy bodies, that have been erased from history for leading the charge and funding the anti-masturbation crusade; the whole lie back and think of england crowd. -- which is also why so much consideration of children is considered predatory and contradictory pseuo religious jungian bs that the human ideal to aspire to is becoming the perfect child.... the child that never left eden or some angelic agender to bigender cherubic deity; the pop-psych spiritual peter pan syndrome.)

From the 'health' nutters to the religious fundamentalists, society was denying the innocent I'll show you mine, if you show me yours games of childhood sex (and sexuality curiosity to the outright paranoia of stranger danger... even down to believing that if a girl didn't like the smell of fish, it was a clear sign she was molested (seriously.).

and of course, anyone that ever played house... recognizes the adult perception of house vs the child perception of house is quite different... it's akin to those that need to believe their parents never had sex -- not that children were having sex but rather kids are akin to gremlins., . . they appear as mogwai most of the time but innately are hedonistic and sadistic little bastards that gradually learn self control or the appearance of as time goes on...

r53

boys on the playground used to "play" a game called "captain crunch" which involved saying "captain" and copping a feel or "crunching" another boy's crotch. . . I didnj't much care for cbt but I did rather enjoy tackling or wrestling and dry humping... then there was the pool and the crowd of boys over that one jet. Same with the showers and the one shower head that came out in a single stream....

when it came to games of house, I'd never willingly be paired up with a girl. Like most moes, I had plenty of girl friends but I wasn't going to be their pretend husband. And they were never the princess or victim to be rescued in other imaginary games. . . however, there was a lad that frequently took that role for me. But he had a Robin fetish or more exactly a bondage fetish (from westerns to spy films and many sidekicks.... and also liked helped by a cousin and close friend that desperately wanted to be Grace Jones whereas I wanted to be Vincent Price... though to be fair to wannabe Robin, I did dress up as Catwoman a few times. . . I had rather a thing of for anti-villian/anti-hero types.

To put it further in creepy persperctive, wannabe routinely acted up because he enjoyed getting spanked by the principal... is how much he knew what he was into. Whereas would be Zula and I were more certain of what we didn't want.

wannabe Robin and I bonded over our mutual interest of hiding in the lockers at the Boys Club that had slats that were just at the right height to catch sight of all the dongs and arses in the men's locker room. Not that I needed to but there was something more exciting about it (aka less flaccid) than the open changing for an early morning surf or the popularity of naturist retreats and events in those days.

And there's more sordid stories that I think only people born or raised thru the 60s to early 80s would understand the mentality of...the good and bad of the newfound openness... especially in those societies or cultures swept up in the trend of the naturist movment or significantly impacted by the sexual revolution. Which leaves it predominately to agricultural and fishing communities and the mega cities... vs the burbs, where I found most to be conservative, naive and generally fearful, if not hostile, to most things.

When I saw Lizzo in a thong.

R50---That's about the same time Mark Eitzel figured out HE was gay!

Have you seen this, R98? It's true, Wikipedia says he came out in 1985, but not to the fans until more like 10 years after that. I think it was an Advocate article.

I was obsessed with Madonna aged 4... This was 1980's Ireland. I remember my mother's friends pulling a face when I'd say that I loved Madonna and I'd want to do her dance moves- "Do you not like cars and tractors?". I knew then I was a bit different. I also used to love a statue of the blessed virgin in a church the next town over because she had a halo that was made of fairy lights and it looked so glam. MARY I know!! Sexual awakening around 9 or 10- then I understood why I felt different. The rest is a grim history.

Forgot the link

1) When I was about 4, my grandmother had a pair of college guys living in an outbuilding that was in the back of her property. It was just a really big room with a bathroom off of it, they shared the bedroom, separate beds of course, and ate meals elsewhere. I remember liking to go back there and visit them, and a lot of the time, when the weather was hot, they had the outer door just standing open. One or both of them must have been taking entomology that Spring because I remember one of them showing me a case he was making, with glass on top of it, and lots of the bugs he'd caught, mounted on pins under the glass. I remember kind of thinking the bugs were still alive somehow, just held in place by the pins. The best part was that he was wearing shorts and had really hairy legs, big ones. I was impressed by his legs more than I was by the bugs and I've never forgotten them.

2.) About 4 years later, when I was about 8, I went to a summer camp down on the bayou in Louisiana. Must have been there about 2 weeks. Midway through, that Saturday, I decided somehow that I needed a shower. You had to kind of walk through the woods to get there and it was kind of a spookily isolated building, maybe I hadn't been in it before. It was just a big cinderblock enclosure, without even a roof on it, with about 8 showers along 2 opposing walls. There was nobody else in there. I was showering, and in came some kind of counselor or employee, about 18 years old, who proceeded to shower down the file on the other side of the room. He ignored me, of course. I was keeping an eye on him, he was built, very white skin and dark hair, naturally muscular. It was probably the first "adult" man I'd ever seen naked before, at least while I was on my own. It must have been early summer of '65, I remember "Woolly Bully" was a big hit on the radio at the time.

R99~~~I've lived in SF since '87 and was in folk/rock/poetry reading circles and did a gig with American Music Club and saw plenty of their shows and ME solo shows. When he finally came out as gay (and I don't remember him being 'out' prior to the 90s revelation so maybe only close friends knew?) I figured that was one of the main reasons he was always so depressed and miserable. I dunno if he became happier after that, maybe, maybe not. Writing songs about gals or carefully phrasing everything in songs with neutral pronouns must be tedious.

When he got in up to his balls.

He was in the closet at the peak of his success, but these days he openly moons over his boyfriend of three years. “It sounds completely lame and pathetic to even consider the closet now,” says Eitzel. “But at the time, if you came out with a gay love song, it’s not a love song, it’s a political act. I didn’t want to come out of the closet and not be able to write anymore, or feel I couldn’t tour and front my band without shaming them. Now I’m old and ugly and over and I don’t care.”

The first time I saw Doug Savant nude in desperate housewives

Four or so.

All I know is that I'm now in my 50's I have known since i can remember and it has ruined my life. I have major depression likely caused by the stress of living a closeted life and always having to what what I say. I was born in the wrong place at the wrong time, I'm sure things would have been better for me anywhere else but where I was born and raised. I think about suicide every day and I just don't have the energy to get my affairs in order. I scanned through the other stories and I could relate to most of them and some of them were exactly my own experience of realizing that I was different at a very early age. I kept thinking that something would happen and everything would be ok but it never did and it seems worse than ever. Even if I found the love of my life right now, I'm too old to enjoy it. I really don't know what to do and I have nobody to talk to about it (except the very kind and understanding members of The DATA LOUNGE).

I remember being really young - 5, 6 - and wanting the boys to tease me the way they did the girls. I had no idea I was gay, just that I wasn’t a typical boy who liked going out and playing soccer with the boys. I wanted to sit with the girls and talk ABOUT the boys. Around 1983-84, I started hearing more about AIDS and how it was the gay cancer. I was about 12-13 by that time, and completely aware of my attraction to the same sex, but feared admitting to myself I was gay because I thought every gay person caught the gay cancer just for being gay. I was very different from the other boys, though, and living in a small rural town - well, let’s just say I was dragged out of the closet anyway by the other kids, and they weren’t nice about it. Amidst all that stigma and bullying, and as I learned more about AIDS, I did eventually accept I was gay. But from early on, I knew I was different. I hope it’s better for young gay people now.

R109 sounds like u never even tried to stay in closet. Funny how millions can stay in closet but you just blew it up.

When I saw Axl Rose’s bulge in those tight shorts he used to wear.

When my dildo broke from overuse. Thing snapped in half while I was riding it in the backseat of mom’s station wagon. I was 6 and I got a real beating after that from my mom’s deadbeat boyfriend. He did fuck my ass after each beating so there’s that. He always came inside me and it felt awesome being his boy bitch. If I were female I would’ve been pregnant all the time in my teens. So much jizz up my tight ass. When he pulled out he would slap me around a bit which was fun too.

R112 could easily be a true story disguised as humor.

I think it's a 0/10 personally.

I realized I was gay when I saw Peter Ewing's pubic hair across the Boys Locker Room in junior high school. What a revelation!

[R13] That reminds me of when I was in boarding school aged 12 - there was a sign in the dining hall: ‘In the event of fire, leave the building immediately. Do not panic. Do not run’. Underneath a boy had scrawled ‘there are plenty of firemen for everyone'. That's when I knew I wasn’t alone.

Jeez R55 I had to read your post twice. At first I thought it read that you were getting fingered in church at 4 years old by the guy behind you…

1939

When I was 4 I had a coloring book that featured a bunch of “baby teenagers” who had a dune buggy, surfed & waterskied together and lived on the beach - it was 1968, so this was probably some kind of Pebbles & BamBam rip off.

There were about 6 characters, boys and girls, but I was fascinated by the one boy who had that V-shaped torso that alpha cartoon dudes always have - even if they are babies. I really, really liked this guy - so much so that I can recall images from this coloring book 50-odd years later.

The night Larry Kramer kissed me.

The summer I was 12.

Two things happened: one, I was on vacation and stayed at a cottage with an older sibling who worked at a restaurant. That restaurant was owned by a gay couple and had a wait staff/kitchen staff that was probably 75 percent gay. It was also the last summer before AIDS hit. Anyway, I remember those guys hanging out and talking to me and especially one night where we were talking about music and films and.....there was just a moment of recognition. Nothing sexual but just....I had never been around people who I was on the same wavelength, not in my whole life, and suddenly there it was. It was very moving.

And then later that summer, at home, I was at a public swimming pool, and when I left, I took a shower and saw a guy in his forties with a lean body covered in thick hair, and saw his dick. He was amazingly hot. Zero sexual on his part and I may have stared a bit too long, but there was nothing on my part.....other than, that was the day my brain and my dick connected and said OHHH....THAT's what that's about.

(A PS: I assume forties-ish, he had a bit of salt/pepper hair. A guesstimate on my part)

What these fraus need to understand is that boys have different experiences growing up than girls do. You really can’t compare the two.

They’re just basing it off their own experiences and what they feel.

Age 2 or 3, I'm not sure. A neighbor was carrying me over his shoulder and I became slightly aroused. I didn't understand it then but I do now.

[quote]They’re just basing it off their own experiences

I base things [bold]on[/bold] my own experiences.

My standard response whenever someone asks me OP’s question:

when i saw this

^^^YUK!

I should have known when I was 6 years old and kept undressing the Fonzie doll that I got for Christmas that year. I had squishy feelings for other boys all throughout my childhood, but I always thought feelings for girls would magically appear once I hit puberty. When I finally masturbated to orgasm several years into puberty, I had a “ah-ha!” moment and realized that all those squishy feelings I had for other boys (and at that point older men) were really sexual urges. It was at that moment (at age 13) that I finally, belatedly, realized that I was gay. In that moment, everything finally made sense.

I don't remember being anything but attracted to the same sex. I find women beautiful but I don't want to have sex with them, never have. That being said, I did go down on a woman once during a three way with her husband. It wasn't so bad. I tried to fuck her but that wasn't happening.

I was always attracted to other boys in those elementary school/puppy love years, but thought maybe things would "change" once I hit puberty and I would magically start liking girls. Of course, this never happened. I remember it really sinking in when my stepbrother gave me one of his porn magazines (this was in the mid-2000s) and I found myself beating off to a picture of a hairy naked man in the ads section at the back.

I crushed on boys in elementary school every once in a blue moon but mostly I always liked the girls and played with them.

Every once in a while I did things like put a bath towel on my head and pretended to be one. I know some trans women did that too. It went that way for them, but for me it was play acting, never anything I wanted to do or be 24/7.

When I added beauty marks on the cheeks of my little cousins playing dress-up.

I was a slow bloomer of sorts. I first started noticing just some guys when I was a about 12. There were a couple of older boys around 15-18 who were good looking and athletic that I developed sort of crushes, but I didn't initially think my feelings were the same as the crushes I had on a few girls growing up. As I went through my teens I would find myself attracted to guys more often and girls less often. Still I never felt compelled to do anything sexual until I was about 16-17, then I started to have doubts on whether I was straight or gay. I dated a few girls and even went steady with a girl in my senior year and we had sex several times. It wasn't until my first year in college that I actually got physical with a guy. We claimed he was straight even though he initiated it, and we hooked up a few more times.

When my dad’s 4th wife ate me out.

16 weeks old

I was around 7 when I started getting crushes on other girls. I didn't even know what a lesbian was as I was raised in a VERY religious home. I just assumed I was normal and gave no thought about being a lesbian until around junior high when it became apparent I was not like other girls. I never wanted to do girly things. I just wanted to hang out with the boys and play baseball and talk about Star Wars.

DIdn't "come out" until around 21 years old though. I fell in love with a girl I worked with and we had a relationship. Back then, I was all "Oh, I'm not gay. I"m just in love with Susan (not her real name). I did have one brief relationship with a guy when I was 18 and it just never felt right to me.

I'm glad I didn't grow up in today's world. I would have believed I was trans because I liked "boy things." Nope, all girl here. A bit tougher than most girls and not butch. I wear makeup, do my hair, dress like a woman but I'm a red belt in taekwondo and can kick some ass.