I cant believe I have not thought of this before - or at least reflect clearly on it. . If you do not know about something, you have no expectations for it. This most definitely applies to when I was a teen. It's that simple. I had no knowledge what a relationship and love was because I really did not know much about homosexuality. What little I knew was shamed to death. Anyone else care to reflect on this?
My experience, too. My knowledge of sex was very much along the lines of "a man and a woman fall in love, they get married. When they want a baby..." I was taught so well, and I was perhaps so stupid, that I couldn't connect the fun I had with masturbation with sex with another person. At some point I picked up on the idea that sex wasn't just about reproducing. But...I still didn't really understand. I think I had this vision of "falling in love". And then people had sex because that's what people do when they are in love. And when I did have feelings of sexual attraction, I didn't understand what was really going on. At least, I didn't consciously. What little I came to know was that gay is wrong!!!!. Thus I was encouraged to go into Deep, Deep, Deep Denial. And when I liked a female, I cited it as proof that I was "normal." As an adult, I took this line of thinking at least once: why, if that nice woman next door weren't married, and we got to know each other better, we might fall in love, and then I'd have lots of Great Sex with her. Had I had better knowledge, I might have realized I'm gay in 7th grade. Had the era been different, who knows? I might have even had a date in high school, and even been able to have it with a guy! I might have had a relationship, even.
This resonates with me. Certainly reflecting on and trying to answer the questions "how long have you been gay" and "when did you know" forces one to confront these issues. My thought process has been to separate the notions of in denial and being in the closet. Here's how I segment them. If you know that you are gay but choose not to disclose your orientation to others, then you are in the closet. If you do not know that you are gay but are, then you are in denial. I'm at a point in my life where I know that I've been gay all my life. As a fully trained gay jedi, I can look back retrospectively and reinterpret the gay signals that were previously misinterpreted as we've previously discussed - http://emptyclosets.com/forum/2919527-post12.html. When I was a youth in denial, I did not have the context of what it meant to be gay as the basis for correctly interpreting these signals in my brain. We live in a society where straight is the default. When we were younger, we lived in a time when straight was not only the default but the alternative lifestyles of LGBT were not even on the menu. Thus we interpreted these signals as best we could under the assumption of heterosexuality.
Great material, heres what I highlighted. This resonates with me. Articulated well. That intersection where denial and closet (see above) meet, one resultant can be pain. Lots and lots of pain. Other resultants can be confusion, betrayed, anger. I will add, correct not on the acceptable menu. Heres what always befuddled me. I knew of homosexuality but I did not know what it was. So on the side of safety I accepted societies "what" definition. At times I didn't know "signals" were coming in. At other times "signals" confused the heck out of me, like why did I look at the guys butt. It would be a fun study to see the range (type) of "signals". Example. looking at butt. For fun I've been wondering how many gay signals from my unconscious me I've had in my life. You know total number. The looking at a cute guys butt. Instigating events so I could be close to a cute guy. Dreams at night. On and on. A wild guess. I'd say maybe 5000 times, lol. Great reply. Thanks
Great reply. Thanks. One of my questions to "me" before I had a clue I was gay was, "why cant I fall in love?" A while back I posted a forum question about the complex relationship between love, sex, I think the third being crush. These three states interact in a complex manner with one or both facilitating the third. Ah but just as these three states act as catalyst to bring people together, it's now my theory one can be an inhibitor for the others. So with me, it was sex preventing love. When I heard as a kid, "oh that guy is a cock sucker" and "oh that guys a butt fucker" and couple thousand times, INHIBITORS where switched on, preventing me from love. At least this is my theory at this time. (sorry for frank language but it is necessary to convey what I'm trying to say)
Ok lets just say that i didn't know about this whole gay thing when i was at 7th grade i used to think that two men who love each other or do anything romantic is something that i cant have because i thought at that time that those pictures and videos are just made up on TV for fun and comedy and that those male\female sims games kissing same sex and being able to marry one another was just another glitch because the game does not differ between sexes okay i was so dump i know i only realized i was gay and that all this existed and was for real when i was at 9th grade this is when i turned to religion also it was the first time to know that two men together and same sex is all a sin and blah blah etc etc... the battle with myself the urges that started to occur the shame gosh if i had known what i know now how better will i have lived well between 10th and 11th grade was my turning point and well i immediately stopped all the nonsense that i got from the net and the bullies and religious people who know nothing about their own religion and like forming their own way of life and force it on others.........^__^
I knew homosexual relationships were frowned upon at least and viewed as dirty by most. I'd heard stories from my friend, who's father was a sea. It was all in the negative. But my first realisations I was gay were actually quite nice. I could not equate the things I knew with what I was feeling. Only later did it all fall apart