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How many people are closeted?

Discussion in 'Chit Chat' started by googool, Jun 5, 2018.

  1. googool

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    I still find it hard to understand that this happens on a subconscious level. It's not like you woke up one morning and thought "wow I like this cute girl/guy; I must be gay"? Sorry if I sound rude but I'm really curious to learn how some people finally realized they were gay.
    For me personally, I knew I was different when I was 5 or 6, I actively and violently repressed my desires and thought I have to fit society. But I always knew, and it sounds like there are people who did not know? Still hard to believe
     
  2. Silver Snow

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    My parents think that their are more gay people now then before. They were in high school during the 80’s and said it was “cool” to be gay, and there still weren’t as many. I can’t help but feel they were ignorant to the truth. It may have been ‘cool’ among their friend group in their school to say that they were gay. But would it be cool with their parents? Their grandparents? Their preacher who greatly influenced their community? Employers? The teachers who had the power to make their school lives difficult? Their bullies? Would they suddenly think they were cool?

    My mom especially, for her to say that, never having experience the struggle to come out... I had no idea why to say. I’m not out, so I couldn’t defend members of the lgbt+ community without drawing suspicion. But even today, with all these people coming out, all this “acceptance”, I still can’t bring myself to come out. And my mom, would actually sit there and say that gay people had no reason to stay closeted back then. And that their is only more of us now because of “sexual sin spreading in this world.”

    I just can’t take it.
     
  3. Silver Snow

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    I felt frustrated for a long time. I could never find a guy I was attracted to. I knew I thought girls were more attractive.... but I was raised to believe homosexuality was a choice, and a horrible one at that. (I dared to suggest me and my sister “both be the mommies” while playing house when I was about 5.) I thought I was a late bloomer. Maybe I just hadn’t found the right one. Then, I thought, maybe I’m way too picky. I felt like I was ‘behind’ my sister. My mom asked me and my sisters who we thought was cutest in LotR. I never considered before. Sis answered right away. I had to think. “Legolas I guess.” Mom looked at me funny “He’s too pretty.” I liked pretty guys appearance better. I was told as I got older that would change. I was told that people were confusing kids, by telling them that if they were guy, because finding the same sex attractive was normal. That didn’t mean you were attracted to them. So I ignored my thoughts and feelings, despite how obviously gay they were.

    Then one day, I met a gay man. He was my grandma’s home health aid. She liked him, and liked that he was gay since he bathed her. Thought the family talked. The more I heard them talk, the more they complained about the news and the lgbt+ community, and Obama’s support and how horrible it was. The more I watched them complain when gay characters came up on tv, the more I wondered.

    I started doing my own research. Watching YouTube, reading articles and forums. Getting into the science of it. Reading personal accounts, and watching coming out videos. I started to realize people didn’t have to go out of their way to choose this. Which made sense. Why would people choose to be discriminated against,and disowned, and killed? My parents had a way of ignoring these things and raising me to be unaware of the pain homosexuals had gone through throughout history. I also started to notice, slowly, that I could relate to the feelings the YouTubers and bloggers shared. All those odd little things here and there I was completely ignoring.

    Then it happened. At age 19, I woke up one day... and I realized: “Oh, sh*t. I’m a lesbian.”
     
  4. Leah061

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    I can relate to feeling "different" from a young age as well, it's just that for me, at the time, I didn't realize what was making me feel that way was that I was gay, so I didn't know there was something for me to actively repress. I didn't know what it meant to be gay for a long time, and even when I did, it always seemed like something that other people were, and not something I could actually be. So I had all of these "different" feelings for girls when I was growing up, but it just never occurred to me to wonder if I might be gay. When I turned 18 and moved out of my conservative town, I found myself in a very LGBT-friendly, more progressive environment, and I started to accept what I've always felt for women. But even then, I thought I was still attracted to men, and I just hadn't found the "right" guy yet. So I thought I was bi for years, and I told myself I didn't really need to indulge in my gay feelings since I thought I could be happy with a man. It wasn't until last year that I developed a massive, undeniable crush on a girl that I finally knew I had to confront my sexuality. After a lot of soul searching and analysis, I've began to realize how much I've forced myself to like boys and that underneath my fake attraction to men is genuine attraction to women. I've learned that it's actually not that uncommon for people to not know they're gay/bi from a really young age. Reading into compulsory heterosexuality has been very helpful for me in discovering my sexuality.
     
  5. Destin

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    That's actually pretty much exactly what happened to me so it's possible. I was straight and had girlfriends my entire life. I'd seen naked guys my age in locker rooms and other ways a lot of times and never cared at all, or felt any attraction to them. Then my college roommate told me he had gay feelings for me. Within about two days I started seeing him differently, noticing when he was looking at me and liking it when he did. I started feeling things for him too and would wear less clothes around the apartment because I wanted him to see more of my body when he looked at me. After a bunch of other things I realized I'm not straight and now he's my boyfriend.

    So yea I literally went from 100% straight to gay in a few weeks just because I met someone really special to me. It's certainly possible to wake up one morning with new feelings you haven't felt before and I'm proof of it.
     
  6. PatrickUK

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    I think sometimes, it takes another person to 'provoke' feelings that are dormant. In other words, it might require another person of the same sex to admit that s/he's not straight (or even that s/he's into you) to wake things up. Unless, or until that happens you might go along for years as a seemingly heterosexual person.

    If you read the Later in Life forum, you will find members who pretty much describe an awakening after years of dating or marriage to a member of the opposite sex. Did these feelings just come on one day, by chance, or were they always there? On reflection most say they were always there, but something or someone brought them to the surface.
     
  7. Pole star

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    Exactly how I feel I was...
    I had all these different feelings for guys but it never occurred to me to wonder what they meant.
    Totally agree. For a long time I didn't even know what those words meant. It happens when you grow up in socially conservative societies where there is no exposure to anything gay at all.
    This is what finally happened to me...
     
  8. JaimeGaye

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    Because sexuality is way more fluid in human beings than anyone wants to admit I believe the number is much higher than the professional estimates.
    If homosexuality was simply acknowledged and accepted as part of the human condition I believe far more people would openly identify in some form of the LGBTQ spectrum, perhaps as high as 50% of the general population, but indeed even the word homosexuality is considered taboo and disgusting in the mainstream and even among openly identifying LGBTQ people,