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Poll: Accept, realise or change?

Discussion in 'LGBT Later in Life' started by Dreamsexul, Dec 15, 2019.

?

Did you accept, realise or change as you got older?

  1. It took time to accept

    30 vote(s)
    42.3%
  2. It took time to realise

    33 vote(s)
    46.5%
  3. What I was changed over time

    5 vote(s)
    7.0%
  4. Other

    3 vote(s)
    4.2%
  1. Unsure77

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    Cognitive dissonance is a thing. Sometimes you don't see things you don't want to see.
     
  2. Dreamsexul

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    Truer than I expected :slight_smile:

    I guess it's just a little odd to expect so many people in this era not to realise they are gay or something by the time they're 20, let alone 30! But it just goes to show ... :slight_smile:
     
  3. Unsure77

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    I’m in my 40’s but I grew up surrounded by a bunch of people who are very much like Mike Pence or Mike Huckabee or Franklin Graham. Those people still very much so exist. So, for one thing, I didn’t knowingly know any lesbians until I moved out of the Bible Belt. For another thing, I was raised in an evangelical church. All of my friends and family were evangelicals. All of them. I would’ve likely effectively been shunned. The people who lived next door to me growing up have a son a couple of years younger than me who came out as gay. They haven’t spoken to him in 15 years because of it. That’s now. That’s in 2019 in the United States. Evangelicals hate gays. A lot. No really, they hate them. My father described supporting gay rights as “demonic” last year. Not being gay. Just being pro gay rights. It makes it terrifying to be a gay kid in that environment , so you fight it like hell until you can’t anymore or don’t want to anymore.

    Or at least that was me.
     
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  4. NoName87

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    Indeed! I think change in this context is a controversial topic. It implies conscious choice. I don’t know if that was your intent but that is how I felt about it. Although I believe it is a valid question to late in lifers, the results may suggest that what feels like a change in disposition really is just another form of becoming / growth.

    Personally as a late in lifer it’s important to at least acknowledge this issue. Humans are complex. If only behavior was a hard science! Good poll, thanks.
     
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  5. OnlySens

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    Both realizing and accepting took a long time. But I'm in my 20s, so I guess I am still part of those who realized it quite young. It's just that I heard a lot that gay people already know they're gay as a child. I only started to consider myself bisexual around 16 years old, then I have been through straight passing because I struggled a lot with internalized homophobia. It's only at 20 years old that I have finally come out to myself as a lesbian. It wasn't like the tale of the child who knows it since birth. As a kid, growing up in a strictly straight environnement, I considered myself straight simply because I didn't know gay people existed. Now looking back at my life there was always a lot of confusion in my head around my orientation and my being in general. I'm glad I grew up and learned from my mistakes. But yeah, for sure, knowing who we are takes time. In the future, I will surely learn even more things about myself.
     
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  6. Dreamsexul

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    No, I don't think change implies comscious choice. My hair changed colour, for example, it wasn't a choice! :slight_smile:

    But I deliberately included the option not only because it describes me (I definitely changed), but also because I've spoken to a suprising number of people on various sexuality websites who would also describe their sexuality as having actually changed, either due to some trauma or medical issue or 'just because'. And I feel that these folk are often forgotten within LGBT groups because of all the (rightly and understandable) emphasis upon 'born this way'. Whilst the vast majority of folk were/are indeed hard wired with a particular sexuality, a number had their 'wiring' change over time and it's important that these people are not told they're wrong or invalid.

    Or, to put it another way, Ive spoken to a few people whose sexuality genuinely changed over time. I've never spoken to anyone who consciously chose this :slight_smile:
     
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  7. Unsure77

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    The immutability of it is the important part, I think. (In the sense that we don’t “decide” it. We just are). It can’t be prayed or manipulated away no matter how and when we came to be what we are.
     
    #27 Unsure77, Dec 31, 2019
    Last edited: Dec 31, 2019
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  8. Dreamsexul

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    Immutability is the wrong word - that would mean 'impossible to change/ unchangeable'. Which is obviously untrue, as a small number of people do find that their sexuality changes over time for one reason or another.

    I think you mean 'unchosen' :slight_smile:
     
  9. Nickw

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    These conversations about our sexuality potentially changing during our life always interest me. I sometimes feel that mine has. But, now that I pay attention to it, I don’t feel it has been a change for me. What does vary is how I react to something that stimulates my desires.

    Currently, I have an active gay sex life...I have a friend that I have regular intimacy with. And, I hardly even notice other guys. But, women really catch my eye again. This is curious to me.

    I would like to believe my desires are cyclic. But, I don’t think they really are. They are always under the surface and just need some stimulation to come to the surface.
     
  10. NoName87

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    I understand “change” in the context the OPs clarification. However I think much of our behavior is subconscious, so what is self reported as a change in sexuality may fall in the fluid or bisexual / pansexual category?

    Did those individuals who reported a change, change from gay to straight, straight to bi, whatever variation? Or was it more of entertaining other sexual interest that have lied dormant? Curios isn’t it.
     
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  11. Peteselgat

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    I would say a combination, took me time to realize but there has been some shifts in my sexual nature.
     
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  12. Dreamsexul

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    For those who I spoke to who clearly changed:
    Three became asexual (two through trauma, one through a medical issue); one developed an objectum romantic relationship when previously they were totally aro; and about half a dozen developed previously unheard of homosexual desires after beginning cross-dressing, or transitioning or having hormones; and one moved from being gay to straight with religious influence (I know how that one sounds, but they were sincere and lived a happy Hetero married life for decades afterwards, so I'm willing to take them at their word that they changed). I've also heard of, but never spoken to, a couple of folk whose sexuality changed because of severe brain trauma.

    For myself, who voted changed, I was cis hetero for most of my life, but in my 40s became a genderqueer gynephilic inorganic psychesexual after a lifetime of 'negative experiences'.
     
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  13. SevnButton

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    In the era and place where I grew up, sexuality was a very private thing. Without being able to have any open, honest conversations, how could we possibly have known that fantasies of sex with guys was not something that everyone experienced?
     
  14. SevnButton

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    That's it! "It took time to accept". I'd add "understand and accept". I've always known I'm something other than straight, and that's been pretty consistent through my life. There's a certain curiosity, excitement, and aliveness I've always felt when I think of guys in a sexual way. But I'm also strongly driven toward family. So I needed to do the family thing while I put my authenticity on the back burner. It's kind of a phase of life thing for me: 20's were about friends, 30's, 40's and part of my 50's were about raising a family, and now it's my time to accept and express myself authentically.
     
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  15. Nickw

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    Man. Do I agree with this. As a teenager, my friends and I would jack off together, skinny dip and hang out naked. I’m pretty sure these guys were straight and just going through some experimentation. I just assumed they were feeling what I was which was, as I have learned, really attraction and desire for other males. But, I don’t think they were for the most part.

    I think I was well into my forties when I started to understand that my desires were not just my little kink that I never outgrew.

    I’ve now had the amazing experience of learning to love another man. But, it took that to really begin to understand my sexuality and how much a part of me it has always been.

    I am curious when I read of others who are where I am and attribute it to some fundamental change in sexuality. It was really easy to take these desires I had and put them into a “do not disturb” box. It worked really well...until it didn’t. I wonder how many of us who really believe we have changed had just not reopened that box until something clicked in them that compelled them to do it.

    I was injured in a skiing accident about 5 years ago. This brush with mortality is what I believe was part of the catalyst for my reawakening. Now, I recognize the attractions and welcome them. That acceptance has allowed me to identify what was always there.
     
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  16. Ninny

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    so I guess the line is a bit blurred, between accepting something that was realized, and realizing there is something to accept!

    also as time goes by, not only does perception of ourselves change, but awareness/acceptance levels of society as a whole, providing greater avenues for integrating our unique internal truths with external interactions?
     
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  17. Dreamsexul

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    The idea of sexual fluidity is helping me make sense of stuff a little better:

     
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  18. Username18920

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    denial while I was just fantasizing infrequently till I was actually with a few men then realising it was more than just hot fantasies, now acceptance cause I cant imagine not being with another man sexually and otherwise.
     
  19. Biappeal

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    In retrospect, I probably knew I was gay at 12. I spent much of my teens developing relationships with guy friends but stepping away when I thought I might be discovered or maybe would get too close. I thought I was “over it” until my mid 30’s when I started to accept my feelings. By my mid 40’s I fully accepted being gay. Then a year ago I embraced my sexuality and came out to my wife.
     
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