How Old Were You When You Became Aware of Your Sexuality?

A girl and I kissed in elementary school, a friend of mine, and it was indescribably powerful. Wow.
The guy side wasn’t clear to me, in part because society didn’t give models for that (especially since I liked girls, so I knew I wasn’t gay). But now with reflection I see there were clues back to middle school that I liked guys sometimes too, and how that makes a lot of sense. Originally (look at early messages here on EC) I thought I was a straight ally. Which means I felt like my bisexuality came as a shift, and to the fore just a few years ago when I started fantasizing about guys all the time (late in life, after raising kids).

 

In my mid to late 20's

 

i dated my first girlfriend in 5th grade but wasn't sure what i identified until last year.

 

Always had an underlying same-sex attraction since teen years, but didn't fully appreciate it until my forties.

 

Early twenties so like, a year or so ago

 

I was in early high-school, probably around 15?

The couple years before, I had same-sex attractions and thoughts, but somehow wasn't really aware of them lol

 

I was 56 when I discovered my attraction to men.

 

Looking back, there were... definitely signs, let's say, that I was attracted to women. I also had male crushes at the time. But I grew up very conservative and managed to convince myself I was totally ace. Around age 14-16 I had a breakthrough in acknowledging my feelings about women, and then after coming to terms with my gender ID a few years later I was able to stop repressing my attraction to men.

 

i started thinking i may be part of the community from a very young age. probably about eight if i had to guess. i became aware of my sexuality completely when i was 11 though

 

With hindsight I would say I began having gay thoughts ( that weren’t sexual ) during early childhood. I wanted to play with girls more than boys and hated playing sports. In my teens I started masturbating to thoughts of have gay sex and kissing attractive men I saw in movies and on TV. It would be years later when I would do this with people I knew in real life. I also never felt comfortable in locker rooms with lots of naked men, and had a fear of showing my excitement of seeing them.

At a young age I was a very girly boy but learned to mask this quickly. I wouldn’t say I was aware of my sexuality but I was definitely being the gay person I am. At this time I was so happy being gay ( again in a non sexual context) before I knew what it was and figured out I “shouldn’t” be this way.

Thankfully I’ve returned to being very feminine and very gay and I am happy once again. And it being in a sexual context now only makes it better

 

I was about 10 years old when I developed a crush on my school bus driver (this was when high school kids drove school buses). The following year I had a new bus driver who was as cute as the previous one. I developed a crush on him as well. It was then when I realized that I that I had an attraction to boys and that I was gay, although I couldn't talk about it with anyone at the time.