Did you 'know' you were gay as a child?

I always knew, just didn't have the name for it.
I remember watching like the Little Mermaid and being confused on why in the movies they were always kissing the boy to the girl. It wasn't a desire or sex thing, I just thought I'd feel less weird if it happened sometimes.

 

I had my first crush (that I can still remember) on a girl when I was about 7. Only started getting some doubts about being 100% straight when I was about 20 and my first crush on a guy a year ago.

Still unsure about my sexuality :icon_sad:

 

I always found myself different from other boys when I was a child.

 

I find it strange that the realisation that i might be gay did not hit me until i was around 17, and i didn't fully accept it until i'm 18. Growing up there were plenty of signs and I always had a feeling I was different. I remember being extremely jealous of Belle in Beauty and the Beast when i was a kid (4-5 years old) because she gets to kiss Prince Adam. I sucked at any/every type of sport, I liked being friends wit girls more than boys (sorry if it seems i'm stereotyping here)

As I hit puberty, I being a teenager started watching porn....only i watched gay porn. I STILL didn't identify myself as gay at that point though, somehow convincing myself that "i'm just curious." It wasn't until I had my first crush on a guy when i was 17 that i finally realised i might be gay.

i don't even...... know....why.....so....late.

 

I didn't know i was gay until high school. I mean i had one particularly close friendship but just assumed i was straight the whole way through primary.

 

I know exactly where you are comic from (op). I feel that way all the time. I can remember sorts of gay attractions from when I was younger but nothing concrete an my first crush was a girl (first few actually). One thing that I think is worth noting is what we learned in psychology called "hindsight bias" or the belief that you knew something all along once you know the outcome. I think a lot of people do this with their sexuality to say "I always knew". Just food for thought, but I right with you with sometimes feeling like a "fake gay" because I didn't always know or even know when I was relatively young. Still, it matters more who you end up with than who you've been with.

(FYI I haven't read the last page of posts so forive me if I'm repeating something someone else said or awnsering old questions that have been moved on from)

 

Always felt different. Don´t know how to explain.

One of the earliest thing I remember was: when I was about 5 yrs old, my sister had tons of pictures and magazines of Leonardo di Caprio and I got all of those magazines and opened on the floor and kept staring at him. It wasn´t a sexual desire, back than I didn´t knew what sex was, but I liked the view, it was something that gave me joy to look at that young man.

And my dad came, saw me with those magazines and told me to never do that again. I never understood why, until the day I did...

 

I always had crushes on boys when I was younger, starting probably around 8 or 9. I started dating guys at 14. I didn't realize I might have a thing for girls until I first kissed one of my best female friends at around 17, and realized I was bisexual. Over the last 4 years, my attraction to women has increased, while my attraction to men has decreased, until I realized last year (after sleeping with a girl for the first time), that I was no longer interested in men at all, and proclaimed myself to be gay. Very confusing!

 

In a nutshell, I had no sexual feelings and for that matter was ignorant of all things sexual until I hit puberty at age 12. That said, I can remember being about 8 years old and knowing that when I grew up, I wanted to find a way to marry a boy instead of a girl. Shortly thereafter, I heard that "boys only marry girls and girls only marry boys" at which point, I vowed (quite vocally too) never to marry. Ironically, I married (a guy, of course) at a rather young age.
I can remember enjoying seeing my male friend's penises/them naked starting at at least 3 years old. Why this was, since I had no sexual feelings, I do not know. I can also remember throughout grade school thinking what nice husbands/boyfriends some of the little boys I played with would make for me.

Here's something very interesting: from toddler age until about 17, I guess you would have called me some sort of trans individual (a fact no one knows about me). I enjoyed girl toys and games, I would hear female names I liked and imagine them as my own, imagine that I was any number of female actresses/singers, imagined being a wife/mother/grandmother, use feminine makeup and jewelry, from age 10 until 17, grew my hair very long, consistently and shaved my pits and legs. I always wished I was a girl. From 17 on, I proudly (and suddenly) embraced my masculinity and abandoned all previous feminine traits. As a gay man as well as somewhat of a metrosexual, needless to say I still have some feminine traits and dressing habits although the last remaining vestiges of my "cross dressing" would be my makeup and jewelry, although that has now been completely converted to a masculine level. From age 17 to this day, I would not want to be a woman for $1,000,000,000. The only idea I can come up with is that perhaps I had trouble completely understanding what it meant to be a gay man and subconsciously figured that any "man lover" was a female. Any thoughts on this

 

I didn't know my parents were homophobes until I asked them, but when I was younger I would crush on guys and girls alike, ignoring the gender (as I do now). Not a "real crush" but a "little kid crush" more like

 

I knew for a long time since I was like 9, but back then I never knew that guys could be with guys or girls be with girls, I only thought boys and Girls could kiss and date. But ya ive always been attracted to men for as long as I can remember, but I hide it well.

 

I've had bisexual feelings since I was 7, I found out later on what "gay" was. And in high school, I had found myself "weirdly interested" in the another boy, kind of like "a boy would with a girl" as I put it back then. But I learned more about sexual orientation. And boom, Now I know

 

Unknown to me as a child, I did in fact have a crush on my female student teacher when I was in fifth grade--she was beautiful! Of course, I didn't know what it was at the time, just that I reeeeeally liked her in an odd way. I really adored her! :rolle:

 

I had no true attraction to anybody until I was 14, so I didn't even have the chance to suspect that I could be gay until I was nearly off to high school. So no, I didn't

 

For the longest time, I was romantically attracted to girls. Really, I was. I still tend to be. But yes, when I first heard what "gay" was, there was this part of me that said "Yeah, um... that's you. Just to let you know". I think part of my society-conforming was trying to escape that... And I know from experience that it's not the direction I want to or should be going.

So long answer short... Yeah, pretty much.

 

at a young age I didn't really Have any concept of sexuality.
I noticed girls and stuff but honestly believed it to be normal and That everyone was like That.
it wasn't until secondary school that I started to figure out that feelings like thattowards the same gender were not of the norm.
then I panicked...

I don't think I noticed genders as much as most either tbh.

 

I was totally sure by age 12. Came out to everyone at 14. I definitely had a strong sense of my sexual identity long before I developed any sort of sex drive-- I was so romantically attached to various female friends, and never saw what they saw in the boys they had crushes on.

 

As a kid (8-9 yrs old), I never really paid attention to girls, maybe because I was of such a young age, but I would always want to hang out with "boys" and I think I did get attatched to my best friend but then again I don't know if I even knew what gay was then.

 

I preferred being with girls and related to them better. I had crushes on girls as well... Or I think that is what they were. I always had a certain curiosity about the male anatomy though... I did not think I was extremely different and I didn't realize I was actually gay until about 17 years old.

 

hahaha I was thinking about this earlier well let's see; I used to wonder why I never got nervous talking to girls like the kids in cartoons did, I used to exclusively demand Y fronts and I never understood why someone would want to kiss a girl. I think so.