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Have you always been accepting of your Sexuality?

Discussion in 'Chit Chat' started by Atreyo, Oct 31, 2015.

  1. BiPenguin

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    No. At first it was from early on when I first started high school but by the mid teens, I had been hiding my true self from fear of being bashed after having already been bashed for my sexuality that I went into denial for several years.

    In my early 20's, I found myself accepting myself again but I chose not to pursue a relationship with who I liked, who also liked me, because I was still fearful of the response. Discrimination and hate was still rife in the early 90's.
     
  2. YermanTom

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    I grew up in 'good catholic Ireland' a country at the time was run by the catholic church. So of course I was uncomfortable with my sexuality! But being catholic Ireland of the 60's and 70's even straight people had difficulties accepting their sexuality.
     
  3. Helicoprion

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    I've always accepted my sexuality, but my gender? That was a major struggle in my life that punctuated a major depressive bout.
     
  4. Secrets5

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    I didn't know about sexuality labels until I was 13, and by that point I wasn't thinking of a relationship so there wasn't really anything for me to 'accept'. Sexuality to me, anyone's sexuality, just seems normal so I don't really take it as anything to 'accept' - it just is.

    It's like those posters in our high school; ''some people are gay, get over it'' - apart from knowing about history, I don't really see there's anything to ''get over''. I really don't agree with these posters being in our school, because it suggests to people that something about it needs to be ''gotten over''. I get that for some people they do need to, but in a school educating the future, we should be educating that sexuality - anyone's sexuality - doesn't need accepting or getting over - it just is.

    But then I finally get the word to describe what I've been trying to find all along, so I had to re-find the sexuality label. Didn't take too long, and again, who I like hasn't changed so it's no problem.
     
  5. ThatBorussenGuy

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    Ten years ago, I wouldn't have been. I was raised a Jehovah's Witness and I would have been horrified with myself. Now, the idea of being a gay transguy barely makes me bat an eye (except on those days when I feel absurdly dysphoric).
     
  6. Oddsocks

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    I was lucky enough to not have much conflict about it (at least, not in my memory). I was a lot more worried about what other people might think about it than the fact that my glaringly obvious gayness was A Thing.

    My acceptance process was pretty much, "Oh, right. Liking girls can be a thing for girls? That makes sense. I kind of do that. Why did I not twig that sooner? Damn, wait, other people are going to think that's weird, how do I deal with that part?"
     
  7. MrSkittles

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    I was raised in a pretty accepting family ut I started to question my sexuality when I was around 12, then ignored it until around 14. Then, I dated a girl to ignore my feelings for guys but accepted that I was gay at the end of 8th grade. Now Im back to questioning again.
     
  8. LogicNoSense

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    I was raised on a hybrid of religions-my school was Catholic, and the family members I lived with are Buddhist-I'm still being raised like that. I can't remember what age I was when I 'liked' girls-I was raised in an all-girls school from young, and at that age, LGBT was kept under wraps. Looking back, it was really experimenting with my feelings instead of liking the girls, some sort of stress relief? It should have been around that age that I lost my Catholic faith, and now I'm atheist. My household always looked down on LGBTs to a certain extent, so the first person I told was my friend, then sister.

    I don't actually think I was ashamed of my sexuality-2 years ago, there was this huge rumour among my class that I was les, and that really made me decide on my sexuality. I wouldn't say I was ashamed of it-in fact, it was something I used to throw into people's faces to make them shut up. So nope, not really ashamed, more...questioning.
     
  9. BobObob

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    My parents raised me to be a very conservative Catholic. This includes believing everything that the Catholic Church officially teaches, including the bit about homosexuality being "Intrinsically disordered" according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Sexuality in general was a taboo topic in our conservative home. My parents took our religious education programming so seriously that they home-schooled both of my brothers and myself to more easily instill their religious/conservative beliefs/values in us, and to shelter us from the secular world a bit. Although they did let, and even encourage us, to play varsity sports for a local Christian high school.

    Like most kids who are programmed by their religious parents, I took on their religiosity. Because of my religiosity, I even decided to go to one of the most conservative Catholic colleges in America, and possibly the world, Franciscan University of Steubenville. While my older brother and I attended that school, my older brother de-converted and became an atheist. Thanks in part to him challenging my beliefs and inviting me to re-consider them, I developed the courage to seriously re-examine the beliefs that have more or less shaped my entire life up to that point, and de-converted in a matter of months.

    From puberty up until this de-conversion when I was 21, I believed that I not only could be tortured for all eternity, but deserved to be tortured for all eternity, if I did anything sexual (including masturbation or watching porn) and happened to somehow die before I went to confession. This made me go to confession – telling a priest about the fact that I've masturbated (and possibly watched porn) since my last confession – usually once a week (which is very often for going to confession). Although the odds of somehow dying in that time is unlikely, the prospect of being tortured forever is enough to instill fear into someone. The fact that I sincerely believed that I would've deserved such torture for looking at nude guys or masturbating to them brought about a lot of shame.

    De-converting from my religion, which was done for intellectual reasons, was a liberating experience. It enabled me to free myself from the shame brought about by an archaic morality-by-decree, and enabled my to develop a rational, secular morality. As a result, I quickly became free from fear of eternal torture and from the shame of believing that I'm deserving of it.
     
    #29 BobObob, Nov 2, 2015
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  10. Smoony

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    I accepted that I needed to keep my sexuality a secret when I was a teenager. People would've given me weird looks, avoided me in the hallways, looked for excuses to harass me, or whatever else. I don't know what most the teachers would've thought about a student being bisexual. All they would probably see is someone who was gay.

    I'd fantasize about a guy from school being sexually aggressive with me. Or my best friend and I making out. I'd blush and smile to myself, but stay quiet.

    By the time we were in high school, every guy criticized homosexuality, or made fun of the stereotypical gay. We learned there was a difference between that, and being literally gay.

    I probably could've come out in the last few high schools I attended, but it would've been a pain in the ass for no reward (no pun).

    But those were different times. They were recently in the grand scheme, but society has changed a lot since then. If I attended high school today, only the most conservative students would bat a lash if I came out as bisexual, or maybe if I came out as transgender.

    ---------- Post added 2nd Nov 2015 at 01:22 AM ----------

    I've always personally accepted my sexuality, in other words, but I was conscious when other people wouldn't.
     
    #30 Smoony, Nov 2, 2015
    Last edited: Nov 2, 2015
  11. bubbles123

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    Yes. I never really thought about this stuff when I was younger and the few times I had "gay scares" I got really freaked out and denied it to myself. I figured it would be a lot easier to just be straight. It was also pretty easy for me since I was never easily attracted to people. And I thought the lack of attraction I felt for guys was just kind of normal and I was just afraid or insecure or immature compared to my boy-crazy friends. So I tried to rationalize a lot of things in my mind that way.
    It took several attractions towards girls and having a really accepting friend group and watching this show called Faking It to really make me start thinking and embracing things. I was also tired and confused as to why I'd gotten scared and turned down so many guys and I really just wanted answers.
     
  12. YinYang

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    Luckily, I was raised with the idea that everyone is who he/she is and that doesn't matter, so yes, but I was still scared of not being straight when I first started to question myself. I knew it was ok to not be straight, but it took me a little bit to accept myself for who I am.
     
  13. baconpox

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    I was always fine with gay/bi/trans people, I just wasn't always okay with me being trans/into the same sex.
     
  14. Vesta

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    Not to begin with. I started noticing I wasn't entirely straight when I was around 13. Once the huge fear, denial and questioning part was over, after I left school at 16 I came to terms with my sexuality and became more accepting of it.
     
  15. tourettesqueen

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    At first I was in denial, and the idea of being LGBT upset me, because even though I had always been accepting of them, I wasn't comfortable with the idea that I too may be a teensy bit gay.
    Now, however, I am quite proud to be the B in LGBT.
     
  16. secretagent

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    I wasn't always accepting of my sexuality. I would always deny it saying that I couldn't be lesbian. But after about 3 years I realized it's a part of me. I caan't change who I am and now I don't even want to change.
     
  17. RawringSnake

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    Never even questioned it. Never had any reason to. It wasn't until my late teens that I found out being LGBT is odd and frowned upon in a lot of places not-where-I-live.
     
  18. Boatman

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    No, not at all. I grew up away from home in a catholic boarding school. The regime there was brutal, bullying and violence. You could not be 'different' and survive. At home, I was a stranger, I could not relate to my family and after a few homophobic comments from them I felt I was the wrong one. So I buried it.

    I tried to come out, at least to my self, but I felt guilt. Real bad doses of guilt. it has taken a long time for me to be at ease with my sexuality, I would not say I'm accepting yet, but I'm getting there.
     
  19. Boudicca

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    It took me a lot longer to accept than it should have. This may be weird, but it wasn't being into girls that bothered me. It was the fact that I had any sort of sexual attraction that bothered me. It took me about 10 years to accept myself and start coming out.
     
  20. ChicoFranco

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    I'm glad you did no need to apologize bro. We are here for each other.

    ---------- Post added 5th Nov 2015 at 07:56 AM ----------

    For me peoplr always pointed out that i was too cute to be when i was little. Was mistaken for a girl lots of times. Up until 2rd grade I like to think I was cant remember quite well because i have blocked most of the ordeal from my mind. One of my male cousins started introducing himself to me sexually. I cant say i was confused about because to me i didnt know what was happening. Went on for some months till I was moved back to my moms place.
    About 3 years later a new boy transfered to our school and it was love at first site. i was in 7th grade. Still had no idea what was happening to me. We grew very fond of each other and became very good friends. When i joined high school, it hit me like a rogue train. Everyone was talking ill about same sex love, Like it was the most disgusting thing on earth. Thats the time i became aware of homosexuality.
    I started hating myself. Felt like i belonged to the devil. Since it was a boys high school I found it really hard to suppress my feelings. I actually thought if I prayed very hard it would go away. Boy, WAS I WRONG!!
    Since i live in Africa, everyone from the LGBT community live secretly, change their body language and their actions to ward off any suspicion. You would be publicly humiliated, clothes stripped and sometimes beaten and jailed becaus ethe constitution forbids same sex unions. so, because of this i had no one to talk to. I would get so stressed and start thinking about suicide. But God gave courage to come out to my two best friends and they turned out to be open minded about and reassured me. They're the reason I became comfortable with who I am. Love them to death.