What If You Only Thought You Were Gay? | GQ

Contents:

• I THOUGHT I WAS GAY BUT NOW I'M QUTNG MY ORIENTATN
• AM I GAY?
• 'HOMOSEXUAL OCD': STRAIGHT MEN WHO SPECT THEY ARE GAY
• I’VE INTIFIED AS GAY FOR YEARS. NOT ANYMORE.
• LONGEST GAY TEST!
• 17 SIGNS YOU'RE ACTUALLY GAY (AND JT DON'T KNOW IT)
• PEOPLE THK I'M GAY... BUT I'M NOT
• THE FACT NO ONE LIK TO ADM: MANY GAY MEN ULD JT HAVE EASILY BEEN STRAIGHT
• WHAT IF YOU ONLY THOUGHT YOU WERE GAY?
• THE GAY-O-METER! ?️‍? LGBTQ QUIZ
• AM I GAY OR BISEXUAL? QUIZ
• IS YOUR MAN GAY, STRAIGHT, OR BISEXUAL?

I THOUGHT I WAS GAY BUT NOW I'M QUTNG MY ORIENTATN

Jt as if you were qutng your orientatn and thkg you might be gay, I n offer some background basics and thgs to thk about. However, along the l of sexualy beg fluid, I feel that while there are certaly people who are jt attracted to people of the same genr or a different genr (or asexual), most people fall somewhere on a broad spectm between gay and straight (and beyond! Likewise, we don't want or need people who re about but do not re for our sexual orientatn, such as a well-tentned parent, to tell they are relieved that we, fact, not gay.

AM I GAY?

Our two ma articl on this very topic, The Be Be: A Homosexualy and Bisexualy Primer and Bi the Dozen: A Bisexualy Quiz addrs this que extensively. Speakg of articl, I'd also suggt readg The Makgs of a Homo on a young guy intifyg as gay (I realize you are beyond this step your personal journey, but you still might fd tertg) and well as Makg Sense of Sexual Media.

'HOMOSEXUAL OCD': STRAIGHT MEN WHO SPECT THEY ARE GAY

Gay, straight, bi or beyond, the articl Supermol: Creatg & Nurturg Your Own Bt Relatnship Mols and Pothol & Dead Ends: Relatnship Roadblocks to Look Out For brg up important relatnship nsiratns. As I allud to a b the first part of my rponse, when you're queer, n be hard to claim that inty, form that muny and more; beg gay be a huge part of who you are. The gay muny tends to be close kn, but jt bee you're not datg a guy don't mean you have to be ostracized om !

In fact, when you thk about , the gay muny tends to be a very open and acceptg group. Gay - While this adjective has historilly scribed men who are attracted to other men, the term now is ed to refer to anyone who experienc romantic, emotnal, or physil attractn to people of the same genr. Sce genr inty and sexual orientatn are separate, transgenr people n intify as straight, gay, lbian, bisexual, etc.

I’VE INTIFIED AS GAY FOR YEARS. NOT ANYMORE.

24, 2014— -- Steven Brodsky, a psychologist who specializ obssive-pulsive disorr, says that at any one time he has a "handful" of clients who are straight and spect that they are gay. J., said he had one adult patient who was so crippled by obssive thoughts about beg gay that he was unable to live penntly and had to move back wh his parents to pe.

LONGEST GAY TEST!

Brodsky said a prev therapist had misdiagnosed his patient as gay, and at the patient's requt, sent him off to reparative therapy, a ntroversial method that has not been proven to be effective and n be harmful.

Even though they know that they are 100 percent straight, not gay, they send gus . "I say, oh, that's tertg, how do you feel about beg gay and what n we do about that? "Brodsky argu that today's open acceptance of homosexualy and gay liftyl n bld therapists to this kd of anxiety disorr straight men.

Jack Drcher, a noted New York Cy psychiatrist who is nsired an expert gay and lbian mental health and treats patients for OCD, agreed that "beg worried that one might be gay is not the same thg as beg gay. ""A person wh OCD who has is havg tsive thoughts about whether or not he is gay, is not gay, the sense that he has not rporated a homosexual orientatn any mimally affirmg way to his inty, " said Drcher. "Also, if he is not actually attracted to people of the same sex, do not masturbate to fantasi of people of the same sex, is not really aroed by same sex pornography, then is hard to make the se that he has a homosexual orientatn.

17 SIGNS YOU'RE ACTUALLY GAY (AND JT DON'T KNOW IT)

Another was heterosexual and feared he had agreed wh Brodsky that some therapists may miss an OCD diagnosis, but "the most likely e of that is not that they are too gay-affirmg but that they lack trag regnizg the symptoms of OCD. Brodsky said that a gay person has "pleasant associatn" wh same-sex attractn and a person wh OCD do not. "Repeatedly, anxly, reviewg past suatns, ttg themselv, askg for reassurance, pulsively rearchg the Inter for gay tts, ttg themselv wh gay porn or gay people.

""Someone who is gay, but the closet, is not spendg time rearchg and ttg themselv, " he said.

PEOPLE THK I'M GAY... BUT I'M NOT

"Havg an obssn about beg gay is no different om any other mental obssn, said Brodsky. "A iend might say somethg and they thk, 'Gee, I uld be gay or I am dog somethg a gay person would do. "As for treatment, Brodsky said he would help a patient who was tly gay validate their feelgs and atta self-acceptance, "achievg lm and peace of md.

He hasn't directly mentned boyiends or beg gay, but one time at a party he was tellg a story that volved a female ex.

The first time I talked to him (you know, when I wasn't sanely attracted to him), I thought for sure he was gay based on the way he was movg his arms and talkg.

THE FACT NO ONE LIK TO ADM: MANY GAY MEN ULD JT HAVE EASILY BEEN STRAIGHT

Obvly, I am not gonna nvce Alex to be gay or bi, but simply tryg to fd out is all my goal is. Bulli teased me for beg gay when I was younger, but when a six-year-old boy lls another six-year-old boy gay, he means “weird” or “gross, ” not “has sex wh men.

WHAT IF YOU ONLY THOUGHT YOU WERE GAY?

I felt prsured to pick a label and stick wh , and for a long time “gay” worked bee I didn’t thk about much. But the last year or two, I’ve started to rethk my relatnship to the label “gay.

THE GAY-O-METER! ?️‍? LGBTQ QUIZ

I hooked up wh trans and nonbary people and stopped scribg myself as gay, preferrg to e the more clive tchall “queer. Often when I tell some people that I’m distancg myself om gay, they immediately suggt I intify as bisexual, or pansexual.

I need somethg that means “mostly gay but not fully mted and open to other possibili, ” but, alas, such a niche label has yet to be imaged. If a iend of yours is gay and v you for a sleepover, and they make a move on you, what do you do? If you want or need to know if you're gay, jt s yourself down now and answer all 45 of the qutns hontly.

It’s the twenty first century and if someone’s gog to be a judgmental ltle hoe, then they don’t serve to be your v gay life.

AM I GAY OR BISEXUAL? QUIZ

So if you n relate to the signs then you’re actually gay (you jt don’t know yet). One of your top ten experienc was at a Pri para where you were surround by the most tertg, fun strangers you have ever enuntered, and no one you knew was there to judge you, or the only people you knew there were gay. You sometim thk about what would be like to tell your parents, extend fay, and iends that you are gay.

IS YOUR MAN GAY, STRAIGHT, OR BISEXUAL?

You believe equaly, love diversy, have liberal views, and are mted to seeg gay marriage legalized every untry.

If you are gay, I really, really hope you know , and enurage you to be your te self. When I was young, I was told the whole world was divid to heterosexual men and heterosexual women, bar a small number of unfortunate ‘homosexuals’ of both genrs and possibly an even smaller number a third tegory, ‘bisexuals’, who ‘swung both ways’; pl, fally, a ty band of wretched creatur who were physilly not que one thg or the other. Ksey diststed btal tegorisatn but, wishg to unt, nstcted what me close to a slidg sle ntag seven gradatns between exclive heterosexualy and exclive homosexualy.