What If You Only Thought You Were Gay? | GQ

Contents:

• "I REALIZED I WAS GAY": MEN WHO CAME OUT LATER IN LIFE ARE SHARG WHAT IT WAS LIKE FOR THEM TO REVEAL THAT TTH AND LIVE AUTHENTILLY
• WHEN DID YOU REALIZE YOU WERE GAY?
• I KNEW I WAS GAY WHEN I WAS FIVE YEARS OLD
• I ASKED GUYS WHEN THEY FIRST KNEW THEY WERE GAY
• THE MOMENT I KNEW I WAS GAY (HT: ’S NOT WHAT YOU THK.)WE ALL E TO THE REALIZATN ABOUT OUR SEXUALY AT DIFFERENT AG AND MOMENTS. THIS WAS ME.BRIAN ROWE·FOLLOWPUBLISHED P.S. I LOVE YOU·9 M READ·JAN 16, 2020--13SHAREPHOTO BY FREE-PHOTOS AT PIXABAYIT’S SO HARD TO SIGNATE A MOMENT TIME WHEN YOU REALIZE YOU ARE GAY.FROM MY EXPERIENCE, ’S SOMETHG I THOUGHT ABOUT OM A YOUNG AGE AND BASILLY… ALWAYS WAS.IT’S NOT LIKE I THOUGHT ABOUT GIRLS UNTIL ONE DAY TENTH GRA I UGHT A GLIMPSE OF A CUTE GUY AND POW, AN STANT, I WAS A HOMOSEXUAL.IT DIDN’T WORK THAT WAY FOR ME AT ALL.THROUGHOUT MY YEARS GROWG UP, I HAD CSH ON BOTH BOYS AND GIRLS PRETTY MUCH EQUALLY THROUGHOUT HIGH SCHOOL. MY CSH ON THE BOYS WERE ALWAYS A LTLE B STRONGER, FOR SURE. STRONG ENOUGH TO MAKE ME STRONGLY NSIR EARLY HIGH SCHOOL THAT I MIGHT BE GAY.BUT I LIKED GIRLS HERE AND THERE TOO, EVEN DATED ONE MIDDLE SCHOOL, AND ME VERY CLOSE TO DATG ONE HIGH SCHOOL.SO I DIDN’T E OUT OF THE CLOSET.
• AM I GAY?
• WHAT IF YOU ONLY THOUGHT YOU WERE GAY?
• I WAS MARRIED WH 2 KIDS WHEN I REALIZED I’M GAY

"I REALIZED I WAS GAY": MEN WHO CAME OUT LATER IN LIFE ARE SHARG WHAT IT WAS LIKE FOR THEM TO REVEAL THAT TTH AND LIVE AUTHENTILLY

When I found out earlier this month, along wh the rt of the world, that one of my favore actors, Kal Penn, is a fellow gay man and now engaged to his long-time partner, I was so happy that he was openly livg his tth. Once the untry around me changed and I started seeg more gays the muny, felt safer, and I felt more fortable to e out. Part of me felt rponsible for her ath, as if beg bi or gay and my feelgs of regret somehow ed .

I have a lot of stori about folks who were homophobic but me around to acceptg me and honorg me for beg a gay man, once they got to know me beyond what I do bed. In the meantime, I kept watchg gay porn but wouldn't accept and felt guilty after jerkg off to .

WHEN DID YOU REALIZE YOU WERE GAY?

I me out to my wife many moons ago but took a long time to realize that prayg the gay away wasn’t workg. Pl the ‘80s was not a particularly good time to be gay — I thk fear of AIDS was possibly one thg that had me nial. After spendg years dog all the manly thgs that were supposed to straighten me out, I had a particular weekend — a men-only whewater raftg trip — when I realized I did all the thgs I was aimg for that were supposed to change me, and I was still 100% gay.

Once I knew the gay wasn't gog anywhere, I figured I wanted to be open and hont wh people om then on, regardls of how the rt of my life went. When I was a kid, I went through all the dumb pre-ter gay kid thgs like lgerg the JCPenny's men’s unrwear sectn.

I e om a strict Irish tholic fay, so any of my mannerisms or actns that were ‘too gay’ were discsed by my fay. Grad school was the first time I was around people who seemed to genuely not re or treat people different bee they were gay. When I rennected wh my bt childhood iend who me out to me as bi, I was spired and told him I was gay.

I KNEW I WAS GAY WHEN I WAS FIVE YEARS OLD

Growg up was the whole ‘relig upbrgg/ternalized homophobia’ dance: I liked gay porn, but uldn't adm to myself I was gay. My wife and I are gog to unselg together to work through thgs and while ‘’ has a shelf life, I'm foced on figurg out what beg gay means to me.

"At around 28 years old, I had a cent grasp that I'm overwhelmgly gay, wh some rare and specific attractn towards women. After a few months of experiencg very novel and tense sexual feelgs, I overme my fear of masturbatn and started dog to var kds of straight and gay porn. After the divorce, I me out to my close fay and iends and started my journey of figurg out how to be gay.

I ASKED GUYS WHEN THEY FIRST KNEW THEY WERE GAY

And thanks to r/AskGayBrosOver30 for creatg a space for queer men to be vulnerable and empathize wh each other.

THE MOMENT I KNEW I WAS GAY (HT: ’S NOT WHAT YOU THK.)WE ALL E TO THE REALIZATN ABOUT OUR SEXUALY AT DIFFERENT AG AND MOMENTS. THIS WAS ME.BRIAN ROWE·FOLLOWPUBLISHED P.S. I LOVE YOU·9 M READ·JAN 16, 2020--13SHAREPHOTO BY FREE-PHOTOS AT PIXABAYIT’S SO HARD TO SIGNATE A MOMENT TIME WHEN YOU REALIZE YOU ARE GAY.FROM MY EXPERIENCE, ’S SOMETHG I THOUGHT ABOUT OM A YOUNG AGE AND BASILLY… ALWAYS WAS.IT’S NOT LIKE I THOUGHT ABOUT GIRLS UNTIL ONE DAY TENTH GRA I UGHT A GLIMPSE OF A CUTE GUY AND POW, AN STANT, I WAS A HOMOSEXUAL.IT DIDN’T WORK THAT WAY FOR ME AT ALL.THROUGHOUT MY YEARS GROWG UP, I HAD CSH ON BOTH BOYS AND GIRLS PRETTY MUCH EQUALLY THROUGHOUT HIGH SCHOOL. MY CSH ON THE BOYS WERE ALWAYS A LTLE B STRONGER, FOR SURE. STRONG ENOUGH TO MAKE ME STRONGLY NSIR EARLY HIGH SCHOOL THAT I MIGHT BE GAY.BUT I LIKED GIRLS HERE AND THERE TOO, EVEN DATED ONE MIDDLE SCHOOL, AND ME VERY CLOSE TO DATG ONE HIGH SCHOOL.SO I DIDN’T E OUT OF THE CLOSET.

Not only did I know this is where a lot of gay men hung out, but B&N also had books on the subject.

I got some gay vios through the mail, and I read Brad Gooch’s Fdg the Boyiend Wh: A Practil Gui for Tappg to Your Own Source of Love, Happs, and Rpect. I don’t know which book I eventually read (I did a lot of readg on the subject of beg gay, and I have always been a nsummate rearcher.

I uldn’t be all the horrible thgs I had been lled growg up: fag, faggot, queer, homo, sissy, etc. I suppose I was stg on the fence about everythg — neher straight or gay, neher a believer or a gra 12 I tried datg two different girls. I told her somethg nice to make her feel good about herself and not implite me as a homosexual.

AM I GAY?

Apparently I was one of the nict guys she had ever gone out wh who didn’t try and take advantage of ’t that exactly how a thoughtful homosexual treats a woman?

WHAT IF YOU ONLY THOUGHT YOU WERE GAY?

As part of HuffPost Gay Voic' ongog partnership wh Whisper, we asked the app's ers to anonymoly reveal the moment they knew they were lbian, gay, bisexual or transgenr (LGBT). It’s not until outsi factors like high school social prsure, relig tolerance and systemic homophobia e to play that the young people are led to believe those feelgs aren’t normal.

I talked to a few of my gay iends about their experienc realizg they were attracted to men, if anyone had explaed homosexualy to them growg up and whether or not at any time they were nvced that beg gay was “wrong. I pretty much learned what meant to be gay through different social teractns wh kids at school or fay members who ma seem as if were bad or not ‘normal. “When I was younger, people’s attus toward gay people were negative, so that fely hred me om beg myself at tim.

Overhearg the word ‘faggot’ thrown around by my classmat and fay members suggted to me that people didn’t like gay people, so I spent a lot of my childhood the ‘closet. “I kd of knew what beg gay was, but all I knew was that people were bullied for , and that, apparently, the Bible said was wrong. People at church nvced me that was a choice, and actually ma me very homophobic bee I was so eaked out that another gay guys would thk I was gay and somehow out me, even though I was nvced at the time that I was straight.

I WAS MARRIED WH 2 KIDS WHEN I REALIZED I’M GAY

“Everythg I learned about beg gay was om my experienc middle school where everyone ma seem terrible and mocked you for .

The way that I treated myself and others out of fear of what the Bible ‘apparently’ said was disgtg, and I have seen other gay Christians do to me.