Can Someone Be Homosexual and Not Gay? | Psychology Today

Contents:

• I’VE INTIFIED AS GAY FOR YEARS. NOT ANYMORE.
• CAN SOMEONE BE HOMOSEXUAL AND NOT GAY?
• KEV SPACEY FELT ‘PRSURED TO E OUT AS GAY’ AFTER SEXUAL MISNDUCT ALLEGATNS
• HOW TO ACCEPT THAT YOU ARE GAY
• CALIFORNIA STILL HAS AN ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE LAW ON THE BOOKS. VOTERS ULD REMOVE NEXT YEAR
• AM I GAY, STRAIGHT, LBIAN, BISEXUAL OR LGBTQ+?

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

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. Kids are not gay or straight, they’re jt kids. I wasn’t gay or straight.

Why, then, do adults who knew me as a child sist that I was gay all along? 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.

CAN SOMEONE BE HOMOSEXUAL AND NOT GAY?

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. When I was six, the boys who teased me labelled me as gay. The adults my life labelled me as gay.

And for a while after g out, “gay” worked fe. So when we therapists are nonted wh male clients, often married on, who e to wh ep nflicts about their sexual attractn to other men, we often fd that they are willg to e the word “homosexual, ” but chew the “gay” label.

KEV SPACEY FELT ‘PRSURED TO E OUT AS GAY’ AFTER SEXUAL MISNDUCT ALLEGATNS

Bee “gay” impli an embracg of the gay liftyle — gay bars, gay pri paras, perhaps multiple sex partners, or even anonymo sex. Unfortunately, much of our natn’s polics have long exacerbated the problem as well, shamg and vilifyg homosexualy, leadg legns of men stgglg wh sexual inty to ternalize their homophobia. For example, gay men the Mormon fah are moral nflict.

Durg the’90s, I beme a “gay-affirmative therapist. I warned them of the pfalls of keepg their sexual orientatn secret: a life of creased prsn, pursug a secret life the gay unrground wh the danger of beg ught, how attemptg to supprs urg n often e them to bee even more obssed wh them. Beg a gay man, I was tryg to brg them to where I was at.

Durg this time, a man don’t see himself as gay, only homosexual. The term gay is too affirmative, and they are not ready to accept .

HOW TO ACCEPT THAT YOU ARE GAY

I have treated many men who are of Mormon, Orthodox Jewish, Catholic, and other religns who thk of homosexualy as a pathology. Their pa is excciatg, but I honor their bravery riskg losg everythg to ensure they have a qualy life as a gay man. They may need, om time to time, to seek further therapy, but wh the right therapist, one who has thoroughly unrstood the dangers of such practic of “reparative therapy” which the therapist seeks to change the client’s sexual inty om gay to straight.

CALIFORNIA STILL HAS AN ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE LAW ON THE BOOKS. VOTERS ULD REMOVE NEXT YEAR

Bee the labels “homosexual” or “gay” rry such a stigma, some of the men seek help for their “sex addictn” and see their homosexualy as an actg out of same-sex urg.

AM I GAY, STRAIGHT, LBIAN, BISEXUAL OR LGBTQ+?

Beg homosexual, gay, or havg same-sex attractn is not sex addictn, and should never be treated as such.

Hetero-Emotnal and Homosexual. I thk of them as beg hetero-emotnal homosexuals. CMV: Beg gay is nothg to be proud of, bee isn't an achievement.