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Last edited by Duped (November 11, 2019 2:27 pm)

Thanks JK, Lily, Vicky, and Duped for all posting. In response to Duped's questions:

1. Can I ask you about when you say you were "in the flush of love" with your wife and hoping/relieved you were straight, in the beginning. How does this work?

All of my life, I'd been told I should like girls. Until recently, society was largely heteronormative meaning we could only be attracted to and marry the opposite sex. I was raised by heterosexual parents. Everyone in my family was heterosexual. Starting around age 5 or 6, friends and family asked if I had a girlfriend. In high school, I dated girls while reading about the AIDS crisis or "gay plague". In church, I heard that being gay = sin. And so on. So when I met a girl, fell in love, and could actually have sex with her, I was ecstatic. I was "normal".  

2. Because even if it were all reversed for me and straight relationships were taboo and I had to go down the same sex route to be socially accepted I just wouldn't be in love with a girl (same sex as me) the way you describe you were with your then wife - how did this love come about if you are gay?

Perhaps, but imagine a society where homosexuality was the norm. Wouldn't you try to confirm then? This video is the perfect answer to your question: https://youtu.be/CnOJgDW0gPI​. This forum is full of stories about gay people like me who spent their entire lives trying to conform. I've often heard the arguments like, "Just be yourself" or "You were a coward to marry a woman." My response is always the same: trying being morbidly obese for a year and see how that goes. Try being something everyone hates for just a year and at the end of that time period, see how hard you work to conform. Everything we see on television, in print, or online depicts hot, tanned, muscular people. We're taught that being thin = happiness. So being fat goes against this narrative and most fat people I've met are ashamed of their bodies. It's the same for gay people. We're told to "try harder" and "it's not natural" so for generations we hid our gayness and married the opposite sex. Only in the last few years has society opened up and accepted the gay community. With regards to love, I'm sure that you love a mother, perhaps a sister, and close friends. I believe that gay-in-denial people mistake natural platonic love for romantic love. Why? Because until recently we didn't have a choice.

​3. And surely you would choose a bachelor life over a life with a gender you weren't attracted to? It's like saying I'd marry a girl to be accepted, if it was the acceptable thing to do but I wouldn't, I'd just stay on my own.

Respectfully, that's easier said than done. I'd like you to try this for a week: spend a week speaking only Chinese (or any other foreign language) to your friends & family. You were probably born into an English-speaking family. This wasn't a choice. And so you picked up English because your family spoke it, you learned it in school, and it's the language of your culture. But secretly you were always drawn to Chinese, started learning it on the sly, and hid all of this from your family. Maybe your closest friend was Chinese you were so drawn to the culture and language. So imagine everyone's reaction if you just refused to speak English one day but then insisted on speaking Chinese. They'd go apesh*t! Being gay is the same I believe. We're raised by straight parents, in a straight culture, and are taught that being straight is the norm. So I and many others choose to conform rather that potentially lose our friends and family by coming out as gay.    

4. Is it different for gay men in that you fall in love with women? Whereas a straight woman wouldn't fall in love with a woman? I'm confused, be interested in your thoughts.

I don't believe it's any different for gay men marrying women than gay women marrying men. My priorities as a gay-in-denial man were hiding my sexuality and conforming to hide my sexuality. And what better way to confirm than my marrying a woman and having children.

​I hope I've answered your questions. If not, please feel free to write again!

Last edited by Séan (April 12, 2017 3:22 am)

Duped wrote:

Hi Sean, I can only reply quickly at the moment but there are a few points I can't agree with. You are asking me to consider being obese for a year as an analogy, but that would require me to be something that isn't the norm AND something that isn't what I want at my core; whereas being gay may not be the considered norm but t IS what you want so the examples are completely different and I can't really compare them. Also even as a straight woman who loves my mum I knew in teenage years that this was very different to the feelings I would get when a hot barman would serve me or a sexy waiter walked by on holiday and I knew a relationship with someone like that would be totally different to platonic love. Although you may not have felt allowed to love that way you will surely also have experienced those feelings and known the difference, it sounds like you grew up in a bubble which you obviously didn't because you recount same sex feelings as a child. So again, I'm not much clearer.

A couple of other comments you've made are 'a straight man would never look at gay porn' and that women's intuition is the best indicator- how do you substantiate these when you are neither a straight man or a woman? I think we need to remember to only give advice that we can back up. I agree women's intuition is phenomenal but that's because I have it and it's served me. I also know women who have very little intuition and men who have great intuition!

I like that we can have some great honest discussion and that we're all entitled to have different opinions and all welcome to express those opinions.   This is good stuff. 

I won't asnwer for Sean.. he's more than capable of doing that for himself.      But I will share a couple of thoughts of my own. 


I think the Obesity analogy is reasonable because it is something seen an undesirable by society.   Duped you are saying it doesn't work because obesity isn't something you desire while you are saying that homosexuality is something they in fact do desire.   I think you are incorrect about this.  I don't think you'll find any gay person who would say they honestly prefer to be attracted to the same sex.  Once they accept this attraction, they do chose to pursue it because it's what makes them happy.  But if you asked Sean if he could flip a switch and start being attracted to women and thus not have to be "different" or an outcast or subject to the awful things that happen to gay people..  I'm pretty sure he and everyone else would do that. 

I'll substantiate his comment about straight men not looking at gay porn.  It's actually a pretty common sense answer.  If you are a straight man you are visually attracted to female bodies and not attracted to male bodies.  In fact I would venture to say that most str8 men are a bit homophobic and find male bodies a complete turn off because they don't want to think there is even a tiny chance they might be gay.  

Good point about women's intuition.   I've said that in the past..  I've advised women to trust their intuition because in my life experience I've noticed that women seem to be very good at feeling things and being correct about them.  But, i'm not a woman, so that is truly unsubstantiated advise.   I'll be more careful about that in the future. 


Anyway..  good discussion!   I'm interested in reading how Sean responds and interested in how the conversation goes from there. 
 

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Last edited by Duped (November 11, 2019 2:35 pm)

Choosing to be gay or born that way ?

There are a few examples of celebrity women saying they chose to come out later in life.  But were str8 before that. I suspect it's true for women but less so for men. Saying it's a choice rather than being born that way.  Given the level of critism anyone gets when they say they made a choice smacks of political correctness