Each week online comedian, voice actor and chest hair model Sam Kalidi creates a new meme for Queerty readers. This week he investigates the age when we know for sure that we’re queer or straight. Sam looks forward to all your hate mail. You can find him on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and at your local glory hole.
Adam Wilmoth
10 years old
Donald Martin
My first crush was in kindergarten…
Joseph Shenk
I knew when i was in middle (junior high) school. I finally accepted it in my late 20s…
Dwight Hart
Me too Donald Martin
Brian J Curtis
I knew when I was about 9
Terry Smith
My first sexual experience was aged about 10 with a boy in his early teens. I knew then that I liked it and wanted more. My first relationship began the day before I started high school aged 12, and lasted until I was nearly 16 with a boy a few months older than me who lived across the road. In my later teens I had a couple of sexual experiences with girls but they were very unsatisfying. At age 19 I met my current partner and I knew that this was what wanted for life – We have been together now for more than 38 years.
jason smeds
There is no such thing as an LGBT person. There is no such thing as a straight person. These terms are invented identities, and simply serve to divide us. They are also used by shrewd advertisers to market their products to certain markets.
Robb Forehand
Seven years old, in my case. I just liked boys.
Celtic
OK. Since I likely am the old timer in this discussion, the word “straight” meant something entirely different when at around age 5 I realized that the male bum held special attraction. “LGBT” was not even part of our vernacular. “Gay” meant happy; not sexual orientation. There were a few boys when I was around age 6 that I was totally smitten with. But, I had no clue what that “excitement” meant. I came out “officially” after Military service.
digreene3
Why isn’t it “When did you realize your sexuality and gender identity?” This is supposed to be our space and it’s kinda like saying “when did you realize you were different or normal.” And you can be Trans and straight. just wow…
bottom250
as far back I can remember I was always a little queen.
Glücklich
@Adam Wilmoth:
Same here…about 5th grade.
Mark Van Order
I was around 8 when the fantasies started in my head. And around 10 when I knew I was “different.” And 13 when the closet door opened for good, at least to myself, although I didn’t “go public” until 20.
David Mack
15, saw a 28 yr old guy working on my neighbors roof , hard labor, he took off his shirt I saw a sweaty ,hairy man and I melted..watched him for 3 weeks working on the house..what a summer…. i loved my penis… <3 <3 <3
Ladbrook
As a first grader I had a “crush” on a little blond kid named “Sam,” who sat two rows over, as I recall. I followed that boy around constantly… from the lunch room to the playground and everywhere in between. What I most remember was an intense desire to hold his hand.
The important part, I think, is that even then (as a 6 yr old) I seemed to have figured out that these feelings were “wrong.” As other boys confessed to liking Mary or Suzie, I kept my mouth shut about Sam. Even then, as an innocent kid still learning how to read and how to color within the line, societal homophobia was already at play.
Jaden Birns
I had girl crushes on from childhood to 6th grade then by 13 I liked jacking off to muscle and fitness mags but didn’t really consider myself gay.
Realitycheck
@Donald Martin: Ditto…..
That is why it surprises me when guys tell me they found out in their twenties or older, how??
Clark W Cowles
An adult understanding…at 13 although I knew it before then.
Louie Mars
11, and totally ok with it.
Kent Tahsequah
5
Bauhaus
Oh, I remember clearly – 6th grade. There was a guy more physically developed than the rest of my class. I was as drawn to him as to the girls with budding breasts. He had horrible B.O., but I didn’t care, I just wanted to be near him.
Aromaeus
I recognized my feelings at 6 had pretty much accepted it by the time I was 14
Errol Semple
Age 6 in kindergarten.
dvlaries
If you’re six years old and watching Rick Nelson sing at the end of an Ozzie & Harriet episode, saucer-eyed, mouth-agape, with a trouser-teepee starting, well that was good enough a litmus.
https://youtu.be/0janfcZ8LUw
Celtic
I LOVED Ricky and would wank the “woody” fantasizing about him. His brother David was not as good looking but David’s body rocked. I also was a huge fan of Fabian, if anyone can even remember him!
Timothy Kender.
I was age 7 and knew it.
Fidel Lee
at six and a half i remember it distinctly because the neighbors daughter who was my playmate emphatically stated she was forbidden to have any bf. i was taken aback!! i did not want a gf!! prior to that i assumed wanting to have a husband with kids was completely normal!! needless to say i was devastated wanted to run away from home, because i knew they would never love me if they found out….. i got really depressed almost suicidal 🙁 no child should have to experience that!!!
DistingueTraces
I was seven when I wrote “I AM A FAG” in heavy pencil on my math homework, sat in the school bathroom staring at it with a feeling of terror, then threw the homework away without turning it in because I had pressed too hard with the pencil to completely erase the letters.
Chuck Veit
I was into dance classes.. Roller skating.. Going to the mall at 10… It was 14 when i had sex with a girl.. It was ehh.. At 15 i had sex with a guy my best friend and neighbor… It was then i knew… We contined for 2 years til he moved away… Came out to family and friends @ 19.
badtungsten
I’ve known for as far back as I have conscious memories. The first time I applied the word “gay” to myself was in the early mid-1980s watching Dynasty (the gay storyline they featured), so I had to be about 10 or so years old.
BitterOldQueen
I knew pretty clearly when I was in elementary school; I was one of those pathetic souls who didn’t actually embrace it until I was in my mid-30s, though.
Brian Mclellan
I was 5 when a guy across the street caught my attention, it wasn’t a sexual feeling of course but I wanted him to hold me, I told my mom when I was 12.
So I guess since I was around 5 or 6
Glücklich
@badtungsten:
I’ve been to that house. The gardens are spectacular.
http://www.filoli.org/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVu01ShJ5qA
Fvk847
This is interesting questions; I have friends who knew they were gay in kindergarden and were even feminine and getting bullied at that age and it’s fascinating. I knew I like boys and had crushes but I didn’t know it meant ‘gay’ I just thought thats the way I am. I liked girls too and since society thought the was the way to be, I dated a lot of women but it wasn’t until I got intimate with one that I realized that ‘wow, I really like her but I don’t want to get physical with her’ and thats where my path began.
Ariel Hans Christian
11.5 had an inkling…13 lawd have mercy! A bead of sweat down back of the neck of the class punk in midterms gave me the biggest boner and I knew then ‘yup I like boys’ (remember this is thirteen, so the phrase is age appropriate). When I hit 23 and after ten years of being a good Christian boy, I’m living in SIN! AND REVEL IN EVERY ACHING AND JOYOUS MOMENT OF IT ALL…waiting for the day a Jehovah’s Witness who doesn’t know me tries to preach to me. My response : “I’m swallowing Satan’s dick every night baby!”
Paul V. Vitagliano
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXUArQvR6p4
Paul V. Vitagliano
BornThisWayBlog.com 🙂
DJ Paul V.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXUArQvR6p4&w=460&h=215%5D
DJ Paul V.
https://youtu.be/PXUArQvR6p4
http://BornThisWayBlog.com 🙂
xamthor
i knew i was “different” at age 4. I didn’t have the vocabulary or the understanding of sexual preference and gender identity to articulate HOW i was different; i just knew all l the socializing and cultural indoctrination being set upon me didn’t seem right at all.
Nathan Lunn
I really understood that I was different from the other kids around age 11; that was the age at which I could conceptualize that the way I felt about boys and girls was not how my peers felt. I had my first experience with another boy when I was 10, a friend from class during a sleep over, although that was rather innocent enough. But I think my first crush was in first grade. I knew I liked this boy but I didn’t have any way to contextualize that emotion because I had never been exposed to the reality of same-sex relationships. My only base line reference was that boys liked girls and I was told over and over that I was a boy (I have since come to accept my gender queerness). So I never put voice to those feeling. I kept them buried inside, ashamed that I though another boy was cute. That shame, that fear of being different, of being discovered lasted until my early 20’s.
Anyone who says that a child doesn’t know suffers from the privilege of growing up in a world that has validated their feelings from the day they were born.
Daggerman
…..young people who have a sexual identity problem appear not to have any other. When I was growing up say from 7-17, I had an Alcoholic Mother who needed help and a Father who was nothing than useless and really didn’t want any responsibility…Sometimes you have indescribable problems which completely overshadow your sexual identity!
Jacob23
@Terry Smith: That’s your 1st sexual experience, but didn’t you have feelings of attraction before you had the experience? Or are you saying that you had no attraction to boys until after you had the experience?
Tommy Ogletree
At 10 I started to realize something, at 13 I knew for sure.
BlueDude
When I was four years old, I talked a six-yr-old boy into showing me his thang. By first grade, I was having crushes on other boys, and, by age 9, a huge crush on Clint Eastwood in the TV series, “Rawhide”! Sweaty cowboys still infatuate me to this day, five decades later.
cvdixon29
I knew around age 8, I lived in denial for a very long time and finally came to terms with it and now I’m very happy.
GayEGO
I knew I liked boys when I was 5 as I had a crush on a 6 year old boy. When I was 7 I fooled around with a classmate, and a few more. I started having sex with boys when I was a teenager but we did not call it anything. Because the news called homosexuals monsters that hid in the bushes and attacked young men, back in the 1950s, I knew I was not like that. When I was in the Navy at the age of 18, I started to learn about terms like gay and I came out, kind of, but I was 20 when I actually decided to be myself, a gay man. I met my lifetime partner of 53 years, we have been married for 11 years, and we are both retired and living the American dream.
Jenni Locke
I thought I was bi, from high school until I was about 22. After a few attempts at being with guys, I realized I was definitely a lesbian. I’m from a small town in Indiana, so there wasn’t much diversity. I didn’t even know being gay was a thing until middle school, and even then it was a horrible thing to be.
Anyway. I came to the conclusion that the boys I thought I liked were actually boys I would want to be friends with, and our American culture had somehow conditioned me to think that meant I wanted to date them.
McShane
Summer of 1986, I was eight. My grandfather took me to see Flight of the Navigator. After the movie ended he grabbed my hand and we ran into the screening of Aliens. I took one look at Bill Paxton. Game over man, game over. I knew right then that I was super gay. I also learned that I was super duper scared of the dark.
redcarpet30
11, probably more like 12, once puberty was in full swing. Wouldn’t stop fighting it until I was 13 and didn’t come out till I was 18 though. I knew exactly what I was and was OK with it all through high school, I only worried about how other people would treat me.
Curty
Hard to say. In 3rd grade I had a “Girlfriend” but I think liked my best friend. At age 12 I thought I had crush on mariah carey. But I would see shirtless guys on music videos and admire them too. At age 16 wasn’t until my same sex experience and it felt so natural, so right. I kissed guys before then but it was nothing how I felt when I made out with a guy. It was sorta like, “you belong here” type of realization. I was then saying I was bi but not pursing girls lol. It was 21… 29 now.. that I stop the bi label. All I’ve done with girls is kiss at most and last kiss from a woman was what, 21? I’m gay. Lol
Ray Ivey
I knew very very early, and as a good little Southern Baptist boy in a small town in Texas, I was deeply ashamed and full of self-loathing.
TampaBayTed
The feelings for men were smoldering when I was 4; the blossoming of those feelings happened when I was 12 and used practice oral sex on my male schoolmates.
Vegas Tearoom
Before I was a little homo-sexual child at age 11, when touched my first other penis, I was a little homo-emotional child at age 4 when I sat on my summer camp counselor’s lap, Dennis, at the Apache cabin and I knew I wanted him to always keep his arms around me. It felt different, it felt right. Before I ever engaged in any physicality, I knew I was emotionally designed to love men.
Lightningscar98
I didn’t figure it out until Sophomore year. It was only a question at first because I didn’t ever really date much. Then I started thinking that I pay a whole lot more attention to girls than I do boys. So I kept it secret for a while but I ran with the LGBT+ crowd so eventually I came out to them but my mom works at the school, so they all outed me to my mom who’s only thing was, “You should wait until after highschool to come out. How do you think my coworkers are going to treat me?” Obviously, I said fuck that bitch and I’ve been out and proud since then. I’m a senior now and I’ve never been bullied once. Lucky me I guess. Even though I live in a tiny farm town in Missouri. Lots of born again Christians around here.
Sweetie Pie
I was about 10, I had a crush on Lyle Waggoner (Wonder Woman), Gil Gerard (Buck Rogers) and I was wanking away to the Jockey Jim Palmer ads…I found out I was a top when I was 15, and I topped a classmate from Sweden
Gabriel Reyes
Why this picture?
DC Sheehan
It is one of my earliest memories, aged 5.
Charles Daniel Christopher
I’m not certain that I’ve determined it yet. My history involves many people of both genders starting when I was 5 five and running to the present day. I’m 53 and think of myself as “bi,” though I’m not certain that is a solid definition. Maybe “fluid” would be mor accurate.
Mark Angstman
I was about 4 when I knew I’d like boys over girls. That’s never changed. For the record, I was not molested as a child, I was not taught to be gay, I did not choose to be gay . . . I am.
Routemaster-Lengthened2313
@Celtic: Thanks for your Military Service!!
Mitch Haynes
8 years old in 4th grade… on the bus home.
Routemaster-Lengthened2313
@GayEGO: Thanks for your Military Service!!
Sebastian Zatarain
13
Doughosier
12. I remember seeing a boy at school and melting. There were flashes before that…I remember really liking a Superman comic where he had his shirt off.
John R Mayhew
Looking back now as an adult, there was strong evidence around 7 years old (I was infatuated with the physique of my GI Joe doll). But at that age, you don’t realize what that means. Probably didn’t become aware until my teens, but didn’t admit it to myself until age 20.
excusemydust
I knew instinctively, but not conceptually, at about 7 or 8. Then, around the age of 11, I saw a Lifetime movie about a lesbian–The Truth About Jane–and wrote a deeply heartfelt diary entry about how I was a lesbian. I thought the word meant someone who was attracted to the same sex–not exclusively women who were attracted to women.
doe eyed gazelle
Growing up totally indoctrinated in a hetero-normative homophobic family/society I finally realized I was gay in my mid teens when I figured I didn’t want to boink Wonder Woman, I wanted to be Wonder Woman .!.
Pistolo
Aaaaaalllwwaaaaays knew. Just didn’t have the words to express it.
But I always knew. You can’t not know, I don’t believe people when they say “I was gay and had no idea!”- they’re lying. You know, on some level you always know in your heart of hearts.
Oldviking
Many years ago, I had a best friend in high school We were pretty much inseparable. Then he started dating a girl we both liked, and as a result, we weren’t so close any more. I was hurt and lost for months. Then he moved off to college, I started dating his old girlfriend. That eventually failed and when he came back to town we had a big fight. A couple of years later, he was married to the girl we both loved, and all seemed well. We all became friends again although I was sort of a fifth wheel when we were together. When it was just Frank and me,things were much more comfortable. One night Frank and I were out having a few beers with another friend. At the end of the night we dropped our friend off at her place, and on the ride to his house, he was extra quiet. Finally he spoke saying how he wished we lived in a time when people were more accepting of others. Then he said he loved me. I mumbled something similar in return. I wasn’t ready to admit I could love another man, and I haven’t seen him in 37 years. That is the biggest regret of my life–I wish I could say to him now what I should have said then. He was the one love of my life and I was not able to bring myself to admit it. When did I realize I was bi? Maybe I always knew–at least by 17. When did I admit it to myself? Way too late.
jd2222248
first Grade!
jag4313
I remember being very drawn to David Bowie after watching The Labyrinth when I was 4 or 5. But I didn’t understand I was different from the rest of my friends until I hit puberty. All of my friends started looking at girls and I started looking at my friends.
Sluggo2007
I always knew it. As early as 7, I was “playing doctor” with neighborhood boys (and they liked it too). Also, my sport of choice was figure skating (I was petty good too) and I was crazy about clothes.
tdh1980
I definitely knew at six years old. I remember judging the roundness of other boys’ butts. Nothing has changed in that respect.
bottom250
Sweetheart I have been very flamboyant my whole life and had crushes on other guys since as far back as I can remember
orcanyc
11 and going strong ever since.
Merv
I guess I was late, because I didn’t know until I hit puberty and started fantasizing about boys when I was 12 or 13. But, looking back, the clues were there several years earlier when I was fascinated by looking at the boys underwear models in department store catalogs. I just didn’t make the connection until later.
Atomicrob
I had no idea until in the sixth grade, this major wiseass named Scott Nelson called me a “fairy.” It all started to sink in after that. It was difficult for me to accept, but I did. I was sorry I waited. That was 50+ years ago.
Dinodogstar
I was about 8 or 9, and I and my brother were watching “The Love Boat” tv show. A character came on screen- I don’t remember who- and my older brother bravely announced that that character was a ‘fag’. I asked what that was, and he told me, and it’s seared into my mind, that i understood that is what i was, and that it was not a good thing to be. My brother was also in the Boy Scouts, which the image used to highlight this story, looks like a Boy Scout member; I knew, as I guess my brother or someone well-conveyed to me, that you couldn’t be gay and in the Boy Scouts, and it’s the reason I never joined after his lead. I Know that this seems pretty pertinent now, with the Boy Scouts new policies, but there’s nothing political or agenda-driven in the truth of that experience. I am happy that no boy-or girl, I suppose, if that policy against lesbian members and leaders is or was still in effect, has to limit or adapt their life to fit someone’s else’s prejudice. I was raised Catholic too, in a Catholic grade and high school. I won’t go off on a tangent here, but when i was 10, my parents were planning to go to the Grand Canyon for our summer vacation destination; while they were discussing it, and making those plans, I saw this as an opportunity to stage an ‘accidental fall’ to kill myself, and i remember how i had to find a cliff that was at least 4 or so stories high, because I reasoned that people always die if they fall from that height, and I also remember knowing that my fall/jump had to be head-first, so it would be both successful and painless for me. That was not the last plan like that I had made, and it pains me deeply, it breaks my heart that there MUST be some other child in Catholic school, or another un-accepting faith background, that must be thinking and even acting on that same impulse I had had.
Dinodogstar
I was about 8 or 9, and I and my brother were watching “The Love Boat” tv show. A character came on screen- I don’t remember who- and my older brother bravely announced that that character was a ‘fag’. I asked what that was, and he told me, and it’s seared into my mind, that i understood that is what i was, and that it was not a good thing to be. My brother was also in the Boy Scouts, which the image used to highlight this story, looks like a Boy Scout member; I knew, as I guess my brother or someone well-conveyed to me, that you couldn’t be gay and in the Boy Scouts, and it’s the reason I never joined after his lead. I Know that this seems pretty pertinent now, with the Boy Scouts new policies, but there’s nothing political or agenda-driven in the truth of that experience. I am happy that no boy-or girl, I suppose, if that policy against lesbian members and leaders is or was still in effect, has to limit or adapt their life to fit someone’s else’s prejudice. I was raised Catholic too, in a Catholic grade and high school. I won’t go off on a tangent here, but when i was 10, my parents were planning to go to the Grand Canyon for our summer vacation destination; while they were discussing it, and making those plans, I saw this as an opportunity to stage an ‘accidental fall’ to kill myself, and i remember how i had to find a cliff that was at least 4 or so stories high, because I reasoned that people always die if they fall from that height, and I also remember knowing that my fall/jump had to be head-first, so it would be both successful and painless for me. That was not the last plan like that I had made, and it pains me deeply, it breaks my heart that there MUST be some other child in Catholic school, or another un-accepting faith background, that must be thinking and even acting on that same impulse I had had. @Dinodogstar: not sure why i misread the image show, to be of a boy scout, even though the Norman Rockwell image is similar to what i think was a different boy scout art piece. We do sort of read into things the way we want to, this reminded me.
Dinodogstar
I don’t know how or why my post got repeated twice; i must have tapped the ‘post comment’ twice, i guess..any moderator can of course, erase the extra one..
darkanser
At about 14, I realized that I had been in denial for years after reading in a sex ed book something like “Contrary to popular belief the majority of homosexual males are not obvious by their appearance or their behavior — but are indistinguishable from heterosexual males. I knew then I was gay and was immediately fell in a state of depression which lasted for the next 7 years. I used to think because I was masculine and athletic i.e. not effeminate, I could not be gay — even though I had been feeling same sex attraction for many years. I eventually realized how backward I had been regarding gay identity. It’s still an ongoing journey. I really thought no one could have been more backward than I was in that regard — that is, until I learned about the whole downlow phenomenon. But then again, that might simply be a derivative of the same mindset.
SFHandyman
When I was 10 I saw a naked hairy man in the locker room at the public swimming pool and I did not want to leave to go swimming. I just wanted to watch him. So I knew I liked to look at naked men at that point. I also knew I did not want to look at naked girls. Everything pointed to me being gay. I loved looking at the hot men on TV. I even knew I wanted to have sex with men. But I was afraid of males, mostly boys, as long as I can remember because of bullying, so the possibility of actually touching a guy was something I never thought could happen.
I knew I’d been a sissy boy and was queer but it seemed like an impossible life choice. I didn’t really even think about trying to live as a gay man until I was 17. When I saw ‘Making Love’ I realized it was a sealed deal. I’d never do anything to lead a girl on. I was gay and living life as a gay man was my only option. I didn’t have sex until I was 24.
Clark35
At 9 or 10 I realized I’m bisexual.
1EqualityUSA
5
robbkcmo2015
First boy-crush, age seven (also my first “girl-crush”, because my best friend told me I had to find a girlfriend). I didn’t understand it until I was in fifth grade – so ten/eleven years old – and I was devastated when my bff got into the popular crowd and I didn’t because I didn’t want to play football after school. I came out to myself when I was twelve/thirteen, and sort-of to my family then (because of a creepy therapist whose first question to me in our first session was, “what do you think about when you masturbate?” I lied, freaked out, and walked out. I officially came out when I was 16, and my sister, twelve-years my senior, said, “yes we all knew when you were nine…” And everyone just laughed a little. The only thing even somewhat negative was my Mom telling me that my life was going to be harder because of AIDS (this was 1987).
I always knew it, always felt attracted to people of my own gender – just took me time to understand what it was. To me, I was born this way. Not a statement about sexuality in general, just in my case.
bottom250
My parents new as well since I was very small because I was extremely effeminate so I never really had to come out.
magicfeather
I was 8 and the teen age kid up the street had a barn and well we used it and i have been secually active and agressive eversince.. never regreted it and wouldn’t have changed a think,except i would have kissed kerry in college if i had been braver.
magicfeather
it was hard back then, there were no roll modles and we all thouht we were the only one, strange that we would all pickup on the song over the rainbow as a dream of a place we could be ourselves. as a child at that age if i had been found out i would most likely have been sent to the state mental institution for electroshock tharapy. not fun
AtticusBennett
i knew i was *different* at a very very early age. like, senior kindergarten.
i knew i liked to look at Josh Brolin in The Goonies. it wasn’t sexual, i just really liked looking at him. ditto the American Gladiators.
i was already being called a faggot by age 8/9. by 9/10 i realized that what i was was gay. that that’s what was different about me.
greyhound1954
I knew I liked boys at 12, but I also liked girls. I watched a lot of TV, and I had a crush on both Greg and Marcia Brady, and on both Keith and Laurie Patridge. I liked Penny Robinson, but not Will. In high school, I began to like boys much better than girls. I also realized at that age that American society and the Catholic Church (I was a altar boy) hated homosexuality, so I knew I could never tell any boy that I liked him. I lost my virginity to a girl at 18 and to a boy at 19. After college, I pursued only men, although I still found some women attractive.
velvetplant
Going to skew the numbers here, but 25. I had endless crushes on older girls/women growing up, but I always thought of it as hero worship and failed to identify any romantic (or sexual) attraction. Coming out to myself was hard in a lot of ways, but on the plus side, everything suddenly MADE SENSE.
ElainCorrine
I knew at 4 I was trans though I didn’t know then what it was actually called. I just knew things were not right with me. At 5 I asked my mom why I had boy parts when I was a girl. Her freak out was epic. I never asked again. *shrugs* If I can know way back then that I was very different from what I ‘should’ be.. I see no reason why someone can’t know if they are gay or straight.
FryingPan
I can’t say for sure a definitive age at which I knew that I liked girls also and that it wasn’t “normal” I do remember my Moyer telling me that I can’t like boys and girls I have to feel a stronger attraction to one or the other but I really didn’t feel that way that their gender or race or sexuality didn’t matter to me I just like who I like and it wasn’t until a couple years ago that that was called pansexuality
Ryan
@velvetplant: This is the same for me, too! I always had many, many, many crushes on girls, always older, but I never really dug deeper at that time, until one day I realized that when it’s all said and done… I could never see myself in a relationship with a woman, and that these crushes I had were just a really big admiration of them, rather than any real sexual or romantic desire.
NoCagada
@jason smeds: Thank you, FREUD
jesse96
I knew I was a lesbian since I was 6 but I didn’t completely come out of the closet til I was 17(about 2 years ago)
vesper60
I think I’ve always known and so did my parents.I had a crush on a teen up the street when I was 6.He was so cool and his sister was in my class,so we played together,he was always around and never treated the neighbor hood kids badly.Really like a big brother to all of us.In 6th grade I had a friend that wanted to fool around but I was afraid he would tell because he wanted me to go first.He liked the girl I called my gf and she told her friend that I wouldn’t kiss her.In 7th grade I started to experiment with a boy 3 yrs. younger.This was the same year my father had a nervous breakdown and became disabled.The only reference I had about gays,was a gent that lived in the projects in my dad’s old neighborhood.He was my dad’s age and we would see him sitting on the porch when we went to my grandparents every Sunday for diner.He would have his hair in a beehive and dressed in a lady’s pantsuit and wave to all that passed by.I loved to paint,draw and read comics-I was told by many that I had rickrack on my drawers,but my gayness was never brought up.Started drinking when I was 17 and didn’t stop till I was 42,never met another gay till I was 33. I am 61 now and came out at 58.It’s an awful long time to learn to love yourself but I’m learning with the help of friends.
Homura Akemi
@Ryan: Sorry, I think I accidentally flagged your question. I love your picture of Nico.
Homura Akemi
I think the age varies.
mlss1980235
9 but t my first experience wasnt till i was 14
Del1959
I knew when I was 4 or 5. In kindergarten, I had a crush on another guy. Hi sname was Don.
In Kindergarten class, there were dress up clothes for the girls and toy cars and trucks for the boys.
I took every opportunity to dress up with the girls. Sometimes I would actually walk past Don, wearing one of the dresses and swinging my hips! I was flirting at the age of 5!
Anyway, I didnt know that I was gay, though and I didnt know that those feelings were ‘wrong’. It all felt very natural, even my feminine behavior.
At one point, my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Littlepage, forbade me to ever wear the girls dressups again. I was devastated and thats when I knew that I was not ‘normal’ and the feelings I had were ‘wrong’
Will
As far as actually realizing what gay meant and identifying as gay (to myself), I was 12. Looking back at my younger childhood years I realized that I always had an attraction to, or curiosity about, other boys. I just didn’t know during those earlier years that I was “different.” I assumed that all boys liked other boys that way until we became old enough to like girls.
Mux
Im 16 female. I think i might be bisex. But i dont know if i like girls too or the idea of having relationiship with one. Maybe its just my jurney of finding myself.. Anyway maybe ill find out when i start relationiship with someone cause now ive never had a bf/gf..
What do u think is it my true self or something else..?
Leontyne
I was 6 when I had my first crush. It was on a teacher and I heard that it was common to have crushes on your teachers so I didn’t think much of it. I also met a girl who would be my best friend for the next 8 years. I stayed at her house when I was about 8 and she wanted me to take her in her mothers bed. I wanted to, but in the end I chickened out. I kept getting crushes on girls throughout the years but never paid them much mind. I had the idea in my mind that it wasn’t ok. Then in grade 8 it started getting harder to ignore. There was a gorgeous and extremely provocative girl a year younger than me. It was all I could do not to jump her in the corridor. I started at a new school the next year where I had my first two and only boyfriends. They didn’t last long. I finally accepted I liked girls and came out at 16. I completely accept myself now and looking back, there where alot of signs, but I just didn’t know how to handle it. It’s not something they teach you. I think you can know at a very young age, after all, who knows you better than you?
MinusKris
I know this is about sexuality, but, I came out as trans* a few months before my 17th birthday. I’m 18 now. I had known about it since I was really young, but I went with the flow, until I made a new friend who was openly trans. She made me accept it.
I’m also a Panromantic Asexual. I always knew.
theninj4neer
I don’t know how much this counts, but I only just realized I was asexual about 5 months ago just before I turned 26. I literally thought that everybody was just exaggerating their sexual desires for YEARS. It was the epitome of the “That sounds fake, but okay” meme that’s been popular around tumblr recently.
Looking back, I guess it was always there. But it’s hard to really know something when you don’t have a word for it.
lir1983
I’m REALLY going to skew the results. I’ve always known I wasn’t a lesbian, I’m way too attracted to men, but off and on I’ve had crushes on girls. I mostly didn’t think a lot about it, I figured I was just a needy clingy friend, but being bi didn’t even occur to me. Bi wasn’t even on my radar when I grew up. You were either/or. I got married, had kids, was heavily involved in my church, had many crushes on actors, but it wasn’t until about a year ago due to a joking comment by a friend that I realized I was also attracted to women, and it’s only been a couple of months since I admitted to myself that I’m really bi. And obviously I’m a bit slow on the uptake since I’ll be 50 in a month.
hwynen
I started questioning about 11 years old. All guys kinda looked the same to me tbh and I couldn’t figure out how my friends knew if a guy was hot or not. At about 12 years old I told my friend that I found women attractive and that I could understand people who were bi. At 14 I knew for sure I was only attracted to women but I was scared to admit it to myself. It wasn’t until 16 that I could’ve really said 100% that I was a lesbian.
dairygodmother
I’m thankful for these answers. I’m a 46 year old straight mom of a 6.5 year old boy. I’m noticing a lot of comments he makes (he just finished kindergarten) about boys, who is handsome, One he loves, etc. He has said it about one girl, too. Mostly it’s just sweet to hear him become charmed by other kids, but I feel like he’s been studying our reactions when he mentions the boys. I brushed it off thinking Oh who could know then? But now I see so many do. I also assumed I’d stay out of his business until if/when he wanted to talk about it, but reading this makes me want to ensure he knows his parents are beyond fine with him. I think his latest comment was a little more blunt, he was talking about the future to his dad, when he had a family, etc. He said “but for me there may be two daddies, does that happen?” And his dad said “well yes, sure it does.”
He’s so cute, and sweet, such a gentle soul. These aren’t sexual feelings to my eye but very romantic. (I’m selfishly over the moon at the notion; maybe I’ll be the only girl for him!!)
denise_is_me
I probably didn’t realize what I felt was gay until I was about 14. When I was 8 I would go to the neighbors house to be watched while my mom was at work and the girl and our other boy neighbor used to play. Once we played “show me yours” and I could not take my eyes off his penis. Later though I told that girl I thought I loved her. When I was a teen and we had moved to another town I made new friends of the different boys in the neighborhood. I knew the girls too but I felt shy around them and in a way wasn’t as interested as being around them as the boys, they were more fun and I could relate to them. This was around jr high time and in those days it was a requirement to shower after phys ed in the joint showers. OMG it was all I could do to prevent getting a boner every time we changed clothes or I had to shower. Around this time I would convince my boy neighbors to a dare to run around the house naked (when my mom was at work). I got A LOT of bullying from kids in school about being sissy and a fag and from my stepfather also. Further I started to experiment wearing my sisters clothes and makeup and would go to bed at night and ask god to please please turn me into a girl overnight and make it like i was always a girl (so there wouldn’t be any strangeness). Alas that didn’t happen and of course from all the macho bullying I’m still in the closet because I just can’t get over the subconcious fear of coming out and being bullied exponentially. 🙁
Akamar
Ah. dang… I’m 36 and I still don’t know what I want. I’ve sort of taken my general lack of interest as my cue.
Akamar
Oh, that’s about when I learned I was ace myself.. I couldn’t figure out why the notion of flirting or dating weirded me out… I would get anxious because I was this ‘old maid’ from my churches perspective. I needed to find a mate, but didn’t really want one. When I realized that that was all brrrrrpt, I felt so much better…
dbkstewart
I’m asexual; I don’t remember an age of “enlightenment” I just started the girlfriend/boyfriend thing and thinking: “I must be doing something wrong!” I’d end up getting angry, even mean to the poor guy and realizing I had to break this off! I’d just end up going to find someone else, though. Have mercy! Can you imagine people thinking I wasn’t “normal”?!?
DonnaCoyote
I first knew I should have been born a boy when I was 5.
his2nd
According to the psychology research i did during high school, sexual preference including kinks and fetishes as well as asthetic preferences, are hardwired in the brain by the age of five. Looking back I can kind of see it. But for me the curiosity of my sexuality was peaked when the family and I (age seven-ish) watched Starship Troopers. In particular the shower scene, which was mixed, and featured an assortment of body shapes, types, and likes. It was then that my interest in men started to blossom. When faced with an array of every imaginal computation of boob, and you’re still focusing mostly on hairy chests and purt buttocks, It does become apparent that I like guys.
I had girlfriends up until the age of 18, which was when I came out to my parents. However I was sexually active from the age of 13, though never with any of my girlfriends. I actually didn’t know what homosexualIty was. I just liked the sex, it was easy and convenient. I’m lucky that I have supportive parents, Who calmly came to terms with something they could never have understood.
Celtic
“Sexual preference”? Really? We have been using “orientation” for a few decades now. Our opponents like “preference” because they will say, “See! If you prefer to be gay, you can be straight”. I encourage you to abandon “preference” when discussing human sexuality. Thank you.
Fifimsp
Well, I’m a straight female and can tell you at the age of 5 I had an enormous crush on Captain Kirk. I think sexuality is more then just attraction. I mean, yes William Shatner was handsome but also, he was the captain. So I think you start to see things you like early on.
thedudeabides
Comment lurker here. I just wanted to say that these comments actually reflect the age science says our sexuality light-switch is flipped on. Around 8 or so, everyone’s sexuality is gene is activated. Not because we become sexual beings at that age, it’s just the time our brains get the wheels turning prior to the start of puberty. In our very young years, evolutionarily speaking, sexuality is useless for survival so the wiring isn’t quite connected. The crushes we have in kindergarten are a indicators of our sexuality though, but around 8 we become conscious of our sexuality.
Gay or straight, sexual/romantic attraction starts at the same age, which is part of why is nonsensical to think it’s a choice. Science also says being homosexuality isn’t a choice and there actual sociological benefits associated.
_oatc_
@thedudeabides: You’re talking about adrenarche there, firming-up sexual orientation & sexuality? Any particular research in mind?
_oatc_
I realised I had to be a girl a few months before my 3rd birthday – primarily for physical reasons, but also social – & told my parents a week or so later. I’m bisexual, but mainly lesbian. I didn’t know that was a term until I was 14, but I’d admired – perhaps had crushes upon, from a distance – brave, different women, & girls for years. Certainly from 6. Whereas I never really noticed boys, or men. However, my gender/sex dysphoria was so intense, & total, that I could be sexual with anyone until after my sex reassignment surgery, which I was only allowed at 25. People kept telling me I was bisexual (my gender psychiatrist was sure I was a heterosexual woman) but I only started thinking at all about sex with men when my hormone doses were finally got right years later. I doubt I’ll ever act on that though.
AxelDC
It depends a lot on your culture and how gay-friendly your family and community are. If you don’t have good gay role models, it’s harder to self-identify with gay.
Homoerotic thoughts certainly emerge at puberty, but puzzling that out can take a lot longer in a repressive environment.
Celtic
I came out in the late 1960s after completing MIL Service honorably. Role models? Surely you are kidding. We were pioneers in the “movement”, often hated by the world at large.
randile
There was never a time in my life that I wasn’t attracted to the same gender. I played around with other boys from the time I was 3 years old. I was always the instigator.
mujerado
I knew almost from the first time I met other kids that I was different in some way. It took me a long, long time to put a word to it. Yes, I was born in a different time, 1946. Growing up in L.A., I never even encountered the word “gay” until I was at least 12, and it still took a long time before I realized, a) what it meant and, b) that’s what I am.
I know good and well the advantage kids have today, that gay people are now visible. I’ll never know what I might have become or done with my life if there had been role models I could learn from. We’re still not equal in all ways under the law, but it will never again be true that a kid could grow up not even knowing what he was, not knowing there was anyone else like him in the whole world.
Celtic
@mujerado: I was born in ’44, one week to the day after D-Day. I was in the US MIL when the term “gay” began to mean queer; not happy or light. Many straights hated the fact that “we” had sabotaged their word. Now, gays once again want to be called “queer” which during the time I was growing up was as negative as faggot.
papertownguy
I knew they I was gay at a early age. I do believe the first time I felt an attraction to another guy I was about 10 years old. I was just starting puberty and could not understand why I was not getting aroused by the girls in school, but rather than the guys. I was raised that being GAY was WRONG by my stepfather. I kept my feelings to myself and tried the straight thing. All I was doing was lying to myself and the girls that I dated.
It wasn’t until was 16 and I was working for my best friends stepfather. After the garage closed for the days business day he would come behind me and touch me as I had never been touched before. I was 16 he was 46. It felt so wrong, but it felt so right. He took my virginity, this was not the way that I had planned on it. I wanted to choose who I let take my virginity, but that day confirmed that I was GAY. I loved it so much him and I continued to have intercourse daily for 4 years. I would stay the nights at his daughter’s house and when everyone would go to bed he would come out and wake me up. Now that I am older I know what he had done was so wrong.
Celtic
@papertownguy: I am saddened by the fact you believe it was “so wrong”. A door was opened for you. My actual first gay experience occurred when I was 15 with a man who was 31. He was one of my school teachers and a pastor. Friends have suggested he was wrong to do “those things” with me. But, no, he was not wrong. It simply way. I could have reported him, brought disgrace to him and unwanted attention to my family. I moved on. He moved on (likely to another young lad).
bgthomasbooks
@jason smeds: There is no such thing as an strawberries. There is no such thing as a surfboard. There is no such thing as a can of Diet Coke. These terms are invented things, and simply serve to divide every thing. They are also used by shrewd advertisers to market their products to certain markets.
There are however gay people. I am one. And I am not straight. And I resent being told anything else. Took me a long time to accept myself and now I an very happy and have been with my husband for over 15 years.
JamJewel
First realization at four – my mother has said – when I saw my teenage cousin naked in the shower and couldn’t look away. Seduced the candy man – really! a middle aged guy – at nine and found out what anal sex is when he tried to do it… much to my consternation and regret; been gay every since.
FievelJ
I was 10 when I knew I was gay. Straight boys do not imagine other boys with their penises in each other.
I waited until my 30s to actually fully come out. 🙁 I should never have waited so long.