You often hear about “love at first sight.” But what is that experience like for people who can’t see?
An enlightening new Reddit thread asks blind, gay users to share how they discovered their sexualities.
“I’ve been blind since birth,” Reddit user hank_scorpio_123 says, “and extremely gay.”
He describes being gay and blind as: “You know when you see someone and are attracted to them? It’s kind of like that but I can’t see.”
How about we take this to the next level?
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Reddit user RedzandBluez explains, “When I was 11 or 12, I didn’t really understand the difference between boys and girls. To me, they were the same except that men turned me on and women didn’t.”
“I did not know about body parts (breasts, vagina, penis, etc.) and yet, I was attracted to my same sex. Because of my unique situation, I can tell you that being gay is not a choice.”
He adds: “When I meet someone, what I go by is their voice, their smell, their kindness, and their willingness to help me when needed.”
Sooooo basically, the other four senses we often forget about when we’re sighted. Makes sense.
User commanderzilyana concurs. For him, it’s all about the sound of a guy’s voice.
“I hear the voices of guys and it just sounds attractive to me,” he writes. “Even though I can’t ‘see’ them physically mentally I can picture how they look.”
The same goes for rkingett, who writes: “I can’t tell you anything other than, well, when I hear a man’s voice I like, I get an erection. I don’t know how else to explain it other than that. I just knew I never found women sexually attractive, like at all.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s a cultural trope that most people (men and women, gay and straight) prefer to close their eyes while kissing and turn the lights down (or even off) during sex,” User easwaran writes. “We might think we’re all about visuals, but actually when it comes down to it, there’s a lot more going on that we often don’t think about.”
AllHarlowsEve, who identifies as pansexual, describes it like this: “Honestly, it’s not all that different from how sighted people know they’re gay. When they think about kissing someone, say around second grade or so, they know if they want to kiss boys or girls.”
Mystery solved!
Related: Blind And Gay: Belo Cipriani On Life, Sex And Why His Disability Doesn’t Define Him
PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID
Wow, the first genuinely interesting Reddit-link-masquerading-as-article..thank you to that other gay site for thinking of it
PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID
“Voice” “voice” “voice”…
Femphobia! But hey these problematic, heteronormative, haters just need to be reeducated outta their erroneous socially constructed masculinist prejudice, right?
throwslikeagirl
Yo! None of these guys said what kind of male voice they’re attracted to. This is your problem, not their’s.
AllHarlowsEve
Did you just assume my gender? I’m a lady, thanks.
paul dorian lord fredine
OFFS!!! sight has nothing to do with sexuality. how utterly stupid.
jultoe
He who has sex without sight, feels just as good. He who has sex with only a photo feels alone.
1EqualityUSA
Below, is a documentary about the mind (Nova) at around 19:45 the eyes are discussed. This blind guy can perceive, even though blind. There are two pathways of vision, one, a fairly new evolution and one, a more primitive pathway for sight that makes its way through the brain stem and then to the upper regions of the cortex; a second sight. Reptilian brain action. This may have something to do with it(?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ky_f_Y_bEU
Bradsman
I’ve always wondered about that, ever since seeing a hot blind guy on a train once. Wouldn’t a straight, blind guy be more open to gay sex without sight? If they go by voice what if they had met Bea Arthur?
jultoe
Lol…good musing…thanks.
AllHarlowsEve
Blind people actually tend to be more homophobic.
He BGB
When I was a child before I knew what sex was what people did for sex with their genitalia, I was attracted to men and got a queasy sick stomach feeling thinking about naked women. I was gay from day 1. I dreamed about men as a child. I fantasized about men. But never a woman. Never.
girldownunder
Thank you for sharing that.
I see far too many stories in the news about everything except this. Thank you.
DavidIntl
It took me quite a long time to fully come out – but looking back I was clearly gay from as far back as I can remember. I had my first ‘crush’ when I was six – long before I knew what homosexuality was – and I can still picture that guy…
ivanw222
My late partner, he died 5 years ago from a heart attack, was blind. He lost his sight at 13 in an awful accident. By then he already knew he was blind, but it was my voice on the phone that drew him to me. We talked that first time for about 4 hours, I was smitten by him too.
ivanw222
OOPS! By 13 he knew he was gay,
jultoe
Sensory and social satisfaction is the standard for mating, but partners serve either, not both.
baggins435
Wow, this is actually something I’ve thought about. I know, for me, it was about sight, so I wondered how blind guys would know they were gay. I grew up in the 60s and 70s. I remember crushing on cartoon character Jonny Qwest, on Ron Ely as Tarzan, and on the teen boys on Wonderful World Of Disney on Sunday nights. Long before I reached puberty. But there are some guys’ voices I’ve heard that seem to short circuit from my ears to my crotch. LOL
unreligious
It was the cartoon Space Angel for me. And then yes Ron Ely what a hot stud he was.
girldownunder
Yet another story trying to make same-sex attraction something odd.
We’ve all posited why would heterosexuals care?
We only received mis-directed, religious.
It’s time for those who wish to not allow.
Let it go— it’s not your place
DMRX
Are you on drugs or using Google Translate or what?
In this post, you bag the article. In the very next, you praise it.
???
girldownunder
I’d imagine what we felt would be attached to the physical & the direct-connect.
Good article.
jimstoic
I’m not blind, but smell was one of the ways I figured out I liked men. When the film “Scent of a Woman” came out, I thought “Yuck.”
1EqualityUSA
I wondered which one would say something like this. I was proud of the crew for not doing it.
batesmotel
How interesting. That never crossed my mind before. Are there gay blind people.
1EqualityUSA
I have to say, I’ve never thought about it either. We are more than our molecules and atoms.
Maude
With all due respect…
Blind people ‘see’ with their hands.
When sighted people do that, it’s called; “Groping”.
When blind people do that, it’s called; “How Do You Do?!!”
DMRX
What a jerk thing to say. You’ve obviously never known any blind people well, and I’m very glad they can’t easily access your comment.