Tom Ford opens up about his sexuality (and sex life)

As for understanding that I was gay, it wasn’t really something that I figured out until my late teens, but then looking back at my childhood it all made sense, and I realized that I had actually had crushes on many of my best friends. However, I had girlfriends throughout high school, felt that I was in love with them, and had a great sex life.

Even occasionally after I began dating men, I continued to sleep with women off and on, and while definitely gay, I am someone for whom sex is an expression of affection and love. I simply fall in love with men most of the time.

I was very, very lucky: Coming to terms with my sexuality was a smooth transition for me, and I owe that to the struggle that all of the gay men and women who came before me had to endure. I was living in New York and my friends were all quite liberal and in the arts, and so I did not actually ever have to “come out,” so to speak, as I was never really in the closet. My parents were very accepting, and in New York, being gay or bisexual was considered kind of cool—or at least it was with my circle of friends.”— Acclaimed designer and filmmaker Tom Ford in a first-person piece for Vogue.