6ImpossibleThings, I have struck some kind of nerve with you here. I don’t understand the reason for the intensity of the reactions I am getting from you. Let me be clear: I am not ranting; I am not upset or irrational.
I am puzzled by the strength of your reaction to an anecdote of mine. The contempt you have expressed repeatedly here has taken me aback. I don’t know what is going on with you (I don’t even know you–think about this, you are very hostile to a complete stranger on the internet. I did not come in here and attack or belittle you; I entered this discussion to share a relevant experience). I will go toe to toe with anyone who starts in by dismissing my contribution is such a way; that is what I did. But stepping back, I am left more puzzled by your reaction than anything else. So, I have to ask: what gives with the scathing condescension?
Anyone who has been around this board for long enough knows this about me: I am hopeless when it comes to names. I rarely look at the username in any focused way and I forget them very easily. Obviously, I have confused you with someone else who has identified herself as a lesbian. The best I can do is dredge up a vague sense that this other person has a run-together username like yours. I am sorry for the mixup.
I accept that you have a differing opinion than mine on what happened. I freely admit that the incident confused me at the time. Did it confuse me enough to hinder or change my sexual orientation or expression? No. But like clairobscur, I was relating a time in my teens where things were not so clear cut (and it was a time when things were not so open or regarded so lightly-not a better time, but one where such behavior was considered more aberrant than today).
Since in many sectors of society, and in many more until quite recently, the idea that being gay was even possible was never discussed – certainly not with people young enough to be just discovering their sexual desires – or else was so taboo as to be unthinkable for oneself, the first clue someone could have that they fancied the same sex might well have been in some sort of experimenting situation.
In my case, however, I knew that I was gay well before my first time having sex. Far from needing to have sex in order to figure out that I was gay, I pretty much pursued sex as soon as I started to know other gay people. (I was a sixteen-year-old boy! Come on!)
I am pretty sure that the majority realize their sexual orientation early and it remains constant through their life, and most people are near the poles of the Kinsey spectrum (which is a bit misleading since he was discussing sexual behaviour, not necessarily attraction).
However, a lot of people do realize different things about their sexuality over time. At the same time, some of what may be thought of as ‘fluidity’ may simply be realizing that a particular label you use for yourself may not be 100% accurate (which doesn’t mean wrong or useless, just not completely categorical).
I am sometimes sexually attracted to women, rarely enough that it’s not really a factor in my identity or choice of relationships. I identify as gay because that’s the most accurate label, since I am extremely likely to prefer sex or relationships with men over ones with women. Someone could get the idea based on my identity that I have never been attracted to women, and that would be inaccurate. So it would be fair to say that my identity is a bit more fluid than can be expressed by simply saying “I’m gay,” even though that works for nearly all practical purposes.
Conversely, if I did have sex with a woman someday, because of that fluidity or “slippage” I would not likely call my use of the label ‘gay’ into question. It would still be the most useful label for me. I would only start to revise it if I started to desire sex with women a lot of the time.
6ImpossibleThings I am asking you to drop it in re: eleanorigby. Your posts have been borderline jerkish throughout much of this thread; at the minimum your pursuit of Eleanor’s incident is highjacking.
Let’s continue with the discussion of sexuality and drop the pointed, personal confrontation, please.
Exactly. I would also say that IMO (and IME) those who seem to be most rabidly ANTI-gay also seem to be the ones who cannot admit to not being sure or are threatened by the attractiveness of their own gender, but put all that into a social construct of “things not talked about” and it gets fairly disruptive when the truth will out. I show an amazing grasp of the obvious.
Couple this with the vulnerable feelings of “being in love” as well as the dropping of boundaries needed to become intimate with someone (and those “boundaries” are very fluid and idiosyncratic) and the issue of trust–no wonder romance and sex etc are so fraught with pain and uncertainty and fear. Sometimes I’m amazed that so many people are so happy within their relationships/identity.
