Did you go through a gay/bi "phase" in high school?

In My Humble Opinion
1

In this thread, several people assert that many high school girls go through a stage where they claim to be attracted to girls because they are sexually confused, exposed to so much lesbianism in the media that their minds warp or they are seeking attention. None of the people making these claims seem to have actually gone through this phase…they just “know”.

So, did any of you guys go through this stage? When you look back, do you think you were simply seeking attention or immitating the media?

I went through a period of being attracted to girls in high school- though I never told anyone. It never really went away, but it was never stronger than my feelings for guys. If pressed, I’d still identify myself as bi. I don’t think this is a matter of “phases” at all.

2

I don’t know if this counts but I have seen teenaged boys do some pretty strange and perverted sexual things with each other. We had literal circle jerks at school and at parties more time than I can count. Sometimes, there would be 25 or more people participating. We also had penis length contests with measuring tapes and official scorecards. I have heard stories that those types of things happen all over the place.

However, I seriously doubt that there was any attraction going on. It was just all fun and perverted games.

3

yes, but it wasn’t a phase.

I’m slightly bi. Prefer men. Married a man and have been monogomous for ten years.

As I said in the other thread, many of my girlfriends also went though a “phase” - although every one of them that did describes themselves as I do now - some form of “bi” or “not completely straight.” None of them consider themselves completely straight.

4

Well, jeez, I wouldn’t have said “confused and warped”, but rather disinhibited and hence open to experimentation. Mix with teen hormones, stir, and maybe you get kids making premature declarations about their orientation.

As for me, no, never had a bi phase, nor was I interested in one. I’ve heard of circle-jerks, but have never participated in such a thing, nor did I ever have the slightest interest. There’s talk of one infamously vile little contest out there, going by the name of “soggy biscuit”, which, quite frankly, strains my sense of credibility; but I’ll take it on advisement such hideous acts are in fact comitted in frat houses nation-wide. ::shudder::

Nope. I could make out with a guy, probably, and think nothing of it. I see no reason why that should be a problem, and I’m not so homophobic that I’d proclaim instant nausea at the mere thought. Watching guys kiss neither titillates nor repulses me. But the bi gene seems to have skipped me over; and as a result, I spent my teen years suffering endlessly over crushes on girls who, more-often-than-not, would seem to have rather kissed other girls than me, given their reactions to my overtures. Shoot, if I could have swung the other way, maybe I would have had a better teen sex life, but the thought never crossed my mind.

5

I posted in the other thread about this. I think some teen girls (can’t speak for teen boys as I never was one and don’t have any that age yet) go through phases where they sort of ‘try on’ lifestyles and personalities, when they are trying to figure out who they are and who they want to be. In my experience, it starts around the junior high/middle school years, and lasts for a year or two but lessens as the girls grow older.

As far as the gay/bi part, I don’t think that’s anything new. A ‘schoolgirl crush’ of 50 or 100 years ago (and those crushes were usually on older girls) is the same thing, really, except that now it’s more likely to go beyond unspoken feelings into actual relationships, some of them physical.

6

I suppose this really doesn’t count, but I started that gay phase in high school (more or less).

Thing is, that was in 1967, and I haven’t gotten over it yet. Something tells me I’m not going to, either :slight_smile:

FTR, being gay in the late 60’s, despite all the “free love” and stuff, wasn’t something that was an open or talked about experiment. I guess maybe there’s been some progress after all.

7

Well, I had my share of raging schoolgirl crushes on older women, but they disappeared by the time I was fourteen or so, and as an adult, I would describe myself as straight. So yeah, I’d have to call it a phase, but I definitely wasn’t seeking attention or imitating the media – it was the 1980’s, I hadn’t been exposed much to the media anyway, and I would have died before I would have told anybody.

8

Though I was mostly attracted to girls, I went through such a period. I never acted upon it. I missed two opportunities to do so. Not by my fault, but due to adverse circumstances (IMO fortunate in one case, unfortunate in another).

I’ve been brought up in a small backward village, and homosexuality or bisexuality wasn’t particularily popular or trendy. And also rarely watched TV, and it didn’t mention it to anybody before my late teens, so it had nothing to do with being “cool” (anyway, being bisexual still isn’t particularily cool amongst boys), or with exposure to medias, or with seeking attention.

I’ve absolutely no clue when I discovered that homosexuality even existed. I think I discovered I had some sexual interest in boys at the same time I discovered I had a lot of sexual interest in girls. What I do remember is that when I was about 12-13, I read a “contraband” sex ed book (I borrowed it for the pictures, mostly) that mentionned that young teens are often, as you said “confused” about their sexuality and can be, generally temporarily, attracted to the same sex. So, I thought “fine, that’s normal” and it didn’t bother me (though, as I said, I most certainly didn’t mention it to anybody).
Later, say when I was around around 17 or so, perhaps, I assumed that I was bisexual. At this time, I was hanging out with leftist, politicallly aware (as much as you can be aware at 17, at least) and vaguely active (when we weren’t smoking pot) friends. So, it wasn’t an issue, and indeed, at this point, it was rather “cool”, at least in our micro-world, so I didn’t hide it. That’s also when I missed the two opportunities I mentionned above (the first when I was 16, the second when I was 18).

However, the more time passed the less I had an interest in boys. Interest in girls stayed at a high (and increasing) level.
Nowaday, I can only define myself as heterosexual. Not only being attracted to someone of the same sex became extremely rare (like in one time every other year at most, while I notice two dozens of attractive girls and women each time I ride the metro), but also when it happens, it’s not really a sexual attraction. Rather a strong emotional one. I’m not really interested in having sex with any man, now, and there’s only one I can’t think of right now I would like holding in my arms (as opposed to approximatively 128 457 women). It’s conceivable that I could have sex or fall in love with a man, but it’s very, very unlikely.

I discovered even earlier that I had an interest in some kinky stuff, while reading italian “fumetti” secretely “borrowed” from my older brothers but it’s another story entirely.

9

Where the hell did you go to school? And where were the crowds of boys engaging in homoerotic activity when I was a horny teenage queer? Shit, I always assumed that sort of thing was just urban legend material.

10

Yeah…just fun and games…happens all over the place. :dubious:

11

Soggy biscuit? Off to Google…

12

For what it’s worth, I heard about the “soggy biscuit” story from several different people, but it was always urban-legend-ish, happening in “some frat houses,” never anywhere specific.

But back to the OP: It’s funny, because it wasn’t until reading and responding to other threads on this board that I realized that I never really went through a “bi” or “straight” phase. I guess I assumed I had, because I thought of myself as “straight” and then as “bisexual” for so long, but it was never genuine. I dated girls in high school (okay, I dated a girl in high school, briefly, and tried to date several others), but never had any real desire – it was always just because it was what I thought I was supposed to be doing.

I’m definitely not repulsed at the idea of making out with a woman, like I hear some straight guys talk about man-on-man kissing. And I can definitely tell when a woman is attractive. I’ve had pretty intense crushes, even. But there’s just no sexual attraction.

I’ve heard it claimed several times that most people are at least somewhat bisexual, and it’s kind of odd to realize that I just can’t relate to that at all. I don’t know what that feels like, because there’s never been any real heterosexual attraction for me. Also, out of the dozen or so people I’ve asked over the years, whether they ever had any kind of opposite-their-orientation attraction, all but two (and both are gay men) have said they never have, they’ve always been 100% straight or 100% gay.

13

Hetero man here.

Don’t know if this counts, but a few of my friends and I in high school were always “acting gay” with each other … you know, calling each other sweetie and telling each other how hot we were. It was all jokey, but then again, it also seems to me there was plenty of unspoken sexual tension beneath the surface.

14

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

15

Yeah, I went through a gay phase…

except that I’m a girl. I just wanted to wake up one day and be a guy. But I never wanted to chase girls.

I still relate better to gay men and like their company.

16

It was in very rural northwestern Louisiana in the late 1980’s. I don’t try to pretend that it would be a typical thing however, my wife insists that the football team at her high school in an affluent suburban town of Boston did roughly the same thing in what they called “pre-game activities”. I also saw a classmate have very animated and seemingly satisfying sex with a doe (deer) that he killed a few hours before so take it for what you want.

17

No.

Because the softball team scared me.

18

I’m 22 and might be going through one right now. While I’ve been identifying myself as bisexual for the past year or so, the more I think about it, the better way to put it would be not completely straight. Or something.

As someone who likes to compartmentalize, it’s all very disorienting.

19

There was a hot girl in high school, whose name was Gay Blackwell. Unfortunately, I never got close to feeling Gay. :frowning:

20

I’d always thought of that as a college thing - but then again, I went to a women’s college. :slight_smile: A lot of girls declared firmly as lesbians, had full and rich gay sex lives (on a very small campus - gay or straight, folks, this is a bad idea with less than a thousand people around) and then after they graduated went back to their straight WASP career woman lives. We called them LUDs (Lesbians Until Graduation), although I’ve heard “hasbien” from other colleges. It kind of seemed like trying on vegetarianism, honestly.

It always made me vaugely uneasy, as if they were “trying on” a culture and a struggle that they were just going to toss out eventually - they’d go on and on about how Difficult It Was for them (recall, on a women’s college campus) when they hadn’t had to fight it out in high school and were going to go on and get married to a man and have 2.5 children in a few years. Of course, there’s plenty of women who realize their sexual identity in college, or come out then, but our LUDs gave off a certain air of experimentation and, I dunno, cultural shoplifting. Nothing wrong with experimentation, of course, it’s just as a wide ranging pattern that it seems unfair to the “real lesbians” who were going to deal with issues related to their orientation for the rest of their lives.