# Do people know about their sexual orientation before experiencing first sexual attraction? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 19, 2018, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-about-their-sexual-orientation-before-experiencing-first-sexual-attraction/824819 "2018-11-19T20:46:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2018, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-about-their-sexual-orientation-before-experiencing-first-sexual-attraction/824819/41 "2018-11-21T17:22:48Z")
Interesting… so what a lot of people seem to be saying is that they were hetero- or homo-aesthetic many years before they had hetero- or homosexual feelings. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2018, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-about-their-sexual-orientation-before-experiencing-first-sexual-attraction/824819/42 "2018-11-21T18:36:51Z")
Yeah. It’s not a choice. Unless you’re bi or really good looking and open minded, then I suppose you’d have lots of choices. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2018, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-about-their-sexual-orientation-before-experiencing-first-sexual-attraction/824819/43 "2018-11-21T18:37:07Z")
> [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](#): > > Interesting… so what a lot of people seem to be saying is that they were hetero- or homo-aesthetic many years before they had hetero- or homosexual feelings. \*\* wiggles hand in that way that means sort of yes, sort of no \*\* What defines a feeling as sexual versus nonsexual, if you feel it before you know diddly-squat about what it means to “have a sexual feeling” ? [TMI] I’ll tell you about mine, if you wish. First, although it may or may not come as a major shock to you, children in the age-range 4-6 talk a lot and giggle a lot about bathroom functions. I was a prude, as children go, and didn’t like to listen to obsessive ruminations about butts and toilets and farts and piss and so on. But I had a secret. I liked the way girls were shaped there, and that _was_ where you peed from. I mean, when you’re that age, that’s totally what you associate that portion of human anatomy with, OK? I liked to look at it (sufficiently tight pants, or skirts + underpants + opportunity to peek). As I said, I just assumed I was a pervert and that it had to do with prurient interest in (girls) peeing, which I was embarrassed to have fascinations with. What I knew about sex: when a Daddy and a Mommy want to have a baby they do this thing where he puts his peepee inside her peepee hole and stuff comes out which isn’t pee and a baby grows inside of her. What I didn’t know about sex: that an appetite is attached to all this, that people get horny from seeing or thinking about the physical architecture of the sex to which they’re attracted. [/TMI] I think it’s relevant to the OP for presumably obvious reasons. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2018, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-about-their-sexual-orientation-before-experiencing-first-sexual-attraction/824819/44 "2018-11-21T20:23:58Z")
> [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](#): > > Interesting… so what a lot of people seem to be saying is that they were hetero- or homo-aesthetic many years before they had hetero- or homosexual feelings. Maybe. When I had a crush on Annette I wanted to go to bed with her - but that meant literally going to bed with her, in the sense of sleeping, not in the figurative sense. Which I probably heard from somewhere, not TV in those days. Was that a heterosexual feeling? I have no idea. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2018, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-about-their-sexual-orientation-before-experiencing-first-sexual-attraction/824819/45 "2018-11-21T21:25:05Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > So _Playboy_ had an article about nekkid women in drug stores? 😉 Honestly, until I read your post, I thought that was what he meant! “Girls of the Rexall”, or something. Nekkid women behind the counter at the soda fountain, nearly nekkid women in short unbuttoned lab coats filling prescriptions. I wouldn’t put it past them. ---
**Author:** ![Macca26](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/13edae/32.png) [@Macca26](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Macca26)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2018, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-about-their-sexual-orientation-before-experiencing-first-sexual-attraction/824819/46 "2018-11-22T02:21:02Z")
I occupy a woman’s body and don’t plan to change that, so we’ll just go with me being a het woman. I never had crushes. I only pretended to in grade school, so I would fit in with the other girls, because it was basically a requirement or you’d be shunned. In high school I thought it was disgusting how everything had to be about sex all the time. It felt like it was the only thing anyone could talk about. That probably helped to continue my course; I wanted to be above that nasty bestial nature I observed in others. I decided to try masturbating - didn’t feel a need to, except it helped me sleep faster so hey. Tried thinking of different things and it seemed that I liked it best when I thought about boys. I then thought really hard about if I’d want to sleep with my best friend, who was a girl. I figured, if I didn’t want to have sex with her, the person I’d had the most connection with, I must not like girls. Conclusion at the time: I didn’t like girls. I’ve come to understand since then that I am absolutely, 100% attracted to men, and it’s only gotten stronger the older I’ve gotten. It’s almost like I experienced puberty at like, age 25. I’ve still only extremely rarely experienced actual horniness. I like sex a whole lot though, and get down with my husband a lot as a result, but it’s not because I feel any lust like other people seem to. So at least in my case, nothing was instinctual, and hell, it’s barely even sexual. ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2018, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-about-their-sexual-orientation-before-experiencing-first-sexual-attraction/824819/47 "2018-11-22T02:29:40Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Honestly, until I read your post, I thought that was what he meant! “Girls of the Rexall”, or something. Nekkid women behind the counter at the soda fountain, nearly nekkid women in short unbuttoned lab coats filling prescriptions. I wouldn’t put it past them. “Mom, I think we’re out of cough medicine. We should go to the Super X” . I would have been the sickest kid in town. I will cop to purposely phrasing the post so that it could be interpreted that way. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2018, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-about-their-sexual-orientation-before-experiencing-first-sexual-attraction/824819/48 "2018-11-22T03:30:46Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Honestly, until I read your post, I thought that was what he meant! “Girls of the Rexall”, or something. Nekkid women behind the counter at the soda fountain, nearly nekkid women in short unbuttoned lab coats filling prescriptions. I wouldn’t put it past them. Girlie mags were, in the past, available in some rather surprising places, by today’s standards, and only the really vulgar or obscene material was in a wrapper, usually brown paper. Target stopped selling “Playboy” around the time I started working there, in 1980. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2018, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-about-their-sexual-orientation-before-experiencing-first-sexual-attraction/824819/49 "2018-11-22T20:09:18Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Girlie mags were, in the past, available in some rather surprising places, by today’s standards, and only the really vulgar or obscene material was in a wrapper, usually brown paper. Target stopped selling “Playboy” around the time I started working there, in 1980. This may sound pretty bizarre or creepy, but guess where pornographic magazines came from in the late 60s when my own sexuality and curiosity was starting to emerge? The fields and woods. It was rural and certainly there were no stores around for several miles, let alone stores that would sell such magazines. For some reason, though, there would be stashes of porn magazines tucked away here and there outdoors. Just the thing for a grubby and inquisitive band of preteen boys to happen across. Lest this get too… nasty… they were often wet with weather or muddy, but never seemed… unclean… in any other way. I wonder if these were bought and hidden by my slightly older brethren of the great outdoors, sheltered from their own parents. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2018, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-about-their-sexual-orientation-before-experiencing-first-sexual-attraction/824819/50 "2018-11-22T23:04:52Z")
When I was in the Girl Scouts in the mid 1970s, we were cleaning up a park and someone pointed out a porno mag, IIRC Penthouse, and I was razzed endlessly for picking it up AND LOOKING AT IT. :rolleyes: Hey, I had never heard of Penthouse and didn’t know what it was, and it was litter anyway. It’s not like I sat down and leafed through it, either; I simply opened it to a random page, and all I saw was an ad for something that was relatively innocuous, which is why I don’t remember what it was. ---
**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2018, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-about-their-sexual-orientation-before-experiencing-first-sexual-attraction/824819/51 "2018-11-23T02:04:41Z")
I know a gay man in his 70s who was aware of something at age 4–he describes being at the pool in summer and realizing he was fixated on men’s feet. His partner of 50 years didn’t realize what his feelings really were until graduating from college. So, it varies. But in the some parts of the world the environment is much more conducive to self-discovery than it was in the past. My 11 year old daughter (who seems pretty hetero to me) joined the Gay-Straight Alliance of her own accord, and there’s a trans boy in the high school freshman class. This is at a _Catholic girls’ school._ ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2018, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-about-their-sexual-orientation-before-experiencing-first-sexual-attraction/824819/52 "2018-11-24T04:02:46Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Reading the thread, I think I am more the outlier than you. But I’m curious to hear from other women. What I am mostly reading is that men knew as boys that they were interested in girls. I had noticed already (mostly from threads here) that there were wide differences wrt the presence of absence of sexual feelings and interest during childhood. I sometimes wondered if people might have simply _forgotten_ they had these feelings. I also noticed that there are wide variations too in how much people remember of their childhood. In any case, I had clear sexual feelings at an early age. Like many others long before I knew that sex was a thing. But while I had a very early interest in kinky stuff (“women in peril”, undressed, chained, whipped, this sort of things, and yes you could have that still without knowing what sex was) what gender I was mostly interested in stayed unknown for a long time (I mentioned “women in peril” but I would have been equally interested in the male equivalent, it was just not available). Like \*\*Panache45 \*\* (who like me had an early interest in D/s) I was scheming to get boys’ pants down, but also girls’ panties. By early adolescence I was attracted sexually to both boys and girls. But with time passing, I became less and less interested in boys and more and more interested in girls. It kept going in this direction at adult age, and I can safely say that I’m 99% heterosexual now. However, I often wondered if things would have been entirely different if my first experiences had been with men instead of women (two early attempts were thwarted by well intended people, my two first experiences would have been homosexual otherwise). \*\* Bayaker \*\* mention having gravitated towards boys because it was easier. I gravitated towards girls randomly. Could have things be reversed? Is there an alternative world where I’m writing that I’m 99% homosexual or simply bisexual? As you can see I don’t buy that much into the “born this way” theory, or rather I don’t think that _everybody_ is “born this way”, and I think that society, experiences, etc…play a large part for a lot of people. Look at the Greeks/Romans : homosexual sex was widespread (and sometimes celebrated). If people were interested in the same sex only in the, say, 5% of cases when they’re “born this way”, then this couldn’t have happened. I also don’t think people would have homosexual sex in any large number in circumstances where there are no partner of the opposite gender (prisons, ships…) if they didn’t have already some “potential” for it (I don’t see how I could have sex with someone I’ve zero sexual attraction to even if I had no other suitable partner for a long time). I believe sexual orientation is much more fluid than it’s often stated. For the record, a friend of mine suddenly realized that he was homosexual when he was about 40. The weirdest part is that I was already convinced he was homosexual (mostly because of his attitude around men, particularly attractive men). I was absolutely sure that his “business partner” was in fact his long-term lover, for instance, but that he was very discreet about it. And I wasn’t the only one thinking so. I wasn’t surprised the slightest bit when he started a relationship with this guy he had fallen in love with, but was floored when he told me that he discovered his homosexuality only when he met him. Especially since from then on he considered himself 100% homosexual. I couldn’t (and still can’t) understand how someone could live until 40 without realizing such a thing. Especially when it was obvious enough that people around him, like me, had realized it. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2018, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-about-their-sexual-orientation-before-experiencing-first-sexual-attraction/824819/53 "2018-11-30T18:13:48Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Straight male here… sometime around kindergarten/first grade I started realizing that some of my female teachers and girls in my class were more pleasant looking to me than the vast run of everyone else- less attractive women and males of all types. There was one girl whose name I have forgotten in first grade with me who I thought was just the prettiest girl I’d ever seen- first crush, I suppose. Oh yeah… just remembered after seeing that Google Pixel commercial with the “Flash Gordon” theme by Queen, that seeing Princess Aura in the movie when I was 8 years old pretty much firmly ranks as one of the first cinematic straight moments for me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-about-their-sexual-orientation-before-experiencing-first-sexual-attraction/824819.md?page=2)